Mason's 1st Birthday

The wonderful cake my mom made. Thanks mom!














I still can't believe that it's been a year since Mason was born. It has been an exciting and fun year! He had such a fun birthday party. He loves Mickey Mouse so I thought it would be cute to do a Baby Mickey party. My mom made the cutest cake and cupcakes, she is sooo talented! We were able to have our immediate family come and celebrate with us. Mason just loves having his little cousins around so it was fun to watch him inter-act with everyone. We had pizza, breadsticks and salad for dinner and then we opened presents. He got some great stuff: 2 dogs, movies, money, leap frog barn, ABC bus, an ABC gospel book, a beautiful painting of Christ to go in his room, clothes and pj's, and a little red sportscar. Thanks everyone for the gifts.

Mason does not like to touch food if it gets him sticky or his hands dirty (imagine where he got that from?) so I had convinced myself that he wouldn't dig into his piece of cake. Boy was I wrong, he loved playing in it, eating it and throwing it all over the kitchen. He realized that everyone was laughing at him so he started laughing each time he would eat the cake and start to throw it, it was the cutest thing. He was quite a little ham for everyone. He had such an exciting time at the party that he slept all through the night and took a four hour nap the next day. Good stuff!

At his doctor's check-up he is now in the 50% for his weight and off the chart for his height. Dr Fennell said he will be tall and lean, just like his daddy.

Mason is such a cute little boy. He is funny and sweet and full of energy. He is running all over the place, he is completely eating table foods now, he is off formula and he keeps us busy and entertained! We love him so much and feel so lucky to be his parents. We can't wait to see how the next year goes. Happy Birthday sweet boy!

We are still alive....

Mason loves donuts, especially this GIANT one!

Playing in daddy's snow gear bag

This was the first time he fell asleep eating, so cute~

Playing with cousin Audri

Audri's darling birthday cake that grandma made

My birthday


Aunt Aimee's birthday


I haven't blogged for a while, we've been having some serious issues with our computer and it would take about 5 minutes to upload one picture, needless to say I wasn't patient enough to do that. We have had a busy few months. I celebrated my birthday in January. All my siblings except Cristy were here with me, which was the best way for me to celebrate. We all went to Texas Roadhouse and thanks to my wonderful husband I had to ride the bull.

In February we celebrated my little niece Audri's first birthday and Aimee's birthday. It was fun to have everyone come up again for that. Even better is that Dusty and Mandie moved up north to Saratoga Springs. We are excited to be closer to them and hope that we will get together often now that we are all living up north (minus Cristy.... ps, if you are reading this- maybe you should move back from Boston so you can hang out with us again!)

Mason has had a rough couple of months. He had Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. It was so sad, he had sores in the back of his throat and wouldn't even swallow his own saliva. He was running high fevers and wouldn't eat for about 4 days. Now he is cutting one of his incissors and so he's a little cranky with the runny nose, drooling and not sleeping. I'll be so glad when he gets all his teeth in and we don't have to keep doing this!

Mason and I were able to go down to my mom's for a few days. I was able to run down to St George one day and see some friends there. I wished the weather would have been a little nicer, I am really getting tired of winter and can't wait for Spring and Summer. I actually left Mason with my mom- which was the first time I've left him for longer than 5 or 6 hours. Surprisingly, we both survived! I don't know that Mason really cared as much as I did, but it was probably good for both of us. Next week is his birthday, we can't wait!

10 Months Old

Mason loves his mommy!

He loves his daddy too!

Taking a ride on Aunt Aimee's luggage

Going sledding for the first time

Cousin's Kamri and Whitley

Yes, he's licking the snow. He loved it!




He loves his new binki (thanks to cousin Audri)

He get's the whole thing in his mouth. It's both scary and hilarious!


Helping daddy level the new washer and dryer

The crazy things Brandon does to entertain Mason


I seriously can't believe how fast this year is going by. Mason is 10 months old now and is so much fun. He is wild and energetic and can't sit still for a second, but we are loving watching him explore everything. Uncle Ryan, Grandpa Brown, Kamri and Whitley invited us to go sledding last weekend with them. We weren't sure how Mason would like it, but we thought it would be a fun little outing. He loved playing in the snow and crawling all over the place. He kept putting his face in the snow and sticking his tongue out to get a quick taste. Brandon took him down the hill a few times and then I decided to give it a shot. He would usually cry when we would sit down, but at the end of the ride he had decided that he loved it. We had a great time and can't wait to take him again.

He weighs 20 pounds now and is 30 inches long and is advanced in almost everything for his age. He is so close to walking. He will take 4 or 5 steps by himself and then looks at us like "what am I doing?" and then he gently sits himself back down. I'm sure it won't be very much longer before he has it all figured out. Part of me wants to stop the whole process since I know I will never be able to keep up with him once he is walking.

He is still the worst sleeper! Some nights we are up 5 or 6 times and usually for at least an hour stretch. He never sleeps past 6:30 and wakes up excited and ready to go for the day. I am reading a book that Reagan recommended and hoping that this lady knows what she is talking about so I can get him trained to sleep through the night.... wish me luck, I'm exhausted!!!

He loves being wherever Brandon and I are. Somedays I feel like it would be easier to strap him onto my leg and save us both the hassle of him crying anytime I take a step away from him, I've been assured by everyone to enjoy it because before too long he will be too big to want to spend time with me. (I try to remind myself of that when I get a little impatient since I can't get anything done during the days)

He is quickly getting over the whole baby food stage. He would much rather eat what is on our plates. He loves ice cream, my fruit smoothies (gotta love weight watchers), sweet potatoes, bread, pasta, and all of the sudden peas.

Our house has totally been taken over with all of his toys. Somedays I sit there and look at everything and laugh to myself that I'm actually okay that my house looks the way it does. Not that it's dirty, but there is one whole wall in our family room that has toys stretched acrossed it. He loves playing with them, and acts like they are new to him each time he sees them. He get's so excited and waves his arms up and down when he plays. He LOVES cars, he will push them all over the house and has already figured out how to make the sounds like they are driving.

He is so cute and has the funniest little personality. We love him so much and are grateful each day for the blessing he is in our lives!

Christmas

Not quite sure about Santa Clause








Exhausted at the end of the day


We had such a fun Christmas this year with Mason. Although, he wasn't old enough to really get what was going on it was much funner than Brandon and I just sitting there looking at each other. It was our turn to be with Brandon's family this year. Each year we have a family Christmas party with the Seamon's family. Santa Clause comes and gives all the kids an early present. Mason sat on Santa's lap a lot longer than I thought he would, he gave him a good stare down and then realized that he didn't want to be on his lap anymore. He was a good sport. We had a good time seeing everyone!
Christmas Eve day we went up to grandma and grandpa Brown's and spent a few hours there, opened all the presents they got for Mason and had lunch. For Christmas Eve we had Brent, Cindy and Brody over for dinner. Christmas morning Mason was excited to have all the new toys at our house. We got him this racecar track that spins the cars around and flips them out. He loves it and can get it to start by himself, but after he starts it he just wants to try to get in there to stop it. I'm sure Fisher Price tested the toys with actual babies and keep thinking that it won't break....

After we opened our presents we went over to Brent and Cindy's for breakfast, it was yummy and fun to hang out with everyone. Mason loves being with his cousins and so he was in heaven playing with Kamri and Whitley all day.

Between all his grandparents he was spoiled rotten! We were amazed at all the stuff he got and we love and appreciate the generosity. We can't wait til next year when he will be older and know a little more about what is going on.

Our little Santa Claus

He loves to pull the decorations off... TROUBLE!



Making Frosty & Santa out of bread dough with the kids


He actually got himself stuck in here....

My sister Cristy made me feel guilty for not sending out Christmas cards with a picture of Mason on it, so I decided today that I would just take a few snapshots of him by our tree. He wasn't impressed with the Santa hat, but he was a pretty good sport and I think they turned out cute.
We got our Christmas trees put up last week and I put out what decorations I had that wouldn't break. For the first few days he didn't even go near the big tree, I was so excited to think that I could keep the bottom fully decorated but that was wishful thinking. Now he won't leave the decorations alone, I took some of them off the very bottom, but I'll admit I'm a little vain and don't want to have an ugly looking tree. Check back after Christmas and that might change!
We were able to go down to my mom's house for Thanksgiving this year. Mason and I spent about 10 days down there. We had some of my nieces and nephews staying there for a few days so I decided to be creative with them one afternoon and we made a turkey, santa claus and snowman with my mom's yummy bread dough. We had learned to make the santa at young women's one night and so I got on Rhode's website and found some other cute ideas. It kept their interest for about 10 minutes and the rest of the time they just played with the dough.
We had 76 people at my mom's for dinner. I was running around like a crazy woman and didn't even think about taking pictures of everyone there. It was a lot of fun to see all my mom's family.