On Wednesday, July 30th, Sage turned two years old!!!
I had been anticipating this week for a long time, and was so excited to celebrate with him. And celebrate we did!
Unfortunately, events did not unfold as perfectly as I had envisioned. On Monday of that week, Sage came down with a fever nearing 102 degrees. I picked him up from daycare soon after receiving the call. He had no appetite, was extremely grumpy, and cried all night long instead of sleeping. Poor kid! And poor parents! Tuesday was the same. Except that by mid-afternoon, Sage had broken out into bright red bumps on several parts of his body. I thought for sure that Wednesday morning (his birthday) I would wake to find him covered head to toe with something very serious and very contagious. I was really bummed knowing he was going to be battling illness on his big day.
Wednesday morning finally came. Sage had slept terribly once again, but was in rather good spirits, especially once I brought in his birthday breakfast - a cinnamon raspberry pastry ring. (And I was happy to see that the spots had not spread. They were still there. Just in the same locations as before. I chose to ignore them for a bit. I just wanted to celebrate my boy.)
An expert at blowing out the candles!
We then let him wander downstairs to find a room filled with balloons - and his very first gift.
I had taken the day off work a long time ago, and planned to spend it with Sage celebrating. Of course, it was raining...raining...raining. Like a monsoon. So our original plans of going swimming were changed, and we ended up at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery instead.
I see you!
This was Sage's favorite exhibit!
We arrived back home around 1pm for some much needed lunch. Matt and I evaluated Sage's spots during the lunch hour and decided we probably needed to see a doctor. The spots were not spreading. Thank goodness! They were isolated to just the areas on his body were he tends to get eczema flair-ups. But they looked so painful!! We let Sage take his nap. Then hauled the poor little bugger to the doctors. Sage was put on an oral antibiotic and a prescription skin cream. He had nothing contagious, just a bacterial skin infection that targeted his "already vulnerable" areas. (But daycare was NOT happy to see him when I dropped him off the next morning. It really wasn't pretty to look at.)
After the visit to the doctor, Sage got to open some more presents.
A Thomas The Train set!
The rest of the gifts we planned to save for Saturday - his party day.
We closed out Wednesday night with another round of candles.
Then it was off to bed.
Thursday morning we took Sage to daycare. While he didn't look his best, he was feeling fine. And we parents couldn't really justify missing any more work. Also, Sage wanted to share some birthday treats with his school friends before the week was over.
Finally, the weekend had arrived.
Saturday was dedicated to Sage's big birthday bash. But the day was accompanied by quite a bit of stress.
Since I first sent out Sage's invites back in June, I had been having trouble with the RSVPs. Several local invitees immediately confessed their travel, moving, and concert plans to me, thereby eliminating five families from the guestlist. All the out-of-state relatives declined the invite too. (And understandably so. I didn't really except anyone to fly in for the party.) That eliminated another set of four. Then there were a handful of locals who just didn't respond at all. I think three in total. So needless to say... the response was quite disappointing from the get-go.
In the end, our official list of "yes" RSVPs included three families and their kids. And I was very comfortable with this modest sized party. But on the afternoon of his party, I learned that two of the kiddos had come down with illnesses. So now we just had one family showing up for Sage's party. ONE FAMILY! Which was embarrassing and sad and a total bummer. But with all the balloons blow up, and the food ordered, we had no choice but to press on. And so we let the celebration continue.
Our first agenda item that morning was to reveal Sage's BIG gift!
His very first bicycle!
It was then time to begin decorating.
The theme of our party was bugs.
We had bug balloons.
Bug wall art. Creepy colored streamers.
And giant bugs lounging on all the tables.
For entertainment, we planned to have a bounce house and a big bucket of water balloons available to the kiddos.
In the end, the day was fabulous! And Sage had so much fun. We had a couple last-minute guests surprise us with their attendance. So ironically, we ended up hosting three families, just like was originally planned. Just different faces from those expected. I'm just happy Sage had some playmates to hang with on his big day.
The boys went through about 150 water balloons in about 10 minutes. (Matt and I must have spent at least 90 minutes inflating all those!)
Aiming right for Dad!
For lunch we served Nordy's BBQ, along with the most delicious and ripe watermelon I've had all summer. Instead of traditional cake, we opted for a build-your-own-ice-cream-sundae bar.
And what a huge hit this was! (Mainly because it was so hot and sunny on Saturday. Ice cream helped cool us all down!)
Sage opened his gifts from his friends.
And quite hysterically, by the end of the party, all the kiddos ended up in just their diapers. All their cute party attire had become covered in water, dirt, sand, barbecue sauce, watermelon juice, and ice cream. So we stripped them down. And it was adorable!
A great way to end the day.
Sunday rolled around.... and I was completely exhausted.
Sage still had more presents to open. At this point, we handed the pile over to him and just let him finish it off. No more rationing of gifts.
Daddy got him a watering can.
And Uncle Sam got him a lawnmower.
So now the father-son duo is really inseparable!
Here they are both filling the gas tanks.
Let the mowing begin!
Sick of the non-stop sugar I had ingested all week, I had a strong craving for vegetables. I had been anxiously awaiting this new recipe - and decided it was time to finally dive in.
I began by roasting 3 pounds of zucchini, then cooking pasta in a bath of cream and vegetable stock. I added a brick of boursin herbed cheese to the mix, then added my veggies at the end.
The final product was a creamy zucchini tomato penne pasta.
Matt and I both agreed this was definitely Olive Garden worthy.
It was that friggin good!
Sage loved it. Matt loved it. I loved it.
We were fighting over the leftovers.
This could potentially be my favorite new recipe of the YEAR!
