Charlies First Birthday!!

A year old, already? One whole year? Wow. 365 days of love, growth, and adventure.

On December 26th, we celebrated our little Charlie's very first birthday. I feel very lucky that my parents have been there for both of my children's first birthdays. In August of 2007, we flew home and celebrated Eleanore's special day in Washington, and then this year my parents flew down here, to celebrate Charlie's special day with him here in Texas.



We decided that going to the zoo would probably be the most appropriate place to go, the kids love it there, and well, its kind of the only place to go in Abilene, so we all loaded up into my parents rented SUV (which at first I thought was ridiculous, why spend so much money on such a huge car when we could just as easily take two smaller cars? But then it turned out that we actually needed it, seeing as how I can't drive worth crap in the snow. Good call on that one, older wiser ones *zips mouth shut*) and headed over to that side of town.


The zoo was still frozen over from the Christmas Eve blizzard, much like the rest of town, so while not all of the animals could come out to play (aww, we missed you giraffes and monkeys!), it sure was pretty.


My parents and I paused for a quick picture somewhere between the turtles and the lions. This was the first time that I had seen my dad in over 2 years. He looked so great, so healthy, it was such a relief to see his smiling face. The summer that I was pregnant with Charlie, my dad got into a motorcycle accident while on a solo roadtrip to California, and was rushed into an emergency surgery to remove his spleen. Had he not have been wearing a helmet, he wouldn't have made it. Finally seeing him in person, being able to hug him and smell him when I inhaled deeply into his shoulder, was a blessing.



Eleanore and Gpa paused to take a break by the buffalo. Towards the end of the path, we all developed a case of the hungrys and tireds, Eleanore coming down with it the worst. We went home, we refueled, we thawed out, and then later in the evening, Charlie got to indulge in his very first chocolate cupcake...



At first he wasn't so sure why everyone was standing around smiling at him, while a brown gooey looking thing sat in front of him on his tray... but once he tried it, it wasn't so bad after all. I ended up cutting it into pieces for him (awww, my baby still needs me to cut up his food for him, goochie goochie goo) so that he might have an easier time actually getting it into his mouth, but boy when he was done, he was done...


Heeeee!

Happy Birthday Charlie!! We love you.