J's B-day

Jackson turned 7 in January.  SEVEN!  I'm the worst Mom ever because I've never given him a "friend" party.  I always make sure that he has a special day though.  This year I let him stay home from school and go to Chuck E Cheese with his brothers.  They had a blast and they love it there.  Then we had a party with my family at my Mom's.  It was a great day.  Needless to say I felt really really bad when I found invitations that Jackson drew himself - he drew about 20 over Christmas and they all had reindeer on them.  He made a list of everyone to invite, what kind of cake he wanted, what frosting he wanted, what games he wanted to play at his party, etc.  I promise I will get over the fact that planning any kind of event makes me have anxiety attacks that require several Xanex.  I will not crush his hopes and dreams next year and hopefully he'll have an amazing 8th birthday party - with friends.  Eeek.  Good thing he was satisfied with his family and Chuck this year. 

Mason had a god time too.  :)

Christmas

Yes, Yes. I am blogging about Christmas.  I am that far behind. Let's just pretend I'm not, shall we?  Mr. and Mrs. Claus came to visit one of our Christmas parties.  The boys couldn't believe it. 

 They were the cutest wise men for the nativity.  The baby was supposed to be baby Jesus, but he had to eat during the Christmas story reenactment, so his position was filled by the understudy - a much older baby girl.

It is a Christmas tradition that my dad dresses up as a visitor that just came from the North Pole and recites some Christmas poems that his grandpa made up.  The poems (and my dad) are hilarious and we love them. 

 Hayden knew it was his grandpa and he wanted to give him a big hug before he/the crazy visitor left.

 They boys playing the bells.

 It was exciting to have Christmas morning at our new house.  I made the boys go to Church before opening presents.  We actually slept in and there really wasn't time to open them before 9:00 a.m. Church.  They were so excited when they got home.

 Look at the brotherly love!

 The hit of this Christmas:  A Clone Trooper helmet and a General Grevous helmet. 

We had a great Christmas!

More Mr. Mason

So we've been busy around here with the Holidays and birthdays, and I'm sad to say I'm relieved that they're all over, because I am tired people.  I'll get to pictures of the holidays soon, but I just wanted to post pictures of my 3 month old baby who steals my heart every day.  He is the sweetest thing on the planet and I can't get enough of him and his smiles and his talking.  I thought I would share my joy with the world.

 We love love love him, and sometimes he even sleeps through the night.  AH!  Sometimes I don't think I deserve him. 

Happy Thanksgiving

aaaand Mason is two months old.  That flew by, and yet, it feels like the longest two months of my life, only because of lack of sleep.  Other than that it's been great.  Anyway, Mason has chunked out.  We went to the Dr. yesterday and he weighed 12 lbs 15 oz and is 23 inches long.  He's gone from this

To this little chub.  I know this is not a flattering picture, but he looks so fat I think it's hilarious.

Here are some cuter pictures.  He's smiling now and I love it!

 We love this little guy.  Hayden so much that we fear for his safety, as you can see.  But he would only give someone his precious green blanket if he really loved them.  He makes sure Mason is always warm.

Mason is definitely his daddy's little boy.  We love it when Daddy comes home because then Mason has someone to hold him for the rest of the night. :)

 Anyway, we had an interesting Thanksgiving.  We decided to stay home this year since my family was going to Logan and we didn't want to drive for 4 hours.  Tyler made Thanksgiving and we spent it together in our new house.  It was the first time I've had Thanksgiving dinner with no extended family around and the second time I'd had Thanksgiving dinner with less than 30 people.  We will be going to relatives next year as Hayden and Jackson got really sick of each other and proceeded to get into a kicking and pushing fight after dinner.  We have some of it on video.  Aren't we good parents?  We don't stop it, we record it. The food was awesome though.  That part I enjoyed thoroughly.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!  I can't believe tomorrow is December.  How is this happening? 

Happy Birthday Hayden

 Hayden is 5!  Ok, so his birthday was almost 2 weeks ago, but better late than never.  For his birthday he wanted to go to Kangaroo Zoo.  It seems to be a tradition in our family and who better to go with him than Jackson?  They had so much fun, like always.

 Apparently they have a Kangaroo mascot.  When it walked away, Hayden whispered, "Mom, it's not a real Kangaroo.  I saw it's neck.  It's a person."  This whole time he thought Mascots were real? 

 Hayden loves to jump off everything.  This wasn't even one of his highest.  Crazy child.  I'm just glad when he can get his energy out.

 This is a huge slide and Hayden decided to go down face first slowly.  He climed down the thing with his hands and braced himself with his legs in the splits, for as long as he could. 

 He is so funny.  His birthday was on a Sunday and we went to Kangaroo Zoo on Saturday.  On Sunday morning Hayden took a present into his room and started opening it by himself.  I freaked out and made him come in my room, where the presents were.  He couldn't wait anymore, so he opened them all on the floor of my bedroom.  Ya, those are my clean clothes in the background.

 This is the third year Hayden has asked for a "pumpkin cake."  I know you can't really tell it's a pumpkin.  I just made it orange and put chocolate chips in the shape of of a pumpkin and a jackolantern face. Hayden insisted that he wanted black balloons in the middle of the cake, for a nose.  Soooo, ya.  That was his birthday cake.  He is always full of very interesting ideas.

We love our Hayden.  I love how he says "exclanation point" and "Millenial Falcon" (if you don't know, it's from Star Wars) and "umbilican cord."  And so many other things.  He is growing up so fast and even though he's been a little challenging lately, he can make me laugh and make my heart melt and I wouldn't change him for a second.  I'll just discpline him a little.  :)

I thought of some more quirky things about Hayden that I wanted to remember:

*He's going through a phase where he refuses to wear jeans.  If he does wear them to school he comes hom and throws them off as fast as possible.

*He goes through 2 -3 outfits a day and loves to wear short sleaves and shorts.  He changes into shorts every day!

*He loves sweatpants or "comfy"pants and likes to wear them with the same color shirt

*He also loves boots - snowboots, rainboots, and wants to wear them every day, especially when he's running around in shorts.  Then he feels he doesn't have to put pants on to go somewhere.  Let's just say his fashion sense is very unique.

*He loves his baby brother.  So much so that I am wondering if Mason will make it through this year.

*He likes to say "uh-uh" to almost everything I ask him to do.

*He has me tie his green blankie into a "lei"

*When he wakes up at night someone has to come "cover him up."  For some reason he can't do it himself.

*When he's tired he has his own languag where he adds certain sounds to words: Shank you, Shmommy, Shmine, or he takes sounds out: Jackon is the most common and sometimes he says mm mm mm mm mmmmmm, but because of his voice inflection we know exactly what he's saying.

He's a character I tell ya!