Love Day

For Valentine's Day this year, Jim and I debated what to do. Valentine's Day has always been a special date for us...14 years ago, we went on our first date on Valentine's Day, and we've always enjoyed celebrating at Claim Jumpers like that first fateful day. But did we really want to get a sitter for Jadon...or brave the crowds? Not really...

Sunday night, Jim came home from church with a great idea: let's get those annual zoo passes we've been talking about. So after a special waffle breakfast, we headed over to the San Diego Safari Park (formerly known as the Wild Animal Park), and decided to go with the Diamond Annual Pass, which for $145 will give us BOTH free entry to either the Safari Park or the Zoo, free parking at the Safari Park, and four free passes for guests (easily worth it for when our parents come to visit!), plus various discounts...and...a subcription to ZooNews magazine (wowie!). We figure we can easily get our money's worth on this one. Then we discovered the bonus features: If we got the Single membership in my name, then I can bring ANY second guest with me every time (as opposed to the Dual household membership, which would only be me and Jim). So Jim can't take Jadon without me, but AS IF that would ever happen! And now I can take other mommy friends during the week. Cool! And then, the lady told us this is all TAX DEDUCTIBLE because they are a non-profit zoological society. Cooler! And then...the cherry on top...she swiped our credit card and charged us $115. I asked, wait a minute, I thought it was $145, and she said, oops, I clicked that you were renewing members and you got that discount. Oh well...Coolest!!! I floated away from the ticket booth feeling like I just scored the deal of the century. Maybe it's not. And who knows how many times we'll actually use the passes. But I think it was worth it.

Once we entered the zoo, well, Jadon will probably enjoy it more in a few months. I think the only creature he noticed for the first hour was a fly buzzing around him. Then he stared at the condors for awhile, and later enjoyed petting (or pulling the hair of) some antelope (?) at the petting zoo. But he loved being outside, and it was a fun atmosphere to get out of the house in.

After a few hours at the zoo, we decided to go see a matinee of "The King's Speech". We figured that time of day would be safe enough to bring a baby to. Upon entering our theater, however, I was dismayed to see it full of old people. I'm sure they were just as dismayed to see us carting our lively child in. Fortunately, it was just about nap time, and Jadon soon fell asleep like a champ. The movie was pretty good, too. I don't know if I'd give it an Oscar, but a good [true] story.

After the movie, we splurged and got Pizza Hut for dinner ($10 for a pizza is double what we get at Little Caesars! But it was Valentine's Day after all! :o))...We set up a picnic on the living room floor and let Jadon crawl and climb all around while we ate and tried to play Rummikub--a little challenging with a baby, but fun nonetheless.

Our "Love Day" was nothing like the stereotypical mushy Hallmark version full of romance, but I absolutely loved it! I got to spend the whole day with TWO men in my life I love, and my heart overflowed with joy. I am so blessed, and this day was a great reminder of that.

Sooo, anyone else want to join us at the zoo some time?

behind my back...

I put Jadon on the floor for tummy time with his toys this afternoon while I put a few dishes away in the kitchen. Moments later, I turned back around to check on him, and this is what I found:

He is definitely not on his tummy anymore! This is the first time he pulled himself up to a stand without my help...and I didn't even get to see it. :(

My baby boy is growing up. Sad...but oh so cute!

Phun with Photoshop

(Creativity week #24...)

I finally got Photoshop Elements! Yay! I've decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking for Jadon's baby album, and thanks to Freda's advice, invested in the basic program. Whew! What a learning curve! I spent all day playing around with it (in between taking care of baby, of course), and, thanks to plenty of Help topics and Youtube videos, figured out some basic stuff. Check it out:

My college roommate Annie and her husband Floyd were the first to meet Jadon, as they were visiting us the day we got "the call". We went for a walk with him that night, and I got this cute picture. Unfortunately, their faces didn't show up so well, so I took another one with the flash. Of course, that then turned the background black...Enter Photoshop, where I blended their faces in with the background. I still need some practice, but I'm pretty pleased with it:

Then in the fall, I got this cute picture of Jadon at the pumpkin patch with my MOPS group. But since he wasn't sitting up too well on his own yet, I propped him up with my ugly backback, which just sort of ruins the shot. I got a few other shots, but in all of them, his face showed how much he hated posing...But with Photoshop, I was able to plop cute Jadon right in the middle of the cute pumpkins...COOL!!!

The Day My Heart Stood Still...

This morning, I experienced one of the scariest moments of my life. This morning I lost my son.

I was downstairs baking corn-dog-muffins for a Super Bowl party (by the way, they were great! Check out the recipe at allrecipes.com...And they looked so cute in my football shaped muffin mold. Yay! Let's count this as Creativity Week #22).

Anyway, I heard a few thumps that seemed to be coming from upstairs (where Jadon was still asleep in our bed), but since I didn't hear him crying (which he does when he wakes up), I figured it must just be bombing practice at Camp Pendleton. I finished up the muffins and went upstairs about 15 minutes later.

I walked into my room, and this is what I saw:

No baby in the bed!

Suddenly panicked, I figured the thumping must have been him rolling out of bed...and since he didn't cry...oh no! What if he broke his neck?! My heart froze, and I rushed around to my side of the bed, ready to see a limp body. Instead, this is what I found:

No baby on the ground!

Crap! Where did Jadon go? Now my heart was really frozen! I called out his name and rushed around, throwing off the blankets, etc. I don't remember if I heard something first or if I just decided to look under the bed, but sure enough, I peeked under the bed skirt on Jim's side and found this:

(Note: at this point, rather than rushing to the baby, he smiled at me...so I rushed to get my camera...)

After getting the camera, I took these pictures, then scooped him up and hugged him as tight as I could and said thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus! And then kept hugging him and thanking Jesus...

In trying to figure out what happened, I think he must have woke up, and for once rather than crying he exercised his new rolling over and squirming skills to get to his bottle which was sitting on my nightstand. But it's too big for him to grab so he knocked it off onto the floor, and then reached after it and followed down to the ground. Fortunately all the extra decorative pillows were on the floor so he must have landed on those and then rolled or squirmed under the bed where the bottle was, and somehow through all of this was content to hang out there for like fifteen minutes without crying. I don't get it. But at least he's safe. Whew! Thank you Jesus! I guess I won't be leaving him in my bed alone anymore!