Swinging

Spencer and I took Mason to the park to swing for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  I figured he would like it because he loves to be thrown in the air and go upside down.  I was right!  Lucky for us, this park is just around the corner from our house.

Splash!

9 Months

This is another one of those posts that will probably be boring to most people, but I don't want to forget the details of these amazing baby stages, so here you go!  

Mason weighs 18lbs, 11oz. (18%) and is 29 inches long (73%).  Still pretty long and skinny.  He's as healthy as can be though.  I took him back to the cranio-facial specialist a couple of weeks ago and Mason's head has rounded out enough that he doesn't need a helmet!!  He started sleeping on his tummy a couple of months ago, so the back of his head gets a lot less pressure now.  Hooray!  His head will continue to round-out, but may always be slightly flat.  Not a cause for concern though.

Mason still isn't crawling, but he gets better at rolling every day and is trying to figure out how to move forward instead of just side to side.  Spencer's room is his favorite place to roll so we have to be careful with Legos on the floor now.  Mason's fine motor skills are getting better as well, and he's starting to pick up small things with his thumb and first finger.  Yay for finger foods!  Cheerios and banana chunks are new favorites.

Mason is babbling and yelling a lot more now.  He can be pretty noisy and likes to make himself heard.  It's really fun to watch him start to understand words.  He definitely knows "birdie," "all gone," and "more" in addition to our names.  We got him to wave "bye, bye" a few times, but he won't do it anymore. 

After a miserable, fussy, slobbery week, Mason finally cut his first tooth!  We weren't sure if he was sick or teething, because he's always slobbery and gums everything within reach.  I was glad it was a tooth and not an ear infection.  It's still too small to get in a picture, but it's pretty cute. Mason's hair is finally long enough to stay down.  It actually has a tint of red in the sun.  I can also see his dimple more often now and I love his cute, little chin!

We all love our little, sweetie bug!  I especially love feeding him bottles and then cuddling with him afterward.  He likes to hold onto my hair and suck his fingers.  So sweet!

Playing "peek-a-boo!"

Mason is fascinated with heat vents and sucks on them every chance he gets.  Gross!!!

Still best buddies!  Mason LOVE, LOVES having Spencer home all day now!

Last Day of 1st Grade!

Spencer's last day of 1st grade was on June 11th.  He has a big smile in this picture, but he was really kind of sad it was over.  Spencer LOVES school and would prefer to go year-round instead of have a long summer break.  I hope he always keeps that attitude!

He had a great year with Mrs. Ayers and lots of old and new friends in his class.  Spencer doesn't have any best friends; he's just friends with everyone.  He loved eating lunch at school and having "specials" (computer lab, library, music & PE) this year.  Most of the 1st grade thematic units involve animals.  I think Spencer's favorites were penguins and farms. 

I would have liked to see him challenged more in math, but he still grew in that area as well as in reading.  He probably made the most progress in writing and wrote several little reports this year.  There was nothing the least bit negative on his report card and we're proud of how hard Spencer works in school.  He is just an all-around good kid!!

This was the first day of 1st grade for comparison.   Spencer has grown-up a lot this year.  Very bittersweet for me.

This is how Mason feels about having a playmate all summer long!

My Birthday!

I turned 33 years old last week.  At least 33 is a pretty unassuming number.  Nothing special happens when you turn 33 and that's good.  It was a lot less traumatic than the year I turned 30.

I spent the morning hanging out with this cutie patootie.  I am seriously blessed.

It was a Tuesday, but Alan took the day off work from Farmer's just for me!   He did some bus driver training in the morning, but was then home all afternoon to do whatever I wanted.  I chose to go shopping with some of my birthday money.  Alan and Mason came to Kohls with me.  Mason loved the cart ride, but it wasn't a very successful shopping trip.  So, I dropped Alan and Mason off at home for nap time and headed to the mall by myself.  I was slightly more successful there. 

I decided I wanted to have a picnic at a splash park for dinner.  We picked up Jimmy Johns (my favorite sandwiches and what Alan and I ate on our very first official date!) and headed to a little park in downtown Sherwood.   It turned out that several other moms from our ward were there too.  One of them and her daughters even sang a rousing rendition of, "This Month is Such a Special One," to me right there in the park!

 Spencer LOVED the dollar store water squirter we bought a few months ago!  It was Mason's first time playing in the water like this and he loved it too.  This park is good for babies and I'm sure we'll be going back often this summer.  I love watching the boys play.  Poor Alan is terribly allergic to grass in the summer and was slightly miserable.  :(

We didn't stay too long because Alan had Scouts that night and Mason got fussy, but it was still a perfect birthday activity for me.  I'll take a picnic in a park on a warm evening over a fancy restaurant any day!

All of my friends and family made it a great day.  I got tons of phone calls, texts, and facebook messages all day.  Both of my new visiting teachers brought treats over.  Alan spoiled me and made me feel special all day.  Spencer left a surprise card on my pillow for me to find after he left for school.  I am so lucky to have so much love in my life!!

12 Years?!

It's a little hard for me to believe that 12 years have already passed since Alan and I got married.  But, it has and we celebrated our anniversary last Friday.  Alan took the day off work and Debbie was kind enough to take the boys for a whole day.  I had never been away from Mason for more than 3-4 hours so I was a little nervous about how he would do, but he was great.  Both of our treasures were in good hands. 

It's a good thing we got married at the end of May when the weather is nice because we usually do something outdoors.  I can't remember an anniversary with bad weather.  This year, we went to the temple and then did the 4T hike in Portland.  I had always wanted to try that hike and this was the perfect opportunity.  The 4T's are: trail, tram, trolley, and train.  We started at the zoo and made a big loop in that order.  I thought there would be more hiking involved, but after the first trail, we were just riding the rest of the time. 

View of Portland from Council Crest Park.

One of the straps on the trusty backpack Alan got from NuSkin when he worked there right after we got married broke on the hike.  The pack is still functional though and I don't think he plans to part with it anytime soon.  :)

That is all of the pictures we took.  It was a warm, muggy day and we got pretty sweaty.  It was a fun hike to do once, but I don't need to do it again.  I'm really not a big fan of public transit.  More accurately, I'm not a big fan of the strange people and smells on public transit.  

We wiped the dust and sweat off with baby wipes and then ended our day with dinner at Chevy's.  My favorite fish tacos were disappointing, but no matter, it was just great to spend a day with Alan.  His schedule doesn't allow us to go out very often and I really miss having one-on-one time to connect with him. 

It has been a wonderful, unexpected, beautiful, happy, stretching, learning, and growing 12 years.  I wouldn't trade Alan or the experiences we've had together for anything.  I love you honey!

Sherwood Intersquad Track Meet

I thought we were all finished with Spencer's track meets, but that's because I didn't know what this one was.  When we found out it was a meet for just the Sherwood team AND their families, we were all excited to go.  Luckily, it was on a morning without an Uberthons race for Alan so he got to come. We recruited Darwin for our relay team so he and Debbie were there too.  Thankfully, Debbie took care of Mason the whole time.  She even got him to take a nap out there.  Impressive!

Spencer started us off with the 100 and the Turbo Jav.

 It takes a pretty awesome grandpa to give the turbo jav a try with the kids!

Alan ran a bunch of races.  I don't know which one this was.  He is fast and was pretty tired by the end of the meet.  :)  We both ran the mile.  I don't think I've ever run a mile race competitively before.  It was HARD.  I wasn't warmed up enough and wound up finishing in 7:10.  I go faster than that after I've run a few miles.  Alan's time was under 6:00.

Mason loves Grandma!

Getting ready for the relay.  It was a small meet, but there was still plenty of waiting around for our events.

The 4x400 relay was definitely the most anticipated and fun event of the meet.  Most of the teams were made up of families competing together.  Darwin was a good sport to complete our team.  For those like myself who don't know much about track, each member ran a whole lap around the track before passing the baton.  I got to be first and it was way harder than I expected to keep up my speed for a whole lap, especially after already racing a mile.

 

Our team certainly wasn't the fastest, but we had a great time being on a team together.  Such a great family bonding activity!  I hope Spencer wants to track again next spring so we can do it again!

Stuck

It's funny to me that even though Mason and Spencer don't share any genes, their gross motor skills developed similarly, at least so far.  Spencer was a roller and Mason is too.  He doesn't have much interest in crawling yet, but is getting better and better at rolling.  Since Mason doesn't know how to move forward, he gets stuck pretty often.  I remember doing a post with pictures of funny places Spencer got stuck too.  There have been many more, but these are the few I've taken pictures of.

Curtains!

Under Spencer's bed:

Under Alan's and my bed:

There's a whole new world to explore now!