Enjoying the weather

The weather has been stupendous lately! Feels like spring and there's no reason to not be outside! Last Friday the three of us spent some time in the back yard before Mason took a nap and AnnaBeth did her quiet time. Mason is getting better about tolerating the exersaucer for longer periods of time which is super helpful when we're outside. He gets SO heavy that it's hard to hold him for a long time and still play baseball and soccer with AnnaBeth. The hat that Mason is wearing is nearly too small now and I'm pretty sad about it. I love the hat and he looks so darn cute in it!

Giving oatmeal a whirl

Last week I made a small batch of oatmeal for Mason to try and put a tiny amount in a bowl before putting the rest of the batch in the ice cube tray to freeze for later. He was in a good mood and seemed fairly receptive to it. He's only had it twice since then but hasn't shown a ton of interest in it yet so I think I will just try periodically until he is better at using his tongue to push it back instead of out of his mouth.

Mason is 4 months old

Mason turned 4 months old on the 9th. Time is just flying by! He is so full of joy and happiness. He LOVES to laugh and smile, especially during diaper changes and I love his big, meaty thighs! At his well-check, he weighed 16 lbs 2 oz stark naked and was 28 inches long. At his 2 month appointment, he weighed 13 lbs 7 oz and was 24 inches. Doing the math on that means he gained 2 lbs 11 oz and grew 4 inches in 2 months! I am just in awe at how fast he is growing! I do have lots of pictures of him that I have taken on my phone and have uploaded to Facebook but have yet to get them here on the blog. Maybe one day :)

4 months old and a BIG boy!

Building a Nest

Last week, I put together small little preschool lessons for AnnaBeth. Our theme for the week was birds and I chose a parrot, owl, flamingo, hummingbird and peacock. We focused on one bird each day and we had a coloring page, a Bible verse, a slide show of pictures, and we also collected items from the yard to make a bird nest. At the end of the week, we took everything we had gathered and constructed it to make a nest. We'd had a couple of pretty decorative rocks in the back yard that AnnaBeth had gotten from Nana's front yard (that came from Aunt Kay's house) and we used those as the "eggs".

 Taking a survey of our materials

 Starting to construct the nest

 

 Very proud of how it's looking so far

 Checking to see if we need to add anything else

 Added one more leaf to complete our nest

 Was walking out to the retaining wall when I almost walked face first into this crab spider that was swinging on it's web

 We also saw this bug that blended very well with the plant/tree that randomly sprouted in the retaining wall

 Another shot of the crab spider

One final picture of our nest

AnnaBeth was SOOO very proud of the nest we made. It's all she talked about for the next few days. It was a fun project to work on with her!

Chocolate Feet and Monkey Feet

This morning AnnaBeth was playing with Bondo on our bed and he was getting all excited and flailing his feet around. At one point (in between my warnings for her to be careful because he tends to be careless and can really hurt you with his feet) she exclaimed, "Bondo had chocolate on his feet!!" I couldn't help but start laughing and informed her that those were his pads, not chocolate.

And little mister has little monkey feet. He was creatively trying to figure out how to reach the toys in his play gym today.

Biggest Giggles Yet!

An AnnaBeth Thought

This afternoon after lunch, AnnaBeth and I were in the backyard kicking a ball back and forth to each other. At one point she picked up ball and said "Mommy, you can't turn me into a ball. I'm AnnaBeth. I'm not a ball. This (patting the ball) is a ball." I have no idea where she came up with this but it was cute and made me laugh. :)