Chicago and Halloween (Better late than never!)

The weekend before Halloween, we flew up to Chicago to see Nick's family.  His grandmother has a place in this community called Woodsmoke, and they do all kinds of fall/Halloween things.  It was great for Mason to get to be a part of what Nick did as a kid, and to see Nick's family that we don't see very often!

Mason enjoyed playing in the leaves!  Since Chicago has a real fall, there were leaves everywhere!  Nick made a small pile for Mason to play in, and then taught him to throw them in the air...it was so cute!

My Aladdin and Abu before we started Trick or Treating!

Mason was so cute waving hi and bye like he was in a parade!

Nick's mom made all of our costumes.  The boys' turned out great; however, don't judge mine.  It was in the 40's so I had to wear the thermal underneath eventhough it looks ridiculous.

He was the cutest little monkey!  And, yes, his costume is starting to come off, but considering he wore it for a good 2 hours and smiled for pictures, I was one happy mama!

Plus, how cute is this little town?  We had a great trip!

Beach Trip!

We went on an impromptu beach trip with my parents a few weeks ago.  Nick and I didn't plan on doing anything big this summer since we recently booked our trip to London!  We were sitting with my parents and talking about needing a vacation so I suggested a beach house.  Everyone was in, but they were worried we wouldn't be able to find anything so late.  I started the hunt, and we had a fabulous house booked by that afternoon!  We stayed on Crystal Beach, and had a perfect relaxing vacation.  It was close to home, affordable, but perfect nonetheless!  Mason loved the beach!!  Here a few pictures from our trip...

Heading to the beach!

Playing with Grandad...

Before the trip was over, Mason started saying Grandad in context!

Mason made a friend at the beach house!  He loved this bird statue.

Beach Baby!

We got this visor for 99 cents at Old Navy.  Nick said Mason looks like a frat boy!

Playing on the deck.

Please ignore how gross I look...this was on our way out, headed home!

Month in review...

Not only is Mason now 5 months old, so much has happened that I haven't really had a chance to post!

For starters we went to the Texas State Fair this year...

This how our little man started the day...

Fried Salsa!

Turned out to be really good!

Mason learned the full on pouty lip while we were there!
This has to be the cutest thing ever!

Mason and Daddy with their matching hats in front of Big Tex!

The famous corn dogs!

Fried bubble gum...this was completely disgusting!
It was like eating and chewing amoxicillin.

The best thing...fried buffalo chicken in a flap jack!  So good!
Nick and I got one order of things and shared...we didn't want to overload our bodies with so much fried food.

How the little man ended our day!

Halloween 2011:

Mason was a Spartan for Halloween!

Complete with sword, shield, arm cuffs, and sandals!

He liked the sword!

His feet touch the floor in his walker! 

He loves it!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...

I am super pumped because our Christmas plans are already booked and are completely perfect!  My family does our whole Christmas shindig on Christmas Eve, and we will be here to partake in all of it.  Then, we will fly out Christmas Day to Chicago to go to Nick's grandparents, meet up with his parents, and see his family for their Christmas festivities!  I love getting to see everyone for the holidays, and this year we have an added bonus...road trip to North Carolina with Nick's parents after Chicago family time.  Nick's parents currently live in North Carolina and decided it would be fun to take the week after Christmas as a time to road trip up there from Chicago, do some touristy things there, and get to finally see the house they just recently bought.  We will fly home from North Carolina after a week of Christmas, family fun, road tripping, and a mini vacation.

Nick and I are also very fortunate to be planning a Spring Break trip too.  His parents have a time share in Hawaii that we may use in Kauai for the week to relax and spend more time with his parents.  However, if the hotel is already booked for that week then Nick and I are planning to go to London!  I am secretly way more excited about London and hoping it can be a go.  We also had to stop ourselves yesterday and remember how truly blessed we are to even be having the conversation of, "well, if we can't go to Hawaii then lets go to London".  Our lives have been remarkably blessed time and time again, and we had to stop and remind ourselves of this fact.  So, here's to a wonderful God, a wonderful Christmas, and a potentially wonderful Spring Break!