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!)

What's up Mason?

• Mason is about 13 months.  (At what point do you stop saying months?  Many times I just say "he's 1" because I'm too lazy to be exactly accurate, and really, noone but family cares about the accuracy. :)

• He weighs nearly 23 pounds.  Forgot how long he is.  He wears 9 month, 12 month, and 18 month clothing....depending on the brand and style of clothing...and what I decide to squeeze him into so I feel his clothing gets adequate wear for what we pay for it!

• He loves to open our dishwasher and play with silverware (um, not safe) and close the dishwasher and START IT (um, it was only half full son!  And there's no soap in there!)  We need to get a babyproofing latch for our dishwasher or something.  I got the idea to do a ghetto/cheap fix and tape a paper cup over the twisty-knob thingy that starts it, but of course he promptly tore it off and is now chewing the cup to bits.

• It took him relatively long to learn to crawl in the tradition manner, but he learned to walk fairly quickly at about 11 months.  His teeth were relatively slow coming in, but then a whole bunch came in at once (that was a fun couple of weeks).  

• He likes to play "fetch."  And can shake your hand.  And cries at the door when he wants to go out.  Add in the fact that he still chews up everything in sight, and he now has all the skills of a golden retriever!

• He can say "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba..." and "da-da-da-da-da..." and "ga-ga-ga-ga-ga..." and may as well be able to say "NO!" because he vehemently shakes his head "no" whenever he doesn't want something.  Which I don't know where he learned that....because Marcos and I haven't modeled that.

• Likes trying new foods (sometimes) and especially LOVES yogurt.  Like, I get him to eat tons of veggies by coating them in yogurt.  (Ever tried carrot yogurt?  Mmmm....)  He also loves bread.  That's my carb-lovin' boy!  I put a piece of whole wheat bread in a plastic bag and carry it around as a snack for him.  I'm all for it!  What a cheap/easy/healthy snack.

• He is so curious and mischievious!  And whenever he gets into something he shouldn't and I sternly say "No no Mason!" he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world and does it even more.  LoL.  Troublemaker, dude!

• We leave our shoes by the front door to try to save our carpet, and every single day ALL day Mason picks up all our shoes and carries them around everywhere sucking on the bottoms.  Yeah, gross, I know.  I'm kind of over it.  The other day I needed to find his shoes so we could go out, and after thorough searching, I found one by my bed and the other in the pots and pans drawer under our oven.  And when taking out our last load of laundry from the drier we found one of his shoes with our whites.  Well, at least he's got one clean shoe!

• He loves books.  He loves playdates.  He loves being outside.  

• You will nearly always see him with his left sock on and right sock off.  Don't know what he has against a sock on his right foot, but he always pulls it off!

• He is usually constantly moving and squirming around, but if you whisper in his ear, he freezes and listens intently and thinks it's funny.  Don't know why!

Duck Pond

One of the things we did for Labor Day this year was go to the nearby, beautiful, relaxing duck pond.  Mason really likes to observe the ducks and geese, and valiantly struggles to break free from my grasp so he can walk straight into the water to play with them.  I kindly try to explain to him that the water is "yucky," which I'm pretty sure he interprets as "fantastically fun and forbidden."

Mason's 1st Birthday!

 I can't believe my baby is 1 already!  It's one of those things where it feels like just yesterday and like forever ago at the same time.  We were so happy to have so much family present at Mason's party...including both sets of Grandparents!  It was so fun to have a little family party...thank you to all who were able to attend!

"Mason" opening presents.

 

He got lots of really fun gifts that he loves and plays with all the time!

 

 

Then came the cake and the Happy Birthday song....

...and the poor little guy didn't know how to handle all the attention.

 (Don't worry Mason, it's hard for all of us!)

 While Mason recovered from being celebrated, Tracy took the liberty of blowing out the candle (way to go Trace).

 He got a lot happier when we gave him some cheesecake.  He's not one to dive right into new things, so he decided the best tactic would be to poke around a bit to test it out.

 It seemed safe enough, so then he daintily poked some pieces until they stuck to his finger and finally ate some.

 He took his cake eating quite seriously while relishing in the new, rich flavor.

 "Oh man....this is SO GOOD.  Why have I not eaten this before?!"

Happy Birthday little man.  We love you so much!