A true homemaker

So it is finally official, I am no longer working. Well being a mom is lots of work, but I no longer work for Menlo Logistics. When Todd went back to school on Monday I needed to change my schedule from 6am-10am to 5:30am-8:30am so that I could watch Mason and Sierra while Todd was at school. Originally I was told that this would be ok, but apparently after thinking about it, it was decided that I was needed four hours a day, not three. I was not willing to give up Todd going back to school so that I could work at this job for a few more months and so as of Wednesday I am officially no longer their employee!! And I am overjoyed!!! That job has been the most difficult job I have ever had, not because of the work that I had to do, but because of the people I had to deal with, management mainly. It was definantly the worst management EVER! But all is well, I don't have to deal with them anymore. I am excited to be able to be home full-time now and to feel like a true homemaker. Todd's comment when I came home after the meeting I had with them Wednesday morning that made it offical was, "So does this mean that the house is going to be a lot cleaner now?!" On my first day as a "true homemaker" I have enjoyed sleeping in, I consider 7am sleeping in when you consider I was getting up at 5am. I did a load of laundry and for the first time in a long time folded and put it away fresh out of the dryer instead of waiting until half the load had been pulled out and worn to take care of the rest of the wrinkled mess. I have emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, sorted through Mason's clothes to get the ones he doesn't fit into anymore out of the closet and drawer, and by lunch time I already had a plan for dinner. I have also taken a cat nap while Mason watched Go Diego Go and read through some of the scrapbook magazines that I checked out at the library. This might not sound like much, but I think for the morning of my first day full time at home it is pretty good. For the afternoon I have some errands planned and maybe a trip to the park and then get dinner ready. And I have a lot of organinzing and moving stuff around in Mason's room so tomorrow I can get my scrapbooking desk!! I am definantly going to enjoy being at home full time! Well I better get back to work while Mason naps, because before I know it he will be awake.

Little Wonders

My little boy is a little wonder. I can't believe how much you can love something who you had to carry around in your belly for nine months and who caused you to gain 50 pounds that you still haven't gotten rid of, who has had some of the nastiest diapers imaginable that you had to change, who can throw a fit like the best of them when he doesn't get his way, especially if you are trying to get him to drink his milk out of his sippy cup instead of his bottle, who calls you Daddy when you are the Mommy, who could melt your heart just by looking at you with his big blue eyes and forget about it when he adds in his precious four tooth grin and a sweet "Hi". I am amazed at just how much I can love my little monkey. Sometimes it still amazes me that this little man is mine, that he grew inside my body, and that he will be mine forever. I am overwhelmed at the amount of joy he brings to my life and how much happiness I have just from thinking of him. His love of life and desire to discover and explore everything around him inspires me to do the same. I could go on and on about how much I love this little guy. Despite all the frustrations and sacrifices I have to make I wouldn't change one thing about my little guy. No matter what happens to me during the day I can always count on the fact that my little sweetie will be happy to see me and I have a snuggle session planned with him at the end of everyday. And you want to know somehting that is even more amazing.... I love this little man's daddy even more!!!!!

Go Diego Go

So last weekend we went to Silver Falls State Park. There is a trail that takes you past 10 different waterfalls, four of which you can walk under. I think the trail is about 9 miles, so that would be 18 round trip! I was all excited and thinking that we were going to do the whole thing... went about 5 miles round trip and saw four waterfalls. It wasn't too hard of a trail, but Mason started getting tired from all the walking he was doing and we couldn't carry him the rest of the way. It was a beautiful day and the surroundings were so gorgeous, waterfalls are one of my favorite things! I was really excited to be able to walk behind them too, I don't know why it is just something that I always thought would be cool to do. It was pretty cool, except for the fact that Mason was scared of going behind them. I think the sound was a little too much for him. He sure was a trooper though, no whining the whole trip and he walked a good part of it including up 186 stairs on the way back up. He loves stairs so any chance he gets to go up or down them he will take. He was one tired boy when we were done though and he fell asleep before we got out of the parking lot. On Tuesday we went to the Zoo. It was $2 Tuesday so there were lots of people there, and lots of field trips from schools, but we still had fun. We got there early and saw a lot of the animals up and active while they were getting fed and stuff. We even got to see the sea anenomies (sp) being fed their breakfast of carrots of all things, that was pretty interesting to see. My favorite part was the butterfly exhibit. They had all kinds of beautiful butterflies and it was pretty awesome. It was funny because as we were going throught the zoo I kept pointing out animals to Mason and Sierra (the little girl we babysit) that we had seen on Dora the Explorer or Go Diego Go, two of Mason's favorite shows. He can be throwing a huge fit and it I start singing him the Dora song he we stop right away and start saying, "Dora? Dora?" It is so cute! We are getting excited for Natalie to come visit in July. We are probably going to spend a few days at the Beach, including the 4th of July and then make a trip up to Canada and then back down to Seattle to see Donny. I am pretty excited for Canada, I keep talking all about it and looking for things to do and Todd just doesn't understand why I am so excited. Atleast some people understand my excitment!!! JJ is also coming to visit at the end of July and Todd took some time off and we are planning on spending most of the week at the coast. That will be a lot of fun.

Today after work I went to my sister-in-law Larua's house and got my hair cut. She runs a salon from her house which is cool for us because she can cut our hair for us. After getting my hair cut we took the boys and Sierra to Papa's Pizza. I have learned as a parent that you plan events based on how much your child would enjoy them, it is no fun trying to have your kid sit in one place for a long time, it just makes it easier to give them stuff to entertain them. This place has a huge play room with a big play structure and a small one for littler kids, a big ball pit with playground balls, and one of those horse rides they have outside the grocery stores. We visit this resturant frequently, and not because we love the pizza (the pizza is not that great), but because the boys love to play. Mason's favorite place is the big ball pit. It has two basketball hoops inside and he always tries to make a basket. It is so funny to watch him in there because he just goes from one side to another throwing each ball out of his way one at a time to clear his path. Then he makes his way back. Whenever it is time to get out of the ball pit he gets very upset. Sometimes I wish that his bedroom was a giant ball pit, that would keep him occupied for hours. Todd and I bought Mason a small inflatable ball pit with two little basketball hoops for his birthday but our cats have punctured one of the hoops and one level of the wall but he still loves it. When he first got it he would take all 50 balls and throw them out of the pit and then expect us to collect them all and bring them back to him. Now he likes to do slam dunks and then clap for himself and when he throws the balls out he will go collect them himself. He is quite the ball lover, they are all over the apartment, and he can throw them very well. He also kicks them around like he is playing soccer. It will be interesting to see which sports if any he chooses to play. Todd wants him to play soccer but I am not a big fan of it. I think it is just because I don't understand all the rules, I mean I know the object is to get the ball in the goal, but the offsides and stuff I don't know about. Maybe I can watch the world cup and learn about it. We both want him to play baseball, but I think Todd is a lilttle disappointed because it would appear that Mason is going to be a righty, unlike both Todd and I, so Todd says he can't play first base now! Maybe he will be a pitcher, he has quite a little arm on him, watchout!! Tonight I have been preparing for our day trip tomorrow. We are heading down south to the Oregon Garden and Silver Falls State Park. Hopefully we will have time for everything, if not we will have to go back another day! Silver Falls has 10 different waterfalls, four of them you can walk behind!! I am excited for that. We will be taking tons of pictures for sure so I will be sure to share them.

Scrapcrazy

Alright so I should be doing this because it is an easy way to keep in touch with my friends and family, that is part of the reason...but another part is because I have become OBSESSED with scrapbooking. I was reading a magazine and it suggested that you keep some kind of journal, online or whatever, so that way when you went back and actually scrapbooked the pictures from that day you would already have the journaling done. This will work well for me since I have completed two pages for Mason's scrapbook in the 14 months of his life!! But this is a way for me to kill two birds with one stone. Friends and family can be kept up to date and I can refer back to my blog when journaling for scrapbooks needs to be done. Any how, today was a kind of rollercoaster day. I had a pretty crappy day at work but was able to leave early. I came home and was delighted when my little man came running to greet me after shouting, "Hi Dadda!" with his big four tooth grin! Yes I, as well as all other family members are refered to as Dadda. When Mason is addressing someone other than a family memeber it is just Hi. We are working on learning everyone's names, but I think he thinks it is cute (which it is) so he just continues calling everyone Dadda. After getting some love from my little one I got ready and we went to work out at the gym. I am still working on loosing the 50+ pounds I gained while I was pregnant! We had to drop Mason off at the Kids Klub which is always an ordeal. As soon as we walk in he clings to us and if we try to put him down he will lift his legs up so we can't set him on his feet, I guess he hasn't realized yet that we can set him on his bum, or maybe he just hasn't found a way to avoid that! When we walked in there was only one other kid in there and he was inside the tunnels of the play structure banging on the walls and saying all this stuff that he thought everyone understood. I quickly realized that the sweet child making all this noise was none other than Jared, as know as the BEAST! This is the little boy we have been watching occasionally for the past few months and it has been a challenge to say the least. I could go on for a while on the experiences we have had with this kid, but I will leave that subject for another day. Any how, I ended up leaving Mason screaming in the arms of the girl in the Kids Klub with his Nerds to help calm him down. I went back to check on him about 10 minutes later and he was climbing out of a car and was perfectly content. This always makes me happy to see, I would hate for my kid to be one of those kids (Jared) who whines for hours upon hours "I want my mommy." I feel bad leaving him screaming but he always calms down and is always happy to see us when we come to get him. We have four more months until nursery so we will have to work on the screaming part between now and then. Anyways, we left the gym and came home and had lunch. Mason was content in my lap with his bottle of milk and was half asleep when Todd brought me my lunch of left over rice pilaf and Mason sat up immediatly. Whenever anyone is eating he thinks they should share with him. He is like a little puppy dog when the food is out, he goes from person to person begging a bite from everyone. It is pretty entertaining to watch. So after he had helped me out by eathing half my bowl of rice he settled in on my lap to enjoy some tv time before his nap. And then Jared arrived. Whenever Jared is around Mason has a really hard time relaxing. He gets nervous when Jared starts crying, which is often. Luckily Jared was asleep so his dad lay him in Mason's crib and ofcourse as soon as he hit the matress his eyes popped right open. His dad said to leave him in there because he hadn't been sleeping that long...two hours later he was still crying. This is pretty much a daily thing weather he is at home or at our house. Well long story short we were all pleased when Jared's dad arrived to pick him up. After Sierra, the little girl we watch, was picked up Mason and I went to run some errands aka going to a scrapbook store! When we got there they had little pinwheels and spinning things for your yard out in the front. Mason is obsessed with these things since Grandma Glenda got him a flower one from the dollar store. Being the strong little boy that he is he pulled the flower off the stick and we couldn't fix it. So I decided to get Mason another one. Probably wasn't a good idea. By the time we left the store he had his new flower in four pieces! I think this one can be saved though! After Mason and I had dinner with Todd at work we went to Fred Meyer. I found a little plastic chair for Mason. When we got home he plopped down on his chair to watch Thomas. He thinks he is a pretty big boy now and I have to realize that he is. I can't believe how much he has grown and changed in the past 14 months. It has gone by so quickly! I cherish each day with him and look forward to being there as he discovers more of the world around him.