Mason's Christmas Pictures

I never did post these from Mason's first professional photo shoot and I said that I would. So here are a few cute pix of Mason in his Christmas outfit! Mason did wear this on Christmas morning. It was quite a bit shorter than it is in these pictures. My little guy is getting too big too quickly! It was very big on him in these pix and was almost like a romper on Christmas morning. Amazing how quickly he grows! I love my little guy so much and he is just as cute as ever. (What?!? I'm his Mommy I am allowed to gush!) I hope my little guy enjoyed his first Christmas.

Mason's First Christmas

It is here and it was done with so quickly. All those days of anticipation of having the wrapped gifts under the tree and for it to be over so quickly with the excitement of tearing open the wrapping paper to see the prize inside. Anyhew it was a GREAT Christmas! Matt was able to join us via Skype, I love Skype, and he got to watch Mace open all of his gifts along with some for us. I wish so much that Matt was able to be here with us but we got the next best thing.

Mace got a LIFE SIZED Alligator, which I think was more for me than anything! It is the coolest thing. Some great toys and of course all of his plates, cups, spoon and bowels for the next phase of his life, solid food. Mace was so excited with his toys. And of course ripping all the paper off. He did a great job with his first Christmas. Before we were done he was passed out on Grandma. So sweet.

It has been a wonderful week with Grandma and Grandpa here. We have been just spending time hanging out at the house. Eating at one of our fav restaurants here in Charlottesville, Timberwood Grill. For Christmas Eve we had yummy baked potato soup and croissant sandwiches. For Christmas dinner I am making a yummy soy rubbed tenderloin which is making the whole house smell like fresh baked bread. Thank you Paula Dean for your recipe.

But my fav thing of all is to spend time with my family and be together. I am so glad that they were here with me and that Matt was with us for a bit on the computer. I hope Mason knows how much all of us love him. I am thankful for him in my life and for him to finally be here with us. Wishing all of you a very Merry Chirstmas, Love the Allens!

~Christmas Eve~

 ~Christmas Day~

~Grandma and Mace at Christmas Dinner having a great time! So cute!~

 ~Archer enjoying his new toy~

5 Months

My little angel is 5 months old... yesterday! The time has thankfully and sadly flown by. I am thankful because that means that we are just 1 month closer to Daddy being home but I miss my small little baby! My friend had her baby last week and E is just so small and tiny and I miss those days when Mace was that small!

Grandma and Grandpa are in town this week for Christmas. I am so thankful they are here so that I don't have to fly across the country with a baby that doesn't like to be confined for long periods of time and so that I am not alone. We have been so excited for them to come and what does Mason do when he see them, he cries. A LOT! It is hard being so far from them and for him not to remember them. I think this is sadly preparing me for how it is going to be when Matt comes home.

Mason doesn't seem to have grown that much this past month. But I see him everyday. He is just a happy little chunky baby who knows who his Mommy is and is starting to prefer me to hold him over strangers. It is a very odd but warm fuzzy feeling. Babies have always tried to get away from me when I held them and this kid wants me and only me. I love it, I really do.

He rolled from back to tummy for the first time just before my birthday, which of course I missed it. I hoped he would do it again for my birthday but he didn't. He hasn't done it since but I have been flipping him over to help him out.

He loves to be rough housed! HE IS SUCH A BOY! He loves to be tickled all over, nibbled, and swung upside down. He does not take after Daddy on the part because he would have puked all over me by now with the way Daddy has motion sickness. He loves to giggle and smiles all the time. He is so patient in the grocery store, which by the way he is now sitting in the shopping cart seat at the store and holds on to the rail. IT IS SO STINKING CUTE! He will now sleep 9 hours straight at night most nights. We have our ups and downs with that but he is doing well with the sleep department. He also takes 3 naps a day sometimes 1.5-2 hours each still!

I am so thankful every single day for this little kid in my life. I know that he was sent to us during this time to help me get thru this difficult year of Matt being deployed. Mace is the one keeping me sane. I miss Matt like crazy especially at this time of year. Everyone keeps asking me if he is coming home, no he is not. I pray everyday that if it is possible for him to come home that he would but I also pray for strength to get thru this time without him. I went to a cookie swap the other day and most of the cookies are being sent to him and his unit for Christmas. Anyhew Happy 5 months Mason! Mommy and Daddy love you so much!

A New Decade

Well yesterday was just another day, with a little quirk! I have passed out of the 20's and am now in the 30's. I am 30 years old. EEK! I know that it is not that old, but the people who tell you that, are always older than you. I know that the 30's are the new 20's but really, it's not, you are still 30+.

My aversion to turning 30 well, I am now older than my mom said she was when I was younger. She was 29 when I growing up always 29, never 30. (it's the Bella quandary, she is upset because she will forever be older than Edward). So to me 30 is as old as Mom (no offense Mom). But now that I am a mom I guess it is ok to enter this new decade with a little bit of a brighter perspective. I can now think of this as a new phase of life. I will be raising my family.

I. Am. A. Mom. It is what I have wanted for YEARS!

What a wonderful blessing it is to be a mom. For my little guy to smile and giggle at me because I chew my food and say, "yum!"Also to work on getting my body in the best shape of my life because I want to and not because I have to, to to be like a skinny runway model. So here's to you the big 30 wishing myself the best this next year and years to come!

Tile

The kitchen is done! For our Christmas present we got a new tile backsplash. It is soooo amazing and I love it. It adds so much more to the kitchen and it doesn't look plain anymore it stands out and just looks amazing! The guy I hired did such a great job. He had never done tile that was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together like this was. It is in such a random order that trying to fit everything together was very tedious. I am very pleased with the final product and hope that Matt likes it too! Thanks babe!

Thanksgiving 2011

I am finally getting around to posting about my Thanksgiving! We had a great time. Auntie Kathrine and her husband came to visit us for the holiday. We had a fun time just hanging around, watching movies and playing Monopoly. I won 2 games out of 5 and Kat won the rest! She is just soooooo good at the game! She taught me how to win and it is great when I actually beat her. Poor Devon didn't stand a chance playing against us! I got a cake to celebrate our 30th birthdays, her birthday is in Oct and mine is in Dec. I didn't get a pix of the cake but it will be what I get for Mason's first birthday because it is soooo yummy! Chocolate cake with butter cream filling and a chocolate fudge frosting! YUMMO!!!

I got to cook! I haven't been able to cook some of the food I really like to make because it just makes too many servings, and I don't like the left overs for those particular dinners. They just aren't as good the next day. I also did the Thanksgiving day spread and boy it turned out yummy! The turkey was one of the most tender turkeys I have ever had. I did a knock off of Anne Burrell from Food Network with doing a herb butter rubbed turkey. I used sage and fresh rosemary from my own plant and covered the turkey with the herbs mixed into the butter. Also I used the yucky bag of gizzards and the neck in the base of the pan to help with the gravy and it made the gravy super yummy! Kat had to handle the gizzard and neck stuff for me cause I just couldn't do it. Anyhew we had a very low key Thanksgiving and I was very thankful that they were here with me so that I didn't have to do the holiday alone!

The day they left I transformed my home from a fall foliage look to CHRISTMAS! We only get one month to celebrate Christmas so I like to deck out my house just a bit. It is not as much as what my parents usually do with their Christmas village but I still have half a closet shelf filled with just Christmas stuff.

I am on day 2 of super strict mommy with the crib. I am still trying to get Mason used to the crib so that the transition to night sleeping in it won't be so scary for him. Today's put down went a lot better. I still had to do some rocking and light nursing to get him conked out but I made sure he was super tired before I put him in there which meant he was more cranky. Yesterday left me with crying from both him and me and I realized how hard it was to hear him be mad and upset. We are 10 minutes in to him sleeping now and hopefully it continues for the next 1.5 hours, knock on wood.

The grout is going in as I type right now for my Christmas present to myself. I am getting a tile backsplash in my kitchen and I love it! I will post pix when it is done but it looks so AMAZING and it adds sparkle and bling to my kitchen!

Matt is still hanging in there. He is still in Kuwait and is being kept super busy. Please keep him in your prayers for his safety. It is a safer place but I still worry about him.

I am adding some pix from Thanksgiving and Mason's first pictures in front of our Christmas Tree! I love this kid so much! He always give me something to laugh about when I see his "out takes" which I have posted below!

~Auntie Kathrine loving on Mace~

 ~Thanksgiving table scape, as Sandra Lee calls it~

 ~The spread~

 ~Christmas Tree out takes. Archer wanted part of the action. Mason thinking, "Camera Hog"~

Learning Curve

I need help moms!

Mason is 4.5 months old, well close enough, but I am starting to teach him how to be comfortable in his crib so that at 6 months I can hopefully wean him from my bed to his own bed at night. I have been trying to put Mace in his crib for 1 nap a day for the past few weeks, but I haven't been consistent with it. Problem number 1. But there are times that he just wakes up only after 1 hour and screams his scared to death scream. How do I make him less scared? Also how do I put him to nap without having to nurse him to sleep first. That is a bad habit to get into, I know, but I don't know how to knock him out. Today was the first time I didn't have to nurse him to sleep first but he fell asleep in his car seat while I was talking to a friend outside helping me with the Christmas lights. I just transfered him from the car seat and put him in the crib, he did one wail then was out. I have know moms just put their babies in the crib and the baby will fall asleep within a few minutes sometimes with crying sometimes with out. How do I do that??? For night, when he hits 5 months old I was going to have him sleep in his pack and play at night, which is still in my room, to get used to not sleeping with me next to him. I am slowing teaching him or should I just do things like a band-aid and just do it in one fell swoop?

Please moms any help you can give would be great. I really am trying to slowly get him used to his crib because daddy said "NO BABIES IN BED!" And I don't feel comfortable with him in my bed once he start crawling, because I don't want him to crawl right out. THANKS!!!

Turkey Take Over!

I finished a little project, that I totally copied my mom with by the way, but I made 30 turkeys on Sunday. Not real turkeys silly, but yummier turkeys. I made them for the ladies I visit teach and their fams. It was a real fun project that is super easy! Just take oreos, 2 per turkey, a Reeses peanut butter cup, candy corn, whopper, butterscotch chip, melted butterscotch frosting and red frosting. And assemble. I just made a little assembly line which made it very easy! I also used ziploc bags for the frosting and the melted butterscotch for the feet. I love them and the people that have gotten them love them and it would be a fun project with your kiddos! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

~I love the face of these two, "Um, what is gonna happen now?"~

4 months

Mason is 4 months old today! CRAZINESS!!! He is weighing at a whopping 16 pounds 11 ounces (75-90th %) and he is 24 inches tall (25%). I am so happy how healthy he is and how strong he is. This little guy loves to stand and do squats all day long. He is already working out his leg muscles so that when he is big he can leg press as much as his momma! (just shy of 400 lbs by the way)

He loves to smile and giggle and is really starting to do the belly laughs. He always gets the hiccups though when he giggles and it is really cute for him to do a giggle then be interrupted by a hiccup.

He loves to do tummy time, still in the middle of the night when he should be going to bed. He gets a kick out of seeing me lay next to him and his head is higher than mine. The doc is super excited by his development and still thinks that he will be mobile very soon. SCARY! I am starting to think about how to baby proof my home and what needs to be done.

He loves to talk to Daddy on the computer. He loves to get nice and close to the camera so Daddy gets a view of his forehead or just a super close up of his face. He loves to look at the computer and the TV and sadly my cell phone when I am using them! He is already such a technology baby. He wants to hold my cell phone and when I put it away he keeps looking for it to play with it. I think it has something to do with the red case more than the phone itself.

He loves to coo and gurgle his spit and just talk to me. He now "talks" with me when he puts his head down for bed, after the tummy time, but he will coo and then wait for me to respond then coo then wait. It is the cutest thing!

He is very strict about his bed time and nap times. He is out cold by 9 am for his first nap, then by 1 pm for his afternoon nap and 5:30ish for his late afternoon nap. And if I am not on my way up to bed with him by 7:30 for reading he basically loses it. He knows his nighttime routine and loves it and is always asleep by 8:30. Such a smart little guy. I could go on and on about how wonderful he is and how much he has changed my life and how much I love him. I just wish that Matt was home to get to know him in person and see him everyday. Almost 7 months left for Matt to come home and it will be here before I know it.

I thought it would be fun to post the "silly" pix of Mason from his photo shoot. Enjoy!

~Cue music: I'm too sexy for my hair~ 

 ~I call this the "Mr. Collins" from the 6 hour long A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. When he is waving to his wife, Charlotte, just to show Elizabeth that they are very much in love. Charlotte just kind of blows him off. It kind of is a freaky look~

 ~You want me to do WHAT?!?~

~"HeHeHe! I am finally on this quilt!" After months of looking at it hanging on the wall Mace was finally allowed to lay on it! I think he is having way too much fun!~

200

This is my 200th post ever! In 4 years 200 posts is pretty good, for a person that doesn't journal. I have always told Matt that this was my electronic journal. I feel like there should be a cake, but alas cake would not help shrink my hips back down.

My new word that I hate is: frustration. I am tired of being frustrated with myself and the lack of movement my body has made since I had Mace. When I think about the lack of weight loss I get so frustrated and upset then all I want to do is emotional eat. Which is not a good habit to get in to. My goal is to stop being frustrated and do something about it. I can't go back in the past and change how much weight I gained, and really I didn't do that bad but basically everything I lost prior to Mace I got back and it is stuck. So I am going to move everyday. I am already eating better and cut sugar out and eating more whole foods and healthier snacks. My goal is to do some exercise everyday, and housework doesn't count. That means some sort of workout dvd or outside and walk. That is my goal to get my butt moving to get it moving out of here! I will get back to how I was and will be even hotter because I am a mom and I am amazing! Time to get moving!

On a different note...

A couple of weeks ago Mace had his first professional photo session! He did really, really well. We were booked with an hour slot and we were done in 40 minutes because the guy already hit his max of pix to take. Mace did really well and we got some really great pix. Weirdly the favs among everyone are the ones including me. I did my hair and makeup just in case but I didn't think that they would turn out as good as they did. We did get some Christmas ones too, but I am going to save posting some of those until closer to Christmas and after the cards are sent out so you are surprised when you get it! So without further adieu...

~Grandma's Fav~

 ~Mason loves looking at Grandma's quilt!~

Pix Overload

I just spent some time updating my iPhoto app on my Mac. I have taken over 600 pix of my cute little kid since he was born. I love having so many pix of him available to look at. But I do have a lot of pix of the same thing trying to get that perfect pose. I don't want to delete any of them because they are so good, mind you I did delete photos that were blurred or didn't look right, so technically I have taken way more than 600 pix. At some point I will transfer them to another hard drive but Matt took them with him to Iraq so I will just have to wait until Matt gets home!

Things are going so well here. Mace is sleeping 8 hours solid at night and takes two 1 hour naps and one long 2.5 hour long nap during the day. And as you can see from the following pix he is a very happy boy, most of the time! Enjoy some random pix of my cute little kid. I will have more info on how Mace is doing later this week in his 4 month old post. Can you believe it, that he is going to be 4 months this week! He is just getting so big!

~Trying out his highchair for the first time! He loves it!~

~Cute little big feet~

~This one is for you Grandma!~

~Tummy Time, what movie am I watching, can you tell in the next few pix?~