Good Luck Aunt Falon

Best wishes for your upcoming surgery. We'll be thinking of you and we love you!

Fourth of July

So it's been like a decade since I've blogged but here goes. We have been super busy as I'm sure everyone else has too. Life with a one-year-old is a different kind of hard...non-stop, always on-the-go hard. We had a terrific "Fourth" at Chris' parents lakehouse. They had their family reunion on the fourth, so the day was full of lots of people...many of which had not seen Mason since the reunion last year when he was only 3 weeks old...he's definitely changed just a little! That night we sat in the screened-in area of the boathouse and watched fireworks. Mason liked the sight but not the sound! He fell asleep sitting in my lap while we were out there. He's turning into quite the little boy...but still a mama's boy for now!

Mason is ONE!

Look how far we've come...our little guy is officially no longer a baby, he is a one year old. Time flies when you are having fun and we feel a great sense of accomplishment for surviving our first year of being parents. It definitely wasn't easy, but well worth every second.

Mason weighs about 20 pounds and is about 30 in. tall. We go to the doctor on Friday to get the official numbers. He is wearing 12 month clothes, but some of the shorts still seem big because he is so skinny. He wears size 3 diapers and size 4 to 5 shoes. He is still a light eater, but is interested in trying most everything we eat. He has showed some interest in feeding himself with the spoon and that gets pretty messy. We gave him whole milk for the first time tonight at dinner. He seemed to like it. We will be so glad to say goodbye to expensive formula. Mason is walking everywhere and getting quite fast at it. The faster he goes the more he falls of course, but he loves walking like a big boy. His newest thing is sitting on things...he thinks it is so funny to sit on random objects. He is also getting good at climbing. He can get on and off the little plastic four-wheeler he got for his birthday and can get in and out of the car Mimi got for him too! He hasn't added too many words to his vocabulary, but now points and says "ahh" to the things he wants but doesn't know how to say. He says mama, dada, mimi, bye-bye, baba (bottle), hi, and a weird version of puppy. He say "whoa" instead of uh-oh...he sounds like a surfer dude when he says it. He has started squealing when we take something from him or keep him from doing something he really wants to do. A wonderful sign of things to come. He has a very stubborn personality and can be quite demanding at times, but he is also quite funny and charming too.

Happy Birthday little man! We love you!

Tune in tomorrow to see everything we did on his big day!

First Birthday Party

We had a great turnout for Mason's first birthday party yesterday. I decided to got with baby dinosaurs as the theme for the party and bright colors as you can see. The party was from 2 to 4 and we ended up waking Mason from a nap about 1:45. He was definitely quite cranky for the early part of the party and I think he was a little scared about all the people in his house. He did NOT want to wear his birthday hat. He would NOT let me put him down, and when it was time to do the cake he would NOT sit in his high-chair. So he sat in my lap and wondered why everyone was looking at him and singing to him. He did NOT dig into his cake and cried when I tried to feed him some. I thought it was funny but of course he did not. I was definitely disappointed with the lack of interest in his birthday cake, but the boy is a picky eater.

He did finally get used to all the wonderful people who came to see him, and showed everyone how he could walk & play. Since Mason loves to hit things with the bat, we even had a little pinata. The older kids loved it. Mason got so many cool toys...here's the run down...
A four-wheeler, a little tikes car, basketball and crayons for the bath tub, clothes, money, gift cards, puzzles, books, hippo piano, alphabet pal learning catepillar, mega-blocks wagon, a new big-boy car seat, a dinosaur that moves, a beach towel, a inflatable car for the pool, sunglasses, giraffe guitar, crawl tunnel, and balls, balls and more balls!

Kasie and Robby got Mason 200 play balls to put in his inflatable pool for a ball pit. He loves throwing them, catching them, kicking them, hitting them, dumping them, and putting them everywhere!

My 29th Birthday

Yep I've got one more year until the dreaded big three-zero! So I've decided I need to really enjoy the last year of my twenties. I was off work on Friday and had a "me" day for once! I slept in a little and then went and got my hair cut. Then met some friends from work for drinks in Denton. I stayed a little longer than I intended, but did manage to finally make it to my pedicure. It was amazing! The pedicure lasted like an hour and a half (I went for the super-duper "sea-scape" version) but was totally worth it. Then I had to rush home to change for dinner. We went to Buca di Beppo in Southlake with Jennifer, JR, Chad and Falon. It's a querky Italian place that serves dinner family-style. We had a great time!

Mason is 11 months old

This past month Mason has become quite entertaining. He loves to clap, especially for himself and anything he accomplishes. He really loves it when a bunch of people watch him do something and then all clap for him...he claps too. He can turn off the lights, open and close anything with hinges (he loves to shut the microwave door). He really likes pushing buttons and playing with the little spring door stops (what an annoying sound!)

He is standing in place without holding onto anything and can even stand-up without pulling-up on anything. He took his first step on Mother's day and will usually take a couple of steps before falling down. He's definitely getting braver about letting go.

He still only has two teeth, but he is eating more and more table foods. He likes broccoli cheese casserole, mashed potatos and baby goldfish. He also learned to drink from a straw this month, and he's really good at it. A lady in the grocery store was completely amazed he could do this.

He still only has a few words in his vocabulary (Mama, Dada, baby, ball, Mimi) but did say Nana and bye-bye today. What is now amazing is his understanding of tons of things we say to him. You tell him "Good Job" he claps, you tell him to go get something and he gets it. His favorite toy is still a ball of any sort, and he knows to put it in the basketball goal. (Of course!) He loves to play hide and seek... I say "where's mama?" and he comes and finds me...he loves it!

He is so sweet most of the time and is a big time mama's boy. I love it!! We have so much fun together and I never thought I could love someone so much. He's growing up and getting so big, but watching him learn and deveop his own personality is soooo much fun. Even though the countdown has begun until his first birthday, I'm planning to cherish his last few days as a BABY!

Mason's first haircut

Now I realize the kid doesn't have tons of hair, but lately it has been driving me crazy that it was starting to hang over his ears. Plus it really sticks out at times! So I took Mason to Cool Cuts 4 Kids today and had his first hair cut. The lady that cut his hair was a little strange and cut his hair so fast, that if I had blinked I would have missed it. I think she was hurrying because she thought he might throw a fit as I guess some kids do. Mason was perfect...he just sat there watching everything that was going on and never made a sound. He really loved that the car he was sitting in, had a steering wheel. Before we could enjoy it for a sec and make a big deal about it...it was over...and I had just paid $16 for a few snips of the scissors and a 3 minute hair-TRIM! Oh well you only have a first haircut once. Great job little man...you look handsome.