A Look Back....

Our handsome little man was born on 9/28/2006 at 10:34 am. He was 8pounds 8ounces and 22 inches long!
The poor baby was SO colicky due to a horrible case of acid reflux. Little did we know that it would land him in the hospital with a feeding tube when he was 6 months old :( He struggled with a food aversion until he was over 1 year old. Looking back, it was only the grace of God that got us all through this very tough time.

Mason at 1 year old. Look at those chubby cheeks! He was much happier once he could get around and see the world. He is still SUPER nosey today!!

At 2 years old he was talking in full sentences! At his 2 year check up his pediatrician said he had a 3 year old vocabulary. Such a smart little guy. His food aversion at this point was a thing of the past!!! Praise God!!

And now...our BIG 3 year old!! So much has changed in the past year! He amazes me each and every day with the things he says, does and understands.
We had so much fun today! He came down the stairs this morning and immediately spotted his present sitting on the kitchen table. I have never seen him come down the stairs that quickly before (Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year). He started tearing into it and found a bag full of new trains!! He was so excited. The bad news...he could have cared less about breakfast, but eventually he made his way into his chair and crowned himself with his birthday hat. Thankfully he was excited about the muffin (or maybe just the candle) and ate in record timing so that he could get back to playing with his new toys again.

Grandma Char came over to watch Kiki in the afternoon so that we could go out for a special birthday lunch at McDonalds just him and I which included ice cream and all :)

Our neighbors Sarah with her daughter Kaydence and Carrie with her son Noah came by in the afternoon and evening to wish him a happy birthday and shower him with fun gifts.

Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes, phone calls, and presents. It is so hard to believe that he is already 3 years old! He has been such a blessing to our family. I don't know what we would do without him.

Stay tuned for more pictures after we have our family party on Saturday (Thomas the Tank Engine-themed of course)!

Preschool Birthday Party!!!

Mason celebrated his birthday at school last Thursday (a few days early). I must say I was excited to make him brownie bites with frosting to send to preschool and he was SUPER excited to take them and share them with his "new friends". He got to parade around with this birthday hat the whole 2 hours which he thought was really special! I had to laugh because I remember these birthday hats from when I was in elementary school and I never wanted to wear mine, I didn't want it to mess up my hair :)

I'm not sure if you can tell, but Mason is still LOVING school! I do love seeing his huge smile every morning! He cracks me up!

His first ever school project was a tambourine (thankfully it is a quiet one as it only has beans inside of it). In honor of his birthday he also got to bring home the "Share Bag" in which he gets to pick something from home to put in it. We close it up and he has to help me write down three clues for his classmates to guess what is in the bag. (Thanks to aunt Stacy sharing with us her feelings on how many germs are on that bag, we have kept it in the laundry room since Thursday!)

Tomorrow is Mason's actual birthday and even though we are not having our family party until Saturday I think he will be excited when he sees his present on his breakfast chair in the morning :) I cant believe my little boy is turning 3 already!!

A Bitter-Sweet Pediatric Visit

I took Kailee to her 4 month check up today. She now weighs 13lb 8oz and is 24 3/4 in long. She is growing like a very cute weed!! She also had to get 3 shots so my poor baby girl has been crabby the rest of the day :(

While we were there, I asked our pediatrician about Mason and the whole potty training situation. While he usually does pretty good with the pee situation, he had A LOT of accidents last week and did not even care. Also after 4 months of potty training he will only go into the bathroom when he is sent, he has yet to tell me he has to go. So, her suggestion was to give up for a week or two and do NOTHING! After talking with Andy and a couple girlfriends I decided to give it a shot since Mason is moving in the wrong direction anyhow. So for the rest of the day today I did not send him into the bathroom to go and sure enough he did not go himself :( needless to say his pull-up was SOAKED by the time we changed him and he did not care! NOT GOOD! So I am completely frustrated and obviously hoping and praying that this 1-2 weeks of a potty training hiatus will do the trick. He is technically supposed to be trained to go to school, but the secretary said as long as he is in a pull-up and doesn't have a major accident it should be fine.

I love Mason dearly and I keep reminding myself that his strong-willed personality will be great one day, but for now it is giving me a huge headache!!

Our Thursday

I dropped Mason off for his 2nd day of preschool. He jumped right in and started playing with all of the toys. He did ask where I was going, but I just explained to him that he was going to stay with his friends today to play and learn and that I would be back to get him. He just responded "oh, OK mom". I am so thankful that he responds well to new situations!

digging in to NEW toys!
Mason with his name tag on...SO cute. Their mascot this year is DORA!


Today also marks 4 months since Kailee was born! I can't believe how much faster time goes by with the second baby! I am SO thankful that she is such a good girl! She is a great eater and an awesome sleeper! Praise God!! What a happy girl!
SOOO BIG already! She loves sitting up so she can see all of the action! She also likes grabbing for toys, which is why I had to take numerous pictures before one turned out, she kept knocking over the blocks :)

Preschoool :)

Tuesday was Mason's first ever day of school! It was a bit hard to get him out of the house but only because he was being a slow-poke not because he did not want to go. Once we got to the church he jumped out of the car and ran into the building, I think he was a bit excited! We were first greeted by the secretary Chris who is super sweet and then by Mrs. Lach, his new preschool teacher! Our first project was to pick out a sticker that will be used to identify all of his belongings such as his cubby, coat hook, projects, etc for the year. He picked...ELMO! We then handed in all of his paperwork and quickly went to work on a puzzle! We met some new friends and I was very encouraged as I saw him sharing nicely (without having to be reminded)! What a fun first day of preschool!

puzzle time

Ready for school :)
a picture with mom!
so cool with his Thomas backpack!
and his favorite part of preschool is...
the donuts and chocolate milk :)

Tomorrow will be his second day and I wont be staying this time. I am just praying he does not have any accidents (PS-I still HATE potty training)!

Gearing Up!

This week we are gearing up for Preschool! (I am sure there will be a lot of pictures of a cute boy with a backpack on here Tuesday...so check back soon!) He says he is excited about going so hopefully that holds true! Tuesday is going to be more of an orientation/welcoming day so I get to stay with him. I don't know if they do this more for the parents or the kids but either way, I am excited to stay and see what his school days will be like. I will pack my Kleenex ;)

Today at church we held our community picnics where we gear up for the fall small group season to start. I'm excited to say that next Wednesday we will be opening up our home again to young families to study The Prodigal God. I am excited to see what this year holds for our group. Every year we talk about serving and it seems every one's schedules get too busy! So, this year we decided to kick off our season last Wednesday at Gleaners Food Bank in Howell. It was amazing to hear all of the stories that one of the head volunteers shared with us. Some sad, some inspiring, some exciting and of course a lot that were tear jerking! While it was amazing to hear that they used to serve 300 people per month and now they serve 3000, it was sad to think that SO many people need so much help now due to the economy and other circumstances. Thanks to the 11 total people we had serving, we helped to sort, stack, store and stock over 2800 pounds of food in just a short hour and a half. This really inspired me to want to organize a regular schedule for our small group to serve, whether it be at Gleaners or elsewhere!! Even with our busy schedules, that short hour and a half made a difference! So, that is my personal goal...to carve out the time to make a difference somewhere, somehow!

TOP: Kelly, Matt, Christine, Me,Becky, Andy, Matt.
BTM: Lisa, Rob, Brandon, Brian.

Myrtle Beach-Part 2

Our little fish! Mason LOVES swimming!! He started swimming all by himself when we were on vacation. It was so cute to watch him kick his legs super fast to keep his head above water. He thought it was pretty cool that he could do it all on his own-he also learned how to twist himself around in circles to keep himself afloat. Needless to say he slept great every night due to getting great workouts everyday in the pool!

This was our beautiful view from our 14th floor balcony! The sound of the ocean was SO peaceful and relaxing. If it were up to me, we would have had our door wall open all the time to hear the crashing waves, but since it was 93 degrees we had the air conditioner blasting at all times so I could not justify wasting the electricity! Directly below our balcony was the hotel pool which was also a nice view, but nothing beats the beach!

Mason taking a swim at dusk. We let him stay up past his bedtime most nights. He loved the water park and the lazy river! In the lazy river he would just hang out and check every one else out, needing to know what they were doing, what their names were and knowing if they could swim. It did crack me up as I realized that he is such a people watcher just like someone else I know (sorry, I cant help myself..people are so entertaining to me!)

Ahhh, the beach! My favorite place....well used to be until we had kids and now have to lug our whole house there and back (from the 14th floor mind you). Andy and I learned our lesson! The first day we took the stroller (which we had to lift up the stairs, over the bridge and back down the stairs to even get to the sand), and lets just say a whole bunch of other large necessary and yes some unnecessary things to the beach. By the end of the week we were carrying a pretty "light" load. It felt like as soon as we would get to the beach, lather up in sun screen and settle Kailee into our new spot it was lunch time! So, as nice as it was to go to the beach it was also kind of a pain in the rear! Not to mention all of the sand that gets all over everything!

So not that you can tell by his smile, but this is Mason's FAVORITE toy of grandpa Rusty's!!! My dad bought a motorized scooter that he takes to the campgrounds they stay at so that he can motor all around and check out everybody's RV's and the campground itself. Well, it now serves another purpose...to entertain Mason! We could use this as a bribe for just about anything (potty, eating his meals, etc.) He loves, loves, loves going for rides on it! Grandpa's toys are always cooler than his own!! Who knows, the popular thing at this RV park were golf carts with custom rims...maybe Rusty will feel the need to get one of those too :)

We had such a great time, I'm so thankful that we were able to go. I am really looking forward to our Florida trip in April! There we are only a couple steps away from the beach :)

Myrtle Beach-part 1

Kailee and Grandpa Rusty in the drivers seat of the motor home :) She needed a new view after 2 days of riding in the back seat.

Mason did such a great job there AND back! He stayed entertained with his DVD player, coloring books and his trucks. He loved driving them up and down the isle. Of course there was a LOT of snacking going on too :)
While we were there he kept telling us that "he needed to find his home somewhere" and "he needed to sleep in his bed"-apparently he missed his bed and toys!!

Mason watching his "show". Lets just say he watched quite a few of them!

Kailee with her hair blowing in the breeze :) She was such a good girl! I tried to leave her in her car seat as much as possible, even to "auto-feed" as Grandpa Rusty now calls it :)
She would eat, play and sleep every 3 hours and then repeat the cycle. She loved her freedom of being out of her chair as well. She would get so excited and was such a social butterfly when I would get her out.