The Little Man's First Birthday

I still can't believe that I'm posting about Eliseo being 1 year old.  This has been the most wonderful, absolute best year of my entire life.  I never knew I could love anyone as much as I love him.  It's like I've known his soul forever....

Well enough of the sappy, let's talk about the little man's birthday!  So while his party was crazy, over the top, excitement; his actual birthday was quiet, low key and intimate.  I took the day off of work so I could spend the whole special day with him and it was Glenn's day off too.  We decided that we wanted to spend the day outdoors, so what better place than the zoo!  It was a beautiful warm and sunny day.  Last time we took him to the zoo, it was pretty pitiful (well we went for zoo lights too, but that didn't count as a trip to the zoo).  We got there late in the afternoon, no animals were out, we followed a path that was under construction and we didn't get to see anything.  This time, we got to see quite a bit...although, I didn't want to cover too much ground, we were only there for about 3 hours so we just saw the highlights.  He was most interested in the orangutans, penguins and lions.  Side note:  penguins crack me up.  We got an extreme closeup of the orangutan, and pretty much we described every animal as a big "Snickers".  But Snickers makes him laugh, and these animals put a smile on his face.  We were in good company, both of E's grandma's came along.  I did my job as a good mommy and made sure E had on plenty of sunscreen and we brought his hat so we had no shock to the sun exposure.  Plus, it made him look super cute.

After the zoo, we had a quiet dinner at the house, and I made Eliseo another birthday cake.  We ordered the one for the party, but I felt like it was important for him to have a cake for his real birthday, made with love.  He didn't really dive into this one either, no messy cake pictures.  And what would a birthday be without presents!  He got to open his presents from Grandma Lyons, another from Grammy and from Mommy and Daddy.  We didn't go crazy with the gifts, he got so much at his party and he has so many hand me down toys.  We decided to get him a Leap Frog Scout reader and some flashcards:  something educational.  OK and maybe a little toy...and a diaper cover to wear in the pool!  We plan on spending lots of time in the pool this summer in preparation for Jamaica!  We were all so tuckered out from the weekend and the day in the sun, so it was a pretty early night at the Lyons house, but I sure hope Eliseo knew it was a special day for him. 

And now for more pictures!  Which is really what you were all waiting for...