Christmas in the Spring

Quick re-cap of Christmas for us...

Christmas Eve we did the usual.  We went to my parents for lunch, church, pancakes, and gifts!  It was a great time with all of our family, and we had a new little one to share the experience with. (My older brother had another son, Chase Aaron, born in July)  Here are some pictures of the highlights!

Christmas Day Mason had some goodies from Santa to explore and play with, and then we had the grandparents (both mine and nick's parents) over for brunch and a few more presents.  This is a new tradition we are hoping to start.  Because my parents do everything Christmas Eve, all of Nick's family except for his parents are in Chicago, and we want Mason to still get to have a special Christmas morning at home, this worked amazingly well!  I really hope we can continue this for years to come.  Pictures from our fabulous Christmas!

The day after Christmas we went to Santa's Wonderland.  Mason had a blast!

Fall Fun

I am determined to do some catching up on the last several months!  Tons of pictures to follow...

Beautiful TX weather called for a picnic!

We spent an afternoon at the Museum of Natural Science...

Mason loved the dinosaurs.

Then, we had a picnic and headed to the zoo!  I love fall in Texas and how gorgeous it is outside.

It just isn't fall without a pumpkin patch visit!

S'mores on the fire pit...

We also visited a farm where they had tons of fall things to do.

Corn field maze

Giant slide

We painted pumpkins...

We had a pretty spectacular fall!  Up next, winter and Christmas!

Mason turns 2!

You hear it all the time, people say it constantly, and it couldn't be any more true!  The last two years have flown by, and I can't believe that my tiny 6 lb. baby turned into a two year old!  He is without a doubt the love of our lives, our light, our joy, and more than we ever expected.  I truly can't imagine a world without him in it nor would I ever want to.  Mason Rhys, we absolutely love you!

Here is a how we spent his actual birthday, just the three of us.  There are lots of pictures so prepare yourself.

 The night of his party, once everyone had left, we pulled out our gift to him.  A train table!  He was beyond excited and started playing right away.  Putting him to bed was near impossible.

Mason's actual birthday was on Sunday which was also Father's Day.  We started with balloons per tradition.

We got all his balloons ready the night before...

The helium didn't make it over night, so we quickly taped them upside down, and Mason loved it and didn't know the difference!

He loved running through them, and did it over and over again all morning!

Nick then took him to get donuts and let him pick out whatever he wanted!

I wanted to take my boys somewhere that they could both enjoy since it was birthday and Father's Day.  I didn't want Nick to be left out, so I made reservations at the Downtown Aquarium.

Mason and Nick both loved watching the fish, and our table was right in front of the largest aquarium. Mason would say ohhh, wow really loud when a big fish would swim by!

The waiter was fantastic and surprised Mason with a birthday treat!

There was tons for Mason to do, and we all enjoyed getting to do so much together!

Ferris wheel 

Mason has recently developed a fascination with alligators so this was the perfect carousel ride! Afterwards, he went on and on about riding an alligator.

Of course the best part was getting to ride the choo-choo!

What does a puffer fish do? Love my boys!

White tigers

We had a spectacular day, and it is unbelievable what a difference a year can make.  Happy birthday Mason Rhys, you make momma and daddy's world complete!