Eli's First Birthday!

In reality, I didn't write this until 3 months later. Whoops. Sorry.
My little boy turned 1.
I wasn't sad- no tears were shed.
We just enjoyed a beautiful day with family and friends.
I'll Let the pictures tell the story.
It was Woodland themed…duh.

Birthday baths mean that you get to have ALL your toys

 

Birthday Breakfast: scrambled eggs (he eats these almost every day), fancy fruit, and a HEDGEHOG piece of toast.

These aren't in order…you're just going to have to be ok with that (because putting them in order would take, like, an hour)

We had a play area for all the littles who came. It included this baby holder make-shift ball-pit

I worked herder than I should have on this, so yes, it gets a picture

Don't be fooled- no one in this picture can take any credit for this Trail mix bar masterpiece. It was ALL my mother-in-law

She's amazingly talented.

Gift table (in the gazebo): His cake smash photos are on that window pane

His monthly photos sitting in his owl chair

Grandpas everywhere!

 

Rico's cousin made these super fancy cookies and home made gourmet spreads/ jellies. There was rose water involved. She's fancy.

Eli's gift from his grandma got put into action early

Seriously one of my favorite photos form the whole day. Two of Rico's aunts just getting some Eli love

behind the scenes

Uncle Josh taking the cousins on a drive

Yes, yes I had centerpieces for a 1 year old's birthday party. Burlap runners,  sliced trunks, mason jars with chevron burlap ribbon (and baby's breath), sprinkled with pine cones. 

….and we hung lanterns in the trees

Look at ALL THESE GOODIES

Rico's aunt made her famous carrot cake (seriously, it is SO good)
The cake stand was a tree stump Rico's uncle chopped down and stained himself!

AND she made carrot cupcakes! Adorable. So, SO adorable.

Great grandma

He. Loved. His. Truck.

Look at that hat- it's from his great grandma and great grandpa

One thing is for sure- this little boy is very loved.
Obviously WE love him, but to be able to have so many friends drive all the way down to us and to have so many family members (the kid has FOUR great grandparents that aren't just present, but INVOLVED in his life weekly) that love him.

Favorite memories:
-Looking out and seeing Aunt Laura playing blocks with Eli and Lizzie. With their blonde hair (and difference in age from each other) it was like getting to look back and watch her with her two kids. I almost cried.
-Decorating the day before (my birthday). One of the "gifts" I asked for was that whenever Rico WANTED to roll his eyes and tell me I was going overboard, he would INSTEAD say something like "Wow, look at all this effort you are putting in, Eli is so lucky"
…I also had to promise not to go this crazy every year (which I FULLY intend to follow through with)
-Watching Eli go from person to person and not have any issues, because he gets to see them all so often
-The food. I pawned off delegated nearly every job for this party, especially food. Everyone knocked it OUT OF THE PARK. We ate the rest of the smash cake for the next week and I threw a little fit when it was completely gone.

Speaking of out of the park, that's my rough plan for next year. A park, some snacks, and a decoration or two (yeah, right).
I'm SO glad we went all out for this one, even though he won't remember it. I loved planning it! BUUUUT I don't think I'll mind scaling it down a bit either. I've already started thinking of a theme. So far we're at either construction (dump trucks with chocolate pudding "dirt" as centerpieces?!) or literacy themed (I could recycle all sorts of ideas from my sister's baby shower…a pinterest WIN)

We'll see what Eli is into.

First Haircut

It needed to happen folks.

His hair was OUT. OF. CONTROL.

Thankfully, my cousin Kristen is a hairstylist, and she took care of it.

 

Since we were downtown, Rico came over on his lunch break and got to be there.

He was SUPER zoned out, the whole time. (Eli, not Rico)

 I mean, NO personality.

 It's great for getting a haircut, so I should stop complaining.

 And he looked so cute after! 

Hooray!

Oh, sorry, Eli, I realize that was a lot of excitement there.

Let me bring it down a bit. 

OK, I can't bring it down THAT far. You're too cute.

New Words

In the last month, Eli's not really grown much PHYSICALLY, pretty much looks the same. BUT, he's been working on words.

Now, depending on what definition of what "counts" as saying a word, Eli has said any number of words.

Ask a grandma, either really, and they will tell you he has a whole list of words.

Ask me, and I'll say he has about 4.

"bye bye"

"Truck"

"This" (as in, pointing to everything he sees and asking, "This?"

and, his hands down favorite "Cock"

Yes, "cock"

All of the other words he has said in front of grandparents, and after coaxing enough, we got to hear it once. But cock…now cock is a WHOLE 'nother story.

Cock is his go to word. 

Yes, even after we tried not to laugh when he said it.

Even when we didn't repeat it after he said it.

Even when we echoed back OTHER words after he said it. 

Cock.

Here's how it came about.

We were grocery shopping in the smaller Dillons (the old person Dillons), and he points to a can and VERY clearly, and VERY loudly (especially considering how quiet the old person Dillons is…you know, there being no other children and all) said "COCK!"

I'm proud of my reaction: "Well hunny, that's not really an appropriate word for the grocery store." 

Eli: "COCK!" 

He continued to do this throughout the store until we got in the car with Rico. 

I said, "Oh hunny, you will never believe what Eli's new word is"

Rico got excited, I think he thought it might be "daddy"

Sure enough, Eli said "Cock"

I gave Rico the "We aren't laughing at this so it doesn't become a thing look" and we gave Eli suggestions…

"Did you mean Rock?"

"Dock?"

"Sock?"

Then, I kid you not, Eli looked at me and said "C- C- C- C…COCK!"

Alright then son, cock it is. 

We were panicking about going to baby swim class with our little sailor. 

Fortunately, we just pretended he was saying something else. 

Already lying for him.

It's still a thing. It's SUPER embarrassing, but we got over it a little when we were repeating similar sounding words back to him and he started it with an F….ok, ok, we'll take "Cock"

You should know, I have heard form MULTIPLE sources that "quack quack" has also been said…but I haven't heard it, so I am 10% convinced it might just be "cock cock". 

Until he will finally say it in front of me, it isn't on the list.

Valentines Day

I LOVE love.

Love stories, engagement stories, weddings….you name it.

So, it is not shocking that I also love valentines day.

Yep, I totally buy into it.

We don't do flowers or cards (flowers because I complained once, and cards because we just don't do cards. Ever)

So what do we do?

well, this year:

Boxes (yes boxeS) of chocolate the night before

A trip to the doughnut shop in the morning

Truth: this was actually a night-time trip from a week ago, but it was adorable, so enjoy

For Rico:

A bouquet of man-gifts that included most of his favorite naughty things:

Pudding, Popcorn, A new IPA that just came out this month, Sunflower seeds, Racquetball equipment (he and his brother have taken it up, they play so intensely that he's been saying for weeks now that he needs a "headband" to keep the sweat out of his eyes. I think this was his favorite gift),

Eli also made him this:

…awesome penmanship Eli. He made similar valentines for all his grandparents and great grandparents- we had a good time delivering those (except for the one minor "I want to be in bed" meltdown)

Inside Rico's vase were more gifts…written on slips of paper in folded paper fortune cookies that included...

Eli missed the "paper" portion of the "paper fortune cookies"

a cookie cake, an ice cream cake, his ultimate meal of chicken tenders and tater tots (real deal- I didn't know where to buy them in the store. I wandered the freezer section. I had never bought them as an adult. Chicken strips are surprisingly expensive), and Whiskey and Coke (we have a TON of whiskey at the house, but we don't buy pop, so he can never make them). So, basically, crap food that we never have in the house…excpet ice cream, we eat a lot of that.

For me:

Rico hasn't been doing so hot on the gifts lately (it sounds harsh, but he'll tell you the same thing)

For example: I haven't gotten a Christmas present for the past 2 years. I mean, in theory I do- like the 12 months of dates (of which I got January and February) 

This year he told me he would build me the mudroom wall I found on pinterest…but then we found a drying rack that would have made it a bit redundant. 

SO…all that to say 

I got freaking diamonds!

He bought me diamond earrings!

He knew how sad I was that one of the ones from our wedding day (from his mom) had fallen down the sink last year. 

They were literally the ONLY earrings I would wear…

and that Rico didn't hate (he has a thing about jewelry, lipstick, and fingernail polish)

Plus, "Eli" got me a new cookbook (mine's spine is literally shredding) with Eli's hand prints in the cover "So you can smile whenever you have to cook"

It is even sweeter because he had to go to a million stores to find one.

I also got an owl necklace that I had found a couple of weeks earlier and texted Rico, "Hey, you bought me a $10 owl necklace for valentines day" because I wanted it.  How's that for honest?

We went to lunch. Rico was hinting around to whether or not I would rather go somewhere fancy or somewhere new. I reminded him that we've spent the past 3 years or so at a bar on valentines day, so it would only seem fitting. His response was: "Oh, perfect, because the place I picked is a bar!"

To be fair: it was a nice bar

and the food really was delicious

and we got to be adults and drink with our meal

Eli:

What do you get a child that can't have chocolate (ok, besides the chocolate I let his tongue touch so I could take these adorable valentines day photos)

I considered filling a chocolate box with blueberries. I went on a trip to the toy store with Rico's mom (so SHE could try to find the solution to the same problem). We saw LOTS of crazy toys, including an Optimus Prime that was basically as tall as Eli

 and Eli Manning. Here Eli  is having an identity crisis.

Then...I found them.

Baby aviators.

Rico loved them too, so it was a double bonus.

Then, between the grandmas (ok, technically "grandparents") and great grandparents- he also got all of THIS…who knew valentines day could be a miniature Christmas?!

Balloons, his first wooden train (with animals hitching a ride), bath toys, valentines day books (grandmas that love books- melt, my heart), stuffed animals, money for his piggy bank, sweet cards, and even a way to get around the "no sweets" issue…dried fruit! 

Eli also shared some valentines day love with his cousin, who came over to the house and got to be a part of our tradition of waiting for daddy at the window. He was SO excited to see her there...

Other Adventures in the life of Eli include:

A test to see how he would react to a cartoon. It was as expected- zombie like. So, that lasted all of the time it took to take this picture. We'll see how long I can hold out.

Dinner dates with Nana and Papa (Rico was sick)

Play sessions with grandma and grandpa (he has SO many fun adventures while mom and dad go to the gym)

Block building (aka- destroying) and tunnel adventures with Nana

So. Much. Love.

Now pardon me, I have to go "cook" chicken strips and tater tots. 

(I'm rolling my eyes as I type this, just so you know)