Dargan's Birthday Party

His actual birthday isn't until Tuesday (5/10) but we had his birthday party this weekend! The theme was (obviously) dinosaurs.

The Trenor grandparents plus Scott's aunt came into town on Thursday evening, and Scott & I took Friday off from work to do party prep and spend time with the family. We also took the opportunity to go mountain biking on Friday morning. :)  The rest of the day was spent baking goodies, getting last minute items, and cleaning. We also went out to dinner at Southern Culture.

Dargan helping clean the bathroom:


Out at dinner:


Saturday (party day!) was a busy but fun day. We started out by going to the opening weekend of the TR Farmer's Market, joined by the Wetmore grandparents. Got some food, enjoyed being out in the sunshine.

Good morning!

Wearing the onesie from Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery - one of the market vendors. It earned us a free coffee. :)

After a busy midday of naps, cleaning, baking, and decorating, it was finally party time!

I made his high chair banner - had fun coloring in the dinosaurs ;)

balloons!

cute napkins

Homemade cupcakes w/ chocolate buttercream icing (and dino rings as decoration!)

Dinosaur "footprints in the sand" cookies

Party favors: bubbles, dino eggs, and growing dinos


Scott was a good sport about these shirts


Dargan's dinosaur outfit was much more subtle




Chowing down on some BBQ baked beans, pulled pork, and mac & cheese


He loved this gift from our neighbors - dinosaur rocker/riding toy!


Unimpressed by cupcakes

We were so wrapped up in coordinating the food / cupcakes / etc that we didn't even get to the opening of gifts. In hindsight, it was probably less chaotic that way. He got to enjoy opening gifts on Sunday morning!

Still loving the dino rocker

Opening and playing with his gifts

Other Sunday (Mother's Day!) fun - we took a bike ride down to Upstate Craft Beer Co for lunch and then spent the afternoon just playing around the house.

Picking books off his bookshelf

Bike ride!

Playing with Shiner

This kid loves standing!

Other new toy for riding. We pushed him around the house for what seemed like hours!

"Faster, mom!"

From Crawling to Standing

Seems like he just learned to crawl, and yesterday he pulled himself up to standing for the first time!



He's still crawling everywhere, getting pretty fast, and getting into everything. It's been a busy couple of weeks, so the rest will be told through video and photos!

Request from daycare: shoes please!

Afternoon trip to Quest...



Crawling around and helping in the bike shop...

Saturday mornings, truckin' around the house...

Mountain biking in Dupont...



...and a post-ride stop at the Canteen






Silly sleeping position and Sunday morning snuggles...



Sunday bike ride up the watershed towards Saluda...



Front yard sittin'...

While mommy was out of town, hanging out with Daddy and Grannie...

Dinner with neighbor friends!

And finally, caught up to this past weekend...

March of Dimes Walk


Hello! You weren't trying to sleep in, were you?






Lastly... we're calling this Dargan's first word: "Uh-oh"

It comes out more like "Ah-aahhhhh" but he says it whenever he drops something. It's so cute! I'll have to get a better video sometime, but this is what we've got for now.

First Work Trip for Mom

First time traveling for work since Dargan was born, and first time being away longer than a weekend. I went to Pittsburgh for work training last week - left Monday morning and came back late Thursday night. It wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated, but 4 days is a long time to be gone!

I was mostly nervous about pumping and dealing with transporting milk home, but it all went really well! I got tips from some other mamas at work who do a good bit of traveling. I pumped in the Atlanta and Pittsburgh airport, both of which had proper facilities (way to go, ATL and PIT!).

ATL nursing pod - kind of like a port-a-potty for pumping!

PIT had an entire room

While I was in Pittsburgh, I only pumped 4 times each day - first thing in the morning, lunch, right after class (~5:30pm) and before bedtime. The training facility had a little room set up for me and let me use their freezer & fridge during the day - it worked out really well. I froze all the milk I pumped and was able to keep the coolers packed with ice for the trek home. I had a lot of luggage - suitcase, pump, and cooler - on the trip home. Thankfully, no problems getting through security or taking my stuff on the airplane. HUGE relief.

Pittsburgh itself was nice - not like what I expected of a big city - really lovely!

Went to a nice park (North Park) to do my #10kTuesday run




and found a great restaurant there for dinner



On Wednesday, my colleague and I went to The Church Brew Works for dinner and some brews...




... then went to ride the Duquesne Incline and see the city at sunset. So pretty!