The Firsts

As Mason's first year winds down we are running out of "firsts" to celebrate with him. He's smiled, laughed, rolled over, crawled, walked, talked, and eaten real human food. He even slept through the night once or twice.  I've been a little sad as I run out of the stickers that came with his First Year calendar, as they each earn their place on the squares of the last months.

But Sunday was another first for us. My first Mother's Day. Mason was born just before Father's Day last year, so we celebrated that right away. But I've had 11 months to really earn my Mother's Day celebration. I laughed when I read this post from The Rockstar Diaries, because Mason pretty much decided he had slept enough right around 4 am. I finally got him to sleep a little longer by laying down with him in the guest bed.

As he fell asleep with his hand resting on my arm and his little feet curled up into me, I felt like my heart would just burst with joy and gratitude and love and happiness and peace and then even more love. It was the best way to start my Mother's Day, wrapped up in the pure, sweet comfort and bliss of my little baby boy.

 Remember when he was this tiny??

This was like 7 hours after he was born.

Day 20

I'm trying to do 100 days in a row of posting, so why am I always so hopelessly behind? Ugh. My Saturday consisted of trying to convince Mason not to run away via the backdoor escape route, and then baking chocolate chip cookies per husband's request. And then proceeding to eat my fair share of them even though I made them "for him". Any other wives ever do that? Make a treat like you're doing your husband a favor but really it's cause you wanted it? We're so sneaky.

We also went to the new TJ Maxx store that just opened here last week. It's huge and so clean and nice. I got two amazing pairs of sunglasses and we scoped some home stuff we might go back for. And maybe we need this magnifying glass because we laughed a lot doing this to the poor child.

Oh and Mason decided he's going to pick out his outfits from now on.

11 Months Old!

It's totally cliche to say, but I cannot believe how fast these months have flown. I can't believe our little man is almost a year old. And it's also totally cliche, but I honestly love this little baby more and more every single day. I look at him and just think how did you get so beautiful/smart/funny/cute/clever/wonderful? I can't imagine what we've done to be so lucky to have this little monster in our lives. Some big moments for Mason this month:

He took his first steps! He hasn't taken off yet, but has walked several times and loves it.

He crawled up the stairs and now that's ALL he wants to do. If we leave him alone for even a few seconds, you can bet we'll find him on the first or second step trying to make his escape upstairs. His method of going down is a little less graceful.

He has started to wave and say bye-bye. He says "uh-oh" and will whisper when we do. He's also started to repeat sounds that we make, and says mama and dada in context on a regular basis now.

He tried lots of new foods! Strawberries, peanut butter, hummus, yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, cous cous, black beans, eggs. I think that's all. He loves it all. The child is an eating machine!

He dances to any music and laughs and laughs when he likes a song that's on. We listen to Pandora a lot and he likes to carry my phone around while it's playing and just dance all around the house.

I haven't weighed him lately, but I can just say that he is BIG.  Here's a comparison of him in his old carseat today, he didn't even fill up half of it when we brought him home in it!

We celebrated by making him homemade cinnamon applesauce, and Dad brought him home this cardboard roll thing as a gift. We are cheap. =)  But he loved it, of course.

All Sewn Up

A couple weeks ago I decided it was time for me to learn how to sew. I've done my fair share of pajama pants and elastic waisted skirts, but never anything real. I've always told myself I don't have the patience to deal with a pattern and all of the detail. But no more! My mom sewed us so many darling dresses when we were little, and I feel sort of inadequate not having what used to be such a basic and common skill. PLUS I cannot find any skirts or dresses that are long enough lately, it's driving me crazy.

A few years ago I bought like ten patterns because they were on sale for 99 cents a piece. I know enough about sewing to know that was an incredible price. They sell for $20 sometimes! I got a variety of things, baby clothes, curtains, baby nursery stuff, and some skirts and dresses. I thought about doing something that seemed simple, but decided if I'm gonna learn, I need to just do it all. So I picked a shirt dress that had the works...collar, buttons, sleeves with cuffs, pockets, zipper, binding.

 Two days into it I was about to lose my mind. I think I skyped my mom about a hundred times during the process and said the sentence "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!" about a bazillion times. It was really tough, but after a lot of measuring and cutting and sewing and seam ripping, and remaking the sleeves four times, I had a dress. A real dress. A dress that fits perfectly and is the perfect length and is actually completely adorable. I still can't really believe it. And now I know how to read a pattern. It really is like a different language. But they say immersion is the best way to learn a new language and in this case that was definitely true.

Since my first success I've been brave enough to use this pattern that I'm in love with for a paper bag skirt. My first try was not so bueno, but I did it again with better fabric and ta-da!!

In conclusion, I'm pretty proud that I can finally do something that women for centuries have been doing for themselves.

Take It Easy

Today was pretty uneventful, and I really enjoyed how sort of blah it was. I've learned to really love the boring days. Mason slept well last night, napped well today, played sweetly and ate everything I fed him without any protest. It was just such a smooth ride. Blissful. And it was made even better by our quick stop at Goodwill that yielded these darling cups and a wire basket for Mason's books. I know it sounds weird, but I've been searching for baskets exactly like that. I was ecstatic when I found one, and I'm hoping to find more.

Swing Life Away

We took the little monster to the park today. It never gets old watching how funny and crazy he gets on the swing. He's starting to enjoy the slide too, but he's a little too reckless for us to let him go too free on it. This video keeps making me laugh out loud watching it. The way he kicks his legs is so cute! I hope we all have something to be that excited about.

Bye~bye

Mason has been starting to say several words over the last few weeks, and yesterday he started to wave and say "bah bah". It is so cute to watch him wave to Dad as he leaves for work. And still cute when he's waving and saying it from his crib when he should be going to sleep.
He also says mama, dada, sometimes nana, and he'll put his arms in the air and say "a da", like "ta da!". And I swear he said cat a couple days ago when we were reading, but Austin doesn't believe me. :)
And I realized I didn't take any pictures today except this one of the pot pie we had for dinner. I'm a terrible mother. And yes that is a pumpkin cut out of it, per Austin's request.