Outside, Hats, and Getting Dirty

Hey Friends! I am back, so soon!  Hard to believe.  In between the freezing weather and monsoons, we have been spending a lot of time outside these days.  The weekend before last, I went to a baby shower in Birmingham for one of my best friends, Ashley, who is having a baby girl in April!  I am so excited and can't wait to meet baby girl! (No name yet and I can definitely relate.)  When I returned from Birmingham, little man was at Mimi's house playing.  He has learned to swing on the big kid swing and does a pretty good job of holding on.  However, every now and then he will just jump off so I don't let him go too high even though he is saying, "high" "high".

I have mentioned us spending some time out playing on our land and the surrounding areas.  Mason, the dogs and I decided to go exploring one day and had a great time!  One thing I love about the land is that there are a lot of HUGE trees on it AND Spanish Moss (the tree above is on the land behind ours). 

There are a lot of things I miss about North Alabama (besides family and friends) like catfish (whole catfish, not fillets), bar-b-que (I'm looking at you, Bunyan's), and the Tennessee River.  However, the fact that the lower half of Alabama has Spanish Moss at least helps their lack of catfish places.  

On this particular day, Mason wanted to hike up every hill he saw.  He would say "hill!" and up we'd go.  I pointed out all of the big trees and he'd walk up to them and wave and say "Hi!".  (He still says "hi" to everything inlcuding dog poo, his legs, clean diapers, and my mom's glasses.) Since he was wearing his boots he tripped about every 2 steps but wanted to do everything by himself.  I made him hold my hand most of the time.  Then, when it was time to go back, when we were pretty far back in the woods, he was ready for me to carry him the rest of the way.  Awesome. When we got back to the barbed wire fence that separates our land from the land behind us, I lifted him over it to the other side and he got mad saying that he wanted to "do eee." Like I am going to let him crawl through a barbed wire fence.

One cold day I got out some huge paper we saved from some packaging that came with a shelf we bought for the play room.  I let Mason lay on it and I traced him and then gave him markers to color it in with.  He doesn't really "get" coloring yet.  He spent most of the time looking at the marks that he made on his hand and when I gave him a brand new box of crayons he spent all his time dumping them out and then putting them back in the box.  We'll try that again later.

Wow! The bunnies look so clean and fluffy in this picture.  Sometimes they are nearly black from going EVERYWHERE and being used as a napkin, snot rag, passenger in trucks and tractors, companion in the dirt and mud, etc.  I feel so bad when Mason drops it and a stranger picks it up and hands it to him.  I am thinking, "so sorry you had to touch that."  It is all I can do to sneak the bunnies away to wash them without Mason noticing they are gone.  He thinks it is fun for us to put the bunnies on his back and will walk around like that for a while. He will come up to us with bunny and say "back" and we are supposed to tuck them in the back of his shirt.

Oh, and he is obsessed with that train table that Nana and BopBop got him for Christmas... more on that later.

One Sunday the weather was really nice and mild so Ben and I took Mason out to Shakespeare Park after church (I think it is really called something else but everyone calls it Shakespeare).  We had a good time playing soccer, looking for fish, and pointing out all of the fire ant piles.

Mason discovered dandelions for the first time.  He had a little trouble blowing the "feathers" off and got a mouthful once or twice.  It was so cute watching him try to figure it out.

As we were leaving he spotted a remote control air plane.  We almost never got him to leave after that.

He was obsessed.

My mom and dad kept Mason for us last Friday night and let Ben and me have a date night.  This was Mason's first time to stay at Nana and BopBop's new house over night and he had a great time!  It has been so nice having mom and dad close by! Ben and I almost didn't know what to do!  We already had dinner planned with some friends from Auburn who were passing through town.  After that we were like, uhhh, now what?  We ended up going to Books A Million and looked at house plan books and had coffee, which was really fun and relaxing. We actually found a house plan we liked, too!  After that we came home and watched (I slept through) a movie we had rented from Red Box a week before! I was so tired that I fell asleep in my clothes and jewelry and didn't wake up until 9:00 the next morning.  It was really nice!

This necklace was a birthday present from my parents.  I have been wanting one for a while and mom and dad gave me money to pick out which one I liked.  It was a hard choice!  When Ben saw it, he asked me why the "B" was so small.  Haha!  I love it and wear it with everything!  I have already informed Ben of exactly which locations he can find more charms for future reference.  We will have another initial that I will need to add very soon, after all.

I keep my beaded necklaces in a jewelry hanging bag in my closet and they are just within Mason's reach.  He likes to get the beads out and play with them so the other day I put some on him.  He would look at them on his neck and say "more" and this is how he ended up.  He didn't like them on there for long, though.

He has a new obsession with hats.  He loves to wear his daddy's hat, so I pulled out his Auburn that my grandfather and aunt gave him before he was even born.  He thought it was so great and insisted on putting it on all by himself.  This is how it ended up.

Then, he wanted Pete to wear it and thought that was the greatest thing ever.

And this is how he rocks the backwards cap.  No one could help him.  He slept with the hat that night and asked for it as soon as I came to get him out of his crib the next morning.

Here he is the next morning having his breakfast.  Spoiled much?  I am sorry, Mason's future wife. Can't help it.

 

So, yesterday the weather was nice so I took Mason down to the creek in the front of our neighborhood.  The goal was to see the "tractors" that were working nearby but we never made it that far.  He wanted to throw a million rocks into the creek so we made a ton of trips from the rocky area back to the creek. Then we climbed on rocks, then we crossed the street to the other side of the bridge and found Heaven on Earth, tons of rocks right beside the creek at a flat area where I didn't have to worry about him falling in the water.

Here is his muddy booty after sitting down in the creek.  If you look closely, you will see that there is actually a snail stuck to him, right by the leaf. I mean, do little girls get muddy snails stuck to their hineys??

Here is the video of the progression of dirtiness.  And the Lord feels that I need two of these....  :)

Little Stinker.  He was NOT ready to go home and stalled the whole way back.

When we got to the car I had to strip him down in the back where the floor is a plastic mat and then wrap him up in my sweater.  Everything went strait in the washing machine.  Can you see the specks of mud on his face?

Here are a few snapshots from the gender reveal that I finally got downloaded to my computer.  This is the only shot I got of the cake pre-cut.  Since I thought I could see through the icing in some places I didn't want to take it out of the box and ruin the surprise.  My sister-in-law, Tori, took the following pictures for me and I love how they capture our expressions!  I just hate that I didn't have the presence of mind to get a group shot!

And here is a re-try of the video.  

Best buds, Caden and Mason, enjoyed feeding each other snacks at the party.  Caden's mom and I were laughing so hard at this.  Caden would say, "Hey Mason, give me another one." Instead of handing him a goldfish, Mason went strait for the mouth.  Might as well eliminate unnecessary steps, right?

The dads hanging out in the play room.  It's basically a man cave.

Mason insisted on his giant loader sitting on the couch with him while he watched the iPad.  

Once he falls asleep for his nap there is no waking him up! He fell asleep yesterday just as we pulled into the Publix parking lot.  I tried to keep him awake and then tried to wake him up several times but to no avail.  So, I propped him up like this in the cart and piled all the groceries around him.  He finally woke up when I started checking out and then didn't take another nap for the rest of the day.

This shot is from lunch today.  He refused to let me put pants on him because he had already started putting on his boots and they were not about to come off. Thank goodness he got them on the right feet this time.  I have to pick my battles these days since he wants to do everything himself (like put on his own diaper). So, this is his outfit of choice and the shirt was even a battle.  Then, he pushed the chair up the the fridge all by himself.  Why, I am not sure, but I know one thing: I am in for it now.

And I am going to leave you with this Beef Stroganoff recipe that I made last night.  I tweaked it from a couple of recipes I read and it was super easy, dirtied up minimal pots, and turned out awesome!  I don't have pictures because I am not that good....

You will need:

1lb ground beef
1 red onion diced (I call them purple because they are.) I used about 1/4-1/2 of a huge onion but you would probably use 1/2 to a whole small onion.
1 pkg baby portobello mushrooms chopped (optional but recommended) I used 1/2 the package because Ben is not a huge mushroom fan and I am going to use the rest for a roast later this week.
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 stick of butter
1 cup of sour cream
1 teaspoonful of minced garlic
1/2 cup of milk (I used heavy cream because I had some)
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1 pkg of Egg Noodles

Start by browning your ground beef (seasoned with garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste) with the onion until it is cooked through and then drain and set aside.  I used beef from THE COW so it has very little fat therefore, I cooked mine in 1/4 stick of butter. I also used a pretty good bit of garlic powder and pepper because I like those.

In the same pan you just cooked the beef in, add the remaining 1/4 stick of butter, minced garlic, and mushrooms.  Saute mushrooms until done (maybe 5 minutes? can't really go wrong here, just taste them if you aren't sure).

Once the mushrooms are done, add the cream of mushroom soup, milk, and flour and mix well over medium heat.  Add the meat and onion back to the pan.  Add the sour cream just before serving and heat through.  At this point you might want to taste it and see if it needs any more seasoning.  Then serve it over egg noodles.  It is delish!

I served it with asparagus that I rolled in olive oil, salt, pepper, and minced garlic and then baked at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

Let me know if you have questions.