Christmas Tree Take 2

This is the first Christmas tree in our 6 1/2 years of marriage and it didn't even last 24 hours [Travis here with a correction: We had a Christmas tree in Boston. It was about 18 inches tall and had the fiber optic twinkling and color-changing lights. I guess it wasn't very memorable for my wife]. The sweet little boy in the picture (aka Mason) tipped it over twice and I took it down instead of waiting for him to do it again. I get tired of those games a lot sooner than Mason does.

This is our second tree. Made entirely out of paper and tape, it doesn't tip over or take up any room which is great because we don't have a lot of free space for a tree at the moment.

Mason had a lot of fun helping me decorate it. I'm not sure if he liked the candy canes on the tree though because he kept taking them off.
I think my favorite ornament is the gingerbread man holding the candy cane. That wasn't the original plan. They were going to be separate ornaments but I think I liked them better as one.

Thanksgiving

We were forutnate enough to spend Thanksgiving in Idaho with the family again this year. It was a blast, of course. Any time spent with family is time well spent as far as I'm concerned. Thanksgiving day was great. Good food was eaten, paper turkeys were made, young cousins played, and naps were taken (but only by adults).

The best part was being able to watch the kids play with each other.

Mason loved riding his cousin's 4-wheeler.

The making of turkeys and a napper in the background

The end result

I wish I had taken more pictures but I was busy having fun and enjoying good food and company. It doesn't get much better then that.

Stalling Tactics

So lately Mason has been trying anything he can think of to get out of going to bed (and sometimes going down for naps). We decided to compile a list of all of the things he has tried in order to stay up later. Here they are.

The top 10 things Mason does to put off going to bed.


10. Eats dinner very slowly

9. Requests a snack at the last minute

8. Requests another drink after one sat in front of him at the table untouched for the duration of dinner. He is suddenly thirsty at bedtime.

7. Brushes teeth very slowly or simply refuses to brush them

6. Asks for another song

5. Asks for anther book

4. Refuses a diaper change

3. Insists he pooped and needs another diaper change after refusing the first one. He has yet to actually be poopy after such a claim.

2. Insists on another family prayer

1. Puts himself in time out. He plops down on the time out stool and says "two minutes" or "don't move"



My favorite ones are the time out and asking for more prayer.

Cheese Trains and Wet Socks

So, this post will be pretty random. I try not to do random posts but I didn't feel like doing 4 to 6 posts tonight.

We could not get Mason to eat anything tonight, and it was getting closer to bedtime. As many of you know, he is obsessed with trains. I suggested a cheese train. He liked the idea. Travis cut the cheese into a train. It's funny to watch (or listen to) Mason while someone is doing some type of train art. He gets pretty excited and does this delightful squeal/giggle/laugh.

I was getting Mason ready for a bath Saturday night and totally forgot to take his socks off. He was so concerned that he still had his socks on and that they were wet.I should have taken a picture of the whole park. It was closed off all summer. They finally finished it in September so we put our jackets on and went to play at the park for home evening one night. If you look at Mason's nose he has a car "sticker" (band aid) on. I don't really remember how he got the sore but he loved wearing the stickers.Travis hates when I post stuff like this but this is the work of Mason. He likes to put us down for naps. He goes to his room and get a blanket and usually a few other things. He makes sure you have a pillow and will not let you get up until he is satisfied that you have taken a decent nap.We are finally to the Halloween pictures. We decorated cupcakes tonight.I was surprised when Mason put the skull and pumpkin on the cupcake instead of in his mouth. He did eat one of each and was a little upset when we said no to more. These are the cupcakes that Mason decorated.

Here are all of them that we did.

We went to a primary Halloween activity Wednesday night and Mason was a little soldier. (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the outfit.) He had a lot of fun playing the games and seeing the other children in their costumes.

The Missing Tortillas

Mason and I went grocery shopping this morning and got home just in time for lunch. Travis was getting stuff out for a quesadilla for Mason and told him to give the tortillas to Mommy (or he thought he did). Meanwhile, I was in the bedroom changing into something more comfortable (I love wearing lounge pants around the apartment). I came back out to the kitchen and Travis was looking for the tortillas. He asked me if Mason gave them to me. He hadn't. We looked everywhere. We asked Mason to take us to the tortillas. We looked in the cabinets and drawers, the garbage, and under pillows and blankets in the living room. I ended up making Mason cheesy bread for lunch instead of the intended quesadilla.

About 1:00 Travis went back to work and I was left with Mason and lunch cleanup. As I was putting the cheese back in the bottom drawer in the fridge I saw something that didn't belong there. The tortillas were in the back of the drawer under some other cheese. I think Travis intended to give the tortillas to Mason to give to me but put them in the drawer where the cheese was. We know that Mason didn't put them there because Travis said he was in the fridge still getting things out when Mason walked away and what would posess a 2 year old to bury the tortillas as far down and back in the fridge as he could get? We had a good laugh and apologies were made to Mason for blaming him for the missing tortillas.

Shush!

Lately Mason has started crying and screaming when we leave his bedroom at night after putting him down. He goes through this phase every once in a while. For a week and a half we put up with it, letting him cry and checking on him every ten or fifteen minutes. On Sunday, I was tired of listening to him. As I was losing patience, rather than yelling I gave him a stern "Shush!" He stopped almost instantly and that was the end of it. The next night when he started crying Annie tried it. It worked again. It has worked every night this week.

On a few of these past nights while crying Mason stops long enough to shush himself and then continues crying until we go and shush him.

Cleaning

Mason likes to run around with a water gun/bottle and spray us, himself or the furniture. Anything really. Then he points to whatever it is he sprayed and says "wet". We decided to take the opportunity to teach him a little cleaning. He kind of got into it too. He would spray the coffee table or the TV just to wipe them off. If only all of life's lessons were that easy to teach to your children.

Excuse Me

A few weeks ago before church Mason was having Travis march around the coffee table with him to a CD of church music. At first they were just marching but then I sat down and put my foot up on the coffee table. They marched around several times and Mason kept saying "'scue me" so I just left my foot down. The next time they came around he stood there until I put my foot up so he could say "'scue me" again and continue marching.

Jonamac

Last Saturday we went to Jonamac Orchard. We are a family of chickens though. It was sprinkling when we got there around 9:30am, but soon it was pouring. We thought we would just wait it out in the their store. It started to lighten up, but we decided that we didn't trust the weather and would try again next week. As soon as we got home the rain had stopped completely so we talked ourselves into going back. We were really glad that we did. The weather was great for the rest of the day. It was cloudy and I think there was a breeze so it wasn't too hot and didn't feel too muggy.

We had a lot of fun. I think Travis and I decided that the best part was watching Mason get so excited over different things.

We let Mason pick what direction to go in the corn maze a few times and got lost more than a few times.

Mason loves tractors. We couldn't pass up this photo opportunity.

Is this not the BIGGEST rocking chair you have ever seen? I don't think Mason liked it though because he couldn't get down by himself.

We played in a silo FULL of corn kernels. It was easy to see how working in one of these things could be so dangerous. You just sink in. Mason didn't like to walk in it but he really liked the toys they had for the kids to play with.

Mason LOVED the straw fort. I don't know how long he played in it but he had a blast.

It was really funny to see him with the animals at the petting zoo. He kept his hands in fists and I think the animals thought he had food in them because they would not leave him alone.

Pick of the day.
I love his little expressions.

I didn't take a picture but in the store they had apple doughnuts which I've never had or heard of, for that matter. We got a half dozen of them and they were so yummy and fresh. I had to stop myself from eating them so Travis could have a couple. I'll have a hard time not going back just for a dozen doughnuts to bring home.

Aside from a little sunburn that I got, I think it was a perfect family day. I was really glad that we went and had the camera to capture some of it so we could share what we could of our family outing.

Mini Photo Album

I think Mason gets tired before his nap time so he goes to his room and gets a blanket and lays down on the couch till he sees his toy train or something of equal importance or excitement.

We found a park around the corner last week that we've never been to or even seen before (that I can remember). Mason loved it. It had rained the night before and I had to use a couple of fast food napkins to dry out the floor of both of the cars. My hands got tired of wringing out the napkins over and over but it was good that we dried them out because another little boy showed up and he seemed pretty excited to ride in the cars.

I found these sunglasses at Walgreens and the kid loves them.

It isn't as easy to see in a photo but it looks like Mason has dirty feet. I didn't realize how tan his little feet were getting for the little amount of time we were spending outside while it was super hot and humid.

This box is what we started keeping Mason's stuffed animals in. I think Travis took this picture because I don't remember him sitting the the box in the first place. He sure does love Thomas.

This is just before we were about to leave for church. The hat is from Nauvoo. I know that every mom would say this of thier own child but he is so dang cute. Of course, as soon as we got to church Travis made him take the glasses and hat off but not before some of the ward members saw him. They thought is was pretty cute too.

You wouldn't believe how hard/tricky it is to get this kid to wear a silly little clip-on tie. But it looks good. If I remember correctly there was some bribing involved.

Random Pictures Of Our Boy (and his bunny)

Mason wanted to share his hat and (sasses) with his bunny and then he had me help him put the bunny on his rocking horse. I'll try and get the video of him rocking the horse later. It's kind of funny.
We had breadsticks one night for dinner and Mason was eating his like corn on the cob. It can be interesting to watch him eat different things.

Lately he has loved getting into my sock drawer and putting my slipper socks on his hands. The other day he put some on his hands and his feet. He looks like he's wearing leg warmers after a while because they fall down a little bit.

My little superman getting ready to save the day.

I know it isn't the traditional Chinese food but he wanted to be like daddy and eat with chopsticks one night so this is his first attempt with them.

I thought he did pretty well for a first timer.

We Went To The Circus

We decided to take Mason to the circus a few weeks ago. Sometimes I'm afraid that he doesn't get out enough and we thought that an outing to the circus would be fun for him. It was really hot in the tent. We all had sweat dripping off of our faces and it's kind of hard to see but Mason has some crazy sweat hair in this first picture. I don't think the temperature bothered him at all. He had a good time and was very well behaved.

He loved the animals. I wanted to get a picture of him petting the baby zebra but it didn't get close enough for the shot.

I don;t know who any of these people are but I wasn't about to pay for a ride on an elephant. I'm not sure what the rides cost but it was more than likely more than I wanted to pay.

???

I'm not sure what Mason is doing here. He found a couple of paper towels and decided to tuck them into his diaper. I guess he thought they weren't going to be absorbent enough.

Dinner

We had hamburgers the other night but Mason has refused to try a bite of ours so far so I just put a patty on his plate and let him take care of the rest. He made pretty healthy choices. Too bad he refused to eat any of it.

Travis's New Work Space

We decided to get a room divider and put it up in the corner of the bedroom so Travis would have a little work space in the apartment and not have to walk to campus each day. It's just big enough for a little folding table and a small book case (in the lower left hand corner). Mason likes to play in it when we aren't paying attention. We have to keep a gate up in the hallway to keep Mason from being a bother while Travis is working but he's usually pretty good about not going back there.