String of Birthdays

This post is late, but I wanted to add some of these pictures. 


Damen's birthday was at the end of January. It was a low-key day including dinner and a movie with Kade & Minda. Mason got to join us for dinner, but stayed with Aunt Katherine while we went out to see Sherlock Holmes.


Just over a week later was my birthday. We went for a small hike since there wasn't enough snow to go snowshoeing. It's been a pretty dry winter. Here are some of the photos from our hike. Mason rode in the pack well, hardly making a peep but looking around at everything. Once he got tired, he just went to sleep. It was cold, but he didn't seem to mind.

Then a couple weeks later was Kade's birthday. We went and stayed in Smithfield for the weekend to celebrate, and for a little R&R. Here are a few photos of Mason, including an attempt to get a picture of his vampire teeth. He got the second canine tooth about a week after the first one. They are hard to see, I'm still trying to get a good photo of them.

This week was Katherine's birthday, but I forgot to take any photos. We got to spend the day with her which was fun. I think we are through our family birthdays for a couple months!

I'll Have What You're Having

I have been worried that Mason would be a super-picky eater since the only baby food he'll eat (still) is squash and applesauce. 

Well, lately it has seemed that he will eat anything - as long as it's what I'm eating. I've tried making things specifically for him, but he prefers to eat off my plate. I'm ok with that for now.

Most mornings we share a bowl of hot cereal or Cheerios. He also seems to like rice, pasta, broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, cheese, carrots, apples, potatoes, chicken, salmon, avocados, crackers, pears, etc. He has even tasted a few sauces like spaghetti sauce and a mild curry that he seemed to like. The trick is trying to get a full "meal" out of any of these items. He moves on quickly...so he still gets a lot of squash and applesauce.

Here he is, begging for his favorite...yogurt. He gets really excited when I eat it, and he is getting big enough now to climb into my lap to get it.

I still get the "grossed out" face a lot. He squints if he doesn't like something, if he gets too big a piece of food, if it is sour, hot, or cold. This a photo of him stealing my orange slice and tasting it. As you can see in the next photo, he soon got used to the taste and happily chomped away.

It took awhile for him to handle anything with texture, but he has really been getting adventurous the past couple weeks. 


Uh oh. Now I need to go empty his mouth. He just bit off a piece of yoga mat that he's chomping on. Guess it's time for a snack!

And So It Begins...

Number Three

Mason loves to chew things, but yesterday he was especially adamant about chewing on certain things. I'm a bit slow, but as I dressed him for bed I checked his gums.


Sure enough, tooth number three has come through. The nearly toothless smile pictured above will soon be a thing of the past. Tooth number three is not one of the top front teeth as I would have expected, but one of the canine teeth. 

In other Mason related news, he is becoming more mobile! Not crawling, mostly rolling and spinning...but he can get relatively far. He can also spin himself 180 degrees pretty easily while sitting. It is so crazy to watch him figuring it out. 


He has also started babbling so much more in the past two days. He always grunted and fussed and made noise, but this is becoming more distinct and chatty. It is so funny. 


Teething is not my favorite, so I'm trying to focus on the good stuff. Fortunately there has been more and more good stuff lately!

Happy 30th!

Yesterday Damen turned 30! 


I am so thankful for such a wonderful, loving, supportive husband! He is also a great father, and Mason spent the day happier than ever having his dad around.


Happy Birthday!

First Christmas

Much like my last post, this one is about a month late. But, I still want to record what I remember about Mason's first Christmas...so here we go.

We spent Christmas in California this year. The week before we left, we were able to spend some time with my family which was really nice. We had so much fun in fact, that I didn't take a single picture. Oops. On Saturday morning we got together with my mom and sisters to have brunch, exchange gifts, bake some goodies, and play games. It was great. Later that week we got together with my dad for dinner. I love being with family!


Then it was off to sunny California! I wasn't sure how the drive with Mason would be. We bought a new carseat since he had nearly grown out of his old one. It seemed to sit a little too upright, so we stopped in Scipio before the sun was even up. Damen about froze his toes off readjusting the seat! After that it was fairly smooth sailing and all in all Mason did great. We made the drive in 12 hours 15 minutes, just over an hour longer than it normally takes us. 


I don't even know where to start! The house was decorative and very festive. It was nearly 80 degrees the first day we were there and outside was green with flowers growing. Not the Christmas I am used to, but certainly a welcome change! 


Here is Mason peeking under the tree on Christmas Eve. We had a great dinner with the missionaries joining us.

On Christmas Day we went to 9 am church. It was a lovely morning, and it was nice to spend some time reflecting on why we celebrate Christmas. Afterwards we went home to open gifts. Mason got some great stuff, but of course he LOVED crinkling all of the wrapping paper. 

Here he is, yelling at the top of his lungs...

And playing with his new toys.

It was such a nice and relaxing day. We had a great lunch, played games, and watched movies. 


The rest of the week was also very relaxing...for me anyway! It was so nice to have so many people around to play with Mason. Damen's dad stayed up a couple nights with Mason so I could sleep, and Damen's mom took Mason most mornings so I could go back to sleep. After a six week stretch of rarely more than 1.5 hours of sleep at a time, it was a welcome break! Most of the vacation is a haze in my mind, I spent so much of it asleep and resting. 


I even got an afternoon to myself to go take a swim in the pool...

I tried to get out and enjoy the weather aside from the resting. Most days we took a walk at least to the park. Here we are one day playing in the park. Mason loved going out in the stroller.

Mason was scared of Joe the first night, but they soon became friends and hung out on the floor together. Joe occasionally licked Mason's face but was pretty gentle with him. Mason seemed to really enjoy watching Joe run around at the park.

On one trip to the park, we took Mason to the playground and by the time we left the four adults were playing on the playground while Mason watched from the stroller. 


Towards the end of the week we took a trip out to Ventura Harbor. I was determined to take Mason to the ocean. He was teething that day so he wasn't super happy but the trip seemed to be a good distraction for him. He now has two front bottom teeth! He just stared at the ocean and didn't quite know what to make of it. He didn't like the cold waves on his feet. 

We stopped and got ice cream, and of course Mason grabbed my hands and pulled the cone to him. He made sure I knew he wanted to share it with me!

We did NOT want to come home, but after 9 days it was inevitable. I'm so glad we got to go!

Six Months

On December 19 we went in for Mason's 6 month appointment! Here are his six month stats:
28" long (92 percentile)
17.5 lbs (50 percentile)


At six months, he has mastered rolling over in both directions. He still doesn't love being on his stomach very long, though. He has one tooth. He can sit up pretty well on his own. He loves scratching anything with texture, and wants to chew on everything. He babbles a lot more, and laughs a lot more. He also gets pretty cranky when he is tired and cries more than he ever has before. He loves playing with my hair and loves touching my face, especially while he is feeding or falling asleep. He loves baths now and has learned to kick to splash water everywhere. He has also started being more cuddly than he used to. When he gets tired he grabs both sides of my face and snuggles his face next to mine, or sometimes he just puts his head on my shoulder and climbs closer. It is always short lived, but it is cute. He still only likes to eat squash and applesauce. He falls asleep easily but does not stay asleep, still waking up every 1.5 - 3 hours. He has started to sleep on his side, and migrates around the crib as he's sleeping. He hasn't shown any signs of separation anxiety yet, but he is scared of my dad. He has started crying when he sees him and it takes awhile to warm up to him. He has started standing on his legs instead of just bouncing all of the time. He is still super curious about everything and wants to be in the middle of whatever I'm doing. 


I'm sure there are plenty of other things I could write, but that's all I can think of for now. He seems to learn new things every day, and he is constantly changing!