Southern's Birthday Dinner

Southern turned 1 yesterday!! It's hard to believe. Once Daddy got home from work, we gave Southern his birthday present from us. We had given him a smaller one (a play tool set) during his birthday party, but we were saving the big one for the actual day. Southern (and Daddy) loved it! It's a large remote controlled John Deere tractor. Southern got right into the spirit of things and started pushing it around and making his car noises. (Why is it that only boys can make that noise? Even babies can do it!)

We then headed to the car for our trip to San Antonio. We were taking Southern out for supper. While he and Daddy were playing with the tractor, Mommy was readjusting the car seat. Since he turned 1, we were able to make the seat forward facing instead of rear facing. How exciting! Southern just loved his new point of view.

We drove to San Antonio to the Riverwalk and found a parking spot in a parking garage. You can tell we're not from the "big city" as we take a picture riding down the elevator in the parking garage...

Yup, there's the parking garage...

And there's the Riverwalk!

Southern and I pause for yet another photo.

Here we are in front of the resturant - the Rainforest Cafe. I thought it would be really fun for Southern since there are moving animals everywhere.

Here's Southern at the table pointing to the loud gorilla thumping its chest right behind us. He was a little more on the scarey side than the fun side, but Southern held up pretty good the whole time. Even when the lights dimmed and the thunder started. The animals would wake every 11 minutes.

See what I mean about the gorilla?

At one point we thought for sure there would be tears. But no, our little Southern is a trooper.

Now that he survived, he proudly points out the gorilla to Uncle Parker.

After we ate, we walked around the resturant to see what other neat things they had in there.

I love this photo because you can see Southern and Carly on the other side of the aquarium.

And of course we had to stop by the gift shop on our way out. We bought him a t-shirt and Carly and Parker got him a tiger. He loved growling at it and passing it to Parker to growl at too.

We ended the night with a quick stroll along the river. What a great first birthday!

Happy Birthday, Southern!

One year ago today, our son was born.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful baby boy!!

Southern's First Birthday Party

We celebrated Southern's first birthday with a party this past Saturday with family and friends. It turned out to be a great day - perfect weather, yummy food, and great company. I'm so thankful to those that took time out of their busy lives to come to the party. It meant a lot to Dustin and me, and we took some pictures and video so that someday Southern will be able to look back on this day fondly when he's older. I watched the video of my first birthday party on my 20th birthday, and it was awesome to see all my loved ones celebrating with me.

I've been preparing for his party for months now - picking out invitations, addressing envelopes, shopping for party supplies, decorating the house, etc. And one of the biggest projects of the day for me was his cake. I wanted to do a volcano cake to go with the dinosaur theme. Originally we had planned on getting dry ice to make smoke come out of the top of the cake. As it got closer to the day, we decided that while this would be very cool, it would be more feasible to just have candles coming out of the top. So that's what we did.

I ended up baking and layering 7 cakes to make up the volcano. There was a 10-inch round on the bottom, three 9-inch rounds on top of that followed by an 8-inch round, then a small Pyrex bowl turned upside down and topped with a mini bundt cake.

I stacked them all up with a layer of frosting between each of them. Then I inserted two long wooden dowels to keep it steady. I carved around the cake to make a volcano shape. Then I covered it with chocolate frosting, added cake "rocks" around the base, and piped "lava" and Southern's name on it with red icing. Dustin helped out with the lava streaks. I think he was just as excited about the dinosaur theme as Southern!!

The party went smoothly. We all ate and visited. We sang Happy Birthday to Southern and then had cake. Soon after that, we opened gifts.

Southern got so many neat toys and some cute clothes.

He even enjoyed looking at the cards.

Here's his loot from the day. Very impressive! Thanks, everyone!!!

Our (Almost) Trip to the Zoo

I started on Spring Break plans weeks ago. Every year since 2006, Dustin and I have tried to do something really cool for Spring Break. (We got married the first weekend of Spring Break '06 and spent our honeymoon in the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. So we usually treat this week as an annual honeymoon of some sort.) This year would be different because of Southern but I was really looking forward to our first hotel stay with the baby. As it turned out, we had a couple things come up this month that we hadn't anticipated so our Spring Break fund went down. I took it all in stride and changed our plans at the last minute. Now, I normally plan non-typical Spring Breaks. We don't go to the beach or the usual popular spots to avoid the crowds. But, I needed a change of plans quickly and something that Southern could participate in and would also enjoy.

I thought the San Antonio Zoo would be perfect. Sure, it might be a little crowded but it couldn't be that bad... right? WRONG. The San Antonio news later reported that there were 17,000 visitors to the zoo the day we attempted to visit. And after what we saw that day, I can easily believe it. We got stuck in traffic on the exit ramp off of I-35. We thought surely there must be a wreck ahead. Nope... just that many people headed to the zoo. We were in the car for 2 hours. And that's not counting the 35 minute drive to the exit ramp. Southern held up pretty well and didn't start fussing until the last 20 minutes or so. Sadly, I can't say the same about Dustin. He did get this awesome shot of two cormorants from the car while we were waiting though.
After waiting in traffic that long, we finally made it to the zoo parking lot. We drove around fruitlessly looking for a spot. There were none. We finally gave up, and as we drove by the zoo entrance to leave, we saw a line of people literally stretched around the block waiting just to buy a ticket to get in. As Dustin put it, if we had been able to park, we would have probably been standing in line in the heat for another hour just to enter the over-crowded zoo. Then we could tell Southern - look, there's a monkey... you just can't see him because of all the people!

So Dustin came up with an alternate plan. Get the blankity-blank out of this blankity-blank city. Haha! So we drove North. We kept driving until we reached Blanco. There was a state park there that we had never been to before so we thought we'd check it out. But first we needed some nourishment. I wanted something local. So we stopped here:


It was the best BBQ I think I've ever eaten. We got brisket, sausage, potato salad, and all the beans, BBQ sauce, onions, pickles, and bread we could eat. We were in heaven. It was the best potato salad I've ever had as well. Southern loved the beans and even ate some pickled onions. We were all about to pop when we left there.

So I decided we needed to walk around first before getting back in the car. We walked around downtown and by the pretty courthouse.

And we walked around in the city park.

And of course we had to stop to play with a few sticks.

Then we drove to Blanco State Park. There wasn't much there besides a short stretch of the river and some grass. We have that at home. So we decided to save our money and head to the next state park. Pedernales Falls State Park was just a short drive away. I'm so glad we stopped there instead. It was beautiful. Here Southern and I are on the trail to the falls.

And here are the falls! So pretty.

Southern and I found a good place to sit while Dustin ventured out around the falls. I thought it would be nice to just sit in the shade and relax after our hike to get down there. Southern had other ideas. He was rock climbing the whole time. As you can tell, he had a blast.

Dustin had a lot of fun too. He took a ton of good pictures.

All in all, it turned out to be a great day. Maybe we will try the zoo again another day. We'll just have to pick a day when it won't be so crowded! Like maybe when it's raining... during the winter. Haha!!

Sunday Evening Cooking

Southern's grandad, my dad, tries to visit us very often. He always has. And now that Southern's around, all the more reason to visit regularly to see him growing up. It's amazing how quickly our little man can change. So my dad will try to stop by most Sundays. Dustin and I will occasionally use that day to catch up on chores, projects around the house, or homework depending on the week, while my dad plays with Southern. We also usually use that day to do some cooking.


And by some, I mean quite a bit... really, a lot.

See what I mean? And on that day, we had to wait til this was finished before we could put the fajita meat and peppers on. It wouldn't all fit.

Talk about a feast! My dad will usually buy the meat and we'll add something from the freezer. We cook it all and then split the food. We'll get an awesome supper out of it plus lunch for Dustin for most of the week. My dad and grandparents will have most of their week's lunches taken care of also. What a deal! While Dustin cooks all the meat, I make the sides. Yummy!

Storytime

Southern LOVES storytime. In the past, he would enjoy it. We went through phases of him listening peacefully, looking at the pictures, and touching the pages. We also went through a short phase of him not wanting to sit still long enough to read. But now he absolutely loves it.

He will go through his collection of books to pick one out to read. 95% of the time it is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See". He will hold it out to me with that pleeease, Mommy look in his eyes. We will read it. I'll let him turn the pages. When it's over, I close the book, say The End, and then set it down. He will look down at it for a moment, then pick it right back up to hand to me to read again. And again. And again. We can read the same book 7 times in a row and his eyes will still light up as I open to the first page and he gets a glimpse of that big brown bear.

Wish List

Southern's first birthday party is less than a month away! You have probably already gotten your invitation. We're doing a dinosaur theme because I wanted to do a volcano cake, and I figured his first one would be best since he's too young to blow out candles anyway. We'll just have smoke coming out of the volcano instead. And he already loves playing with dinosaurs. So a dinosaur party it will be! :)

I've already had a few questions about Southern's sizes and his interests, so I thought I'd go ahead and post a birthday wish list in case someone wants present ideas. Keep in mind, we only request your presence at the party, not presents... but most of you want to get him something so here goes:

He currently wears size 18 months in all clothes except pajamas. He wears 24 months in pajamas and size 5 in socks and shoes. So anything in those sizes or larger will be great. He could use some button-down shirts as he has outgrown all of his current ones. We could also use more pajamas. He outgrows them quickly. I usually get him footed pajamas since he kicks his covers off, but they are a little hard to find in the larger sizes. Our Target currently has some, and I've had good luck at Kohls.com and OldNavy.com.

He likes watching Yo Gabba Gabba on TV as well as The Upside Down Show. So he would enjoy anything with those characters - DVDs, books, toys, etc. He also likes to watch Baby Einstein DVDs. He likes to play with the usual little boy toys - cars, blocks, dinosaurs, etc. He does have soft squishy blocks but no wooden ones yet. He has one wooden puzzle he likes to play with. He loves storytime and will flip through books on his own as well. His current favorite is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See". (I'm told this was also the favorite book of my younger cousins Dayne and Mark so he must take after them!)

He will eat all kinds of babyfood. He mostly eats 3rd stage jars but his favorite is still the 2nd stage Gerber spinach, peas and carrot mix. And he loves to snack on Gerber yougurt melts.

Well that's all I can think of right now. Hope this helps! Oh, and money for his savings account is always a great gift idea ;)