"NO"

I think it is so amazing how much little ones grow and develop each day. One day Mason will just start saying or doing something that he never did before. It is amazing that they can understand so much more than they can communicate to us. Mason has a few new words that he says, "Again" he can say all of his numbers 1-10 but doesn't usually do them in order, like if he hears 5 will say 6, 7, 8, when he falls down he says, "I'm OK," he is finally saying Mommy and using it to address me, he says "ball" says and signs airplane, and our least favorite word he has learned, "NO." He usually only says no when I give him something to eat that he doesn't want, he hasn't learned to say it to us when we ask him to do something. He still is completely obsessed with trains and says choo choo train whenever he hears or sees one. He also will make the chugga chugga sound, very precious. He loves to play with his trains on the window sill and could do it for hours on end! He also has a new favorite toy, a shape sorter from Chin. He is getting to be a big boy and I have learned that I can't take my eyes off him for too long or he might get himself into trouble! Yesterday we were at the park with a friend from the ward and her kids and we were talking as the girls were eating their candy necklaces and Mason decided that he wanted to go play on the play structure. He climbed up the stairs, went on the bridge and started playing there. Then the next thing I know I look over and I can't see him anywhere but I can hear him start to whimper. I got up and ran over to the part of the play structure I couldn't see and found him holding on to the play structure hanging by one arm. He must have tried to go down the twisty fire pole and wasn't quite able to reach it! I told Todd when he got home, it would have been such a cute picture to scrapbook, but what kind of Mom would I be if I ran to get the camera instead of getting Mason down! Mason will be starting Nursery on October 8th and we are excited about that. I hope that he won't cry and if he does that it won't be too much! Well we are heading off to the beach for the weekend, so I gotta go finish packing.

E-I-E-I-O

It has been a while since I last posted. Not a lot new going on here, just trying to get some sort of normalcy back into our lives. Todd has been working as a supervisor for the past two weeks and will be doing so for a few more. It has been great because he has been able to work an 8-5 Monday thru Friday, with the exception of one late night Tuesday. It has been nice having him home at nights, but both Mason and I are still trying to adjust to having him gone all day. Since he doesn't get scheduled breaks sometimes we don't get to talk to him at all except at lunch. Mason is all confused about what his sleeping schedule should be. He still thinks he needs to stay up until 11 or 12 because that is when Daddy should be getting home. Then some mornings he will wake up at like 8am, this morning he didn't get up until 10am and that is only because I went in his room and woke him up. He is only taking one nap a day, unless he takes a cat nap in the car. He has gotten to the point to where he will sleep through most of the night most of the nights. Usually if he does wake up it is about 5am to have some milk and then go back to sleep for a few more hours. He is talking a whole lot more, he says, "All done," "choo choo train," "bye, see you," "where did daddy go?," and will copy pretty much anything you say. He is learning all the family members names and just loves looking through the photo album I am putting together for him. The other night the whole family was together and Mason was looking through a book of Thomas stickers and we were saying all the names and then all the sudden he points to Todd's dad and says, "There's Papa!" and then just went right back to the book. Tom was a proud Grandpa that night! We are teaching him to say "Trick or Treat" for Halloween, it is pretty cute to hear him say. The other day he was playing with his little people farm and if you turn a wheel it plays Old McDonald. Well he turned it and the music started playing and he started singing along with the music. The only thing I understood was "E-I-E-I-O" but I thought that was pretty cool! It is amazing to see and hear all the new things he learns each day. I have been keeping busy with my calling, October means the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. Luckily I didn't have to write it, but there is still lots for me to do. We are looking forward to October 8th which will be Mason's first day in nursery. I am curious to see how he will do. The secretary in the presidency has a 3 year old who will be in the nursery with Mason, and Mason is afraid of him, so it will be interesting to see how he handles being in there with him two hours every Sunday. I think he will cry, but will calm down, and will stay close to the nursery leaders. I know Todd is excited to finally be able to attend classes without the distraction that Mason can cause! We sure love our little man and he brings so much happiness to our lives!

Whale Sighting

So we went out to the beach this weekend and ofcourse had lots of fun. We didn't do anything big this time, it was nice to just kinda hang out. We drove down to Tillamook and went to Cape Meares and saw the lighthouse there. We also saw a whale spouting water, it was soo cool. It was really foggy there, so we only saw him for a few minutes before the fog bank rolled in and we lost him. Todd just wanted to go boogieboarding all weekend and finally got a chance Monday morning. He ofcousre had to wear a wetsuit because the water is totally freezing!! But he had lots of fun until he saw a fish jump in the water and got spooked by it because that morning he had heard about how Steve Irwin had been stung by a sting ray and died. It looked like Todd was having so much fun that I decided to give it a shot too, with the wetsuit ofcourse. Even with the wetsuit the water was still freezing but I tried a few times before I got out! I guess once you have been in the water in Hawaii nothing else will do!!! Anyway we had a lot of fun at the coast this weekend. Mason absolutely loves the beach, but has wised up about how cold the water is and runs away from the waves instead of into them. Although he still loves to go out in them if someone is holding him. He loves running in the sand and enjoyed digging in it while Todd was boogieboarding. His favorite part about the beach is all the birdies and doggies that he sees on the beach. A lot of times people will bring their dogs over for Mason to pet and he just loves that. One morning when we were walking on the beach he just sat and watch these two dogs chase their balls into the water. He would just laugh and smile at them!! He also started saying two new words/phrases this weekend, "stuck" and "go train go" we also figured out that he says "azul, azul, azul" (spanish for blue) which he learned from his favorite Dora episode where Dora rides a blue train named Azul and says azul to help him go fast. It is pretty cute! We sure enjoyed our summer and were glad we were able to spend a lot of time at the beautiful coast. Now it is back to real life, Sierra will be coming back 2-3 days a week and Todd will be starting classes at the end of September. He will be taking 3 classes this quarter so he will be super busy. In the end it will all be worth it though, we just wish the end could get here faster!!! We are excited with the news that another niece/nephew is on the way, Matt and Teri are expecting and Laura could be soon. She is doing an invetro process and should find out in about two weeks if the first set of eggs worked. We are excited for both of them and are crossing our fingers for a little girl!!!