Spring 2015

One of the best parts about being a mom is watching your kids learn and grow and experience new things. We have a lot of fun with Mason! We spent a lot of time at the park this spring, along with reading books and traveling (there have been other posts about our travels). Mason loves being outside and finding animals. A lot of our walks are him pointing and shouting at something he saw! Anyway, here are some pictures of the fun things we did this spring!

Mason loves watching Daniel Tiger, and one of the things he has learned from that show is how to be a helper! He loves helping carry in groceries and put food away in the fridge. It makes me happy :)

How he got his shirt off (two different mornings) I'll never know. Clever guy.

We love Rumba, and Mason loves apple juice!

Sometimes Mason decides we all need to wear hats. His hat is from when Sean was like 8, and Sean and I have to wear those same hats every time. We go on lots of walks to get out of the house.

We loved having a balcony at our apartment! Mason would go out there and people watch or play, and on occasion, read! His book there is called "The Pout Pout Fish" and its super cute!

Oh you know, reading outside in short sleeves one day, snowing the next. That's Utah spring for you!

Poor guy wasn't feeling well and didn't take a great nap, so he curled up in his blankets and watched Daniel Tiger while I finished my work hours for the day.

I taught him to play peek-a-boo around tree trunks!

Why did the duck cross the road?

We would visit the duck pond every so often. Mason loved chasing the ducks! My favorite thing about this picture is his shirt, it says "Snack Time"

Petting the cat that lives around our complex. Mason loves that cat, and often says "shhhh" when we go down the stairs in case the cat is sleeping.

Goofy hat boy! Those are his FAVORITE jimmies. 

He likes to sit in the driver's seat and pretend to drive.

This lovely little fence is across the street from our Provo apartment. Mason loved walking back and forth across the cement,

He's gotten really good at building with blocks (thanks nursery!)

LOVES his water table! Well the first couple times he did. Then he just wanted to go swimming and not play with the water in the table.

So sometimes we went to Grandma Parker's and swam.

Playground!

The first weekend in June, we went to Idaho for Sean's uncle's funeral. On the way home, we stopped in to say hi to Tommy, who is probably Sean's favorite person from his mission! Sean always talks about the meals Tommy would make for him and his companion :)

We also spend a lot of time at the Bean Museum (Mason loves animals). He runs from room to room pointing at all the animals and makes their noises. I think it's time for another visit...

That pretty much sums up our spring this year! I hate Utah winters but then spring/summer come around and I love it here, so it balances out I guess ;)

Mason: 2 years old!

I can't believe my tiny little baby is now 2! Time sure has flown since he came into this world. Except the first 6 months. Those went really slow. He was such a bad sleeper lol. We sure love our little ball of energy though! It is so fun watching him learn and try new things every day.

Likes:
-making animal noises
-watching the animal screen saver on our Apple TV
-loves animals. The Bean Museum on BYU campus, the zoo, pictures, anything. Animals.
-the Provo Rec Center. He will bring me his suit and shoes... smart kid.
-being around people, but mostly people he knows. He is starting to recognize and remember people outside of family, which is great!
-jumping. Especially when someone comes over. He will run to the door when he hears a knock, and as soon as whoever is inside he starts jumping around. So fun!

Dislikes:
-diaper changes. Nowhere near ready for potty training at this point either. Sigh.
-when we tell him "no". Like, "no you can't have an Otter Pop at 10am." Lots of tantrums ensue this daily conversation.
-eating. He loves food, but eating is bothersome to him. Also he hates when he has to use a spoon. He hates that stuff drips.

Words: mom, dad, shoes, no, yes (with encouragement and prompting), ball, balloon, truck, train/train noise, Tim (my brother), boom, hiya, bye, oh no, "bless you" (granted this is not clear, but he says the same thing every time someone sneezes), ow, all gone/done, juice, amen, and he tries really hard to say popsicle, giraffe, and dinosaur. Animal noises include dog, cow, elephant, bird, duck, snake, monkey, cat, pig, horse, sheep, bird, lion/tiger/bear/dinosaur/monster, fish, wolf, and alligator/crocodile. Like I said, he loves animals. And their noises.

Other notables:
-first bloody nose was March 19, 2015. He was pushing the stroller and it fell on him. He busted his lip and gave himself a bloody noise. Neither were very bad.
-March 25, 2015: first trip to the instacare. He had had eye goop in his eye for a few hours so as soon as Sean got off work we went. Three days worth of drops in his eyes and he was totally fine.
-finally loves nursery! The first couple months were rough, and we weren't allowed to leave, but now he loves it.
-understands possesion. Like, really well. If he sees a toy that he knows is someone else's, he tries to take it to them, whether they want it or not. We first noticed it at Christmas with his cousin Oakley but he's gotten really good.
-still hasn't had his first haircut. I love those little curls!

I'm sure there is a lot more that I haven't been writing down. But we sure love him! We celebrated his birthday by going to dinner at Red Robin. They luckily seated us right near the bar, and there is an electric train that goes around that he spent the entire time watching and loving. It was great! He dropped his apple juice, hence it looking like beer in the picture below. I promise we did not treat him to alcohol for his second birthday lol.

A couple days later, we took him to the rec center, and he had a blast! We swam around the lazy river and he was actually okay with getting water on his head! This is a major accomplishment, because normally he hates getting splashed! But I kept making him get his head wet and eventually he laughed instead of whining. I'm such a great mom haha.

He loves chicken nuggets. Loves.

A few days later, we had a small get-together with Sean's family. Carly, Bryce, and Oakley came down too for the celebration! They had fun eating animal cookies and being pulled around the yard in the plastic pools :)

He had no idea how to blow out the candles. I guess I should have practiced with him, I'm sure he would have figured it out real quick!

We had an "animal" themed party. I use air quotes because it was very unregulated. We had hot dogs, lemonade (my idea was "lion"-ade), animal cookies, pasta salad, and chips. And dirt dessert instead of a cake.

He got some great presents (he loves the Baby Iron Man, thanks Ian!) and has been enjoying his spoils ever since :)

We love you Mason!

Fourth of July 2015

We love Independence Day! Provo goes all out with a mini carnival/bazaar, parade and major fireworks. Aerials are also legal in Utah (still a weird concept for the CA girl!) so there is always a major show to watch from pretty much any window lol. This year, we went to our ward's breakfast, watched the parade, went home for lunch/naps, and then went to Aunt Linda and Uncle Larry's for dinner/fireworks (the ground kind). A bunch of my cousins were in town so we had a giant party! It was so much fun!

On Thursday the 2nd, we walked over to the Freedom Festival, and Sean got to try that cool scooter/board thing. He was pretty good at it!

Mason would only watch from inside, the fireworks scared him.

This cute girl is KD, my cousin Debbie's oldest. She is the only one of her sisters that remembers when I stayed at their house with them while their mom was having their first brother.

Riley doesn't really remember me, but she's seen me a couple times the last couple years so that helps lol. She wore holes in her socks!

Mason: "why are you making me sit here?!"

Mason is sitting on my head in this picture, it was the only way he would go up there lol.

These are some of the Hanson great-grandkids

 

The Shenanigans of Mason and Oakley: Part 1

It's no secret that I am so happy that my sister and her little family moved to Salt Lake. We get to see them MUCH more often, which is so fun, but especially for Mason and Oakley. Mason gets SO EXCITED every time he sees Oakley. When she comes to our house, he immediately jumps up and down and starts grabbing toys to share with her. When we go to her house, he starts running around in circles because he is so excited. It's adorable. I think he recognizes her (mostly because he watches videos of her on my phone a lot) so anytime he sees her he gets excited that it is real life. Here are summaries of the last few times we have gotten together.


Also, feel free to skip over the narration. Most of it is just me remembering details since I'm not good at keeping a personal journal.


April 29-30: Mason and Oakley's first sleepover!

Remember my last post about my little brother coming home from his mission? Well a few days after I got back, Mason and I drove to the airport to pick up Carly and Oakley! They flew from CA to UT so that Oakley didn't have to do the drive from Washington to Utah (where they were living before). We had to wait in the park and wait for a few minutes but we had banana bread to eat so it was okay ;) The airport was CROWDED for pick-up; they kept trying to make me circle around, but I kept saying "My sister has her baby and stroller and bag AND carseat and she's walking out right now" so I kind of got away with not having to circle. We got the carseat in and the babies were so happy to see each other!

We got home and ate dinner and the babies played and played. Mason would find something and take it to Oakley and say something in baby jibberish to her. Sometimes she would take the toy and sometimes she would look at him like "uhh I don't want that".

We got them ready for bed; Oakley went down first, and then maybe 15 minutes later I put Mason down. We set up our pack n play in Masons room. We thought Oakley was asleep when I took Mason in, but she totally stood up in the pack n play and grinned at Mason. Stinkers. We didn't hear from them at all so I'm assuming they both fell asleep pretty quickly.

The next morning, Bryce left Washington with the moving truck around 5am pacific, so we based our morning activities around his arrival in Utah. We got the kids ready, went to the park and played for a while, and then went home to have lunch and naps. After nap time we loaded up and drove up to Murray, where Carly and Bryce's apartment is, so Carly could check in and get the keys and everything. Bryce got there within an hour of us getting to the apartment, and the boys unloaded the van, while Carly and I took turns watching the babies and helping unload.

 

Toddler hugs: oops!

After we unloaded the van, we went to dinner at Red Robin! Poor Mason was so sleepy, he was really cranky the entire meal. We haven't had good luck with him at Red Robin recently (my bday dinner he was cranky too... weird).

Welcome to Utah, Carly and Bryce! We are so excited you live close!

A week or so later, they drove down and met us at Coldstone, and then we went back to our apartment to eat ice cream. We didn't get any pictures that day.

May 10: Mother's Day/Sean's birthday!

Bryce and Carly came down to celebrate Sean's 27th birthday with us! I made lasagna, and we had Caesar salad and garlic bread to go with it. Then we had delicious fun-fetti birthday cake! We had a great time; we played Scattegories and Catch-Phrase while the babies played. Oakley also ate lasagna! (I think I remember them saying it was her first time really actually eating it... correct me if I'm wrong Carly).

May 20: Paint, paint, paint!

Carly and Oakley came down so the babies could paint pictures for our sister, Jenny. We laid a tarp down in my kitchen, stripped the kiddos to their diapers, and gave them each a paint brush and piece of paper. They got the hang of it pretty quick, AND the kitchen didn't get any paint splashed in it! They got pretty messy, so we threw them in the bath real quick after. Oh we also painted one foot each and did footprints to send to our parents. Oakley did not like getting her foot painted, but when Mason saw me painting her foot, he stuck his up in the air! So funny!

 

 

They also rode the train together :)

May 30: date swap!

Carly texted me a few days before and suggested we do a date swap! So we drove up to Murray and dropped Mason off with Bryce and Carly, while we went to a movie. Then we got back to their place, and they went gun shooting/shopping. They came back and we made dinner and watched Daniel Tiger so the babies didn't have meltdowns. Mason didn't get a nap this day. But neither baby cried when their parents left so that was a win-win!

 

Carly spun them around and around in their computer chair. She took a couple videos of them laughing. It was so cute!

 

More hugs. They are so sweet!