Tailgating Toddler Style and Happy Birthday Daddy!!

All season long Jeff and I have watched other couples with little ones bring them to the quad to tailgate before home games. Although the kids always looked like they were having fun, we decided to pick only one game to bring Anderson along. There are a few reasons for this...He'd get too hot, He'd be way too mobile and we'd be way too tired after chasing him and then there's the logistics!!!
We are in a tailgate with several friends, but if we are bringing Anderson we prefer to set up our own tent so we'll have plenty of room. This requires going to the quad Friday night to drop off the tent, table, paper products, chairs, etc...Then after the game we have to go home and wait for the crowd to clear before going back to get all of that junk when we can actually park near it! That's a lot of work to do week in and week out!
Lastly, we consider football games as kind of "our" time. It's like date night, but with a play clock! :-) If I were working I would have a hard time leaving him with a babysitter on the Saturday home games, but since I stay home...he's getting plenty of mommy time and mommy sometimes needs a cocktail and a break!

Now having said all of that...we decided to take Anderson to Homecoming this year. We were willing to go to all of the trouble to take our little man to the quad for a day of fun.
We gave away our tickets to our housekeeper in order to really make a day of it! Who knew that one week into October temperatures would still be in the 90's! We set up a tent with friends and fellow parents Matt and Jennifer whose little girl, Giulianna, is Anderson's girlfriend. Since it was Jeff's birthday on the 8th I brought along a cake for him and everyone to share. His present from us was a picture collage that I will post soon!

Jeff had the bright idea to make half of our tent a bigger version of a pack and play.
He bought some construction type barricade and used it around three of the four tent stakes. It worked perfectly! We put down a Neat Sheet to keep him from being completely in the dirt! We also took plenty of toys so that he would like being in "Jail"! This way we had a place to put him when we were tired from chasing him!It was so funny watching people walk by our tent and laugh. You could tell who had toddlers at home because there were many "What a great idea" comments thrown our way. What can I say...my husband...Macguiver!


We walked around the quad a lot and went to kiddie land on the other side of the quad with all of the blowup kid toys. Anderson didn't quite understand why he couldn't jump in there with all of the big kids. We walked down sorority row to see the lawn decorations and watched the band warm up. Eventually we walked over to the Student Center to cool down. Of course Anderson "eagle eye" Smith found a set of stairs! His favorite!!I was a little worried about not being home at nap time, but it went exactly as I figured it would...when he gets tired enough he will sleep.
He slept for over an hour in his stroller even with all of the chaos surrounding him! It was a fun day...but again probably the only time we will get him out there this year! It was a lot of work!
Here are a few more pics...I know I post too many, but I can't help it. I love pictures, so it's too hard to narrow it down!!