Noah Luke

Here he is!! SO cute!

My First Nephew Has Arrived!

Congratulations to my sister-in-law Sarah and her husband Marc as they welcomed their little baby BOY into the world today! Noah Luke was 8# 1 oz. She had him via C-section and is recovering from HELLP Syndrome. They expect Sarah to recover and be out of ICU tomorrow. Please pray that she would have no lingering effects of the syndrome so that she can start to enjoy their family of THREE!

We are all anxiously awaiting photos of little Noah. I will share them when I get them!!

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)!