Happy 5th Birthday, Mason!...

My precious Mason…My firstborn…It doesn’t seem like you could possibly be five years old already. I remember the details of the day you were born like it happened only a moment ago. I remember going to church that Sunday morning and Pastor Gary preached a special Christmas message. I thought about you the whole time knowing that the upcoming holiday would be very different that year. I remember after church Daddy and I went out to eat fajitas at one of our favorite restaurants. We wanted to share one last date together before you arrived. I remember doing yard work that afternoon with Daddy. We suspected you would be born sometime that week, and we wanted to get some last minute chores done around the house. I remember feeling a little surprised when, only thirty minutes later, my water broke as I was sweeping the driveway. I remember heading to the hospital a couple of hours later, feeling completely uncertain of the process that would lie ahead. I remember laying in the hospital bed for the first five hours just waiting for something further to happen…no contractions…no pain. Then just after midnight came the contractions…and then the pain. The labor was long and intense. My plan was to complete the course of your birth medicine-free, and experience the whole process as naturally as I could. I remember Daddy and I didn’t sleep the whole night, because every two minutes there were painful reminders of your impending arrival. Daddy sat beside me and held my hand until the early hours of the morning. I don’t recall him once leaving my side. Granna and Poppa arrived at midnight and slept in the waiting room that night. Mimi and Pop came very early the next morning, hopeful that you might have already been born. We would all have a longer wait than we anticipated. I remember as my labor advanced into the next day, the doctor became concerned that things weren’t progressing like they should have been. I remember hearing the murmurs of a possible c-section, which worried me greatly, but I was determined, and I convinced myself that you would be born naturally if I just had more time. The doctor gave me until late that afternoon to show more signs of progress, but progress never came. I remember in the hours before your birth, your oxygen levels and heart rate began to drop, you were showing signs of stress, and I started to run a fever. It was then that we made the decision to proceed with the surgery. Exactly 24 hours after labor began, you finally came into this world…at last! At that point, nothing mattered except that you were here…healthy and strong…my nine-pound Mason! I remember you looked more like a six-week old than a newborn, as the nurse whisked you by. It would be two hours later before I would have my chance to hold you for the first time. How can it be that five years have passed? Even now, you still love for me to hold you, to sit in my lap and cuddle…these are precious moments for me. My charming Mason, my life has never been the same since the day you came into it. Some of the sweetest memories of my life occurred on that day. Spending the past five years at home with you has been a priceless gift…my greatest joy! If I could, I would go back and re-live it all over again…every moment with you. Happy fifth Birthday! I pray God’s greatest blessings on your life. Always know that I am so proud of the boy that you have become… I am so proud to call you my son.

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Thanksgiving Thievery...

For all practical purposes, this was Ellie's first Thanksgiving.  (Last year she was only 1 month old so she slept through most of the festivities).  But this year she got to enjoy visiting family, playing games, and pies...oh the pies.  Now, I've never been much of a pie person myself, and I didn't give it much thought when I saw her making the loop through the kitchen of my parents' house nibbling on something small and crunchy from her hand.  It appeared to be pie crust, and there were lots of cooks in the kitchen, so I just figured someone had given her a taste.  But after observing her make the third loop out of the kitchen with bits of pie crust in her little hand, I decided to investigate further.  As she quietly made her next venture into the kitchen, I followed her.  Everyone was so busy getting Thanksgiving dinner ready, no one even noticed that a sneaky little girl had figured out a way to stand on her tippy toes to reach the multitude of desserts that sat on the table above her:  

To all of the pecan pie lovers in my family--my apologies.  Because unfortunately, one-third of you did not get to enjoy the delicious crust on your Thanksgiving dessert.

Mason's Manger...

The Christmas spirit is alive in our house!  Mason wanted to decorate his room this year for Christmas, complete with mini Christmas tree and nativity scene.  Today I set up his nativity set on his dresser next to the little tree he decorated.  Later, when I returned to his room I found that he had turned all the nativity characters around where we could only see their backs.  When I asked him why he turned all the people backward, he said, "Momma, all the shepherds and wise men want to look at baby Jesus."  Come to think of it, I think he has the right idea--it's certainly not the way we usually see manger scenes set up, but perhaps the way we should:

"Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?  For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

Matthew 2:2

There's Nothing Like...

A little girl and her daddy watching a football game together:

Take 2...

Matthew and I decided to update our family picture, since the last time we did it was when Ellie had just been born.  So last week we gave it a shot.  But Ellie, who has always been a great picture taker, suddenly became very upset at the photographer's flash and that faint popping noise that it makes.  And when I say "upset", I mean clinging to me, screaming, with her face buried in my shoulder, gripping me with her arms and legs as if her life depended on it.  So after taking some less-than-ideal shots with a crying baby and a little boy who has decided his new "photo face" is a not-so-natural grin with his teeth clinched together as if he was in pain, we decided to try it again a week later. 

(Mason's new mug...not sure where this grimace came from, but it has now become his new "cheese".)

Well, today was the day...the re-takes, if you will.  As soon as we assumed our picture-taking positions, Ellie immediately began a repeat of last week...but even more so.  After the end results, last weeks pictures didn't look so bad after all.  Here are a few:

We tried to give Ellie a break for awhile and just take some shots with Mason.  We got some good ones...sans the "cheese" face, but couldn't find a way to photo-shop "happy" Ellie into them  :)

This face pretty much shows Ellie's sentiment toward the photographer the entire time.  Obviously the break didn't help much.  Can you even see her in the second photo?  Look closely...she's hiding on Matthew's shoulder:

Then when we realized that Ellie was NOT going to come off the shoulder without a fight, we tried to put both kids on our shoulders to make it appear as though it was supposed to be that way.  But Ellie refused to even look in the general direction of the photographer, and Mason  looked like he was cramped and a little unsure of this strange pose:

So in the end, we decided on the picture up top, in the blog header.  So what if Mason is in his own little world staring off into space, and who cares that Ellie has red eyes and a snotty nose from her hysterics.  Hey...it will definitely be a family portrait to remember!

Leaves...

Mason's favorite thing about fall, aside from getting to wear his long-sleeved shirts and "long-sleeved pants" as he calls them, is raking and playing in the leaves. We are fortunate enough to have a great oak tree in the front yard that is so beautiful during the spring and summer, and provides lots of good leaves to rake in the fall.

Uh Oh...

My daughter has a strange fascination with the potty...something Mason never did. I have to constantly keep the bathroom doors closed because she will make her way to the forbidden 'porcelain playground' any chance she can get. Things had been going well and we had been potty-incident-free for several weeks...until yesterday. I thought the bathroom door was closed until I heard the lid fall and Ellie began to fuss. I went in to find her hand stuck between the seat and the lid. As I raised the lid to set her free, she looked up at me and said "Uh oh." I realized she was trying to tell me something. I looked down only to find this little treasure in the potty:


Her newest enjoyment is to throw things into the potty (or into the trash, on the floor, etc.) and then say "Uh oh" as if it were accidental. The day after potty incident #1, I found her in the middle of potty incident #2, where she had taken an old diaper out of the trash can and threw it into the toilet. I walked into the situation in progress and said, "What in the world are you doing?!" Her guilty response..."Uh oh."