Our Camping Debut

Tony, Mason and I spent the last week camping with my family in Grand Haven. Thanks to our very generous neighbors we were able to stay in a beautiful trailer, which made the week so much easier. The week was hot with some rain, but mostly sunshine. We enjoyed a great week of making memories and topped it all off by celebrating Mason's birthday on Friday. Here are a few pictures of our time away...

One of his many wonderful gifts from generous family!

All of the August birthdays: Cole (8), Mason (2), Tara (2), Taryn (17), Grace (10) and Ellie (8). Six SUPER reasons to celebrate!

Throughout the day Mason cried whenever someone sang "Happy Birthday" to him. For some reason he was cool with it when it really mattered. :)

Mason loved the sand/mud at the beach. He was content to dig and play for hours. Just don't ask him to go in the lake! Grace played so nice with him, it was fun to see.

The clippers somehow found their way to the campground and now all the guys have matching hair cuts. The guys are all smiling...I can't say all the wives were. :)

Mason and Tara spent a LOT of time playing together this week. It was fun to see the play and explore this new thing called camping. (Here they are under the table laughing at the noise dominoes make when they hit the poles. Delightful!)

Monday morning we had a thunderstorm that left the Shoobridge's pop-up in a bit of trouble. They joined us in our trailer and we were all lazy together while we waited for the rain to stop. :)

Mason isn't too sure about the whole campfire thing.

The only two 'guy' cousins, Cole was a good pal for Mason to chill with.

God is so Good

Here are Tony & Mason on a boat ride over the 4th of July. Mason was sick, so he wasn't all that thrilled with it.

1st Summer Playdate

There are three other teachers from my school that had babies within 4 days of Mason and another one came about 3 weeks later. It has be a lot of fun for us to compare notes and stories over the last 2 years as we were all pregnant together and gave birth within a week and all had newborns together. Today we got together with them all for a play date. The kiddos are all turning two at the end of the summer. It was so much fun to see them all play and relate to one another. This was our best attempt to get a shot of them all together (Mason is recovering from a brief fit, and Cameron needed to be by mom in order to get the shot.) :)
L to R: Andrew 8/15/08, Mason 8/13/08, Liza 8/10/08, Addisyn 9/10?/08 and Cameron 8/12/08

Separation Anxiety

This is typically a behavior observed in children that have a difficult time leaving their parents. However in this instance it refers to me, the parent. Why? Tony and I are leaving tomorrow night to attend two family weddings out-of-state this weekend. We are excited to go and see a lot of my mom's family we haven't seen in a long time. However in all fairness to Mason, it would be a brutal trip for him. So the decision was made to leave him home. He will be in the loving and gracious care of my siblings who love him like their own, so that is not my worry. It is just that when a little person is always present and always on my mind, it is so unnatural to not be with him for ~72 hours. He is so stinkin' fun and a riot to be with... I AM GOING TO MISS HIM! :( It will definitely be harder on me than him (he might not even realize I'm gone).

What a Riot

So we are thoroughly enjoying our 21-month-old kiddo. Here's a few ways he's made us smile in the last couple of days:

I am sitting here eating dinner with him (grilled cheese and watermelon) and he watches me put some oyster crackers in my soup. He says "pease cackers" and I give him some crackers on his plate. He then begins repeating the same word over and over again, "ah-toh-don, ah-toh-don, ah-toh-don". I couldn't figure out what he was telling me until I repeated the word back to him and it sounded more like, "oct-toh-gon". I then realized he was telling me the crackers were octagons (although they are ACTUALLY hexagons). :) I don't think I'll correct him quite yet. :)

We also enjoy trying to get him to say our monthly memory verses from church. May's verse is, "Great is our Lord and mighty in power..." The following is Mason's version.

Kindergarten Visit Day

Yesterday we had approximately 50 pre-schoolers show up at school to 'visit' kindergarten and see what it is like before they come next fall. As the kiddos arrived hand-in-hand with their parents, I had to take a deep breath. All I could think about was, "This is going to be me! Before I know it, I will be bringing my little boy to kindergarten!" It surprisingly made me feel sad. Mason is such a delight and a joy in our lives right now, I want to freeze time and stay right here! I don't want him to grow up! Stay little! I know, it is inevitable; and so much a blessing to watch him grow and develop and learn new things. It is just happening all too quickly. Thank you, Lord, for a healthy and happy child.