Family Vacation

I come to you from the balcony of our condo on the Oregon Coast. Beautiful? Yes. Warm? No. I honestly don't mind the temperature but not seeing the sun gets to be a bit of a drag. We've visited Astoria and are staying in Seaside, so we've seen a few of the sites. Today we are going to the Aquarium and to get our family picture taken dressed as pirates. Arrrrrr!!! Mason is loving it here as he gets morning walks on the beach with grandma and grandpa and has more than enough people to carry him around.

We stayed in Pendleton, Oregon on the way to the coast. This was Mason's first stay in a motel, the Holiday Inn. He screamed for a couple of minutes when we put him to bed but then slept well until about 4 a.m., when he woke up. He didn't cry, he just said in the softest, cutest baby voice you can imagine..."Daddy?" "Mommy?" about 10 times. So cute! We just laid in our bed and smiled. I never thought I would find anything darling at 4 in the morning, but I have.

More later and we'll post pics when we return home.

Week in Review

It's been a pretty crazy week around here, kidney surgery number 2 was hopefully a success, though I won't know until later this week. Jake also had finals last week, and is extremely happy to put another semester behind him. We are extremely grateful for Jake's mom, who has graciously spent the night at our house so we could be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. We are also thankful for all the well wishes we have received. My good friend Erin sent a balloon bouquet and chocolates, which not only entertains our child but keeps us rather happy as well! On top of the madness in our lives, Mason has decided to grow 4 molars. He has been absolutely miserable, with fevers and blood blisters where the teeth will be. Only one has broken through so far and his gums are super swollen. He now wakes up frequently in the night which is a great reminder to us of how great we have had it with him.

Coming up this week, we have to say goodbye to Jake's mom, who is moving back to Montana, we have several doctor's appointments (Mason and I) and then we are going to the Oregon coast for a much needed week long vacation. Can't wait!

Worst. Daughter. Ever.

That would be me. I forgot to call my mother on mother's day. Completely forgot. I have no excuses for this oversight and feel very bad. Perhaps a cute picture of Mason will make things better?"I know Grandma, she's lame, but let's just fake smile and pretend it didn't happen"

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't tell my mom Happy Mother's Day either."

More birthday fun...

We decided to throw Mason a Hawaiian themed bash for his big day, you know, to remind him of where he was conceived (we should have fun with that when he's a teenager). It started off a bit rough because he fell asleep in the car about a minute before we got to the Richardson's, who graciously offered to host our soiree. He was pretty cranky in the beginning so we decided to put him down for a nap while we had dinner. This actually worked out great, though he slept longer than dinner so we kind of paused the party and sat around for a bit until he woke up.

He was a bit overwhelmed by the present unwrapping, so it was a good thing he had 3 eager cousins to help him out. His favorite present was a lion that he can ride on or push around. Again, very handy that his cousins were willing to push him around all night. He also got a swing that he loves. We'll post some video of that soon.

I thought it would be fun for him to have his own cake and luckily the weather was good enough for him to eat outside. He really only ate two bites of the cake, it was the ice cream he was after. We let him play with his cake for at least a half an hour before the other kids got a crack at it. While he ate his cake, we enjoyed our own fish shaped cake, which was made by Jen. After a bath, he played some more with the cousins and then we came home to play a little more.

He got a card from his great grandma with $10 in it and as soon as he opened it, he handed it to me. Such a good boy!

We are so blessed and grateful for our perfect little boy. We wouldn't change a thing about him and are honored to be his parents.

Here's to 100 more!

The Big O1!

I think I will do a week of posts about Mason's birthday, because let's face it, the center of our universe celebrated his birthday!

The Countdown Begins...

Mason getting a call from Gary, he can't be bothered to hold the phone himself.

Yesterday morning I said to Mason "only 4 more days until your birthday, try not to scratch up your face so you look good in your pictures!" I then cut his nails to do my part in him not scratching his face. Since then he has...1. Fallen down a flight of stairs. 2. Hit his chin on the faucet in the bathtub. 3. Fallen face first over the back of his rocking chair, and 4. Had a piece of glass in his mouth. It's Tuesday.

Update on the kidney stone, it's the same size as a large gumball and there is another one the size of a marble. First surgery is tomorrow, second surgery in two weeks. I am quite excited to be pain and sickness free for the first time in months.

Here are some pics of Mason's first playground experience, which he clearly loved.

Good thing I have a spare...

I have been remiss to blog lately as I have had this fantastic (and not in a good way) kidney pain. If you'll recall, my doctor thought I had kidney stones a month ago but then I got better with antibiotics so he figured it was just an infection. Fast forward five weeks and I have horrible pain again. This time the antibiotics didn't work, so I had to get a cat scan, which is possibly the least invasive medical procedure I have ever had. The results? A gigantic kidney stone that is blocking my ureter, which is causing urine to back up and my kidney has swollen to 10 times its normal size. That solves the mystery of my pants being tighter lately, or at least that's what I am going to blame it on. So it sounds horrible, but I'm not in any more pain than usual and have to wait until Monday to either get the thing blasted with an ultrasound or surgically removed. I think the real pain is yet to come.

Moving on...we went to my Grandma's house for annual cleaning day last weekend. Last year I was a week from giving birth so I didn't have to do any work. This year I had a crazy baby that I had to keep track of so I still didn't have to do any work. What will I do next year? Anyway, we caught all sorts of flack for not blogging more frequently and I promise to make a real effort as soon as this kidney situation is under control. My cousin Jen not only waxed poetic about our childhood on her blog, but she also put up a slide show that has some great old photos. And here's a random shout out to my cousin Chelsea, who posted an anonymous comment on my last post. She's a student at Utah State and a loyal reader.

Alright that's all for now. As promised at our family blog meeting, I am going to add a list of some of my favorite things of the moment on the side.

Mason's triple loves his new trike

Having a snack on the porch with Grandma