Look Who.....

is turning 2!!!

Our "baby"...

is now a "big boy"!

Mason will be 2 years old on January 20th and we are so thankful to God for the blessing of him! We are looking forward to the upcoming year and all that he and we will learn and experience together!

Warmer Days...

I must say I am enjoying this first big snow in 2011! There's no school today, which doesn't really impact us at all... except that I've used it as an excuse to stay in my pajamas all day. Just because, that's what you do on snow days right?

I generally am an organized/prepared person, which absolutely means having a winter car kit. I don't think I've ever actually used it before, until yesterday. Yesterday I learned two things 1) My winter car kit is not as equipped as it should be 2) If you live on the top of a big hill you should definitely have a different vehicle than I do.... or you just might get stuck at the bottom of the hill and end up walking the rest of the way home.

We were heading home after church and lunch with friends and had little indication that we wouldn't be successful in making it the whole way. Try as we may, our car could not get up the hill. So we parked our car at the bottom, got out the winter car kit, bundled up Mason and ourselves, and had a nice snowy Sunday afternoon family walk up the hill and down our lane. The only thing you would assume would be in the kit car that was not... gloves. Fortunately there was a plethora of socks, which worked just as well. Had it not been 2 hours past Mason's naptime I probably would have entertained other options.... that and when else was I actually going to get to use the winter car kit?

So now we're officially snowed in, which is great by me as I'm tackling projects on my "Things To Do Before Baby Comes" list. Today is officially picture day, so here are some memories from warmer days!

Guess I should have put him in charge of watering the lawn...

I believe he was trying to escape... fortunately there's nothing but grass for quite a while :).

This is our "back yard".

We LOVE these onesies our very talented friend Cody makes!

The Tree Picture

Dustin (29), Mason (23 months), Bre (26), & Baby (6 months in utero)

I really like pictures in front of Christmas trees. Our tree, however, is all of 3 feet tall. Our only hope was to "adopt" another tree for our photo. Thanks to Erin Schledewitz for being in the right place at the right time, we were able to snag a family photo in front of the big tree at church this past Sunday!

Feel free to share in our joy that Mason is looking at the camera! This is truly impressive as he is obsessed with the tree, which is understandable as it is the largest Christmas tree he has ever seen. We may just have to leave our little 3-footer up for a while. Every night he asks for us to turn on the lights and then he sits in front of the tree as close as possible without actually touching, as he is only allowed to "look with his eyes" in order to save the balls from being used to shoot hoops. He's really into throwing things right now, but balls are the only items he is allowed to throw. It's working out pretty well, there were only a few times the real basketball was thrown at the Christmas tree. We're still working at not throwing at breakables and friends :). Ironically, the only ornament that has actually been broken this year was not by Mason....

Christmastime is such a special time, filled with many learning and relearning opportunities for the young as well as the old! We hope you enjoy the celebration of Christmas this year in all the ways that are special to you and your family!!!

'Tis the Season...

for pottytraining? Apparently not quite according to Mason. However, he does occasionally show interest in using the potty chair. On this particular night (right before his bath) he decided he wasn't going to sit on it... until he put his rainboots on!

Why rainboots? They're pretty much the only shoes he can put on by himself :).

On a side note, the rainboots were $1 at a garage sale and the potty chair only 50 cents!

Non-Perfect Pictures

So I was asked if I was ever going to post again, and I decided that I indeed would.... as soon as I got the "perfect" pictures. But then I reconsidered based on the fact that it had been since the end of August and despite the massive amount of pictures I have taken in that time, I've come to accept the fact that I have an almost 2-year-old who is not yet capable of sitting perfectly still and smiling directly at the camera as I would like and therefore I will have very few "perfect" pictures. Not that I don't like other types of pictures and for me that's not what it's about anyway...

I cherish the pictures I do have, including the many that are blurry as he is almost always moving. I'm just thankful he has a cute profile since I seem to capture a lot of side views :). So in the spirit of non-perfect pictures, here's the attempt at Christmas-themed pictures. I figured by starting early I could get a handful of photo shoots in before the month was over!

The suit I got on clearance for $6.24 at the end of last season. I remember how excited I was when I got it and then thinking how long it would be before he could actually wear it!

Mason's "fancy shoes" as he calls them, which I picked up at a garage sale this summer.

New Christmas vest from Grandpa and Grandma!

He's actually just pretending to take a nap.

He has a lot of hair.... and right now he always has a lot of static going on. I apologize in advance if he accidentally shocks you or your kiddos!

He attempted to say "poinsettia". His version had the right number of syllables... just not in the right order :).

Static in the hair clearly visible!

He's still learning that I will continue to take pictures even if he attempts to hide.

Enjoying a mouthful of dried apricot, his photo shoot treat. We later noted that he may have had a bit too much :).

Singing... the lobby in Daddy's office has wonderful echoing capabilities.

I really enjoy taking pictures, so regardless of the outcome I'm just glad to be able to capture each age and stage! We hope you are your family are enjoying this special time of year and wish you an early very Merry Christmas!

Coming in 2011!

Have you ever tried to tell someone something really important and they just didn’t get it? Like that you’re pregnant, for instance. Yeah, that happened to me when I tried to tell Dustin that we’re going to have another baby! So I’ve given up on doing something unique and creative for every person and now we’re just “telling” people… I know, kind of boring. I really had the perfect plan, but it didn’t quite go as expected. However, the video recording that I have of the whole event is pretty hilarious.

So it is with gratitude to God for the life He has created that we announce our pregnancy! The due date is March 13^th, and I’m currently 12 weeks along. Baby is approximately 2 inches long or about the size of a lime.

We’ve met Baby through ultrasound during our first doctor’s appointment. Heartbeat was good at 154 bpm which has already caused speculation that it’s a girl…. and since we’re not finding out gender this time around, you can have fun guessing with us! I'm not sure I want to go on record with this yet, but I'm leaning towards boy at this point. We're so thankful to have the blessing of another child!

Our Family

I love pictures, and sadly we have very few of our family. It's like our honeymoon, where we have a bunch of just Dustin and a bunch of just me.... at least until we figured out the timer function on the camera and started propping it on trash cans. So a big thanks to our friend Josh Johnson for getting some pictures of the three of us at Yanney Park!

Mason was running around the top of the tower, so he escaped this one.

We have a picture of him like this at 6 months!