Saturday, October 3rd we had a birthday party for the big 1-year-old boy.  We had football cakes, a great banner courtesy of Abigail and Andrew, food and football!  John Daniel had a great time.  He ate his first bite of cake…wasn’t a complete hit, but he did successfully get cake all over his body and his paper plate on his head (with cake still attached).

Daddy Rob made a football field with athletic tape on a 8-foot table, and we put all the food on top.  I learned how to frost a cake with a crumb layer, some good tips for party favors, and looked all over for football shaped chocolates-only to find them after the party.  Figures!

Rachel graciously came to my house and helped make footballs and get the house ready.  We had 11 couples and 10 kiddos.  It’s a great blessing that we have the big backyard so that the kids could run around and play football.  We put up a tent over our patio for some shade.  The day was perfect – not too hot and not too much wind.  We sang ‘happy birthday John Daniel’ and mommy blew out his birthday candle.

Papa sent John Daniel some eye blacks from the Oregon bookstore to wear for the football theme, and they looked great!

I could not be more proud of Kona if she won Westminster.  I’m just about bursting.  All the barking, shedding, cat-chasing…this makes it all disappear.  Here are the photos of my wonderful companion catching the elusive prize: the dreaded gopher!

This morning I noticed the little monster had been digging again.  Can’t blame him really, he’s hardwired to poke his furry little head up to the sky.  Nonetheless, this is my yard.  I suspect he’d been displaced by all the construction next door and wandered over to our backyard.  Kona had his number, though.  I found her intently starting down his hole.  I just snapped.  I couldn’t take any more: I’ve been fixing holes for months.  I shoved the hose down there and flooded the little beasty out.  Confused and water-logged, he stumbled up out of his secure little hole into the jaws of Kona.  From what I can tell he either had a heart attack or a stroke.  No puncture wounds and no broken neck.  Just to give him a sporting chance, I removed him from Kona’s posession and chucked him over the fence.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go cook Kona a steak.

The day after JD’s big beach birthday excursion, I went to Santa Maria and walked for Alzheimer’s.  A friend of mine organized a team and so we walked 2 miles to raise money for a cure.  We had a lot of fun and we all got tee shirts.  Thanks to everyone who donated to my walk!  We even skipped a bit during the walk…which I may post photos of later.  Chad was our official team photographer and with his permission I may put some of his photos on my blog.  But, there we none of him (he tends to just be behind the camera).  So here are photos of our entire team, Chad included.  We were small but mighty!

We took JD to the beach and he had his first bit of ice cream for his birthday.  The beach was a bit chilly, but we had it to ourselves and the doggies could run around a little.   Rob has a favorite ice cream joint in Lompoc so we went to get JD his first ice cream…which I’m proud to say was cinnamon.  If you’ve never had it, do yourself a favor and try some.  Yum!

Today is John’s first birthday, and part of me can’t believe we made it.  He’s alive and well.  This first year has been a learning time; I finally feel that I have a handle on motherhood.  A small grasp at least.  As I look back on the first 12 months, I realize that my timing was ok afterall – many people had opinions about how soon I should wean him, what solids to give him, what diapers to use, how to get him to go down for a nap, what to dress him in, and on and on…but as it turns out the path I took was just fine.  I’m encouraged to know that I can lean on my own instinct as well as prayer and research!

Finally, finally: here are the photos from Disneyland.  Enjoy!

Our Disney photos are coming soon, and here’s a preview of the final leg of our adventure: After our nap on Tuesday we went back to Disneyland and tried to ride the Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Neither ride materialized; the Matterhorn’s line was too long and BTMR was shut down temporarily for repairs.  These have long been my favorite rides and I was disappointed.  I did however get to ride them on Wednesday morning.  Tuesday afternoon John Daniel rode on the carosel, which was met with mixed reviews, and Heimlich’s Chew Chew train, which was a roaring success.  We also rode the classic and timeless ‘It’s a Small World’.  He loved it and the song will now be in our ears for weeks to come.  It’s times like this that I appreciate that mom and dad went on it with me 3 times in one day.

Tuesday afternoon we also tried to get a photo with Mickey and Minnie on main street.  Unfortunately, a group of Germans were a little too pushy with them and their handler and they were spirited away.  At which point, the German fellow flipped off Disney’s most famous mice.  Well, there’s the spirit of the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ for you.  Glad that JD was too young to know what was going on…luckily, we saw Mickey again the next morning right before we left and John got a photo op.

The other character we saw was a big, green, beasty from Monsters, Inc. (I think).  John gave a little cry and then a totally puzzled look, but did stay long enough for a photo with him too.

After we were thoroughly exhausted, but starving, we went to the Rainforst Cafe for dinner.  I will say that it is loud enough to cover all the kiddos screaming for food.  John among them.  I have never seen him so het up about eating (or about anything).  Of course, I picked that meal to forget his bread so we had to ask the waitress to bring a bun while we waited for our main course.  I don’t know, maybe the loud atmosphere was a bad thing because she failed to see how much duress we were in.  Just to get a bun, no meat, no cheese, no condiments, just bun, it took her over 15 minutes.  When your son is screaming, 15 minutes can be an eternity.   Finally she came and JD calmed down a bit with the bread filling his tummy.  He also had some jarred winter squash and fresh avocado.  Daddy wanted him to try a french fry, but we’re going to hold off on that one.

When we got back to the hotel, we put the overly-tired little man down after a bottle of half formula, half milk (we’re trying to wean, anyone got any advice?) and Rob and I needed a treat.  The Disneyland hotel snack bar had either a Mickey ice cream bar or a ice cream cookie sandwich.  We opted for the ice cream sandwich.  Has anyone ever tried the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich?  OH.MY.GOSH.  Those will be my divine once-a-year treats.  They are decadent.  And fat and calorie filled.  But I heard that if you eat them standing up while watching Late Night with David Letterman they don’t have any calories….;)

Speaking of decadent sweets, I was amused today to see a Nutella commercial touting the usefullness of this product at breakfast.  Keep in mind that Nutella is primarily chocoate.  A chocolate spread with some hazelnuts and milk.  Lots of sugar, too.  The commerical is quite ingenious, really, telling consumers that if you put Nutella on whole wheat bread it will help get your kids to eat healthier (meaning the piece of whole wheat bread on which is spread Nutella).  Let me just say that I love Nutella.  Hazelnuts are amazingly good and as a general rule let’s try and mix more things with chocolate.  But for kids at breakfast?  Nutella must also be hurting from the economic downturn…they apparently needed a new consumer pool and are now targeting overwrought and frustrated parents who as a last resort to get their kids to eat healthy are spreading something bad on something good.  Sheesh!

This is the best time for a nap…90 degrees in the shade and the park filling up.  Go back to the hotel and catch some zzzzz’s…..yesterday we started with the Jungle Cruise and today the first ride was Soarin’ over California.  We spent the entire morning in California Adventure.  Rob rode most of the rides while JD and I held down the sidewalk.  Freaky Flippin, Crash O’Pottomus, or whatever those monstrous coasters are called is what Rob wanted.

I did get lots of photos, but can’t load them on until we get home.  Our camera is upload-challenged.  The wonderful thing about Sony is Sonys are wonderful things…no, wait, I mean the wonderful thing about Sony is that there is no USB port adapter to use with our camera card.  Sony has decided that they want to be the square peg in the round hole.  In other words, the entire rest of the industry (Kodak, Canon, Casio, Panasonic, Samsung) makes their cards adaptable to a little tiny travel USB adapter so that I may plug in while away from home.  Yet, Sony has decided that they only let consumers download photos with a gigantic camera station with a long cord which plugs into the wall on one end and my computer on the other.  Well, I guess it’s time for a new camera.

By the way, we took JD swimming this morning in the pool before the park opened at 10am.  Got some great photos, and he had a great time.  He went under for the first time.  Rob did it, and I think they both were nervous but came through the first dunk with flying colors.  Yay dad!

Here we are at Disneyland for the first day of our three-day Mickey spree.  I just climbed into bed to hear Rob ask from a half-slumbered stupor: “Did you take the field test”?  To which I gleefully replied “Yes”!  I hope the field test includes some kind of free meal because at these Disney food prices we’re going to go broke.  Listen to me; I’m at the happiest place on earth!  Who cares that a burger and fries costs 15.00.

JD got to experience all kinds of new adventures today.  We had to keep explaining to him that no, indeed, we are not in Mexico.  Everyone speaks Spanish here at the park – they did today anyway.  And we saw an alarming amount of women with wraps on their heads and covered from head to toe in saris…isn’t that hot?  On the other hand, all that sun protection is probably why each of those women’s faces had beautiful skin.  I did remember John’s sunblock -yes!-so I won’t be having any mother’s guilt about getting him sunburned.

We started our day by sleeping in a bit since Rob has a very rare 3 days off (he didn’t even have Labor Day off), then we headed south about 3 hours to Anaheim.  I got a screaming deal on a room here at the Disneyland Hotel.  Which has free WiFi without the annoying code – just power up and start browsing, cute Mickey hands holding all the lamps, Mickey & Minnie topiaries on the wallpaper in the bathroom, and complimentary fridges and Graco packnplays in each room.  The best part is that we walk quite easily from Main Street to our hotel.

Tomorrow Rob wants to hit California Adventure for the big roller coasters.  John and I are more earth-bound and will cheer daddy on from the ground.  During Pirates of the Carribean today, JD got a little nervous and clung to daddy a bit harder than usual.  Tomorrow we might just try a nice easy teacup ride.  And of course the classic: It’s a Small World.

I didn’t snap any photos today, but I did get lots of camcorder footage.  Now I just have to figure out how to make it upload to WordPress.  I promise I’ll take some photos tomorrow and post those.

John Daniel is having a blast in these photos at the park with daddy.  He won’t be able to do this too many more times because Daddy is deploying to Afghanistan in Jan.  At this point, it gets a little more serious for us.  In a way, it’s a good time because little JD won’t remember daddy being gone.  I don’t have to deal with all the questions.  And he’s not in school, so we can travel around while daddy is gone.  And we will!  To Hawaii, to Oregon, to Montana, and Florida.

But for now, let’s swing!

So JD has a couple new words, and I have to say this is a great phase in parenthood.  He is so cute!  I’m sure all parents say that, but in this case, its true.

His new words: Cheese(sounds like eeez), Quack(sounds like ack), Kona(sounds like ko), and uh-oh(which he says at totally inappropriate times).

He is also testing our boundaries: he understands the words and meaning of “no” but doesn’t like to comply.  He will stop doing whatever while I’m watching and then immediately start again as soon as my back is turned, even momentarily.  Little stinker.

The toilet paper in the previous post is a great example.  In these photos you’ll see some of his mischeviousness.