Celebrating...Jadon!

Jadon turned 3 on Saturday, June 8. Three years before, we had no clue that he even existed. But when we met him 16 days later, it was love at first sight, and we couldn't imagine life without him. We named him Jadon because he is our proof that "God has heard" all of our prayers. He is the perfect kid for us and we are SO grateful for the past three years that we have had with him...and God-willing, we look forward to many, many more!

Jadon's birthday kicked off a week of fun in his honor.
Actually, the fun started the day before on his last day being 2. Wrestling with the decision of whether or not to go back to work next year, I decided to make it a "good mom day"--which is what I call days when I put aside my never-ending to-do lists and multi-tasking attempts and focus all my attention on Jadon and whatever he wants to do. (Sad to say, I don't have nearly enough of these. :( )
So, when Jadon discovered an old can of purple paint (it used to be indigo blue)...and started body painting himself...my gut reaction was to stop him, until I realized that the only harm being done was either washable or in an area of our side yard that never sees anyone anyway. And so the painting continued. By the end he was a ridiculous mess...and a very happy boy! AND, this paint fun captivated him for nearly an hour! (Unless he's watching a favorite movie, Jadon's attention span NEVER lasts longer than maybe 15 minutes.) (If only I could discover more activities like this...that don't make quite as big of a mess! Too bad regular painting doesn't cut it.)

 

 Besides old bikes/basketball hoops/concrete, the only real casualty of this fun was a pair of hand-me-down underwear (don't judge--they were bleached clean, and are perfect for this potty training stage!) :)

 ...and his hair. Apparently, while latex paint washes beautifully off of skin, it doesn't come out of kinky hair so well. But  as much as I loved his beautiful curls, we were already planning on giving him a summer haircut, so this was the perfect excuse for all of our friends who begged us not to :).

The next morning, Jadon woke up to a bunch of balloons (be-yoons!!!) and a couple of small gifts, and then we made his favorite breakfast, waffles.

And then came the gift he had been longing/asking/begging/praying for for the past few months: Legoland tickets! And not just for one day...but for the whole year!

We finally broke down an splurged on the annual Merlin pass, which includes admission not only to Legoland but also SeaLife Aquarium and the WaterPark...and the best part ever, free parking! (At $15 a pop, that part is worth its weight in gold!) Usually the passes are $179/person (I know, ouch!), but military personnel are allowed to buy passes (for friends and family, too) for $137. Woohoo! Obviously, they still aren't giving them away, but I'll take the $40/person savings!
Our friend Kristen decided to renew her pass that day so she and Molly could celebrate with us (her husband George was in the field), and she had 2 guest passes that were going to expire that day, so we invited Jon (Lindsey had to take her sister to the airport) and daughter Emma...so we ended up having a little party together.
Jadon didn't really care about the rides (being a Saturday, the lines were too long!), and just wanted to spend all his time at the dinosaur dig sand pit, the splash pads, and the parks.

Then we stopped for lunch (he got french fries and soda, his favorites), and we had cake balls with his friends (I wasn't going to do a cake, but decided to do cake balls at the last minute, just for fun).

 We ended the day discovering a whole new splash pad with its own mini water park on our way out--and almost never made it out as Jadon discovered a whole new second wind. After Jim retrieved him without getting completely soaked, we promised him to come back soon (since we have passes now!), and Jadon conked out before we even made it through the exit.  

Unfortunately, he woke up as soon as we made it to the car, and remained awake throughout the rest of the day, including another birthday dinner for a friend...at a nice-ish restaurant. That was exciting. (Thank goodness for Curious George episodes on YouTube...and Jim's phone that is finally cool enough to make use of such luxuries!)

As if that wasn't enough excitement, the next day after church, we headed to our county fair--the big Del Mar Fair--with a bunch of families from our small group. Jadon had a ton of fun on the kiddie rides (he seemed to gravitate toward the fun-house type attractions and "scarier" rides than his friends...), and then he conked out while we ate dinner and started going through the Expo (while Jim "generously" offered to hang out with him in front of the jumbotron screen broadcasting the NBA game). We pigged out on cotton candy and kettle corn and corn dogs, but refrained from buying thousand-dollar cookware sets (it was so awesome, though!) and frivolous manicure sets. We had a ton of fun with friends, and left exhausted but happy.

And then, as if that wasn't enough excitement, this last week we spent gearing up for Jadon's birthday party this weekend. I'll do a whole blog post on it when I get the good pictures from our friend who photographed the dat, but I'll just say, I had so.much.fun planning it, and I think Jadon had just as much fun enjoying it. We decided on a construction theme in honor of Jadon's affinity to all things tools/tractors/destruction :), and I'll just end with one picture from the entrance to the party:

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!!!)