It's a Blur...

Sometimes I am certain that if I didn't have photos to remind me, I wouldn't be able to remember what happened yesterday.  That definitely applies to this weekend as it was all such a blur.  First I would like to ask for prayers for my dad as he fell really hard this weekend and fractured his hip bone!  He cannot put any weight on his leg for 6 weeks so prayers for a quick and easy recovery are much appreciated.

On Friday, my friend Kellie and I took our kids up to the church gardens to take some pictures.  Kellie wanted to help me get some good photos of Mason since I have a hard time getting him to look at the camera and smile when I am by myself.  The mission was a success and I will post some of those pictures later.  The two previous photos are from that day.  Mason refused to take an afternoon nap and fell asleep on the way to take pictures.... so convenient.  However, it made for a sweet picture and he was really good the rest of the shoot!  I didn't come planning to be in any of the pictures, but Kellie offered to take some of me and Mason.  I gladly obliged because I never can seem to get a good shot of the two of us or I just don't think about getting in the picture.

Friday night after the picture taking, we had a luau in our neighborhood to celebrate the pool opening for the summer.  Mason loved the pool last summer and I was pretty sure this summer would be no different.  It is hard to believe how much he has changed in a year!  I believe he was 3 months old in the picture below.  Can't you tell he is digging the pool?

Now here he is at almost thirteen months!  He is having a blast in those little fountains!

Hey Ladies, how you doin?

Midway through playing in the water he got confused and wandered off into the foliage.  We had to redirect him back to the pool.

This picture totally cracks me up because he is off in la la land, pants falling off, belly poked out, not a care in the world.

Mason and Daddy are best friends.  Mason pretty much clung to him all weekend while he was home.

 He took several dives and to my surprise it didn't phase him!  He got right back up and kept going. Shocking for someone who doesn't even like to have their hair rinsed during bath time.

And these are my favorites.  You can just tell that he is beside himself.  I can see myself in him in the picture above.  Something about the face he is making... 

Here is Mason with his friend, Hadley, who is kind of like his big sister.  They are so funny together.

And here they are last summer.... this picture makes me die out laughing!  I know there are lots of fun times ahead for these two.

From Friday night on, things were crazy.  Ben worked Saturday morning and I took junior up to the pool where Ben met us and brought us a pizza for lunch.  Mason ate an entire piece of pizza by himself in addition to his baby food.  The child can eat.  Then Ben went back to work and Mason and I went home to get ready for our friend's wedding in Birmingham.  

Mimi and Pop (Ben's parents) kept Mason for us while we were in Birmingham and it was his first time to spend the night away from Mommy and Daddy! He did great other than keeping Mimi up for a couple of hours (till after midnight).  I know he had a lot of fun at their house and I wasn't worried about him at all.  

The wedding we went to was beautiful and one of the highlights was that we got to participate in a flashmob that was coordinated by the matron of honor to surprise the bride and groom.  Ben and I were up till after 11:00 on Friday night learning the dance and we laughed our heads off.  I was in phase one and Ben was in phase three.  However, once the dance started, Ben got so excited that he went as a two! We have laughed about that a lot.   At the wedding we got to reconnect with a lot of our old friends from Auburn and just had a blast.  I wish I had some pictures of the evening but it was nice to not have to worry about my camera.  The flashmob video is on facebook if you want to see it!

On Sunday we went to church and then we were really busy catching up on things at home before life group on Sunday night.  This week we are all heading up to Florence for Leslie's wedding and I am so excited!!  Mason and I will be staying there a while to help mom get things ready for their big move to Muscle Shoals!  I am pretty sure I won't have any problems finding some friends and family members who will want to play with Mason while I help mom pack.....

In other news, Mason will be having surgery on his tongue on July 11 at Children's.  The doctor assured us that it is simple and safe and will take no time at all but prayers are still appreciated!  

Well, I better get ready for work will Mason is still napping.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Love the Weekends

Weekends are pretty great.  I work every third weekend so I really cherish the weekends I am off when we get to do things as a family.  Mother's Day weekend started out with a trip to the beach.  Scratch that. We didn't go and we were so glad because the weather was awful!  We instead booked a trip for September and I can't wait! We spent the weekend at home being lazy in the rainy weather with the exception of the 15 minutes of sunshine when we took Mason to the pool. Literally, we were there for 15 minutes.  That was just enough time to tell that he is going to LOVE the pool this summer!

 The weekend started off with breakfast at Mimi's and a stop at the Eastchase farmer's market for some fresh veggies, local honey, and goat cheese.  Yum!  Mason loves some squash and zucchini and this picture reminds me that I still have to cook those green beans!

On Mother's Day we surprised Ben's mom at their church and then went to eat lunch with Mimi and Pop and Neal, Tori, and the kids after the service.  We had a fun time! 

When we came home I asked Ben to take a few shots of Mason and me.  I have no idea what is wrong with the camera here and why these shots are so grainy, but at least we have pictures!  Getting Mason to look at the camera is a challenge when the dogs are around.

For my Mother's Day and birthday gift I got a new sewing/embroidery machine.  Yes, my birthday is in January but I kept debating on what I wanted and never got anything so, it all turned out!  The sewing is a bit intimidating so we will see how that goes.  I really just wanted it to make Mason some cute t-shirts and do gifts for people etc. 

Ben and Mason picked out a really sweet card for me and got me those Rice Krispy treats that you can write on. Each one had something sweet written on it so I can think nice thoughts about myself every morning when I grab one for breakfast. :)  Those flowers were left over from girl's night and the kitchen is a wreck from having friends over for an impromptu get together the night before.  Oh, and see the egg carton?  Ben's coworker is hooking us up with some "farm fresh eggs" as we like to call them.  Ben made me some "farm fresh eggs" for Mother's Day breakfast.

Mason made this little picture for me all by himself.  He is really good at putting the camera on the timer and then posing for pictures. :)  It was really sweet of our friend Heather to do this for us!  She is so creative and so good with kids. Mason loves her! 

 And this is how we spent the remainder of the weekend. Being lazy.  It was soooo nice!  The only bad thing about the weekend is that I didn't get to see my mom for Mother's Day!  Thankfully I will get to see her very soon!

The Time Someone Stepped on My Head

So, I was ironing my clothes for work this morning when a distant memory came to mind.... the time someone stepped on my head.  No, I wasn't laying down. I was standing up.  No, this wasn't a child. It was an adult.  Funny the memories that come to mind when your mind is performing idle tasks.

I was a senior in high school I believe, or it may have been the summer before or after my senior year, I can't remember.  Anyway, my boyfriend at the time was big into all sorts of music and bands and at this stage in life he really liked hard core type music (read: screaming) and emo (read: whining).  So, they were having a lovely little concert featuring both types of music at this place in Birmingham called Sloss Furnace. You have probably heard of it.  I think the concert was called "Sloss Fest"?

Anyway, boyfriend wanted to go to this concert and wanted me to go with him.  I guess he wanted to expose me to some culture.  I was a "Top 40" kind of girl and did not typically listen to these types of bands much less go see them in concert.  The ticket price was around 20 dollars to see different bands play throughout the day.  So, mom and dad gave me permission to go. (Boyfriend was very trustworthy in spite of his taste in "wild" music.)

The morning of the concert I woke up and spent a lot of time considering what I would wear to blend in with this crowd.  After much deliberation I threw on an old red t-shirt and my rattiest pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, complete with my tennis shoes.  I put in some black stud earrings and did my hair in this weird twisty doo.  I felt that I looked the part.

Boyfriend and two or three other people picked me up and we headed for Birmingham.  It wasn't long before we saw the large steel (or is it iron?) structure of the furnace in the distance.  We had arrived. Needless to say, I blended in better than I would have in my typical garb, but I still felt out of place amidst all the people with their jet black hair and extensive piercings.

So, the concert began, one group after another I stood along the outskirts of the concert hall and listened to their music.  From where I was standing I could observe the mosh pit AND the skaters outside the concert area doing their cool skateboard tricks.  It was a site to see.  Lo and behold, a certain group came on stage and boyfriend really wanted me to go up to the front of the stage with him thinking I would really enjoy this particular group... and to be honest, they did have a few good songs that I liked.  I cannot remember their name... oh yeah, I think it was Saves the Day or something like that.  Anyway, so they got going and apparently a mosh pit broke out behind us because people really started shoving. I got shoved up toward the front of the stage. Right when I thought it was over, people started crowd surfing from the back.  Boyfriend did his best to keep the crazies off me, but he didn't see the guy directly behind me who thought he would just climb up other people's body's and start crowd surfing.  So, I was one of those people.  He stepped right on my head and hard!  I was really angry but I was also really scared and my hurt really bad.

Boyfriend felt so bad that he gave me money to cover the cost of my Sloss Fest ticket!  Needless to say, the rest of the evening I just kind of observed from the outskirts.  No more mosh pits for me. No thanks.  

And that concludes the most random story ever posted on this blog.

Giving Up the Bottle

 "He needs to be off the bottle by one year of age." That is what the pediatrician suggested at Mason's nine month check up.  Sure. Okay.  I can do that.

These photos were taken one day before his first birthday.  Does it look like I am doing a good job of getting him off the bottle?

"You should start weaning him from the bottle soon.  Like in the next week and a half." This is what the pediatrician suggested at Mason's one year old check up.  That is after I informed him that Mason was still taking not one, not two, but three bottles a day.  

He has been known to walk around with the bottle in his mouth like this. No hands necessary.

But really?  Do I have to give this up?  Really?

I just can't handle the cuteness.

How can I put an end to the cuddliness?

Maybe I can get him off the bottle by age two. Or twelve.  Is that bad?  Don't tell the doctor.

Update and The Usual

So, things have been kind of busy around here lately.  This past Friday I had the Pike Road Relay for Life (pictured above) and then worked the weekend and hosted a girl's night at my house on Monday night.  I am planning to do a post on Relay for Life later once I get a chance to go through all of the pictures, but I can say that it was a very special event and I was glad to be able to be a part of something like that for the first time.

Back at home, life is as normal.  Junior, as Ben and I jokingly call him even though he is not a Jr., is always going ninety to nothing it seems like.  He has had 2 baths today before his afternoon nap.

Please notice his muddy legs.  Bath number one was due to a combination of a dirt ring I found in the fat roll in his neck and the fact that he got his lunch everywhere.  Bath number two was due to the above pictured (and below pictured) mud event.

I am afraid he cannot be contained and I have noticed that he also has selective hearing.  He pretends he doesn't know what "Mason, come back" means.  He thinks everything is a game of chase.

Here he has escaped the dry porch and is heading out into the abyss of the near grassless backyard that was just recently rained on.

He decides to go to the random slide that he never shows interest in playing on....

See that on his foot, probably dog poo....

Coming back to the porch he has picked up a bucket and I remind him that he forgot his blanket. Uh oh!

He goes back to retrieve said blanket that is slowly gaining spots of mud.

And here he comes... stopping to consider his next move.

Back to the porch to retrieve more items for his bucket.

Spills the bucket.  Must put objects from the water table back into the bucket.

New item for the bucket: the bus driver.

On second thought, we are ditching the bus driver.

Maybe mom won't notice if I make a break for the garden...

Awesome!  This thing if full of mud!

Oh no, she's coming!

Hide!

Do you think we have enough mint?  Anyone want some??

At this point I had to take my socks off (I left my shoes inside because I wasn't planning on leaving the porch) and retrieve him from the garden.  I brought him back to the porch, sat him down, and he immediately made a break for the mud.  This is when I decided it was time for bath number two.   

Well, I think that load of clothes in the washer is ready to be dried. Contents include the blanket, the onesie in the picture, the onesie from earlier today, his bunny that he put in the water in the water table, and the sheets from his crib since his diaper leaked last night. Oh yeah, his changing table cover and my shirt from earlier today since he pulled his poopy diaper out from under him while I was changing him and got poop everywhere and then reached down to the poop covered region and got poo on his hands and grabbed my shirt.  I forgot that was the predominant reason for the first bath.  

And on to other adventures....