Summer Firsts and other stuff

I'm sure I will miss quite a lot of things, but I'm going to write all I know for now.
Mason has been rolling on his stomach from back for a while, which is incredible and kind of scary as he's only 4 and a half months old. I also think he is teething and I'm sure I will see a first tooth in a month or so. He reminds me SO much of Noah, it's bizarre. Everything is new for Mason regarding swimming pools and grandma's house and OH, eating! We aren't exactly starting the eating with great enthusiam like we did with the others, but he has had pears and applesauce. It's more that he likes to sit in the high chair at dinner with us. That kid is already my busiest and wiggliest child by far. He also giggles all the time now, when he isn't sucking on his fists and crying (probably because of pain).

Aunalie finger painted for the first time. Which was fun. She is such a girlie girl and nothing like Noah when it comes to finger painting. She literally uses one finger and dabs the paper. It's adorable. Noah walks away from the table covered in paint. It's more like body painting when he does it. That's why it is imperative that finger painting is a naked activity. ha ha! Aunalie is also starting to become very particular as far as dressing is concerned. She has favorite clothing and it may or may not match. I guess that is Karma. We also watched Snow White for the first time this summer and no, I have never seen it! Aunalie LOVED it. She may be Snow White for Halloween!

Noah is amazing me these days with his use of the scissors. He can cut figures out of coloring books REALLY well, following the lines. I find a million little tiny scraps of paper on the kitchen floor, but I don't mind because it usually takes about 20 minutes of his concentration to do this. It's wonderful and quite impressive I might say. He says he misses his preschool and his friends. Shawn introduced Noah to Star Wars and I'm competing with Harry Potter... tee hee. I am SO excited to start reading those books to my children. I might start in a year or two with Noah.
Noah is also improving his swimming skills as we take him to the pool at the very least once a week. This week we went three times in Hebron.

Shawn just got back from working in Boston and he got to visit the ocean and Harvard. He said it was amazing and he could live out there. Too bad it would be SO far away from our family and friends! I could use a break from the heat too! But he did say that the traffic was insane and scary sometimes. I don't know if I could deal with that.

Like I said, I'm sure I left a lot out, but I hit some highlights. The summer went WAY too fast even though at times I felt like we were stuck inside like it were February. Our 3rd of July party came and went with a HUGE bang, or a million. We had a great group of people and an excellent spread of food! We headed down to Hebron, saw the parade and lit off some of our own fireworks. My dad turned 60 this summer and we had a surprise party for him which was fun, partied again in Hebron for a few days. Now we head into August, ready to celebrate Shawn's birthday, anticipating a busy year of preschool, and are getting ready for a fun year of MOPS, vb reffing and the Big 10!

June Fun

Middle of JUNE... Already!!

Okay, here are some recent pictures of my babies. I just get a kick out of how Mason looks like a deer in headlights in MOST (not all) but most of his pictures. Of course the ones where he is smiling are kind of blurry. Shawn and I need to team up on getting more smiling pictures, I guess. But...it's just sooo hard to walk away from him when he's smiling so big to run and get the camera. In other summer news, Noah is naked as much as he possibly can be (this is really nothing new). However, when his "girlfriend" Emma comes to visit across the street, he can get his clothes on in 60 seconds flat! Too bad Emma wasn't around to help during preschool. He's also riding his bike ALL the time and looooooves "swimming" this year!
Aunalie is Noah's little shadow. Whatever he says, Aunalie is sure to repeat it. It's so cute. Shawn took Aunalie on a father-daughter date about a month ago. He took her to Applebee's and then let her run around the mall and basically be the one who gets to decide what fun they were going to have. Shawn said that she walked behind him like she didn't know what to do. However, after a while, when he asked her if she wanted to go home to see mommy, Noah and Mason, she quickly said NO! ha ha!

For Fun..

Mason and Noah don't really look alike to me, but going through some of Noah's old photos, they definitely have some of the same facial expressions. Mason does remind me of Noah a LOT as far as temperament. God help us, ha ha! Just kidding. I did look through some pictures of Noah and Aunalie when Aunalie was 2 months old, and not surprisingly, I don't have a WHOLE lot of Noah holding her. Aunalie is just a wee bit more gentle with Mason than Noah was with Aunalie and with Mason. :)

Zoo Trip 2011

We had another fun trip up to the Henry Doorly Zoo this year. Again, the kids really wanted to run and climb more than spend time looking at the animals. However, when I asked Aunalie what animals she saw at the zoo, she says, "Monkeys! Hit the window!" When we were looking at the gorillas, the big daddy gorilla came over and hit the window. It made me jump back, but of course Aunalie just stood there looking. She did eventually say, "hold me."

Noah Turns 4

Noah had a GREAT 4th birthday with too many presents, sugar and lots of love and family! For his birthday cake, he never quite told me what he wanted, so I made him a cake of all the things he loves (and I made it blue because that's his favorite color). I also tried my hand at making Fondant for the frosting. It wasn't too hard and actually was kind of fun! (I might be addicted to the food network) Noah, of course, loved it and I will add that the stuff that I made (the blue fondant) tasted better than the other store-bought stuff and was a LOT cheaper. Plus, I had so much left over that I used it to make some blue "N's" to put on sugar cookies that he could take to preschool. Overall, I think his birthday weekend was a success. Shawn and I got him his first bike and he loves riding it, still... but he won't ride it very far, yet. We also gave him some scotch tape, as you can see, and he is using it very wisely *insert sarcastic tone here*. Ah well, he loves tape AND scissors. I guess those two go hand in hand. ha ha!

MASON!!!