birthday update

So...we had a birthday party. Considering the fact that we are planning to move to Kenya possibly soonish (we are so precise in our plannings), we can't be sure when Nate may have another birthday in Texas. I wanted to have a very small party, but we ended up having 18 of our closest friends over for lunch instead.

I made lots of chili. According to the food experts, I should have made much more for the amount of people we had there, but we ate only a little more than half what I made. I made 2 double batches of cornbread - one with sugar and one without - in my iron skillet. My iron skillet is big, and Rodgers always complains that a single batch of cornbread isn't tall enough. We had a tray of cheese, crackers, and summer sausage (don't tell the guests, but this was leftover from the previous weekend...), a tray of veggies with ranch dip, and a tray of apples with caramel dip. The veggie and apple trays I bought pre-made so that I wouldn't have to do more work, but I washed them because I'm not convinced that they're really clean when you buy them. We also had Ranch Style beans, grated cheese, sour cream, and jalapeños.

I made monkey cupcakes. We'd had some the previous weekend when my family was in town, so they could celebrate Nate's birthday, too. I used the leftovers from that (which had been frozen all week) and made another batch. I used part of the batch to make a little cake for Nate.

The party was great. Everyone was impressed that I can cook. Nate loved his birthday lunch so much that he didn't have room for cake. He sucked some of the frosting off his fingers, though, and fed me some, too. (Feed Mama is a favorite game of his.)

Nate was entirely overwhelmed by the amount of people, so he was rather clingy and fussy, but he did have some fun, especially opening presents. Especially when one of his presents happened to contain a can of Gerber Graduates Lil Crunchies, his all-time favorite snack.

Our dear friends helped us clean up, and some even helped bring stuff back to our apartment. (We were in the "club house" by the apartment office because our apartment cannot accommodate 21 people!) Then, Nate took a nap and Rodgers and I crashed for a while. That was nice!

Yesterday, Nate had his 12 month checkup. It included MMR, Hep A, and Varicella vaccines, as well as a blood draw to test for anemia and lead exposure. That was rough. He is big enough now to put up a significant fight. The Dr had been concerned with his growth because his weight had been going down in percentiles - he was still gaining weight, but at a slower rate than "average." His height percentile went up this time, though, so she's not too concerned, but she did warn us that if his weight percentile goes down at 15 months, she will be concerned. He comes from skinny stock, so I totally expect his weight percentile to go down as his head weight : body weight ratio decreases. They didn't measure his head this time, so I will do it with my sewing measuring tape because I am curious to see if his head is still monstrous or if he's starting to grow into it. Anyway, sum up:
weight: 22 lbs (25-50th percentile)
height: 30 in (50-75th percentile)