Dadadadada

So lately in the evenings we enjoy just laying on the floor with Jason and playing with him, watching him roll around, or letting him drool all over us as he lays on our bellies and gives us his special brand of kiss. And we love it. Just the other night we were talking about how we never would have thought that one of the sheer joys of parenthood would be getting slobbered all over. But when you're lying next to your companion, your son lying on top of you, and he is squealing and kicking and trying to suck on whatever part of your face he can get nearest to his mouth, and everyone is cracking up, well, the only word I can think of to describe it is delight. It really is so much fun (as long as there is a burp cloth nearby). So we had to chalk that experience up on the "unexpected joys of parenthood" board.

We had another joy of parenthood tonight. Jason has just recently started adding consonants to his all vowel vocabulary. We were trying to talk to him to get him to mimic our sounds, and well, have a look for yourselves.

Happy Easter!

For Easter, there were only two things I wanted. 1- A ham dinner. 2- To give Jason a little Easter Basket even though he wouldn't appreciate anything in it or understand what it was.

I got my wishes.

For dinner we invited over a few sets of friends who the day of had some plans change and weren't able to make it. So we quickly called up our neighbor Dianne and our old neighbors and still best friends Josh and Candy, and the were able to come last minute. We all enjoyed ham, cheesy potatoes, green beans, carrots, rolls and that amazing jello with strawberries and a pretzel crust and whipped/cream cheese on it thing for dessert. I made all the dishes, and was pleased with them all. We were munching on left over ham for the entire week following. I definitely got my ham fix.

As for Jason's Easter basket, it included a thing of bubbles (which intrigue him, but we're not sure if he enjoys them yet or not), a Blue's Clues shapes and colors DVD, a new teething ring (you can never have too many different types with this kid) and a little wind up bunny toy that was broken from the get go. You wind it up and put int on the table, and it just sits there. It'll only walk forward a little bit at a time if you nudge it each time. Oh well. Dollar section of Target - proof that you get what you pay for. But it was a good Easter with family and friends. And we were even able to give Dianne a copy of "Finding Faith in Christ" and talk about the Atonement. That was a special moment of the day for me.

I hope you all had a good Easter and that the love of Christ and the hope and promise of the Resurrection fill your lives every day.

Josh was behind the camera!

Bye Uncle Owen!

For Easter, we invited Dustin's brother Owen to come to dinner. He called back to say that he couldn't come to dinner on Sunday because he was going to be in Utah at that point. Apparently, he would be moving to Utah the next morning. Eager to see him before he left, we arranged to have him stop by later that same evening.

He showed up with his friend Emiliy who we had met before, and it was good to catch up with them and see him one last time. We were sad to see him go, but we were thrilled to see the pictures Emiliy took of that evening. She has a nice camera and a good eye for pictures. Plus, she had two pretty good looking subjects. Don't you agree?

Happy Anniversary

So this is a public shout out and thank you to the Clarke family in Ladera Ranch. Dustin and I had our 2 year anniversary on March 24th, and they were willing to babysit Jason all day on Saturday the 28th, so we could get out and celebrate together. We had originally thought of going down to San Diego (where we honeymooned two years ago) and visiting the Wild Animal Park, but we opted instead for somewhere with roller coasters since a zoo we could do with a baby, but roller coasters we could not. So we went up to Knott's Berry Farm.

It was a hot day, and what we would have given to have some shade covering of some kind while waiting in line! But we still had a good time and got a good adrenaline rush or two as we rode some coasters. The bummer part of the trip was waiting in line for Xcelerator, we got all the way up to the front, were 2nd in line to board, when the ride shut down for mechanical errors. We waited there for an hour before deciding to give up our spot and move on to Supreme Scream, which was a blast! That was a good ride to end the trip on.

The other bummer was the price of funnel cakes. Dustin really wanted a funnel cake, since the first time he had one was at Sea World on our honeymoon, and he hadn't had one since, but at Knott's, a funnel cake with strawberry topping and powdered sugar (no whip cream, mind you) was $8.75! Almost $9.00 for one funnel cake! I refused to pay that price, and assured Dustin we would make some at home. We got some really good cheeseburgers (his was a double cheeseburger, mine was a bacon cheeseburger, and each cost less than a funnel cake) that were actually a good value for the price, shockingly enough for theme park food. The story has a happy ending though because we discovered that Knotts' sells funnel cake mixes for $5.00 at the store. So the next morning for breakfast we had 3 funnel cakes for $5, and they were so good! I took a picture, because yummi-ness like this must be preserved for posterity to drool over (not that our posterity needs any other reason to drool!)

J-man goes to D-land for mommy's B-day

On March 26th, I turned a quarter of a century old. I haven't really had a birthday party in years, and birthday celebrations have always been a low key thing as of late for me. Not because I don't like parties, but because life is just too busy and before I know it, the birthday's over.

I wanted to make an attempt to do something for my birthday this year though, and since Disneyland is letting people in for free on their birthdays for 2009, and free is one of the happiest words in the English language, I figured that would be just the way to celebrate.

I have a number of friends who all have passes, so we were going to go and bum a ride with them (they have parking passes too!), however, as it got closer to the date, plans changed. People had to move, were sick, etc. So ultimately, it was just Jason and I. I still liked the idea of free, and downtown Disney allows up to 3 hours of free parking, which is probably as long as I could get Jason to cooperate anyway, so I loaded up the diaper bag, the car, dressed him in his Tigger outfit, and off we went. It took us almost a full hour to walk from the parking lot to the ticket booths, wait in line, and finally get into the park. As such, we didn't have time to ride a lot of rides. But we still managed to fight our way through the forest of people and strollers to It's a Small World. I have to admit I was nervous leaving my stroller unattended as I waited in line, but it was still there after each ride, so that was good.

As it was, I think Jason was fascinated by the whole experience. Small World held his attention well with all the moving puppets and the brights colors. He didn't squeal in delight, but he kept looking around at everything, taking it all in. That's the best reaction I could hope for from someone so young I guess.

After that, we rode the carousel and the Dumbo ride together. Again, no happy squeals, but no cranky cries either. Just wide eyes and lots of staring. I wished we had had more time to do things there, but hey, at least we got out of the house and I didn't have to spend any money. I can't wait to take Jason back when he's older and can enjoy things more, and have another adult with me to talk to and help lug things around. :-) All in good time. Maybe for next year's birthday, eh?

Riding the dumbo ride with the Matterhorn in the background.

Jason's first carousel ride!

On the boats inside "Small World". Can you tell how fascinated he is by everything?

Playtime

I have been taking a ton of videos of the fun things Jason does, and I figured I would finally post them up here so you get a taste of what playing with Jason is like these days. He loves his jumperoo, sticking out his tongue, hitting things with his hand, kicking, putting his hands (as well as other things) in his mouth, touching his toes, rolling over, playing "Where's Jason", and laughing as Daddy plays with and tickles him. So if you want to know how we like being parents, just check out these videos.

Hugs and Kisses

Jason is my little cuddle buddy. Most of the time I feel like I just can't squeeze or kiss him enough. And he is such a sweetheart, because now I will ask him for a kiss, and if I put my face close enough to his, he'll give me a Jason style kiss, which means mouth wide open and slobbering on my cheek. Sometimes, it's more than just a slobbery peck; often he'll latch on and start sucking on my lip or my chin. Scandalous! :-) But I love it. I love my little Jason kisses.

Apparently, I'm not the only one either. This weekend, Jason and I walked over to our neighbor and best friend's apartment to hang out with Erica and Sophie one last time before they move. While I was talking to Erica, Sophie approached Jason, and thankfully I had my camera there. You better see for yourself - here's the baby that the babes can't resist. :-)