Christmas Tree Hunting

This year we did what we normally like to do...we went into the woods to find our Christmas tree! With the whole family in tow we drove into the nearby Lolo National Forest (only about a half an hour drive) and searched for the perfect tree. We did a little more driving around than we usually do which was mainly for Mason's sake. Plus the snow wasn't the greatest to play in as it was really icy and crunchy from the rain/snow mix we've had the last few days. But we still had a lot of fun and found the perfect tree for us. Liam was pretty excited to help his daddy cut down the tree!

Month 6 & 7

Mason,
You turned 7 months old on Thanksgiving! Yes 7 months ALREADY!! Where has the time gone! The months are just flying by and pretty soon you're going to be a year old. But lets not talk about that yet. I know you won't care but once again I've slacked off on keeping up on your monthly updates. So, I'm combining your 6 and 7 month updates into one post to (1) get caught up and (2) I can't remember exactly what you did in each month as they've both blurred together. So here we go!

At your 6 month check-up you weighed 16 lbs and were 27" long which the doctor said is long for your age. He also said you are lean and you need to gain a little more weight. So eat...eat...eat. You got another round of vaccines plus a flu shot and you did pretty well considering. You cried every time he stuck you with a needle which was three different times - one in each leg and one in the arm! But as soon as he was done you were fine and up and smiling again. Your brother felt bad for you though and would come running over each time you cried saying, "It''s okay Mason, it's okay". Such a great big brother!

You are now eating jar food besides formula and rice/oatmeal cereal. You definitely like fruit more than the veggies. Your favorites are pears, bananas, and the mixed apple/banana/pear. The veggies you like to eat most are sweet potatoes and carrots. Anything green you absolutely don't like to eat especially green beans. It's a big ordeal and you spend most of the time spitting it out. Though daddy mixes the green beans with oatmeal and can usually sneak it into your diet and you don't seem to mind as much.

You are teething right now and are a drool monster! You always have a wet spot on your clothes right under your chin. But you know how to keep yourself entertained with the help of all that drool - blowing bubbles! What kid wouldn't!! I get a kick out of watching you and watching your expressions. You're a hoot that's for sure! But that will all come to end when you get your teeth and speaking of which you got your first tooth last week. Yay! A tooth came in in the front on the bottom. I tried to get a picture but you wanted nothing to do with it. You don't really like anyone putting their fingers in your mouth. So the only way to get a look at it is making you laugh. But I wasn't able to do that and get a picture.

You're on the verge of crawling! I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing because then we'll have two mobile kids. Ha! It really could be any day though. When we put you on the floor on your belly you use your arms to push up and you'll spin yourself around depending on what gets your attention. Our cat, Sophie, gets your attention every time and you always turn towards her and try to grab at her. But most of the time you never even come close. That's probably a good thing because we don't want to make Sophie mad. Now you just need to figure out how to use your legs!

Happy six and seven month birthday sweet little boy! You and your brother bring so much joy to our lives. We are so blessed to have two wonderful boys!!

Love,
Momma

A Superhero Halloween

Halloween went a little differently this year. We all had a lot of fun but the kids had little bit of a rough start and by kids I mean more Liam than Mason. No naps definitely played a big part in that. First stop was at Nana B's work for their annual Halloween Party. Mason hung out with Grandpa Mike while Liam and Nana B played games and decorated cookies. But then Liam saw a woman dressed up as a skeleton from Day of the Dead and it was all over. Her face was all painted and I think this is what scared him so bad. He wanted nothing to do with her and hid from her under a table while crying. We couldn't do anything to make him feel better so we ended up leaving. Poor guys, felt so bad for him!

Him and Mason were so tired though that they fell a sleep on the way home. Good thing because we had a busy night of trick-or-treating with the neighbor kids. We went all over the neighborhood and Liam had a blast running around with the other kids. We were out for a few hours and well after it got dark so it's a good thing we got him light-up shoes because those definitely came in handy that night. We're still rookies though because we had to run back to the house to get a few things we didn't think of the first time like a stroller to carry the beer and of course Mason and extra bags so we can off load candy when Liam's bag got to heavy. But this is our first year really trick-or-treating so we'll do better next year! 

After the kids couldn't trick-or-treat anymore we ended the night at our neighbor's house to hang out a little bit longer.The kids were all hopped up on sugar so it was great to let them run off a little more energy while the adults had a beverage!

Liam wanted to be Batman so Mason of course had to be Robin!

Having fun at the Halloween Party at Nana B's work

Sleepy boy!

Time to trick-or-treat!

Such a little ham!!

Here are a few pictures from when we went to the pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins.

Liam's 3rd Birthday Questionnaire

I've decided to start a new birthday tradition - asking the boys the following questions each year on their birthdays. It's something fun to keep track of for them and something they can look back and laugh at when they're older. So here's Liam's 3rd birthday questionnaire. A lot of these answers made me laugh because they weren't necessarily his "favorite" but he's really into Batman right now so that's why a lot of his answers had Batman in them. I even asked him a lot of these questions twice but I got the same answer. So here it is:

1. How old are you? "I'm just three" (holding up 4 fingers)

2. What makes you happy? Ice Cream

3. What is your favorite animal? Horsey

4. What is your favorite thing to eat? Fries

5. What is your favorite thing to do? Go on the monkey bars

6. What is your favorite TV show? Batman

7. What are you really good at? Playing swords

8. What is your favorite movie? Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia; The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe)

9. What is your favorite color? Blue

10. What is your favorite song? Started singing, NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BATMAN!!! (Batman Theme Song)

11. Who is your best friend? Anze

12. What do you and your mom do together? Go to the Carousel

13. What do you and your dad do together? Wrestle

14. What is your favorite sport? Football

15. Where is your favorite place to go? To the water

16. What is your favorite book? Batman book

17. What do you want to be when you grow up? Fireman

Another BIG accomplishment for this three year old that I have to mention is he's potty trained! Just after his third birthday, he made the switch from pull-ups to big boy underwear and not just any kind of underwear but superhero underwear. He still wears a pull-up to bed but most of the time they're dry so we'll probably have him start wearing underwear to bed too and see how it goes. He's done really well and hasn't had any accidents at home. He had two accidents at daycare but it was in the very first week when he didn't really want to go poop in the potty. But he hasn't had an accident since then and it's almost been month now. He's doing great and the teachers say the kids all like showing off their underwear. I believe it because Liam couldn't wait to show everyone his Superman and Batman underwear!

Such a big boy now!!

Liam's 3rd Birthday

Liam is becoming more aware of birthdays, holidays, and other traditions. When Liam hears its some one's birthday the first thing he says is, "Will there be birthday cake?" Definitely a sweets kid!

So this year we asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday and what kind of cake he wanted. He said, "ride the horses at the carousel and a ninja turtle cake!" Well that's exactly what he got. 

Making the cake was a lot of fun this year. I got my inspiration from Pinterest and this is how it turned out. The best part was as I was making the heads of the ninja turtles Liam says, "Oh you gotta make them swords too!". My exact response was, "Sorry bud, I'm not making bodies just the heads so no swords." Luckily, the heads were good enough for him. He loved his cake which made me very happy.

He had a blast at the carousel but he always does. This time though he loved riding it with Micah and Asher and with them all wearing their teenage mutant ninja turtle masks. Three happy boys that's for sure! And a big accomplishment for Liam as he had never rode on the carousel by himself but when Asher and Micah got there he saw them riding it by themselves so he wanted to do it too. It made me very happy because now we can go to carousel when we have Mason and Liam can ride while Mason and I watch. I lost track how many times those boys rode the carousel but it definitely was an hour and a half of pure happiness. 

Month 4 & 5

Mason,

You are now 5 months old! It was actually a little over a week ago but who's counting. This month snuck up on me because I didn't have a chance to do your four month update and now the two months are blurring together. So I'm doing both months together so I don't have to figure out what's what.

At your four month wellness check you weighed 13.5 lbs and were in the 75 percentile for both weight and height. The doctor actually said you were a little underweight and it couldn't hurt to start feeding you cereal on top of formula. At the check-up you also got your second round of shots. This part wasn't very much fun! You cried during all the shots and it broke my heart to watch you cry but luckily you were fine shortly after. I just had to pick you up and cuddle you!

A lot has changed this month!

You are mostly on formula but a couple weeks ago we introduced rice cereal to you. At first you really didn't like it and would spit it right out. But eventually you got used to it and would eat more and more of it. I think it mainly had to do with the texture and getting used to eating off a spoon. Now the spoon is your favorite part! After each bite you grab the spoon and chew on it until we grab it to give you another bite. We just brought cereal to your daycare this week so they could start giving it to you also. And today I got a report that you've been doing great with the cereal and eating really well. So now in a couple weeks we get to introduce baby food!

Your sleeping schedule hasn't changed much. You still sleep through the night most of the time otherwise get up once a night. You wiggle around so much that you never stay covered and will wake up from being cold. So we've started putting you in thicker pajamas which has seemed to help a little bit. We have a baby monitor in your room but I really need to setup a video camera so I can see how you move to the other side of the crib or how you turn and face the other direction than how we put you in the crib. I'm pretty sure you scoot around on your tummy but I'd really like to see you do it. You and Liam are doing great sharing a room! You never wake him up and in the middle of the night you will talk to yourself instead of cry. When we go into your room to check on you, you just look up and smile. That's how you greet us in the morning too. I love it!! One of the other things I love doing is getting you dressed. You are so ticklish that as we're undressing you if we get to close to your armpits you flinch and start laughing. We've turned it into more of a game and will tickle you more and more to get you to laugh.

You're not a big fan of being on your belly anymore. You'd rather be sitting up or in your bouncer. You can't sit up quite on your own yet but almost. When we sit you up on the floor we surround you with pillows so you have a softer landing than the floor. You do really well sitting up if you're leaning forward. It's when you lean backwards that you lose your balance and then crash to the floor.

It's so fun seeing you go through all these big milestones like we did with your brother and watching you develop a personality of your own. All I can say is your a HAPPY happy baby! You are always smiling and giggling. Your brother sure loves you and is quite protective of you. If you are crying he'll pat you on the head and say, "it's okay Mason, it's okay". Melts my heart! He also makes you laugh all the time. The other day he was playing peek-a-boo with you and you were cracking up at him. I even got it on video and oh man it is the cutest video ever.

Happy four and five month birthday sweet little boy!! I love you so much!

Love Momma

Thunderbird Airshow

Last month we went to Columbia Falls for the weekend and took the kids to the Thunderbird Airshow. There were all sorts of planes but what the kids (Liam & Ridge) took the most interest in is all the bouncy houses. There was so many bouncy houses they were seriously in bouncy house heaven. The great thing about an airshow is no matter where we were at we could still see the planes flying around so we still got a pretty good show. The Thunderbird's were the finale and they were a lot of fun to watch. They were extremely loud so the kids all got to try out their cool earmuffs. Liam didn't mind them but Mason wasn't a big fan at all. So it shocked us when he fell asleep with them on and during the loudest part of the show too! Guess they work really well!!

Liam, Jesse, and Ridge

These two were inseparable!

More bouncy houses and a trapeze!

Liam was a little scared of this one

Having fun with his cousins

Daddy got to take him in all the bouncy houses.

This was Liam's favorite plane and we were bummed we couldn't take him inside. Well we could have but we would've had to stand in a line for a LONG time! Next time buddy, next time!!

Start of the Thunderbird's and look who's asleep!

So tired!

Thunderbird's in action!