A Bar-Free Celebration

We enjoyed a nice visit from my parents this weekend. They arrived Saturday morning, eyes swollen, having driven straight from putting Molly to sleep at the vet. My brother and his girlfriend rode with them, my sister drove over from San Marcos, and everyone arrived at the Lag Liv house around 2. We had a group cry and hug over our beloved dog but felt surprisingly at peace with what happened. Even to the end she made things easy for us, it was so obvious it was time for her to go.

The boys unloaded our furniture from the U-Haul. We're now the proud owners of my parent's beautiful old kitchen table and chairs, a solid oak hutch and side board (now we can finally unpack the 12 place settings of china that have waited patiently in their boxes since the wedding!), and two twin beds for an empty guest room (that will someday be Landon's room). We decorated the back deck with my $10 of carefully selected party supplies from Target and enjoyed a cookout with hot dogs, pasta salad, coleslaw, baked beans, and fresh watermelon. Landon enjoyed all the attention and spent much of his time crawling back and forth across the wood deck. We made him a little high chair birthday boy throne and as you can see, he approved:

After dinner Landon got his own wee "baby cake" (HEB throws one in free if you order a 1/4 sheet cake), and while it was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen he was completely unimpressed with the sugary goodness. He did however LOVE the fresh watermelon so he went to town chewing on that while my dad rubbed icing on his face for the proper "first birthday" effect.

He was such a mess that we stripped him down, put him in the grass, and hosed him off. He adores water and considered this to be a special part of teh birthday celebration. Unfortunately the icing had a lot of dye so despite all our efforts to clean him off, he had a blue nose until this morning.

After cake we opened presents. Landon made out very well with a big Radio Flyer red wagon from my parents, a Little Tikes cozy coupe from his godparents, a lawn mower from his dad so he can help with the yard work, a Mr. Chatter telephone from his chatty mama, clothes, books, a little tikes piano, and bath toys from his other assorted admirers. He already loves being pushed around in the big wagon and cozy coupe, and I'm so glad he got such classic, sturdy, non-battery operated toys.

It ended up being a very nice day and I'm glad we had an official party. His real birthday is tomorrow and we head to our new pediatrician's office at 8:30 AM for his 12 month check-up. We haven't been to our spoken with a doctor in over 3 months!! That's a personal best for the Landon and it has been very nice for all of us. I got up with him this morning and we were very productive with all the piano playing, cozy coupe cruising, baby book updating, and thank you note writing.

Now it's time to get back to studying, a topic on which I have much to say (whine) about, no time to write (lucky for you all). I woke up at 2 AM completely panicked yesterday morning- the kind of sit up in bed, heart pounding, OH MY GOD WHY I AM SLEEPING THERE IS NO TIME, type of panic. But in the daylight hours I'm pretty composed and plugging through outlines and practice tests. Two weeks, one day, and about a dozen subjects left to go. But oh this face, this face makes me smile even in the midst of reading a 126 page Texas Criminal Procedure outline.

I can't believe my little man is turning 1!