so...

have I mentioned how much we LOVE to be outside?? 

We L.O.V.E it!!!

Jasper and I had the blessing of being home all day today with nowhere to go and nothin' to do. As a result, we just played and played the day away... most of it outdoors (we also made and canned homemade strawberry jam together- super fun!). I believe we went on 6 different walks and talked with over 20 different neighbors. :o) I love our neighborhood!!

I'm so tired right now and want to go join my hubby in bed, so I'm just going to throw up a few pics on here b/c I don't forget our wonderful day. I don't have time/energy to write anything witty or to put any thought into this post. But here are the pics.

From our morn:

Jasper LOVES our neighbor, Avery, and first thing he does every time we go outside is to see if Avery's on the porch (he most often is).

 Smelling Sandra's flowers.

 Trying to capture the ball. :o) He loves this new ball nana got him. 

J discovered the 8 month old water in our nasty watering can...

 and then spent the remainder of the morning playing in it. :o)

From our evening:

Jasper's newest favorite way to play with the cart.

J saw an airplane. Probably the 185th one we saw today, yet he still stops and stares at each and every one till they're out of sight.

My phlox are starting to bloom!!! yay for spring!!

Jasper was having a blast on our Andrew's shoulders on our walk. Now whenever we go for walks, Jasper says, "dolders. Dadda, please, dolders!!!" (dolders = shoulders). Andrew's poor neck!

Dolores' fam put a flower in her yard to remember her by. They also gave me a huge, huge beautiful arrangement of flowers to thank me for being so involved in her life. I need to take a pic of those!

a beautiful evening!

tonight was absolutely, positively one of the most gorgeous evenings we've had in 2013 so far! So, like the rest of our neighbors, we played outside!!! It was so precious!! Not wanting to forget such a lovely time together, I snapped a few pics of our evening.

running, of course!!

 Jasper giving sweet hugs to dear Sandra...

 throwing a ball with daddy...

chasing said ball...

Andrew trying to get Jasper to pose for a pic, but Jasper had no time for that.

and dearest sandra, enjoying it all. :o)

question:

Question:

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop Roll?

Answer:

A ton. About 45 minutes' worth, to be exact. :o)

Playing in the rain!

This week has been such a fun week of firsts!!!

For example:
First crab!
First time Jasper held an itty bitty baby (Annalise)!
First time Jasper half fell in the park pond while feeding the geese.
First time Jasper tried to dip the crab's leg in the candle wax (he was not successful seeing as how I quickly intervened and stopped him!).
First time Jasper threw his pig in my coffee (that was actually a few weeks ago).

AND....

First time playing in the rain!!!

As I imagined he would, he LOVED it! :o)

Here are our dear friends, Sarah and Joshua, just arriving to significantly brighten up our morning! :o)

fav crab pic

I want to do a bigger blog about our crabs and how/why we got them, but haven't yet found the time to do it. In the meantime, this is my favorite crab picture so far. :o)

mourning

Today, we're mourning the loss of our dear friend and neighbor, Dolores. Her death was very unexpected and came as a huge shock both to her family and to us. My heart is just broken, knowing that she's gone; we loved her to pieces and will miss her so much in the weeks and months to come.


Here are a couple snapshots of Dolores at Jasper's 1st bday party last May (she's in the white sweater).

(

what a glorious day!!!

Today was a very ordinary, stay-at-home, nothing-special kinda Friday for me and Jasper. And it was such a glorious day. Absolutely, positively the best day we've had in weeks... months... maybe ever.

Several times today, I thought to myself that this is by far some of the most precious time i've ever had in life.

Granted, Jasper had a few moments of rebellion, which resulted in immediate and loving discipline. But that's normal. He's a sinner in need of a Savior. Nothing new there.

Anyway, as I was saying, aside from a few disciplinary issues, it was such a precious, precious day. Jasper has entered a new and fantastic stage of life.

He has realized that he can run.

He can also say the word, "running." (he doesn't know "run" or "ran", just "running". So it's always referred to  in our house as "running").

So starting yesterday (this is a very new phase), he lives and breaths to run, and he yells "running" at the top of his lungs while doing so. He throws both arms straight back, puts his head and shoulders down, and yells "RUNNING!!! BABER RUNNING!!" :o) It's the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Guess what we did all day today? Yup, we were "running". We ran at home inside, at home outside, on a 1 mile walk around the neighborhood, up the alley, down the alley, at the park, back at home, took a 4 hour nap, then Andrew and Jasper did running in the ditch outside Chipotle (our evening meal), then more running at home with Timbits in hand. Jasper was in heaven. I was, too. It was such a treat.

I realized tonight that we never, ever, ever have the tv on when Jasper's awake. Jasper occasionally watches a few minutes of "garbage waste trucks" on youtube if I'm wearing thin on patience and need a break, but other than that, we never watch tv with little Jas. And i'm so thankful. The day will come, I'm sure. But for now, I'm so content with just playing outside with our son, running, flipping, climbing, and kissing. :o)

about to embark on our morning running

Later this evening, after we got home from Chipotle, Andrew grabbed the camera and took a mini-photo shoot of me and Jasper running. If you look closely, you can see Jasper holding on for dear life to half a chocolate Timbit in most of these pics. (here, he's showing you his Timbit)

 Occasionally, he would see a small rock on the driveway and think it was a Timbit crumb and pop it in his mouth...

Anyway, here's a taste of a typical evening in the Meade home. :o) Enjoy!

running up the driveway

running down the driveway

running up the alley

running down the alley

We sat down to take a break from all the fun running and Jasper realized he could do flips over my shoulder. It was a very relaxing "break"! lol! :o)

After much flipping, we decided to switch to climbing. Jasper loves to hold my hands and see how high he can climb on me before we both fall over. It's very... muscle-building.

 And of course, sweet Jasper gave lots of kisses throughout the day. I think it's kinda gross, but he likes to plant big wet ones right on the lips. Let's hope that's a "family-only" type of kissing habit.

It was so, so precious. But seriously... I need a redbull.