Baby's First Snack Pack!

In the words of the great Billy Madison, "You know I like Snack Pack. Why can't you just give me a Snack Pack? WHERE's MY SNACK PACK?"

You KNOW my baby is gonna have THE official Snack Pack as his first chocolate pudding. In an effort to earn some extra momma lovin points, I whipped out the Snack Pack. We've been exposing Cade to his own spoon, just laying it out next to him. He makes attempts but has really done well this week. Momma feeds him the meat/veggie and he feeds himself something sweet (mostly fruit). I knew I'd get this skill in the bag AND get extra Cade kisses and hugs with a Snack Pack. Dirty tactic on Daddy night out? Maybe;) I'll let you judge from the pics.

Toy Boxes are Satan's gift to birthdays

This post is a big "wtf!" to toy manufacturers. I realized this weekend that toy boxes are the biggest pain in the ass nightmare to deal with. First off, they make it so the toddler toy is clearly touchable and testable in store. Problem #1: Whilst walking through Target you are forced to listen to the same creepy childlike voice sing "Come play with me!" as your toddler discovers the true fun of said toy. Problem #2: When the one year old gets the toy for his birthday he is able to play with it in box. Sounds fun. Until he REALLY wants to play with it. Out of the box.

Just trying to unwrap the toy is where the nightmare begins. You'd think, knowing the attention span and patience of a 12 month old, that Fisher Price would know that the toy removal from box process should take at MOST 60 seconds. Problem #3: It does not take 60 seconds. Once you are able to determine which part of the box you should open from, you get the toy halfway out to realize it has been affixed to (problem #4) a cardboard platform. WITH WIRE (#5). Being the good mom that you are, you take a deep breath and press the button to activate obnoxious singing toy so your child doesn't tantrum. You take a sip of your half glass full juice and say to yourself "Ah it's not so bad, it's just a few twist ties"....

You begin untwisting the first of five wires (#6) and you realize that the ties have not been twisted in any coherent pattern. In fact there seems to be an intricate system of twist clockwise, unthread, twist counterclockwise, unthread, and so on (#7). You give a little cheer when you get the wire undone. Your baby claps his hands and then you both realize there are four more wires to untangle before the toy is free from the platform (#8, #9, #10, #11). And you grab your scissors and knives and hack away at the rest of them. Score! The toy is finally free from it's cardboard hellhole. And then you realize that there's a protective wire and plastic casing around the figure's head (#12). While you cut away at this plastic, not giving 2 flips if the toy totally breaks. You hear a squeal of delight and realize that baby is playing with the cardboard/wire remnants. Oops, you free the toy and then grab away the tetanus shot waiting to happen and dispose of it in the garage and lock the door because your little one knows how to free anything from the trash/recycling.

You are breathing normally then you realize your baby is going for the mega scissors you used to free the toy. You yank the scissors out of his reach and shove the toy in his face. He cries and refuses to play with the toy that promised to be educational, fun, and get them into an Ivy League school with partial scholarship. Awesome.

You hand him some wire free cardboard, he's happy. You head to the fridge to get a cold one and relax....As soon as you open your can and sink into the couch you see he's grabbed another birthday toy and wants someone to open it. And thus the cycle begins again. Because you.are.super.mom.

Da Birthday Man!

Megablocks, balloons, and bears-- ohmy! This week was a whirlwind.... baby man's birthday and TAKS testing! All of my children were constantly on my mind and there were so many worries and prayers hoping his parties were perfect and their testing days went well. This week definitely tested my ability to balance both. Now that it's all over I'm realizing that there is room in my heart for all of my babies, despite the ten year age gap. (I'm also realizing Cade will not be happy in ten years when his birthday week falls on state assessments days. Whatev, it's character building. I have to share my birthday with Jesus. We all have our issues:)

We had a birthday party today at the house and one on Wednesday just us and the grandparents. On Wednesday we had taco dinner, it was so delicious and we had pomegranate blood orange sorbet for dessert! Cade LOVES sorbet and frozen yogurt, it was a great night, even if he had to stay up late to enjoy presents and sorbet:)

Today we had friends and extended family over. I'm lov-ing decorating with balloons. I adore balloons. They are so cheerful and colorful. I might always have to have balloons around, super cheap way to decorate too. I'm thinking I'm onto something here, tell InStyle Home to look into it. Anyways, he got some cool gifts, Auntie Kelly & Uncle Eric stole the show with the 3 in 1 CAT dump truck that he can build with MegaBlocks in the back, push it around the floor, and pull back the dump part to sit and ride on it! The toys were cool and everyone stuck to the unspoken rule that if the toy makes noise it better have an off button or a way to remove batteries. Thanks friends!!! You're the best!

Here are my favorite pics.

(Special thanks to Kroger for the badass cake they let me design. It was beautiful and such a deal and SOOO freaking moist and delicious. Extra kudos for making the buttercream icing look like fondant!)

The Stockyards

Time to do some catching up from Spring Break... I LOVED every minute. How awesome is it to get paid AND get time off with your baby? It was an awesome excuse to find little adventures to do with Cadester. So, Grammie, Grandaddy and I packed him up and headed West. To Fort Worth that is. First stop, shopping. Cade insisted on the red cowboy boots and hat, but since he just started walking the day before I figured it would be wise to save them for later on. Of course, now that he's running I wish he had the boots, but we'll survive...for now.

After a Cowboy fashion show, we tried to catch the cattle drive down the main street, but we missed it by minutes. Cade's trying to Saw 'em off, but I told him that's not being a good Texan.

So there was a petting zoo, and at first I was like "eww dirty" but Cade loved it. He was so into the animals and tried to pet them. This is random: I was totally amazed that he started trying to climb the fence. One wouldn't think that's an inherited trait, but where would he have learned that? Good for running from the cops at college parties though.

He spotted the Clydesdales pulling a carriage.

Um, Mommy? I thought you said we could some Joe T's now?

He was amazed by the bling of the belt buckles....