Thank You Hayley!

Yesterday, my cousin Hayley, took me on an Argosy lunch cruise around Seattle. We had so much fun! It was nice to talk and not have my children interrupting us! Thanks again Hayley!! What a great birthday present!

Rock & Roll

If any of you know me or Derek you would know we don't go to concerts. Not that we don't like music, but it's just one of those things we don't go out and do regularly (or ever). Until this last weekend! Derek got me tickets to see my favorite group ever, Counting Crows, down in Vancouver. We actually had a lot of fun and it was nice to be child free for a day and a night. The concert was good but we were actually more impressed with Maroon 5 who preformed before Counting Crows. I got a few pictures, but we were in the last row of the Amphitheater so they obviously weren't the best quality.

This little blurry spec is Adam Levine from Maroon 5. He was awesome. I never knew I was a Maroon 5 fan until this night!

This is Adam Duritz from Counting Crows. He remixed his songs so much that it was hard to sing along, so I was kind of bummed about that. He probably does that for a reason so he doesn't have crazy fans like me singing!

Derek was caught a few times doing this. I'm sure it was important.

It was really nice to get away and do something different! I must admit though, I HATE LEAVING MY KIDS! I had never left Reese overnight before, and I've only done it twice with Mason and one of those times is when Reese was born. Not that I didn't think they were in good hands with my sister and my mom, but I just really hate to be away from them. Thankfully we got up early Sunday and drove home so we weren't even gone 24 hours. Needless to say, they were SOOOO excited to see us when we got home.

Mario Party!

Mason had an awesome time at his party Friday night! He had all of his best friends come (half of them are cousins). We tried to talk him into having a baseball themed party but he absolutely insisted on Super Mario Brothers. I know, I know. Thankfully I found some things on birthdayexpress.com and was able to decorate a pinata like a chain bomb thing that is in a Mario Brother game. Derek decided that he didn't want to do the whole pinata bashing thing this year and I had already made the pinata. So he thought it would be fun to throw the pinata off the playhouse and see how many times it would take before the pinata exploded. I think it was three times, and then some of the older cousins ripped it open and dumped all the candy out (thank you Griffin and Trevor!). I don't think the kids minded our new way of breaking open the pinata, all they cared about was the end result! Thanks to everyone who came and shared this fun night with us! Here are some pictures from our night!







Here all all the kids that came to the party, minus Murphy (who was eating on his dads lap). I'm sorry to say that my Mom doesn't have 4 high chairs.




I think the cake turned out perfect! I ordered a cake topper from ebay. It's like a picture but edible and you can apply it to your own cake. I had Albertson's apply it to one of their cakes because I know I would have screwed it up. It's a good thing it was a good cake because it cost me a small fortune! Mason might have thought it was his first birthday because he decided to pick up his piece and eat it with his hands. What have I taught this child???





He received a lot of fun gifts! The one gift that he absolutely went nuts over was the one his dad gave him. I'm so bummed that I wasn't video taping it. He basically was freaking out and yelling how it's "exactly what I wanted" and then at the end he did a fist pump! I don't think I even knew he knew what a fist pump was. I thankfully got a picture of that. Oh and the gift was a video game for the Nintendo DS called MLB Power Pros (baseball game). Of course it had to be a video game!

Mom's side note- I don't normally let him wear shirts with characters on them (especially Mario) but I allowed it this one time because it went along with the theme of his party. I'm such a good mom :)

4 Years Ago Today!

Happy Birthday Mason! Mason was born 9/21/04 at 3:19 pm. He weighed 7lbs 12ozs and was 22" long. This was the most exciting day of our life up till then and I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on him. It makes my heart melt just thinking about it. I love this boy so much!!

Mason on his first birthday. He was such a happy baby and really easy! This picture looks a lot like Reese to me!

Mason at 2! He grew up so much through this year and showed me that a 1, almost 2 year old wasn't as easy as I first thought. I would soon realize that it gets even harder!

3rd birthday. What a difficult 2 year old he was! I love the kid so much, but I can still remember chasing him through a park so he wouldn't get hit by a car in the parking lot. Thankfully, right after his 3rd birthday, he seemed to be a little bit easier and would listen a lot better! He's always been such a happy boy, so I shouldn't complain!

Mason at his birthday party Friday night (I'll blog about that soon). He is the best little boy! This last year he has shown us his love for Super Mario Brothers and baseball! Mason will play baseball most of the day by himself and then the second his dad walks in the door from work, he is begging to play with him! Thankfully we have a great big play room where he is allowed to play inside. We are so grateful for Mason and all the happiness he brings to us! We are excited to see if our next little boy is anything like him!

Update

So I know you are all dying to know what the Dr said about Mason's ingrown eyelash (kidding). It took a few of us to hold him down but he was able to pluck it out with tweezers...OUCH! He said that in 25 years of being a Dr he's never seen an ingrown eyelash! We kind of felt special.

BOY oh BOY!!!

Yep, this little guy (who I thought was a girl) is definitely a boy! Needless to say Mason is so excited to have a brother. Poor Reese, she'll just have to be our little princess!

(To protect his privacy I didn't show you the "all boy" picture. You'll just have to believe me.)

This is the little outfit we brought home to tell him we were having a boy.

Suggestions?

So, Mason has a ingrown eyelash..ouch! It is driving me nuts because I just want to get it out but obviously it's in a sensitive area and he won't let me touch it more than a second. Today he let me try and get it out longer than he would yesterday but screamed after about a minute. Now I don't know what to do. Leave it alone? If you know me, that's hard for me to do. I like to fix things. It would be a lot easier if it wasn't under a thin layer of skin. He has his 4 year check up tomorrow, so I suppose I can ask his Dr what's the best thing for it. I honestly had never heard of an ingrown eyelash, but my mom assures me that I have had one before. What would you do if your kid had this?

Happy Birthday Elder Thompson!!!!

Taken last year a couple weeks before he went into the MTC

Today is my little brothers 20th birthday! He's serving a mission in Germany so we thought we send him a special birthday shout out!!

Happy Birthday Alec/Ike/Uncle Ike/Elder Thompson! We miss you so much! We are so proud of you and your example to our children for serving a mission. We hope you enjoyed your birthday box! We love you so much!! (sorry that you'll get this after your birthday, if I was smart I would have had it done Sunday night so you could have checked it Monday)

This was the third video I made. I tried to wait till Mason's hiccups were gone, sorry! You also can see how loud and silly they are! Reese had just said your name before I started the video and of course wouldn't when I was taping. Oh and please don't look directly into the sliding glass door, I hate reflections!

1 is a lonely number?

Derek went to the Mariners game tonight and brought along this guy-

I stayed home and went out to dinner with my parents and this girl-

Not that I didn't know this before, but 1 child is soooo much easier than 2! Everything is easier with 1 - dinner, bedtime, cleanup! I can't believe we'll have 3 in less than 6 months. I will admit it now, WE ARE CRAZY!

Fair!

I LOVE the fair. We go every year and it's so fun that Mason can go on the rides now. He is about an inch too short to go on some of them by himself so Derek was a trooper and went on the few that he had too (Derek and I hate rides, we get super sick). This is also the first year in 3 years that I wasn't on a diet!!!!! It was pretty awesome eating what I wanted and not having to get the sugar free syrup on my beloved Hawaiian ice! (sorry for all the pictures, I have a problem with putting on way too many)





Last year he was so scared riding the motorcycles. This year, I could tell he was a little nervous but had a smile on his face the whole time!




I was able to keep Reese in her stroller the whole time (she even fell asleep which she NEVER does)! We did let her out to pet the animals, which she loved! In the second picture, there is a a bunny in the baby play pin. She loved it!!