Noah's 1st birthday

Here's what we did for Noah's birthday on Tuesday. I'll get pictures up once I get a chance to get them off my phone and my friend, Mallorie's, camera.

We started the day but snuggling in bed until 8ish. Chris is usually out of the house by 7:15am so it was nice to just lay there and chat. As we were getting ready to head out the door, Chris's mom called to tell us that his grandma had been in the hospital all night with pneumonia and since she has congestive heart failure, it wasn't looking good. So we went to Starbucks for breakfast and ran through the McDonald's drive-thru to get some $5 gift cards. Then Carver and I stayed in the car while Chris ran in to see his grandma. I was having a rough morning and didn't want to go in.

Then when we left there, we went to Hello Cupcake to get some yummy cupcakes (March's flavor of the month is Irish Cream... yum!!) and we paid for an extra cupcake for whoever came in next. We chatted with my cousin, Allix, (the head baker) for awhile and went back to the car to find a little mom and pop place for lunch. When we got back to the car, we had a nice little surprise in the form of a parking ticket. We never pay for parking and this was the first time we'd actually gotten a ticket from it. Guess we should probably pay the $1 to park instead of the $25 ticket we got. Ooops!! We laughed it off though.

After lunch, we met my friend Mallorie (she was at the hospital when Noah was born) and drove up to Seattle. We had planned on going to Westlake Plaza to hand out the McD gift cards to the homeless but after not finding any open parking spots we left... after having to pay $4 for the 6 minutes we were in the parking garage. Chris wasn't thrilled about the idea but got over it quickly. So we started heading towards Woodland Park Zoo, but since we weren't coming from a way we were familiar with, we ended up driving around a lot. GPS didn't really help because we had two different directions going and they were saying to go the opposite way. But we found it and it was a good thing I was driving since I don't mind driving in the city.

The zoo was the highlight of everyone's day! We had so much fun. We saw the giraffes and got pictures with them (the one thing I wanted out of the whole day) and got to see tons of fun animals. At one point, we stopped to eat our cupcakes and after Carver was done with his, he yelled out "Happy Birthday Noah!!" It was the cutest thing! Carver and I got a picture with a bronze baby elephant for McKay and Carver loved the monkeys the best. It started raining around 3:30ish but we pressed on to finish the loop. We stopped in at the gift shop on the way out and I found a giraffe ornament that was perfect. I want to get some sort of giraffe every year on Noah's birthday to remember him by. I have a feeling when we're 80 we'll be surrounded by giraffes. :)

After we left the zoo (they were still on winter hours so they closed at 5pm) we went to Red Robin for dinner. We were starving!! It was super yummy and lots of fun. We were going to finish the day with Menchies but we all forgot about it since we were all exhausted by the busy day. We dropped Mallorie off at her car and came home.

It was a busy day but exactly what I wanted out of it. We ended up handing out four of the five McD gift cards we had to homeless people that we came across. It felt so good and I want that to be something we do every year. I figured that since we weren't paying for a birthday party and gifts we should pass some of that money on to people that could use it. We felt Noah with us all day and it was such a better day than if we had stayed home dwelling on the fact he wasn't with us.

Happy first birthday Noah! We love you!!