Showing posts with label Grandma and Grandpa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grandma and Grandpa. Show all posts

Friday, May 31, 2013

May Days

After my birthday weekend and Mothers' Day, our celebrations just kept rolling. The weekend of the 18-19th, Jim's mom came for a visit.
On Saturday, we headed to the San Diego Safari Park. It's a lot more wide open than the zoo, so you don't end up seeing as many animals, but I love all the lush trees and bushes and nature all around you.
I took my nifty new camera our for a test drive, and even though Jim made fun of my touristy appearance, I had fun snapping lots of shots. I'm not sure they ended up any better than my little Kodak point and shoot, but I had fun feeling like they were better! :)




 (Jadon's favorite animal, the lion, aka "rawr" aka "Simba". It was so cool how close you could get to them behind the glass!)

 (Last time I had come to the Safari Park, the splash pad hadn't been open. Note to self: next time bring a change of clothes! Jadon LOVES water and WILL get wet!)


On Sunday, we did the normal church routine, and then in the evening, Sue encouraged us to go out on a date while she bonded with Jadon. They had fun going to the park and stuff, and we went to see The Great Gatsby (Jim's choice!). Baz Luhrmann did a great job of recreating Fitzgerald's classic story, even if it wasn't purely tied to the text, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you Grandma B!

The next weekend was Memorial Day, which we celebrated on Monday by going to the zoo with friends from our small group, George, Kristen, and Molly, and Jon, Lindsey, Emma, and Jeremiah and Lindsey's sister Bethany. Now that we all have passes, we moms look forward to many more of these trips...and the guys were sure troopers along for the ride.







Saturday, March 2, 2013

February Catch-Up!

Besides sleep training, February has been full of other fun stuff, too! (I just can't believe it's March already... in spite of the weather we're having down here in So Cal making it feel like summer already!)

Jadon's acrobatic skills continue to improve. I really need to enroll him in our local gymnastics program...but we have yet to have 6 weeks in a row that would work out. My next goal is in May. Until then, he continues to find plenty of practice on his trampoline (still don't have a good picture of that)...and other apparatus in our house:

Jadon's imagination is also growing in leaps and bounds, which I love. He loves the Toy Story trilogy, and I think the creative Andy is starting to rub off on him. It isn't the tea parties and orphanages that I remember playing as a little kid, but it is still so cute to play with him as we fight dragons and sharks and "mean fish"! Oh, and Jadon likes to go through the nighttime routine with me in his bed, where he asks me if I want to cuddle with monkeys and then warns me, "Don't get out of bed or I lock the door!" (Hey, we never really locked it...we just told him we would...) This afternoon, as he was closing the door, I said I was lonely, and he told me, "Jesus in your heart." Awww! I'm glad that part sunk in, too! :) 
One of Jadon's favorite imagination stations is our queen bed. Most mornings start off with some sort of battle, usually with Jim leading the way. I love my boys!
For Valentines' Day, I took my first crack at letting Jadon paint with "real" paints (in contrast with the Color Wonder ones that we usually use). I had some fun ideas for making valentines for his MOPS teachers and the grandparents, but Jadon very quickly decided that he much preferred to paint on the newspaper rather than the cute pink paper. Oh well. I think his creativity ended up better than mine!
 

 We have been getting a TON of use out of our 3-month Legoland passes (which expire in a week...sad day!). Earlier in the month, we went with our family friends, the Coddingtons. Jadon LOVES their 2 boys, and they are so great with him...




 We went again with my parents on Valentines' Day, and spent a bit of time at the aquarium. I think my dad was more into it than Jadon was, but he did enjoy seeing the Mr. Potato Head (filled with shrimp) dropped into the tank for the octopus feeding. (Unfortunately, the octopus wasn't hungry that morning...I wonder if that had anything to do with Jadon tapping the glass before we could stop him?...)
 

In addition to frequent Legoland visits, we also discovered a new place called Kidsville thanks to a great deal on Living Social. It's basically an indoor play gym/park, with lots of trampolines and gymnastics equipment and a castle/slide and rope swings and train tables and a princess playhouse with costumes and kitchen and a boys workshop with costumes and tools...and basically a ton of fun stuff to let Jadon run around on. We went with Kristen and Molly, and the kids had a blast.
(In this picture, we thought Jadon and Molly were playing so well together...until I realized that, in typical fashion, Jadon had made a gun out of the duplo blocks and was shooting Molly. She thought it was hilarious. We thought it was something we could work on later... :))

Jadon went to his first hip-hop concert when our friend Nomis performed as a fundraiser at church. All of my pictures of him dancing in the crowd turned out to dark and blurry, but he did like the beats.
I just think this is a cute picture of my boys: :) 

And finally, Jim convinced me to give Jadon a haircut. I love him with short hair, but his little curls were getting so cute!

 (Mom! No more pictures!!!)


Friday, January 25, 2013

Christmas 2012

December was a crazy busy month for us, as it is for most people. But it was more fun than ever with Jadon this year. This is such a great stage of life! He was so much more aware of and interested in things.
Here are some more of our highlights:
Austin's 16th birthday:
We wished he was getting his license more than he did, but apparently that's not as much of the thing for teens around here. Go figure! So, no car, but his mom did come over and make him his favorite meal, her special wings and a red velvet cake.


Legoland with Grandpa and Grandma Sanders:
When we bought our passes, they got some, too, and we look forward to many more trips with them to Jadon's favorite park!










 Early Christmas at our house:
Since Jadon has no concept of dates, we did everything a day early at our house, celebrating our traditional Christmas "Eve" (with lasagna dinner and walking around to look at lights) on the 23rd, and then Christmas "morning" (with monkey bread and presents, etc.) on the 24th. This year, we got our first dose of extensive assembling of toys with the trampoline my parents got Jadon and the kitchen set we got him. Fun times!



 

 (Jesus' birthday cake...Jadon couldn't wait to sing him Happy Birthday and blow his candles out! We really emphasized that as the reason we celebrate Christmas this year, and we told Jadon (thanks to a great children's book we read nightly) that because Jesus loves us so much, he gives us presents on his birthday...and he'd even let Jadon blow his candle out.)


(Jadon never noticed the behemoth of his trampoline sitting just outside. If only he could stay like that...it would sure make keeping his gifts secret easier!)

"Real" Christmas up in Davis:
After our Christmas Eve services at church, we hopped in the car and trekked up to Davis to celebrate Christmas morning with Jim's family. We made amazing time, and the ride was much more enjoyable and stress-free in our economy rental car. (Jim's Jeep is just too small and my 16-year-old-200K+miles Saturn just doesn't run quite like it used to. Our original goal was to get a new car for Christmas, but hiring a new writer for our script wiped out that money (hopefully, good news on that, though, soon), so renting a car was an affordable slice of peace-of-mind.) 

(OK, I caved...I never thought I'd be the type of parent who would use the TV as a babysitter, but it turns out, it's pretty useful! So yes, we even got Jadon a portable DVD player for the long drive.)

 (It was so much fun to see Jadon and Kylie getting along so well. Jadon's language skyrocketed after just a few days with her!)





(I think Jim had more fun with the stomp rocket than the kids!) 


 
What a great season, and we feel so blessed by the wonderful family we have!!!