This Deserves Its Own Post

Cousin Bella and Mason

Easter 2011

A few days before Easter, we were in Fresno and Mason enjoyed a super fun Easter egg hunt with the rest of his cousins!

Mason loved finding the eggs

And picking them up.  And when he filled up his basket with eggs, he dumped them all out so he could place them back into his basket again.

Then we had Easter morning at our place, which happened the previous Saturday morning instead of Sunday. We have church early, so it was just easier...plus, he doesn't care, right?  He loved his new toys and all the fun Easter eggs.  We put 2 goldfish in each one--they're his favorite and I want to hold off on candy for as long as possible.  He loved shaking the eggs to hear something rattling inside, then opening them up and finding his precious goldfish!

What's Easter without an Easter bunny??  Mason loves stuffed animals...

as you can see.  This is his happy, goofy smilingtoohard smile that is EXACTLY the crooked smile I did when I was little!  My Mom called it my "Popeye" smile. :)  Awesome, isn't it??

Haircut

It is tradition in the Duran family for Grandpa Louie to give the grandsons haircuts.  He's great at it and very practiced, because he cut the hair of Marcos and all his brothers growing up.  And last Fall it was Mason's turn! (These pictures are from November when Mason still had a round baby face.  ::sigh::  He already looks so much older!)

The "before" curls that melt Grandma Elizabeth's heart.  

Pre-haircut conversation with a lady I didn't know:

LADY:  "OH!  Your baby is SO cute!  Is it a boy or a girl?"

ME:  (already annoyed)  "He's a boy."

LADY:  "Oh wow, look at those curls!  You'd think he's a girl with those darling curls."

ME:  "Mmm, thanks, but he's a boy."  (feeling spunky now)  "Ya know, he IS wearing ALL blue."

LADY:  (not phased)  "Girls wear blue, too.  And his blue eyes are SO pretty you'd think he's a girl!"

ME:  (???.....confusion giving way to defeat)  "Uh....thanks."  

He was such a good boy and didn't even cry!

Brushing the hair off

So nice and trim!  Thanks Grandpa Louie!  (Can't you see the family resemblance? .....No?  ......Neither can we. :)   

P.S.  He's had a few haircuts since this one, and within a few weeks, his cute curls come back. :)

Christmas Break 2010

Well, now that it's Spring I think it's time to throw some Christmas Break pictures up here.  We really didn't take to many...too busy visiting and having fun I suppose.  Here are some of the best!


This first set is outside in the rain at our visit to the Oakland Temple.

Touching the temple

Inside the Visitor's Center there were Christmas decorations, breathtaking views, and familiar faces!  My Uncle Dave, Aunt Patty, and cousin McKay happened to be there that day with their ward from Fresno.

Tracy, Me

Here are a couple of our ward Christmas Party with Mason sitting on Santa's lap.  The lighting in the cultural hall wasn't very good, so not many of our pictures turned out so well.  But here are a couple which show the most important thing.....Mason crying with Santa.

"Why are you doing this to me?!?!"

Mason being cute with Daddy and loving his new spinning lights toy from Santa!  We went to Grandpa Louie and Grandma Elizabeth's for the holiday in Fresno, and apparently didn't take many pictures because we were having too much fun!

Bonk Heads

So, I'll catch up on Christmas stuff later.  For now, here's a funny video of Marcos and Mason (who is SO tired that everything becomes extra hilarious!).  Marcos is teaching him "bate coco" which in Portuguese is like "bonk heads" (he went to Brazil on his mission, hence the Portuguese). 

This video makes my heart happy. :)

Harvest Festival

Last Saturday there was a Harvest Festival held at a local farm where they open up their farm to the public.  It was fun to show Mason the animals and feed them!

Holy cow!  Look at that tongue!

Um, cows are surprisingly huge in real life, by the way.

Mason loves tractors and trucks of every kind.  True boy.  Almost makes up for him also liking pink strollers, too.

Poke a goat!

Sad pumpkin boy....lol

Happy pumpkin boy!

Clapping for having such a great time!

I think it's funny that in almost every post, I have lots of happy Mason pictures and at least one really good crying one.  He has the saddest sad face ever!  Such colorful emotions sure keep my days interesting!

Halloween 2010

This year for Halloween we needed easy and budget-friendly.  We went to the local Halloween store to see if they had anything discounted yet (it was the 30th after all!) and of course all their baby costumes were 25-35 dollars.  No way I'm spending money like that on something he's gonna wear once!

But while we were there, we saw a 30 dollar Mario costume and thought, hey, we could totally throw that together ourselves!  So then we went to Target and got a red long-sleeved shirt and some overalls and red socks.  His brown church shoes worked perfectly for Mario's shoes (thanks Amy Duran!) and Marcos tailored a red hat of his to fit Mason and stuck a printed out "M" on it.  The finishing touch?  The yellow buttons.  We just cut circles in yellow colored paper I already had and wrapped them around the existing buttons.  Done!

We thought about drawing a mustache on him with eyeliner or chocolate or something, but the chocolate would get everywhere and I was nervous about putting makeup on my baby.  He still looked stinkin' cute!

The great thing is that he can wear that red shirt and overalls all winter, and they were still cheaper than buying a costume (which by the way, I'll have no problem doing when we actually have some semblance of money someday!).

And I may as well point out since I noticed it's in the picture below...see that white latch to the left of our dishwasher that hooks onto the wood?  Yeah, that's what we had to attach so he'd stop playing with our forks and knives and starting our dishwasher when it's half empty.  It works!

It'sa me, Mario!

Mario crying-power

Tongue-power Mario

Tongue-power Mario 2

Papereating-power Mario

One thing I'd do differently is put some plastic wrap over his paper buttons, because by the end of the night he was already chewing them off!  And he definitely did not want to wear his hat.  At all.  All pictures of him in the hat are against his will.  But they sure are cute!

Cheesy Mario No Hat (he has 99 lives!)