A Half Birthday!

Mason is officially 3 and a half!

Our boy is getting so big, so handsome and so smart! Christian and I are constantly saying to each other, "How does he know that?!" He knows so much more than we realize and daily we are reminded of it! He knows the days of the week (only partly in the right order), he knows his left from right and can count up to 20 and sometimes higher, just with more confusion.

He is so sweet and polite... most of the time. ;) He is so loving and always wants to give hugs and kisses to all of us. If Morgan is fussing, he'll say, "Sissy, it's okay, I'm here".

You can tell that he loves that Morgan looks up to him. When he eats and Morgan is in her highchair beside him, he'll say, "Sissy, watch Bubba!" and he likes for her to watch when I cut his fingernails and he'll say, "See Sissy, it doesn't hurt. It tickles!", because he knows that she hates it when I have to cut her fingernails.

He loves playing with Morgan and looks for any way to play with her. One day I found him using her as a race track. She didn't mind one bit! She has been able to play with him more lately. They will mimic sounds back and forth and laugh at each other. It's obvious that she's continuing to make those sounds to play with him. It's so sweet.

He knows exactly what to say to flatter me! Every time that I get dressed (besides my scrubs for work), he says, "Mommy, you're pretty like a princess!"... He'll just randomly say, "I want hugs and kisses."... He always says, "I love you soooo much!" or "I love you thiisss much!" (as he stretches his arms out). He likes to tell us that he loves "everybody"... It's always so cute when he asks to be excused from the dinner table. He says, "Excuse me please."... If he sneezes and someone doesn't say "bless you" right away, he'll say, "someone say bless me!"... He is all about best friends. Depending on who he is with, that person is his best friend and he loves to name off all of his best friends. It's so sweet, but kinda sad when he is in a Daddy phase and Daddy is his best friend and not Mommy. :( But if he knows it makes me sad then he'll make sure to tell me that I'm his best friend too so I'm happy again.

Mason's favorite shows right now are Diego and Tom and Jerry. His favorite toys are his capes, masks, cars, tools, scooter and his baseball and footballs. He loves to play outside and to drag as many toys as possible out.

He has a lot of favorite songs right now: 1) Jesus Loves Me, 2) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, 3)Day is Done (a song that Christian's Dad always sang to him growing up, that Mason now loves), 3) The Watermelon Song, that he learned at school (Watermelon, watermelon. How it drips. How it drips. Up and down your elbow. Up and down your elbow. Spit out the pits {spit}. Spit out the pits {spit}.)

4) The "Goodnight Mason Song" (as he likes to call it) that is simply "Goodnight Mason. Goodnight Mason. Goodnight Mason, it's time to go to bed."

5) And his favorite song that we sing all the time is a song that Mason calls 'Go Mason' (not sure why because it doesn't even make sense). It goes like this: "Mason, Mason will you come and follow me, will you come and follow me now? Mason, Mason will you come and follow me, will you come and follow me now? Yes Lord, yes. Yes Lord, yes. Yes Lord I will come and follow you, til the end of the day."

Every toy that he sees on a commercial or anywhere, he says "I want that for Christmas!" or "I think Sissy needs that for Christmas!"
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Mason loves his cousins to pieces! Him, Klayton and Emma all play so well together and love going to Nana and Poppy's house!

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Mason really likes going to the movies now. We've went a couple times with friends and they all do pretty well. Such big kids all lined up in their seats together like in this pic!

This last time, Mason went to see Smurfs with Poppy. He loves talking about how he went to the movies with Poppy and Emma!

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Mason's bestest friend is still Ty. These boys are so sweet to each other! I love that they get to spend most days of the week together.

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I think Mason has his first crush! He talks about this girl in his class named Scarlett a lot! He'll sing 'Baby, Baby Ohhh" and tells us that Scarlett taught him that song. She is a little doll though!

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Mason loves Bibles. I found him one day like this. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was reading God's book. He likes to get all of our bibles, devotional books, Morgan's bibles, his bibles and his books of stories from the bible and "read them" all at once. He does this often and there are at least 15+ books and bibles that he compiles. It's so sweet that he shows an interest in talking about God and Jesus. We pray several times a day with him and he loves it.

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Mason has one wild imagination! It's so fun to watch him play when he doesn't know we're watching. One day he was playing with his super hero figurines and he had his superman and batman flying around and he said "Stop, stop, my cape is over my eyes, I can't see!" (the figurines capes are made of plastic and don't move)... He'll take his tools and "fix" furniture and parts of the house... He likes to serve us food that he had cooked and he'll put a lot of random toys in the floor to jump over and say he's "exercising"... And if we ask him to stop playing and to do something, he'll say, "I can't. I'm getting busy."

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He is Mr. Independent! AND Mr. Picky Pants!... He is very particular about what jammies he picks out every night.

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If we try to help him, he'll say, "I can do it!"

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Then he'll give a "Ta-da!" or "See, I did it!", once he's dressed!

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Through all the changes since he was a baby, the one thing that has always stayed his favorite is his little blankie. He loves that thing! He either sleeps on it like in this picture, or he holds it tight in his arms.

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Ever since he was a little baby, he has had these gorgeous, thick, long and dark eye lashes. They are the kind that every woman wishes they had. I love his dark eyes and lashes!

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We haven't been letting Mason watch any superhero shows anymore because they were making him more aggressive, but he still gets to dress up in his get ups. He loves his superhero capes, masks, goggles, dew rags and anything else he can dress up in!

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Mason loves to sit and watch storms out the window. After each lightening bolt, Mason judges them with either "Whoa, that was a really really big one!" or "That was a little one!"

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Mason's bedtime is quite the ordeal these days. He wants to look at his picture books first and then actually read several others. And when we pray, he wants to pray for each and every one of his teachers, friends, and family individually. We do a recap of his day and sing his songs a thousand times and then he wants at least 2 rounds of kisses and hugs from everyone, including Rufus. He always needs to potty again right before he falls asleep. Which is okay because he doesn't sleep in a pull up anymore. He's all underwear... It's hard to get upset with him that he takes forever to go to sleep because it's all sweet things that he wants. But thankfully this week has gotten somewhat better!

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This past Wednesday was a big day for Mason! He moved up to the Fantastic 4's at school! That means the next move up, this time next year, will be to Pre-K! He isn't 4 yet, but they move kids up so they are on track with the classes to prepare them for Kindergarden... which makes me a little sad even saying the words Pre-K and Kindergarden!

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The first day of class, we got to school while the class was in the cafeteria for breakfast. So, Mason got to check out his new classroom by himself first!

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Can you tell that he may have been just a little bit excited?!!

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He went all around the room from each area checking every little thing out.

He would say, "Whoa", "Cool" and "Look Mommy!"

The new classroom got his approval right away!

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Before we went to find the rest of his class, I snapped a quick pic. And look at how big my baby boy is! Such a big boy pose with his hand in his pocket and such a genuine, sweet smile! Melt my heart!!

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As we headed down to find his classmates, they were headed back to the classroom, so Mason hopped right in line, eager to get back in there!

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Immediately he met up with his buddy, Hayden, and they started playing trains.

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After the kids got some free time, the teachers told the kids to go to the tables to find their names.

Mason found his name and sat in his seat.

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Mason was at a table with Zachery, Kiley, Gabby and Aaron... Christian and I think Mason looks so big boy here the way he's sitting!

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We got lucky this transition because one of Mason's teachers from the Busy 3's moved up to the Fantastic 4's at the same time that Mason's class did. So, we are very excited that Mrs. Leesa will still be with him!

She told the kids all about the different centers that the class had and what their plan was for the morning.

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Next the kids headed over to the mat for storytime. Mason and Ty found each other right away to sit together.

It was so cute watching the kids.

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Sitting criss cross applesauce like told by the teacher.

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During storytime, I left and Mason was totally fine with it. He did want a hug and a kiss before I left, which made me feel better. :)

Later in the afternoon during pick up time, I peaked in on Mason to see what he was up to before he was able to see me.

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But right away, all the other kids hollered, "Mason, you're mom is here!" And he took off running toward me with a big grin, saying, "Moommmyyy!", like he does every single day when we pick him up. One of my favorite moments of the day is seeing the kids faces when we get there to pick them up!

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Mason's new class is closer to Morgan's room, which is just caddy corner to her's. He is always so excited to go pick up Sis!

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He has to have a few minutes to himself every day just to love on and talk to her.

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Then he said that he wanted to show Morgan his new room, so while we waited for Daddy to get there to check out the new room too, we went and played a while.

Mason got out some musical instruments and gave a bell to Sis.

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Morgan wasn't sure what to do with it at first, but after she saw Mason and he showed her what to do, she got the hang of it and joined in.

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This may be the beginning of a family band!

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When Daddy got there, Mason was SO excited to show him all around! He tugged and pulled on his arms to get him into the room.

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He had fun showing him all around the room and also showed him the computers... Yes, computers! So big kid!

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Mason's second day at school, I stopped by during lunch time just for fun. His class was in the cafeteria. And there was that big smile, as always!

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He has been such a good eater lately! He has even been eating his veggies, like peas, green beans and carrots better! He was at school that day too.

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And now he uses regular cups instead of sippy cups at meal time. Again, soo big boy!

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The two days before Mason started his new class, his daycare was closed to prepare for the new year. So Christian and I took advantage of it and took time off too! To celebrate Mason's Half Birthday, we took him to Andy Allegator's!

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Mason got to go on his first go cart ride and he absolutely loved it! He wasn't scared at all.

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These two hot rods were zippin' all over the place!

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Then he got to ride with Mommy!

I kept trying to put my arm around him and my hand on his leg to make sure he was doing okay, and he would push my hand away and would say, "I'm not scared Mommy."

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Then we went inside to cool off and to play some games. Mason had a great time bowling.

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YEESSSS!!

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There were only 3 pins left after that roll!

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Next was some skii ball, serious racing, Pac-Man and basketball!

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Sis took care of the tickets that we all won.

We are loving the stage that Mason is in. He is so much fun and it's amazing watching him learn so much. It's going so fast though, which is why I blog about my sweet kiddos and all these details of them. I'd never remember all there is to remember of the precious things that they do! All we can do is try to seize as many moments as possible with them while we can!