Halloween

Halloween was lots of fun this year.  Maddie and Micah already knew what to expect and so naturally they were super-excited, but Mason just had no idea what he was in for.  Halloween was on a Wednesday this year, which was really not the best night for us because the kids go to Awana that night.  But, we decided to skip out on Awana because they were just having a play night anyway, and trick-or-treat the neighborhood instead.  Right when Maddie got home from school, we quickly changed into our costumes and went to visit Mimi and Papa for a few minutes.  They always love going to Mimi and Papa's house so that was fun for them, of course!

Posing with Mimi and Papa

 

After we left Mimi and Papa's, we ran through a drive-through to pick up a quick dinner and then headed home to eat and then get ready to head out.  After we ate, it was still pretty light out so we told them we were going to wait a bit before heading out, but we quickly noticed that there were plenty of trick-or-treaters already out.  So we headed out as well.  It took a few times for Mason to get the hang of it, but after just a couple of houses, he figured it out and was having a ball.  He was funny though because after they gave him candy, he just kept standing there.  I guess he was waiting for more!  And he looked so stinking cute that lots of people did give him more :)  He never caught on to saying "trick-or-treat" though, but I have a feeling that next year he will catch on pretty quick!  Once again, Mason insisted on walking the entire way and made it more than two streets before he starting tiring out.  So Mark took him home to hand out candy and the big kids and I continued to trick or treat until they were tired too.  We all handed out candy until we ran out, then headed in the house to gorge ourselves on candy.  Well, Mason actually went to bed before the gorging started.  And the only one that really gorged was Micah - he ate so much candy I thought he would throw up.  I always let them eat lots of candy on Halloween night, which often makes them tired of it and then they don't beg for it after that.  And Micah certainly took advantage of his candy-eating liberty!

 



Pumpkin Patch

The pumpkin patch is one of my all time favorite picture-taking backgrounds.  We always visit Carmichael's, which is way out past Bixby and the kids love it.  There are plenty of activities to do after they finish climbing around on multiple stacks of pumpkins, which is a fun activity itself!  This year was equally fun and was Mason's first year to be big enough to actually participate and he loved it too.

First we hit the pumpkins and let them climb and pose for pictures.  Maddie chose to ride a pony, which Micah didn't want to do and Mason was too little for.  There were several mazes that the kids did and then we finished the day by going through the caine maze.  The caine maze was fun and we made it through in pretty good time.  Mason would not let us carry him and insisted on walking the entire maze, so he was pooped out after our big outing to the pumpkin patch.

 They are on their way to the pumpkin patch

 

 A sweet little pumpkin holding a pumpkin

 



 Another sweet little pumpkin holding a pumpkin

 

 Love this face

 

 Can't believe this girl is already 8 years old

 

 Love this little boy so much

 

 Gotta wonder what he is thinking about?

 

 The three cutest kids ever

 

 The boys

 

 Riding a pony

 

Mason and Mama

Mr. Chatterbox

Mason is now 18 months old and is really talking quite a bit.  Sadly, much of this sounds like mumbo jumbo to us and we don't understand a great portion of what he says.  But I think that for his age, he is progressing very well and has more than the expected number of words.

Things he says that almost anyone could understand:

• Mama
• Dada
• Shoe
• Bye Bye
• Papa
• Baby
• Please
• Puppy
• Cracker
• Cookie
• Go
• Up
• Hot
• Ball

I'm sure there are more but those are the first few that come to mind.  He also will tell you where his eyes, nose, ears, feet, etc are on his body.  And if you ask him how the duck, cow, dog, and cat go, he will make the appropriate sound.  The cutest is when you ask him how the car goes and he says "Vroom Vroom".

He is actually at a very fun age (other than the crankiness from the pesky canines that he is trying to cut).  When you are sitting down and you get up to do something, his favorite thing is to quickly sneak into your spot and laugh hysterically that he stole your chair.  He can throw something into the trash or the dirty clothes if you ask him, and is beginning to help clean up his own toys and messes.

However, he is still a little boy through and through and he did something really funny a couple of weeks ago that I don't want to forget.  The kids and I decided to make a trip to OKC to visit Nana while Grandpa was out of town and Daddy was playing in a golf tournament.  We decided to go to the Sam Noble Museum because they have some dinosaur exhibits that we knew the kids would like, plus a Discovery room where the kids can play.  Mason was really not in a good mood for most of this day, but we just did our best to keep him happy so the big kids could have fun.  He was walking along in the museum looking around to see what was there.  I was watching him closely to make sure he didn't touch anything, but this boy is quick.  I was trying to take a picture of the big kids with a dinosaur and so I took my eye off of him for a minute.  After I clicked the picture, Maddie says "um, Mason is in with the dinousaurs."  What??  I turn around, and he has climbed INTO the exhibit and it sitting down, happy as can be, at the foot of a huge dinousar.  I really, really wanted to take a picture of it but there were cameras all over the place and I didn't want to get kicked out, so I quickly retrieved him from the exhibit and we high-tailed it to another part of the museum.  We laughed and laughed about it afterwards.  Love my sweet boy so much and wish he wasn't growing up so quickly.

AWANA Crazy Hair Night

One of the favorite nights of Awana is Crazy Hair Night.  This was the first time that Micah participated, and honestly it isn't easy to come up with a crazy hair style for a little boy with short hair.  So, we put green color in his hair and called it good.  Here he is with his "crazy" hair.

Maddie however, is the perfect participant for crazy hair night.  She has lots of long, thick hair that can be made into almost any crazy style I can come up with.  Last year we did her hair in a bird's nest and it turned out so very cute.

This year we just went for the more traditional "crazy" look and here is what we came up with.

I think we did okay, because some of the girls in the 4th grade class that I teach told me that they loved Maddie's hair and wanted to know if I could do theirs like that :)

Very fun night for the kids and it was fun to see all the crazy hair do's!

Sleepyhead

When Maddie was a baby, I was always afraid that I would wake her up if I took pictures of her while sleeping.  I've taken lots of pictures of a sleeping Mason though and I think that there is nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby, especially my sleeping baby.

1 month old

 

2 months old

 

3 months old

 

4 months old

 

11 months

 

16 months

 

17 months

 

 

This little guy better be glad that he is so cute, especially while sleeping, because he has been a real stinker the past few days.  I think that he is getting more teeth - hoping that he returns to his sweet self soon!