weekend around town
As I mentioned on Friday, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and our summer off to head downtown to the zoo. This was MacKenna’s first trip to the zoo, so of course I was way more excited than she was.
An hour of searching for a parking spot + a meltdown (by Matt) later, we finally made it in to the zoo – with pretty much the rest of St. Louis. Apparently, we weren’t the only people with the zoo on their mind. It was absolutely packed (which of course was great for people watching) but luckily not too difficult to navigate with the stroller. Like I said, I’m pretty sure I was more excited than MacKenna about her first trip to the zoo, but I think she had a good time. She didn’t really notice the animals too much as much as we tried to get her to notice them. I’m sure, in a few months, she’ll be extra excited to see the elephants playing.
Saturday, we again decided to take advantage of some free time and drove about an hour south of where we live to Kimmswick, Missouri for the Strawberry Festival. I first visited Kimmswick about 2 weeks ago for my cousin’s baby shower and fell in love with the cute little town. When Matt mentioned the Strawberry Festival was this weekend, I thought it would be a great opportunity to head back with Matt + Mac.
Booths upon booths of crafts, food, and other stuff filled all of Kimmswick. I was there for everything strawberry I could get my hands on – for free. What can I say, I’m cheap! We were able to sample strawberry salsa (yum), strawberry jam (yum), strawberry wine (and seventeen…), and the one thing we paid for (besides parking), strawberry gooey butter cookies. So delicious! I need to recreate these…
Sunday started out with MacKenna’s first race in the stroller, but you will have to wait until tomorrow for that recap. And then, we headed another hour from where we live – this time to the east of St. Louis to Belleville for my cousin Ananda’s little boy Lucas’ first birthday party! The BBQ was at a park, so we had to take MacKenna for another round in the swings. She’s starting to like them more + more, but I think she will love them when she fits in them a little bit better and isn’t going to hit her mouth against the front of the swing.
No first birthday is complete without cake. Lucas’ party was St. Louis Cardinals baseball themed, including a “stadium” cake and baseball cupcakes. Luke was the least messy baby I’ve ever seen eating a cupcake! He was too cute! I can’t wait to start planning MacKenna’s first birthday… wait, yes I can…
And my favorite thing we did this weekend? MacKenna learned a new “trick” on Saturday night. We kept clapping every time she took a good bite of peas at dinner saying, “Yea MacKenna!” She kept putting her hands together, but we thought it might just be because they were covered in peas. (Side note: Once we finish this batch of peas I made, I don’t know if I will ever feed her peas again. They are the messiest food ever. There are peas everywhere in our house…) However, once we got her cleaned up and were playing before bedtime, we kept doing it and she definitely had caught on. Probably the funniest video ever and definitely my favorite thing she has learned so far!
What’s your favorite strawberry flavored thing? The strawberry wine was AH-mazing! They also mixed the strawberry wine with lemonade – such a fun summer drink!