Celebrating Three!!!

Celebration #1 - 

Thursday (the day before Jaxen’s Birthday) he was invited out to lunch by our Pastor (Chad) and his wife Misty. Jaxen just loves them (one reason is because Misty feeds him chips any time we go over) and I knew he would be excited to spend some one on one time with them. And I love that they asked to take him - just for him. Not to help me out, or give me a break… it was not about me at all…. it was just because they wanted to do something fun for him (that makes my mama-heart happy:))!

They showed up a little after 11am - with a present...

filled with yummies...

Doritos and a “Fist-bump” t-shirt.

The way to Jaxen’s heart is through chips, and he loves giving fist bumps!

I don’t know exactly all they did, but I did receive this picture...

Jaxen, Misty and Pizza (his favorite)!

Not long after that, this picture came through...

holding a new toy, m&m’s and a push pop. Spoiled.

And the look on his face is like “what? it’s my birthday!"

That is pretty much where the happy day ended. When Misty brought him home around nap time - she mentioned that he did not eat or drink anything while they were gone. That caught my attention. Jaxen NEVER turns down pizza and is always drinking something. I felt him and I knew right then, he had a fever. I checked - and it was at 101 something. Bummer. I put him down for a nap right away, but he did not end up sleeping well. Very restless.

That evening he was not better. I had to leave him with Nik while I went to work and he threw up twice and had a temp of 103.4 when I got home. I gave him some medicine and put him to bed. He did (thankfully) sleep through the night and when he woke up the next day - he acted fine! We took it easy at the house for a couple of hours and then finally left for his Birthday-Day-of-Fun, once we realized he was, indeed, feeling better.

Celebration #2 -

So Friday (his actual birthday) he woke up and headed downstairs…

with all his animals in tow!

He immediately saw the gifts/cards on the table and began to open everything!

Celebration #3 - 

After opening gifts, and taking it easy - we headed out for our Jaxen-Birthday-Day-of-Fun!

What a cute family, right?!

Oh, and there is Batman!

We loaded up in the car and headed south to Syracuse.

Within about 5 minutes Jaxen was asleep and I was re-thinking our plans!

After some discussion, we decided to go ahead with our plans, and if it was a bust - then that’s okay.

First stop - Billy Beez in Syracuse Mall

From the website: 

Journey into Billy’s Rainforest for a one-of-a-kind adventure! Experience our 26,000 square foot Play Arena is the home of wildly twisting slides, a one-of-a-kind Ball Blaster Arena, bouncy trampolines, intricate obstacle courses and so much more! This unique indoor playground offers safe, hands-on fun for the whole family!

Ready to go play! 

This is a family pic….

right before we all went down this huge, steep, slide (which mommy was scared of and Jaxen had to talk her into!)

Jaxen enjoyed running around and playing through this whole play area. But his very favorite activity - was the ball-blaster arena. It’s hard to show you in pictures…but there were a ton of these small (semi-soft) balls - you could throw them, shoot them from “guns” above, push them through air tunnels and then then put them in this holder thing that blasted air from below and shot all the balls into the air.

Here are a few pictures...

We stopped playing to have lunch. Pizza was on the menu. It is his favorite food, and he did not get any the day before. I was a little worried about his tummy - but he ate like and champ and had no troubles!

Back to Billy Beez…or really, 

back to the ball-blaster arena for some more fun (and war with mom and dad)!

We finally got him to explore a bit more and found these scooter-type-bike-things.

He had a blast riding these, chasing other kids around.

Oh, and as he was riding he kept making a “police car” noise. It was so funny!

And then dad decided to join in on the fun!

After a few hours of fun, I decided it was time to go.

We headed to a hotel we had booked in Cortland, and had a little down time.

Jaxen, headed to dinner in his new sunglasses!

Celebration #4 - 

After dinner, we changed Jaxen into his swim clothes and told him he had another present to open.

It was a new floatation device!

He loved it and was so excited to get into the pool!

And so we all swam until his teeth were chattering (indoor pool, but still a little cool)

and we finally decided to call it a night.

Celebration #5 - 

The next day (Saturday) Jaxen and I had a little fun on our own! Nik had to be at a meeting the majority of the day (hence, the hotel room the night before) so we dropped him off and Jaxen and I headed out for more fun!

I found out that the town we were in (Ithaca) was having a “Truck Show for Kids”. I drove by and saw all different trucks/vehicles that he could climb in and out of; bounce houses, big slides; face painting; food and more. I decided that would be a fun way to spend the morning.

Jaxen loved climbing in/out/on/all over the different vehicles there!

They also had a spot where all the kids could play with different toy cars, bikes…etc.

Jaxen loved this little jeep (above) and threw 2 complete-full-on-meltdown-tantrums over it.

No picture!

He had the best time playing on this little skate board. 

It took awhile, but he finally got the hang of it!

And then there was this police car.

Again with the noises. It was a mix between “policy car” and “ambulance”.

Not sure why the noises all of a sudden - my guess is he remembers it from the parade maybe?!

They also had these play tables filled with different things (left: raw pasta; right: gravel).

He had the best time at these play tables - and played there forever!

Lastly, he climbed up this slide and went down all on his own!

After a quick jump in the bounce house (and almost 3 hours of fun) I decided it was time for us to go.

Jaxen did not think so.

Full-on-complete-meltdown-tantrum #3. 

We left and headed to lunch. 

He forgot why he was so upset once I got him a happy meal with chocolate milk.

Jaxen fell asleep within 5 minutes of us being on the road after lunch.

I was early, but I went ahead and headed to pick Nik up from his meetings. And I had the most peaceful 45 minutes while we waited on Nik. Jaxen was sleeping so I parked the car (left it running) while I read a book. I can’t tell you the last time I sat down for 45 minutes to read. It was super nice!

**********

Congratulations on reading this entire (way too long) post!

We had opted out of throwing Jaxen a “Birthday Party” this year. No reason in particular. I just knew I wanted to give him a full day of fun - just him, Nik and I, doing things Jaxen loved. I think we were successful! We all had such a great time together. Parenting is such a hard job…and even on this trip it was not easy. We had our share of hard moments…but we made many great memories. And at the end of the day - the good things out-weighed the hard.