Mason is ONE!!!

Mason is one! Wow. I can't believe how fast this year has gone. He is such a fun, happy boy and such a blessing to our family. I can't imagine life without him. We had an early birthday for him on Sunday. He was a little cranky that night, but he did enjoy the cake. I feel like he has really grown up in the last couple weeks and is acting more like a toddler than a baby. He is walking. He started taking about 6 steps at a time on April 9 and is walking 75% of the time now. He is trying to communicate more, but he really doesn't have any words. He loves to throw balls. One day he just started doing it, we never taught him or really showed him how. Nate thinks he's going to be an athlete. It's so neat to see how innately different God created boys and girls. Alyssa never threw balls at this age ( Nate already thinks Mason is better at throwing than Alyssa), she would hug and feed her babies. It's so fun to have one of each.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MASON MAN!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!





Mason, how old are you?




Happy Birthday Boy!




He started walking about a week ago and he is getting better everyday!




This kid is a little daredevil.







We had a little family party. Mason wasn't quite himself that day, maybe he was a bit overwhelmed. I still think he did have fun though.




My attempt at creativity.
















He wasn't in to opening his presents. He liked them after they were opened.




He was not excited to sit in his highchair, but he didn't know what was coming....




He calmed down a bit once he saw the cake.




Eventually he decided to dig right in.




He wanted to feed everyone his cake.







I thought this would be the other way around. He's a strong little guy!

11 Months

Mason is less than 2 weeks from his birthday, so I had to get these pictures up before it was too late. I can't believe he is almost 1 ! This year has gone by too fast. He is a busy, busy boy. He started standing by himself for a few seconds at around 11 months and has taken 3-5 steps over the last couple weeks. He hasn't made a lot of progress recently, but I think he just needs a little confidence and he'll be off. He is learning a lot and communicating better. He points at things he likes all the time, he waves, he learned "so big", shakes his head 'no', he still doesn't say much, just an occasional mama or dada. It's so fun to see him learn.

I kinda thought we had the sleeping thing down, well at least better. But now we are struggling with him waking way too early. He was waking up at 6am for a while, which is early, but it's morning. But for a while now he has been waking up at 5ish and that is still night for me. We have tried earlier bedtimes and later bedtimes and nothing seems to consistently get him to sleep later. Someone just told me her 3 year old has gotten up at 5:15am since he was a baby. I really hope this isn't going to be his long term wake up time :( He's going to be staying with our parents overnight for the first time in a couple weeks when Nate and I are in Las Vegas.....I hope he sleeps good for them or they may never want to do it again.




11 months old 3/19/11






Mason is finally taking a sippy cup for most of his feedings! He is down to nursing in the morning and at night. Now Alyssa is so excited to feed him since she missed out on doing it the while first year.







Mason LOVES being outside. If he's ever fussy all we have to do it take him outside, no matter the weather and he calms right down. Although he gets upset again when we bring him in. I can't wait for summer when we can be outside all the time!

Our St. Patrick's Day

I tried to do some fun things today for St. Patty's day and almost everything was a flop. We tried to make rainbow pudding, pudding was too runny to color and put into a glass. Alyssa was upset. Tried a cute rainbow craft using Alysaa's hands, her hands were too small and it didn't work right. Alyssa actually wasn't too upset. Alyssa tried cuting out a shamrock, it was a little difficult for her but she did try. Alyssa was a little upset. We tried having a picnic, it was too windy. Alyssa was upset. We tried riding her bike. This almost always ends up with her upset, but she did ok today. We did have green eggs for breakfast and that was a hit. I'm just a little frustrated. I really tried to make this a fun day for Alyssa and I feel like all she did all day was cry about something. Granted things didn't go as I had planned them, but it makes me feel like it's not worth the effort. I know it is worth the effort, maybe she'll remember when we had green egss, tried to make rainbow pudding and our lunch blew away. And hopefully she won't remember getting disciplined for various things and spending half of the morning crying. It's so worth it, my kids are so worth my time and effort. If only I could get things to go a little more smoothly.





Mason pushed his toy all over the culd-e-sac. He is getting so close to walking!





Alyssa is doing much better with her bike. She has had little interest in riding a bike and now that this little trike is too small I'm debating if I should get her a 'big girl' bike. So I've been telling her that if she practices riding and gets really good at it, we will get her a big bike with training wheels.

Love her green skirt, perfect for today.




A cute picture of Mason from the ski trip since I realized there weren't any of him.

Angel Fire Ski Trip

We had an awesome time with our friends in Angel Fire, NM. It is hard to believe it had been 5 years since some of us had seen each other, but we seemed to pick up right where we left off. We had an intense game of Cities and Knights, played poker for old times sake and played many other games. We miss our game playing buddies! It was a little crazy with 5 kiddos running around but we found time for ourselves too. Nate and I got to ski 2 days and Alyssa even tried skiing for the first time! I think she did pretty well and actually really started enjoying it by the end of the first day. She really didn't understand the basics of the snowplow so she didn't have any control but Nate was a great teacher. Hopefully next year she will be blazing down the slopes on her own.




Pizza Alyssa! Make a pizza! We learned some lingo from listening to the ski school instructors...Pizza to snowplow and french fries to go straight. Kinda cute.




Yay Alyssa!




Nate spent a lot of time skiing backward so Alyssa could ski to him. Very exhausting I hear.




The Dad's teaching the kids to ski. David did awesome, he seemed to understand the snowplow a little better.







We did a little sledding, on the golf course, which I guess isn't allowed. So we got kicked off, but not before having some fun.




Mason loved the snow, but didn't really get any pictures of him playing in it.




One of the games of Cities and Knights. This must have been before it got really intense. Nate got a little fired up, but thats pretty much normal.

Daniel is the Lord of Catan



The guys



The Rio Grande Gorge







Alyssa and David. The were the best buddies.



The whole crew. Russ, Claire, Samuel and John(not pictured). Us. Rachel, Daniel and David. And Jonathan, Rachel's brother. It was so great to see you all! It will definitely not be another 5 years.

Friend Visit

I got to spend almost a week with my friends Emily and Lindsay. Our friend Erica also came down from Loveland for a couple days with her kids. We all knew each other in WA and did Bible studies together for years. I miss these girls so much and it was fun to visit. It was also a little bit hectic with so many people in our house and kids running around everywhere. There were days when we were all so busy taking care of our kids, that we would finally sit down at nap time and say, "Hey, how are you?" We did have a couple evenings out to catch up and talk and we stayed up way too late almost every night. So thankful for these girls and that they came to visit me. Also thankful for my husband for being such a good sport and babysitting for us! Next time I think we will plan a girl's weekend away, with out kids.



Visit to Focus






The babies were so funny. They would just sit and look at whoever was sitting next to them. We got a new minivan a few weeks ago and it was nice to be able to fit everyone in one car. We love our new car and all the space and conveniences. So I've become a minivan mom, but I really don't mind, it's just so practical.




I think it's funny they are making the same face.



Lindsay helped us so much with the kids!





We went to the zoo one day. Mason loved the giraffes.












Alyssa took this picture of us.




Alyssa and Caleb loved the otters. They would scream everytime they swam past them.




Little buddies




T.V time meant a little bit a of quiet. For a couple minutes anyway.




Lindsay, Alyssa and Rugby. Lindsay and Rugby are great buddies. Rug has probably spent at least 3 months at Lindsay's house over the years. She would watch him while we took long trips to CO during Nate's deployments and stuff. He misses playing with her dogs.




Sunday we leave for Angel Fire, NM for a ski trip with some friends we met during Nate's pilot training. We haven't seen some of them in 5 years! We were all kidless back then and now there are 5 kids between us. It will be another fun and crazy week! Can't wait!