My little one is a year old today...

I can not believe it's been a year since my precious wee baby joined our family breathing on his own. 8 lbs 5oz of cuteness was born a year ago today at 6:31 PM. He was precious and started life as a champion nurser, knowing exactly what to do. He has turned into an adorable curious toddler who loves to explore and play with dirt. Of course he still loves his mama and checks back in for frequent nursing sessions, but he is incredibly independent.

This weekend we celebrated his birthday with a party. We had family and friends celebrating with us at a train themed party. It was a lot of work, but I think it was totally worth it. He won't remember, but he'll have plenty of pictures.

I had a lot of help to prep with my in-laws, some college friends, and my friend Laura. The food was the normal party fare - veggie tray, fruit tray, ham & cheese tray, deviled eggs, etc. I also made a cake, cupcakes, ice cream and cookies which was a bit overboard for dessert, but I wanted to make sure there was enough cake for everyone and I had ordered the train cookie cutters and wanted to make sure they got used. 

Decorations were a bit minimal, but hopefully, they were effective. I had railroad crossing signs in the front yard which my friends helped make and I drew a train track on the front walk in chalk. We had railroad signs sticky-tacked to the walls. The mantle was displayed with a banner of pictures of August throughout his first year as well as a slightly larger picture of him from a few days ago. I also set up a toy train and some play train engineer gear that we'd received as party favors. Thanks to the boy's great-grandma, we have several train blankets that were draped on the back of the living room couches and chair.

I didn't plan for much in the way of activities. I hoped that people would entertain themselves/each other. After sharing my musings about having a smaller house, a friend recommended using backyard space for small activities like chalk and bubbles and this sounded like a good idea. I picked up some no-spill bubble containers which were fantastic, and I offered a box of chalk. I also made a train out of large boxes. The engine had a door the kiddos could climb into and one of the cars with holes cut in the side was complemented with homemade hacky-sacs to create a bean bag toss game. For his birthday, August got a slide climbing toy from his grandparents so that was also set up in the yard. Noah's toddler slide was also set up. The final kicker was a toddler-sized mini bounce house that a neighbor generously leant us. It was amazing and I think the kids really had fun.

I made party favors as well, which I feel probably could have been better, but oh well. I included a train matching/memory game that I found online and printed up. I also printed my own sticker sheets with train stickers. For a little treat, I added chocolate train candies that I made up with some train candy molds I ordered. The favors were placed in paper bags decorated with train stickers. I would have liked to add more things to the bags or offer a cuter favor package, but there was only so much time. I also had more ideas for the party in general, but again, time was not on my side. Well, that and I didn't get started nearly soon enough.

We had a pretty good turn out, not too few, not too many. The house wasn't crazy crowded or empty and it appears I had just the right number of favors. I was so happy with how it all turned out. Now, I get to sit and be reminded that I no longer have a baby. =(

Time just keeps on going...

Walking around

Well, it apparently has been over a month since I last wrote anything up. I feel like things are status quo, but I suppose there has been quite a bit of change. The biggest thing is that August is walking now.


Let's see, what else...

Homemade tortillas

Homemade ravioli

I've been going a little crazy. My friend Laura tells me I'm becoming a sheep because I'm adopting more habits similar to the moms in our mom support group. In this case it's related to food and dietary habits. I've starting watching what we eat a lot closer. I'm trying to get away from processed foods. It's just that so many things can just be made by hand and though it takes time, often the fresher version is better. On my list of things I've opted to make instead of buy are ravioli (although to be fair, I think I've bought the canned kind once and never any other kind), tortellini, tortillas, tomato sauce, loft house sugar cookies, enchilada sauce, and sandwich bread. I've also made fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups for the boys, but I'd never purchased those for the kiddos; and I've been harvesting my own chicken stock, though that was something I rarely had in the house as well. I have many other things I want to try to make as well. For now, I'm trying to use up the items I have in my pantry before making their substitutes. It is a little hard though. Now that I've decided I want to be smarter about the way we eat, it's hard to eat those items, but that's ok. Otherwise, I'd feel like I wasted the money on them. My biggest thing is that for the packaged items we currently use, I want to find good substitutes for them rather than remove them from our diet. I feel that if I do that, I'm more likely to keep from purchasing them than if I try to remove them entirely. So far, it's been good.

My container garden

I've also started up a pretty decent garden this year. I've purchased a few seeds, gotten seedlings from friends, and used some beans I had and sprouted them. It's been about a month since I started. I tossed some of the peppers I tried to sprout which never came up, but I've had decent luck with most of the other plants. Good growth on a bunch of them, though no flowers yet. The only thing I've been able to harvest is some Swiss chard given to me by a mom in our mommy group. I really can't wait to see how everything does.

So, yeah. That's us lately. Add in an Easter egg hunt and crawfish boil last weekend and aside from that, it's been just about normal. Here's to more normalcy. =)