Favorite Things

I love spring time. The ugly fog that usually blankets us April through June here on the coast, not so much. But the vast blooming of all the plants and flowers, love it! One of my favorite flowers is jasmine. The sweet scent wafting on warm evening breezes is truly sublime. And my jasmine have bloomed. Ahh, delight! I know I only have about two weeks with them, so I am trying to sniff my fill and admire them as much as I can. God is a beautiful creator!

Lucky Day?

Being a fraction Irish, my mom always made a big deal about St. Patrick's Day growing up, complete with the corned beef and cabbage dinner...which I hated. So no more salty meat and pointless veggies for me, but I did make sure my family wore green today, including a shamrock onesie I made for Jadon last night. I used iron-on bonding, and then wrote "Mr. Lucky" in fabric paint. Unfortunately, the letters got a bit smeary, which is understandable because I was rushing to finish it as I should have been in bed. Oh well. At least he doesn't need to wear it after today. I made Jim take a picture of us, also to get a shot of my new "do" (which by the way is completely unstyled...so don't judge it by this shot!) (It definitely is serving it's purpose of being easy maintenance, though! Yay!) :o)In other news, today was quite eventful in terms of Jadon-shenanigans...like when Jim went to change his diaper after getting home from work. They have a new tradition of wrestling during diaper changes, which usually results in Jadon sprinting away (read: quickly crawling) from Jim, naked. Jim decided to read Jadon a story during this "free" time today, which Jadon had no interest in. He would rather explore. So while Jim is reading this story, suddenly he yells "Oh no!" and I rush in to find Jadon standing at his night stand...and pooping. Oh yes, a nice big pile of mush on the carpet. Lovely. We both gave a little shout, which scared [the poop out of] poor Jadon and he started crying and reaching up for us to pick him up. Not yet little fella! Needless to say, that was a bit of a mess!

Later, I was washing bottles, Jim was watching March Madness, and Jadon (fully clothed this time) was continuing on with his explorations downstairs. Suddenly we heard him shrieking and looked over by our sliding glass door...and there was Jadon on his back with a plant toppled on top of him. The plant is actually pretty light, and I think it just scared him more than anything, but he did have potting soil all over him. Poor lad. What a night!

Of course, in neither of these moments was my camera anywhere within reach (nor would that have probably been the best thing for a caring, compassionate mother to do before consoling her child...but it would have made for some great photos!)

A moment of in[spiration][sanity]

Jadon is cutting one of his top teeth. He hasn't slept much the past 2 nights. Which means I've slept event less. Poor little guy. He's usually okay during the day, just a little more needy. Which just so happened to correspond to the moment I decided to take a shower this afternoon. The shampoo was just sudsing up my hair when his cute little face pulled up to the shower and peered in...and burst out in a full-on meltdown. He wanted to be able to see me...but when I opened the curtain up, water splashed in his face and brought on an even bigger torrent of tears. What he really needed was a hug...but that's a little hard to do when you're all wet and soapy.

I rushed through, dried off, and picked my little guy up, and he was immediately fine again, making faces at himself in our mirrored closet doors. So I started combing my hair, annoyed once again at its limp, stringy lameness. I've been talking about cutting it for awhile now, but just haven't had the guts to do so. I put it in a ponytail and tried to picture it shorter. And then in a burst of either inspiration or insanity, I pulled out the scissors and started to cut before I got squeamish. And of course, Jadon chose this moment to crawl around the corner and start hugging my legs wanting to be picked up again. But I was committed...I couldn't stop halfway. So with a crying baby clinging to my leg, I finished the chop, chop, chopping as fast as I could, and then picked him up, let him tuck (his sleepy pose), and he was promptly asleep. Poor little guy. After placing him in his crib (which he is finally great at napping in! Yay!), I went back to survey the damage. It's hard to tell until the next morning, but so far, I think I like it. Ahhhh, motherhood...

Drive-Ins!

One of my favorite family traditions growing up was going to the nearest drive-in theater. In spite of most of these nostalgic theaters closing up and turning into swap meets these days, Jim and I have found one about an hour away in Imperial Beach, the last town in California before you cross the border into Mexico. We've had a ton of fun packing up the Jeep with pillows and blankets and snacks and enjoying our own private double feature, complete with surround sound. Sometimes we'll spend the night at onr of our bargain hotels and hang out at the beach the next day. Great times. And we can't wait to continue this tradition with our kids.

Soooo...last night we tried it with Jadon.

Let's just say we probably won't be doing that again soon.

We hadn't unzipped the Jeep from winter yet, and the zipper got stuck to open up the back. And with Jadon's carseat, we had to keep the back seat in until we got there, then unload, then reload, and we were all squished. And Jadon chose last night to be one of his rare fussy nights, so one of us had to stand outside and bounce him almost the entire first feature. So I didn't get a single photo of Jadon's first time at the drive-ins. Sad. Oh! and the theater changed their rules so that you can no longer skip from one screen to another one in between movies, so you're stuck with whatever pairing they chose...which usually isn't what we want. Hmph!

So until we get a bigger car, and Jadon gets a wee bit older, we're probably going to put this tradition on hold. Hopefully they won't close down by then!

Creativity

First, sorry to Sarah...I know it's been like 2 weeks since I last posted...So many posts have been written in my mind, but I just never got around to writing them down, so now they're probably lost forever. Oh well...


Well, since Jadon just went down for a nap, and we finished the latest draft of the script two days ago, and I don't feel like cleaning the house...what else can I do right now? Update my blog! :o)


In spite of what I think is too busy, I have somehow found time to be at least a little creative the last few weeks. So here is a synopsis:


Week 23: My sister-in-law Becky made these awesome flower pins for Christmas, and it inspired me to make a few for my hair. (Oh how I wish I had a baby girl at this point, so I could make some for her. Besides the fact that Jadon has no hair, I'm pretty sure Jim would not support me putting flowers in his hair!) I won't give the tutorial here...if you want to make some for yourself, they are so easy, and there are tons of blog posts out there to show you how to do it better than I could. Basically, though, for this type of flower, you simply need satin ribbon or other fabric that singes but doesn't burn when exposed to flame. (I had to test out quite a few from my scrap fabric bin!) Then you simply cut however many layers of circles you want, expose the edges to a flame (I used a kitchen lighter), sew the layers together, and add beads in the center if you want. I hot glued a couple to hair bands and a couple to hair clips. So easy! I love them!

Week 24: This week was a busy one, but fortunately it was a MOPS week, and this is the craft we made there: a neck warmer. Again, so easy! All you need is a pound of flax seed (apparently Henry's is a great place to find this), a sock, and a towel (or scrap of fabric), and ribbon....Pour the flax seed into the sock, tie it closed, wrap it in the towel, tie the ends with the ribbon, and then put it in the microwave for 60 seconds at a time (careful, apparently flax gets hotter and can burn you!)

Week 25: OK, I have found a new addiction, one that has deprived me of sleep many nights this week after Jadon went to bed. Jim was away at a pastors' retreat , so I figured "why not?"...Each morning, my tired self answered that question, but each night I got sucked in once again...

What is this dangerous past time? Digital Scrapbooking! I am FINALLY starting Jadon's baby book, and I'm having so. much. fun! I am using Photoshop Elements as the basic program, and then spent about $30 of digital papers, alphabets, and elements at Funky Playground Designs (there are so many of these sites...you could spend a fortune if you weren't careful!). Then I watched a few online tutorials and have been learning as I go. It's awesome. So much more flexibility than working with paper. And if you mess up, no problem, you can do it over. When Jadon wakes up, I simply close the computer and there's no mess to clean up. Wow! And apparently, it's pretty easy to print your pages at Shutterfly. I imagine this will be my creative endeavor for the next while. You should try it! :o)

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!