Half Birthday Fun

After a crazy week of helping Jennifer set up her new Kindergarten classroom (hooray for super last minute jobs!) and leaving Joseph in St. Louis so I could work for Joe during his business transition, Friday came much faster than anticipated.

My parents drove Joseph back to KC on Thursday afternoon so he would be back in time for his first day of Parents' Day Out program that we signed him up for this year. While he seems awfully little to be going off to a preschool/daycare program, we figured it would be good for him socially and good for me to be able to get more stuff done around the house or helping Joe at work. It just came a lot faster than I was expecting!

Friday was also Joseph's 18 month birthday, so a big day all around. We had a bit of a rough start due to some severe weather that came through late Thursday evening that knocked out our power (and it didn't come back on until this afternoon). I wanted to take a few pictures of his first "day of school" but I also didn't want to tip him off that I'd be leaving him behind for a few hours. So here's the little man on the way to the center:

 And his classroom when he first walked inside. Luckily, no tears! Of course, I didn't pause to say goodbye or acknowledge that I was leaving, so I'm sure that helped.

The program is once a week and runs from 9-2:30, with the 10 kids in the class taking a nap from 12-2ish. I was a little apprehensive about how he'd do napping someplace totally new and on a cot, but he did good for his first day and managed to get some sleep. Nevertheless, I tried to get him to nap a little later once we got home, and he quickly shut that plan down.

Dinner without power was going to be interesting, especially since we weren't about to use anything in the fridge. I attempted to give him a normal-ish dinner, but he wasn't really interested in it. Instead, he had more fun dropping peas out of the bowl, onto the table and putting them back into the bowl to repeat. Every few times he'd drop the peas into the spoon and eat a bite or two. Then the dropping game became more fun.

Notice the surroundings for his meals looks a little different? He's decided this week that he's not really a fan of eating in his high chair, so we've set up the booster seat at the dining room table. I'm hoping that we can keep him in the high chair for a while longer, but he's definitely fighting us on that!

 After Joe finished working, we met up with some friends, Scott and Tricia, for a "carb loading" pasta dinner. Joe and Scott are competing in a triathlon on Sunday, so the pasta dinner was for them. Joseph decided to eat a second dinner, which made us happy. The cupcake that I brought along to celebrate his half birthday made him really happy.

 But because this is only a half birthday, he could only have half the cupcake.

 Can you believe how high the frosting is on that thing?? There was more frosting than cake!

 Joseph wasted no time picking the cupcake up the proper way (by the frosting holder, a.k.a. the cake itself) and going to town on that mountain of frosting.

 He made sure to stop every few bites and laugh at his great fortune to be eating nothing but sugar, sugar and more sugar! :)

After polishing off the frosting and refusing to even try the cupcake, Joseph questioned where the rest was. Apparently he forgot about the frosting mustache he was saving for later! :)

I can't believe he's getting so old! His 18 month checkup is later this week, so we'll have updated stats to post soon!