Birthday Parties

OWEN IS 6!!!

OWEN AND JAX

PIZZA BEFORE RAYS SPLASH PLANET!!

COOPERS 1ST

CHEESE

KARIS, MASON and BEN

Let me just say I love birthday parties. I love going to them, planning them, and I love little kid birthday parties the most! So far we've had 3 summer birthday parties. Little Nigles 3rd, which I dont have any pictures of :( , Owens 6th, and Coopers 1st. They have all been different and all fun too! Mason loves parties, we've been making cards so now if I mention someones birthday he wants to know if its time to make a card. And he also knows now that birthday parties equal him getting to get some cake. I discovered the other night when we were at my parents house that I dont make cakes for us here at the house EVER...my mom had made a cake for family night and when she brought it out Mason asked whos birthday it was and if they could just go ahead and put a candle in it and asked if we could just sing the birthday song for him! SO...we all joined in, watched the little candle burn and Mason smiled as we sung, "Happy Birthday Dear Mason"! Here are some Pics of the birthday parties!

COW DAY

First of all I love Chick Fila. Chris and I have already decided that if Mason needs to get a "teenager job" at fast food we want it to be Chick Fila...they play Christian music all the time, they are closed on Sundays and they have lots of great family things...like today's event...Dress up like a Cow and get free food...you know I'll do anything to get something for free! Come to find out so will a lot of my friends, I even got a call from Kristel telling me that she was taking her kids to theirs in KY...Truth is I was so excited to finally have a kid at Halloween so I could have an excuse to dress up! ...Today, I told Mason that we were going to make some cow masks and dress up like cows and meet some of his friends for lunch at chick fila and he said "moo" while walking around on his tip toes! Don't know how proud my dad would have been of me as far as my creativity level with this project went but I was reverting to the preschool days of simple costume. So I just googled "preschool cow mask" and the first one I clicked on had a printable mask! (I love the Internet...I really don't know what I would do without it!) I printed 2 and we colored some black spots on them, taped on some Popsicle sticks and we both wore white shirts and dark shorts and taped some black spots on our shirts...Wala...Instantly we were cows! It was fun, to see everyone all decked out in their black and white and Mason even won the golden cow in his kids meal prize so now we can go back another day for a free ice cream! The cow mascot was there and Mason LOVED giving it hugs and high fives! How much of his kids meal did he eat? One bite of one of his chicken nuggets and 3 fries. He was too excited about all of the cows (people dressed like cows and also his cow prize and stuffed animal cow) balloons, friends and the playground...but he ate it all once we got in the car! I Don't know how much money Chick Fila gave away today but they gave me more than just a free meal...a fun memory with my little boy who wanted to search through his books at nap time to find any with pictures of cows! Now I'm wondering if he thinks nuggets come from cows??

4th of July Camping Weekend

Aunt Jackie and Uncle Jimmy have a campsite at Raccoon Holler and they invited us and mom and dad up for the weekend...I was so excited because I've really been wanting to take Mason camping. I had no idea his favorite part would be playing in their golf cart!
We set up the tent and Mason thought it was soo much fun! We had an air mattress for us and he has a little blow up ready bed too! He was very excited about sleeping in the tent!

Ahhh...its actually cool here in July!

One of my favorite parts about camping is the eating! We had some yummy food...thanks to Jackie and Jimmy! I think it tasted even better since I didn't have to cook it!

Mom and Jackie cooking inside the camper...come on is this really camping??

Masons favorite pass time...taking trips to see all of his family, taking trips to Target, the pool, KY and GA

He drove Papa around on pretend trips too!

Getting ready for bed in the tent!

SOO EXCITED about his flashlight!

It took him forever to get his shoes off because he didn't want to put his flashlight down!

The fireworks got a little loud for Mason so he wanted Chris to cover his ears

He liked them but was a little nervous ..."they are really Youd Mommy"

He would clap thinking they were over and more would start and he'd say, "make it stop mommy, its too Youd, cover my ears daddy"
The fireworks were great, they were over the little pond and they lasted a really long time and Mason was right they were loud...his little brother inside was even jumping at the loud noise!

I love fireworks!

Mason Cheeezzzin with Papa...I think Mason went up and down this slide like 45 times!

YUMMY SMORES!

Roasting some Marshmallows

Sitting with Daddy is so much fun!

Maybe my next son will look something like me??

Mason enjoyed this slide when Chris went with him...it was an old school metal slide that was SUPER FAST!

Daddy kept him safe!

Nervous trying it alone!

Uncle Jimmy let Mason "drive" And here is a good belly shot of me at 21 weeks pregnant!

Yummy candy from the golf cart parade!

Mason would wave that little flag as hard as he could

They would throw candy...

and he'd wave it some more...I think he thought if he stopped waving they'd stop coming and throwing candy.

Mason was so nice to share candy with all of us!

HAVE TO MENTION THE FIRST PART OF OUR TRIP!!!!!

Might be the hardest I have laughed in a while!

Its July 4th and we are on our way to Raccoon Holler campground to meet Jackie and Jimmy for a camping trip. This first picture is our first destination after our car ride of crazy long map quest directions and mom and dads van needing new breaks. Dad pulls into a service station to look up some numbers of places that may be open that we can go to to get new breaks and it just so happens that a man standing outside knows how to put on breaks and he only lives 15 mins away so mom and dad decide its fate and off we go to this mans house!...

At the bottom of the hill on his property is an old shop where the man explains he will need cash because he has no checking account to cash a check. Dad, Mason and Chris accompany the man as he changes the breaks on the van...

Meanwhile mom and I sit on a rusty glider and hold the mans 11 month old little girl while he fixes the van...Never would I allow a complete stranger to babysit my child but maybe this is how things work in Raccoon Holler??

She was a sweet little girl but I just couldn't stop laughing at the fact that I am on vacation, at a junk yard/house sitting on a rusty swing, holding a strangers kid while the breaks are fixed on mom and dads van...fun times!

Knights Pictures

Getting all three boys to be still long enough to take a picture was very hard!

Mason and Ben were cheering so loud to try to get the free pizza!

Landon and Ben

Told you he was sweaty!

Good Buddies!

What a Fun Night

Knights Baseball Game

Just got in from a Knights Baseball game. This was the first, of I'm sure many more events like this in my future with 2 boys! I told Mason when daddy came home we were going to go pick up his friend Ben and meet his other friend Landon at the baseball game and Mason made some muscle arms and in a rough voice said..."Cause we are Boys, right Mommy?"...I really don't know who told him that going to baseball games was a "boy" thing to do but none the less he had a blast! Ben started talking about the dinosaur mascot right away and that was their favorite part, when the crowd would clap they would join in but for the most part the boys just liked being with each other, eating snacks, popcorn and ice cream! I also discovered tonight that Mason inherited Chris' sweating...by the time we made it to our seats Masons hair looked like we had just run through a sprinkler! But even though he was dripping with sweat he LOVED it! I'll have to up load some pictures tomorrow. My favorite part was on the way home we asked the boys what their favorite part about the baseball game was and Ben said the Dinosaurs and Mason said his favorite part was his friends! How cute is that? Now WAY past Masons bed time we are all showered, Masons trying to fall asleep and I'm just thinking about how much fun having a little boy is! I dont think I really watched much of the game but I had so much fun watching him laugh, jump, and even sweat! This was a great night, a hot night, but a great night!

7 months

Has it really been 7 months since the last blog??? Woah...when Lisa talked me into this whole blog thing I really thought this is what would happen...I'd blog for a little while then quit. Well, time to try it out again...and after reading the last post I entered I wish I would have stuck with it if for no other reason than to capture or remember some of the cute things Mason says. He's now 2 1/2 and hes growing up soo fast! Some of my favorite things he says right now are:

I can do it all by self, I want to use my secial satchua (special spatula), Did you see dat, daddys home daddys home! I love his cheese face when its time to smile for the camera, although at times it can be annoying because when he makes that face he really dosent look like himself at all! A couple of weeks ago he took off swimming "all by self" with his little learn to swim vest on, he is soo proud of himself...now if I could only get him to continually go potty he'd really have something to be proud of!

Last night we went to visit Brian and Patsy and Ben and their new little girl Sarah. Mason was so precious wanting to pray for Sarah before bed and he even told his teachers at the Y all about baby Sarah and her tiny toes and fingers. Hes so sweet and such a good little boy!

Alot has changed for our family too in the past 7 months! For starters after a journey of trying to conceive and being told there was really only about a 10% chance that I could get pregnant, and continuing to hope in the Lord...I'm now almost 20 weeks pregnant, feeling the baby move around and realizing that I am already bigger with this pregnancy! Mason is very excited about his new brother coming Nov 13. He says, we will have 3 boys! (meaning himself, daddy and his brother) We havent really had any luck settling on a name...its such a tough decision...but I guess we have a little time before we have to choose.

Okay, enough for this blog session, I need to ease my way back in! But I really do want to keep up with it...I mean I look at the picture posted here and realize that Mason is really growing up and I know one day I'm just going to wish I could go back to that moment when he wrapped his arms around my neck to give me a big hug!

"Naateetee Set and Sistor"

I went ahead and decorated for Christmas...I know its early but we are going to KY for Thanksgiving and when we come back I'm having a little birthday Christmas Caroling party for Mason so I wanted to go ahead and get all of the decorations up! PLUS, I really love Christmas decorations I know its out of the norm and Chris really isnt fond of clutter and thats really all that Christmas decorations are...lots of red and green shiny clutter! Maybe thats why I like it so much my one time a year I'm allowed some clutter! :) So far Mason is doing really well with the tree he knows hes only supposed to touch the ornaments with one finger and aside from the occasional burst of "OOOOHHH I just gotta push this one",we havent broken any yet!

Part of the Christmas decorations is a "Little People Nativity Set", Chris' parents got it for Mason for his 1st Christmas, hard to believe that this is his 3rd. Anyway, Mason LOVES playing with it he makes the "Amils" (animals) eat food and give rides to the "Ymen" (wisemen) who are bringing "pesents" to baby Jesus. The cutest part is how he rocks the little plastic baby Jesus sitting on the hay and puts Mary and Joseph right beside him!...his Favorite part is pushing the Angel down so he can hear the music and make all of the little people dance...its very cute!

He really started getting into make believe playing with a little toy lion that he got as a gift when I found out I was having a boy...hes always loved that little lion. He has moved on from Lion and now he is loving a little handmade doll I brought home from my moms house that my grandmother made. He saw the doll laying on the floor when he woke up from nap, I was planning on putting it in the attic...one of those things you just wanna keep, but he saw it and said "AWWW, yook mommy Baby sistor"...I just started laughing...he came up with that all on his own! He took his own blanket and wrapped her up and puts her to "seep" and says "shes so cute, and pecious"...so for now I think its okay for him to be fond of a doll...we are leaving sister here if we leave the house but Mason makes sure she is either asleep or proped up near his toys and when he walks in the door he runs to check to see if shes "waked up" or to see if she needs to go back to "seep" I figure next week he'll have forgotten all about "sistor" just like little mister lion whos just sitting in the box with all of his other stuffed animals.