Mason turns 6!

Apparently, Mason's birthday likes to be just as spontaneous as he is because his was the second year in a row that is landed during a very unusual time. Last year, Alan, Mason, and I celebrated in Phoenix due to an unexpected and unsuccessful adoption opportunity. This year, the entire state of Oregon (and much of the whole NW) was blanketed in awful smoke from wildfires on September 11th. We really couldn't be outside at all so we had to cancel our swimming plans and just make the best of an inside celebration. One of Mason's best qualities is his zest for life and it doesn't take much to make him happy. He didn't even get bummed about the situation and was still very happy with presents, his first playdate in six months!, a Happy Meal for lunch, a cool cake, and a Redbox movie after dinner. The playdate with his buddy K. really made his day and we were so grateful that K.'s parents were comfortable with it. (Everyone has different comfort levels with social activities right now and it can be a little tricky to navigate sometimes.)

Last sleep as a 5-year-old. He still sleeps in a toddler bed and doesn't mind it, but he really needs a twin. He is almost as long as the bed now!

Alan helped me with this fun surprise after Mason went to bed the night before his big day. I missed the picture of him opening the door in the morning, but he was so surprised and pleased. It was cute!

Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.

Presents!

This is what he bought with that birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa LeFevre:

Playing with K. He even brought Mason a present - an awesome remote-control car!

I made him a very similar cake two years ago, but he insisted he wanted it again. Fine with me since I had already practiced it. I thought it turned out cute and Mason LOVED it!

This boy brings so much life to our family. He has tons of energy and finds joy in so many simple things.

Current favorites: Legos (especially Ninjago and Star Wars), Pokemon, playing pretend, riding his bike or scooter, playing outside, getting dirty, wrestling with Alan, playing anything with Spencer, reading with Mom, bagels, biscuits, donuts, quesadillas, science experiments, snuggling in his shark blanket, sucking his fingers.

Not so favorites: playing by himself, sitting and listening to Zoom meetings, vegetables, cinnamon rolls, reading lessons.

After waking every morning, Mason drags two blankets, a big pillow, and at least one stuffed animal down the stairs. He loves to snuggle on the couch or the heat vent when it's cold for a few minutes before eating breakfast. 

Mason has the best imagination and comes up with the craziest plots for his Legos and other toys. He is always FULL of questions and keeps up a steady stream of them for most of day. He is funny and silly and generally a very happy kid.

With his social nature, coronavirus has been the hardest on Mason. Especially since he has the fewest opportunities to get out of the house. The rest of us can at least go running. Mason has been a lot more grumpy and started tantruming again at the beginning of the pandemic. He was just so frustrated with the situation and didn't know how to handle those emotions. Things are better that way now that he's adjusted to our new normal, but we still have rough days. I make a concerted effort to get him outside to play or at least go on a drive every day. It's essential to Mason's mental health. 

Mason was doing so well with his separation anxiety before the shut down in March. Now that he's been almost exclusively home with me for six months, he has regressed. He did well with his homeschool PE co-op at first, but now clings and cries when I try to leave. I'm working on educating myself about how to better deal with anxiety. My heart aches for Mason and all the kids who are missing out on important growth opportunities and milestones. 

Mason stretched out a little this year and is now in the 87% for height and the 90% for weight. He started losing teeth this year which is super fun and exciting for him.

Selfishly, I have to admit that I am a little glad that I didn't have to send Mason away to kindergarten this year. He is my best, little buddy and he helps me find wonder and joy in life. We love our Mason so much and thank Heavenly Father every day for the miracles that brought him to our family!

September

My tomatoes really took off towards the end of August. I planted them much closer together this year than I normally do. I don't know if that is what made the difference, but my harvest was great. I didn't have to buy any extras for canning. Sadly, my applesauce canning was cut short by a lack of canning lids this year. It was impossible to find anything but cheap, counterfeit lids this summer. Super frustrating for those of us who can every year. I was only able to can what I did because Mom had a large supply of lids and sent some to me. Hopefully I'll be able to stock up later in the winter. 

My favorite time of day during the summer was after lunch when I would read aloud to both Spencer and Mason (usually in the backyard). Because of their age gap, we hadn't read together like this before. It was so fun to share some classics and discover some new books with them. We read Artemis Fowl, Summer of the Monkeys, Where the Red Fern Grows, Stone Fox, and A Wrinkle in Time.

Another trip to the Temple fence on a Sunday when I just needed it. 

The City FINALLY opened our playgrounds after SEVEN MONTHS during the first week of September! Alan or I took the boys to three different parks in two days. We had missed them so much!

A thunderstorm blew in on the evening of Labor Day. High Winds knocked down lots of power lines and there were suddenly five or six wildfires burning out of control just in western Oregon. At least one whole town was lost in addition to many neighborhoods and isolated structures. I believe seven or eight people lost their lives. Some were burned in their cars when their tires melted as they tried to escape. It was horrific. 

The closest fire to us was about 15 miles away. We weren't in any danger, but the heavy smoke that rolled in from the fires kept us shut inside our homes for 10 days. The smoke was quite amazing and a little scary when it first blew in. Then it just turned eerie and gross. We had the worst air quality in the entire world for several days! We taped the edges of all of our windows with painter's tape and only used our back door to enter and exit when absolutely necessary. Those 10 days were hands-down the worst of the pandemic. It was awful to be stuck inside especially for Mason's birthday! :( The day it rained and finally started clearing up the smoke was a very happy day!

Someone got tired while waiting in the HUGE line to pay for his new dresser at IKEA.

The kid's building kits at Home Depot disappear very fast every month, but Alan knows someone who works there and asked them to save a kit for Mason. It was a fun project for these two!

We held our annual Back to School Feast on September 12th. The smoke prevented us from eating in the back yard like I prefer, but eating inside did simplify things. Alan and I introduced our theme for the year. This is a quote from our dear Prophet that I hope will comfort and encourage us as the pandemic drags on and on:

"Our Father knows that when we are surrounded by uncertainty and fear, what will help us the very most is to HEAR HIS SON. Because when we seek to hear - truly hear - His son, we will be guided to know what to do in any circumstance." -Russel M. Nelson

I gave the boys notebooks to record what they hear from Him, fun writing utensils, and stress balls to play with when school gets hard. 

We stuck with our favorite end of summer family meal: fresh tomato soup and homemade French bread. We had tons of leftover birthday cake so I got out of making a dessert this year.

This year is going to be so different that Spencer, Mason, and I all had some anxiety. We just didn't know what to expect at all. Alan gave us all blessings after dinner that helped calm my fears. I'm so grateful for the priesthood and for a living prophet who knows just what we need to get through this time.

How we entertain ourselves on a long, smoky Sunday afternoon. Haha!

Happy Gotcha Day to my favorite little boy! We forgot to take a picture of our traditional dinner of Papa Murphy's pizza and Alicia's homemade salsa. Even after six years, I am still in awe of the miraculous way Mason joined our family.

First day of school 2020! It was too smoky to take pictures on our front porch like we usually do so we did them inside and in bare feet! My heart aches for this cute kindergartner who doesn't get to have the same amazing kindergarten experience that Spencer had. We ultimately decided that about two hours of school directed by me would be much better for Mason than 5+ hours of Zoom school each day. That sounded like torture for both of us.

I spent August researching homeschool options and curricula and am incredibly grateful for my two long-time homeschool momma friends. They were both inundated with questions by other moms in my same position and went to great lengths to share what they know. Thank you Christina and Kristine! Your perspectives and knowledge helped so much!

I eventually decided to use Jenny Philips' homeschool curriculum called The Good and The Beautiful for both language arts and math. (Those are the only really necessary subjects for kinder. Kindergarten isn't even technically required by law in Oregon!) The math was out of stock for the first month of school though so I just had to wing it. I have never been more grateful for my background in education!! It gave me the desire and confidence to even try this. Even though I had The Good and Beautiful language arts program on time, I decided to have Mason continue the reading program we had started over the summer: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. He was doing well with it and he hadn't mastered every letter name and sound which was a prerequisite to The Good and Beautiful.

Mason and I do school from 9:30-11:20 each day. That gives me time to still work out and get myself ready in the morning (something necessary for my sanity!). He gets to help choose the exact order of the schedule each day. We always do math, reading, and recess (snack and playing what ever Mason wants for 20 minutes). Then we do a 5-minute piano lesson, science, art, or cooking. I was a nervous that we would have a lot of power struggles, but Mason has surprised me with his willingness and excitement to learn. The pennies he can earn for following the rules (Listen, Try your best, Have fun!) definitely help. He loves buying small toys from my little "store" with the pennies he has earned every Friday. Mostly, I think Mason just loves having two hours of one-on-one time with me every day. It fills his bucket and is great bonding time for both of us.

We let Spencer help decide if he would do homeschool with Mason or distance learning through the school district. He chose distance learning in hopes that he would get to go back at some point during the year. I am not very hopeful that that will happen anymore, but Spencer is still doing very well in his classes. He is in school from 8:30-2:20 every day. We debated about the best location for Spencer to work and finally decided that his bedroom was the best learning environment. He leaves a baby gate in his open door to keep a pesky little brother out. ;) This school year is very different from the spring when all of his teachers just posted assignments and he could complete them whenever he wanted. Now, Spencer has 7 scheduled zoom classes every day and attendance is taken during each one. So far, most classes have been almost totally live instruction with very little independent work time. It's the opposite of spring and is too much. We're hoping the district will find a better balance as the year goes on.  

Even though Spencer gets to see some of his friends during Zoom classes, he doesn't get to interact with them much and it's a poor substitute for the social connections made in regular school. That is the biggest loss during all of this for both boys. As restrictions lifted a little in August, we were able to have some playdates and I was able to set up some social groups for both boys. Spencer gets together with a few friends on Wednesdays and Fridays after school. They mostly play board games. I joined a homeschool PE co-op with Mason. We meet at a park or a school for an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays. The weather was fabulous all the way through October this year and playing outside with other kids was SO good for Mason. I really have to work and spend a lot of time making these groups happen, but it is critical to our social and emotional health right now!

These are the sunflowers we planted at the Kindergarten Open House the week before the country shut down in March. They were supposed to be fully grown when it was time for kindergarten to start. They grew huge and beautiful and then unexpectedly died. 

Shirts are required for school, but not during lunch. Haha!

Smoky day exercise: running stairs to fun music.

His first prize from the school store!

Another tooth fell out! I am SO hoping he looses the other top tooth soon so he'll have a big gap. It is the cutest!

A friend from our ward started a private cross country group and invited Spencer to join and Alan to time the races. This was a huge blessing since all other youth sports for Spencer were cancelled and the extra income for Alan was nice. They only invited about 20 kids to join the group and did a good job social distancing and wearing masks when they weren't running. They practiced at a park twice a week and had eight meets at different venues throughout September, October, and November. This was Spencer's first time running cross country and he really liked it. Physical activity is so important to him and he gets better and better at running. Mason did not love going to the races so I kept him home for some of them.

Alan and I celebrated the 18th anniversary of our 1st date on September 19th. We took Jimmy Johns to George Rogers Park, went on a nice walk in the falling leaves, and got ice cream from Salt 'n Straw (something I've been wanting to do for year!). 

Hooray for playgrounds once the smoke was gone!

A boy and a bug

We split up and took the boys on kid dates one evening. Alan and Mason got milkshakes from Burgerville and visited Stella Olsen Park (Mason's favorite). Spencer and I got cookies from Crumbl Cookie and then returned home to play games. We all had fun. It's so good to connect with them individually.