3rd year birthday

My little guy turned 3 years old. We had a fabulous birthday and he's completely into birthdays, cake and presents. He kept wishing Greg and I a happy birthday too, so he's also into sharing the fun.

We splurged and got the boy a bike. A real bike too, a Specialized 12 inch wheeled bike. He loves it. Compass bell included. He has already crashed it 3 times into the woods as well and was a real trooper about it all.

We enjoyed cooking steaks and beets and spaetzle noodles for dinner. We opened presents and ate cupcakes at the park (his request to go to the park to eat the cupcakes and we obliged). We also had a small party with 3 of his friends and their families at Zilker Park, where we rode the Zilker Zephyr and ate cake and played. We kept things very simple and he had an fabulous time and we're enjoying our little guy getting older.

Happy Valentine's Day

We made our own Valentine's this year and I'm so happy I started Zachary out the right way. He is so into Valentine's now. Every heart is a Valentine, even Maya's tiny heart shaped tag on her collar. He loved taking his huge, glitter encased and foil red heart doily Valentine's to school and couldn't wait to give them to his school friends. He keeps opening his Valentine bag and pouring out the cards. He voraciously enjoyed his lollipop yesterday and even gave the other one to Greg "because I saved it for you Daddy".

Today we had a wonderful playgroup, ate scrumptious cupcakes, gave stickers to our friends and after nap we are going to make the last of our sugar cookies that we will share with Greg and his coworkers. These will be transportation themed because that is what Zachary wants and well, giving train and plane and car shaped cookies to transportation planners is just more fun.

What I have learned is that Zachary is very open and receptive to creating traditions and loves occasions that are marked by the creation of special things. Glitter and glue and construction paper turn into gifts for friends, food shared with others brings delight and time together creating with love creates the intentions that we want to live by.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Birthdays and Christmas cheer at CasaGriffin

This weekend was filled with simple seasonal pleasures. Zachary and I enjoyed ourselves at our Saturday morning trip to the Farmers Market, where we came home with a cornucopia of fabulous greens from our CSA, a bag of tangerines and 2 bags of the last of the season apples. Poor Zachary won't have any more tiny apples for a little while. After naps, we picked up Madam Mam's and headed over to the Capital for the annual tree lighting and sing-a-long. We ran into a few friends, sang songs, ran around the grounds and cruised up and down Congress Avenue taking in music and the lights.

On Sunday, we celebrated Greg's Birthday. We picked up our buddies in BBQ and adventure, Peter and Rebecca, and drove to Elgin, where we ate sausage and brisket at Southside Market. Then we headed over to Evergreen Christmas Tree farm. Talk about fun. Zachary immediately spotted the tractor and hay wagon and we hopped on and headed out to the tree fields. We roamed the trees, avoided the ant mounds and cactus plants (this is Texas!) and picked our trees and chopped them down. We enjoyed the games and pinecone painting and wished it wasn't 80 degrees outside so we would want to roast marshmallows in the firepits.

At home, we ate a birthday dinner for Greg, had cupcakes to Zachary's delight and decorated the Christmas tree. Our tree is a bit wooley... That is we picked one that was less trimmed and more wild, which looks great in the sandy soils of pine tree country but a little big in our tiny living room. But after some selective trimming, we decked the tree out in holiday cheer.

I think it was a great way to welcome in the holidays and to celebrate Greg's birthday. Friends, songs, bbq and trees.

Happy Fourth of July

Happy 4th of July. I realized today that this is Zachary's 3rd Fourth of July. His first was in San Marcos and he helped celebrate the holiday with his Nana and Papa on the river when he was almost 6 weeks old. Last year he took his very first steps at Little Stacy Park and we ate a lovely dinner at the Haller's house and watched fireworks from Daddy's office building parking garage. This year we started the day by organizing a neighborhood playdate at the park. Lots of families braved the drizzle and humidity and came out, which was exciting. After nap, we went to a friends house to play with lots of other toddlers and their parents and eat wonderful food and fabulous hot dogs (Thanks Katie!) and get muddy and run wild. Afterwards, we drove back into town, parked our car and rode our bikes over to Zilker Park. We grabbed a spot near the Symphony, enjoyed the music and some hot wings and watched the fireworks. Zachary loved them this year. He was talking about them all day in anticipation. "Fireworks. Pop. Bang"... While we were watching, he kept reaching up with both hands and tried to catch the fireworks.

Other fun from today. I caught Zachary singing the Beatles Blackbird today. Sweet. He also insisted on bringing Macie doll with him today. "Macie come too? Peeeaaase?"

Happy 4th of July all.