Picture Time.

Just cheesin'.

Loved the slide.

But still learning how to do it right.  Oh well.  This way's fun too!

Drinking out of a BIG cup.  He would carry this around all day.

Mace's first birthday party invite!  Calvin had a super hero party so Brandon found Mace this cool Spider Man outfit with webbing and everything.  It was so fun!

Catch-Up

I hate playing catch-up on here.  My normal posts are long enough, I can't imagine how this is going to turn out.

Last news, we bought a house.  After closing, we rented it back to the previous owners for 2 months while they waited for their new house to be built.  It was nice having two months to start building back up our savings and have our mortgage covered.  I thought it was going to be nice to have time to really prepare and get things ready for the move....but I decided to go to Colorado instead!  Go figure.  My first summer in MD and I spent 2 months in CO.  Totally worth it.  And can I just say how much I LOVE finally having our own house?  It has its quirks and things that we hate about it, but we can actually do something about those things!  It's amazing.

Our trip was good!  We happened to be there when the Waldo Canyon fire started, which entirely consumed almost 2 weeks of our trip.  We had the news on 24/7, a few sleepless nights, and a lot of staying indoors.  I was afraid to let Mace outside too much because of the smoke and ash in the air.  It was CRAZY.

Other than the fire, it was a fairly uneventful trip.  We had visits from Katie and Ryan, celebrated Ryan and my birthday's, and watched Mace learn new things each day.  He went swimming many times, which he LOVED, and I had a lovely time having other people change diapers and chase after him.

Mace is now 17 months old.  Holy smokes, I know.  The only unbelievably fantastic part of that statement is that it means 1 month until......nursery!  4 more Sundays.  We can do it!  While we were in CO he went to nursery (at only 16 months, gasp!) and did fantastic.  Sat down for the lesson, passed the scriptures in the circle, folded arms for prayer, sat calmly waiting for his snack, and was completely exhausted by the end of church.  Never once wondered where I was.  It was really nice, but now I'm a little bitter that our ward won't let him go in a little early.  I think ours is the first ward I've known to not let kids in until exactly 18 months.  Heck, I have a friend in Utah who's little boy goes and he's only 15 months!  I'm just nervous that he will suddenly become attached in these next few weeks.  Somebody better watch out if that is the case....

He goes up and down stairs, is getting a pretty good verbal vocabulary, and has an even larger signing vocab.  Our neighbors have a little boy just older than him and they got to play outside together for the first time.  It was fun!  I'm excited for Mace to finally have other kids to play with.  He has been seriously lacking in that dept.  And it forces us to spend more time outside.  Another good thing, because that boy is PALE.  I've never noticed before just how pale...but it's bad.  More vitamin D for him.  He's still sleeping like a champ.  Bedtime between 8 and 8:30, wakes up between 8:30 and 9.  I am SO spoiled.

Anyways....things are going fantastic for our little family.  Brandon is really enjoying his job, and has been told by a few people that he is doing everything he should be, taking on responsibility, etc. to get promoted first shot!  I've started doing some accounting work at home which is awesome!  It's an amazing blessing to be able to do something I love, something I worked hard to be able to do, and still stay at home with Mace.

Yes, it was long.  Good for you if you read the whole thing!

We Have A House!

I have been wanting to blog about this for a while, but I wanted to wait until we actually closed.  That way, I knew there was no chance of something going wrong and us not getting it.  But it's finally happened so I can post pictures!  We don't move in until the end of July (we're doing a 2 month rent-back) but it is officially ours! Here is the virtual tour video of it from when it was on the market.  Turn down your volume or mute it first.  The music is quite annoying.  And loud.  None of the stuff is ours, but it at least shows the house!  3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (2 full).  It's on the very end of a street, so we are actually right up next to the golf course!  It is awesome.  We have been so incredibly blessed through the whole process.  It is very apparent to us how much of a hand the Lord had in us getting this house.  

We are so excited and can't wait to move in and make it our own!  And I think Mace is really going to love all the room to run around and play.  It really will be his house.  Speaking of the Mace Face, here is a picture of him that we took while we were out in Colorado visiting.  I think he is just the cutest.  

Growing Up.

Updates galore.

Thanksgiving. Was pretty awesome. We stayed in Rexburg. Just the three of us. I cooked an entire dinner and it was delish. For dessert we went over to the Lyon's house and had pie. Again, delish. It also happened to be the night that we found out that Mace would give hugs. Adorbz.

Graduation. It happened. My feet killed. Just killed. I suppose it's my fault for wearing brand new shoes (literally. bought that day) It was fun though. My parents, Brandon's parents, two of my sisters, Brandon's brother and one sister, two of his aunts. Lots of people. Lots of stress. But we did it. Brandon graduated in Computer Science, I graduated in Accounting. Mason decided the night before graduation would be a great time to cut his first tooth. That coupled with him being with a babysitter the entire day before while we had movers come and pack up all our stuff made for a pretty unpleasant weekend. Oh well. It's over now. Side note. Movers are AWESOME. Despite the fact that they took like a bagillion smoke breaks, it was great. They are fast. I was in awe.

Christmas. Mason's 1st Christmas. He is one spoiled little boy! It really is the only way to describe it. I got Brandon and I matching pjs. Mason had some too, not matching ours, but cute. He loved the attention, got pretty good at ripping off wrapping paper, and had a great 1st Christmas.

Moving. Yes. We moved. To Maryland. It's weird being somewhere more permanent for once. Since being married (it was 4 years in December! Woah!) we have never lived somewhere for more than 9 months. I think it has been 8 moves? (1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8. yep) A lot. So it's weird. But nice.

Mason had a birthday! That one deserves and exclamation point. He did. I can't believe how big he is. He is definitely a toddler now. Walking, practically running now, saying words, signing even more, wow. He is amazing. He is so smart. And active. Whew he is active. But really a great little boy. He eats anything and everything. Doesn't really matter if he doesn't like it. It's food. He will eat it. He has really thinned out since he started walking everywhere, so he is almost 24 pounds and 30 in tall! Definitely didn't get the height from me. Cake pictures to come. It was pretty epic. We have been staying with Brandon's parents while we look for a house....which brings me to the growing up.

WE FOUND ONE. Yep. We bought a house. Well technically not yet. But almost! We close in 2 months. But won't move in until beginning of August. But it is awesome. I love it. Heavenly Father has definitely been looking out for us.

So we are growing up. Buying a house. Moving across the country. Having a 1 year old. I do miss the college life. I'm still learning how to not be a student. And a shut-in. But we'll get there someday.

That's about it! Pictures to come.

Lazy Day

I know I have a LOT to catch up on. Thanksgiving, graduation, Christmas, moving, everything. But not today, not now. Right now is a lazy day. Mason is taking a nap and I am staying in my pj's and eating cold Chinese food while watching one of my (many) guilty pleasure, drama filled TV shows.

Can life get better? I submit that it cannot. Definitely not.

Really, there are very few things better in life than cold Chinese food. I looooove it. So maybe tomorrow I will get posting, complete with pictures! But no, not today.

Another Tender Mercy

I don't know if these moments have actually been happening more since Mace came along or if I am just more aware of them now. Either way, they come all the time. Today was an amazing one.

I was sick today. Little to no voice, throbbing headache all day, zero energy, sick. Which led to Brandon having to take care of Mace Face all day. And what happened? Mace was an angel. Absolute angel. Put himself to sleep for both naps and bedtime, ate extremely well, played and was happy all day. We sure love him.

Oh and side note - he now gives hugs! You can sit him on your lap and say 'hug' and he will stick his arms out and fall into you and squeeze. Adorable. Makes my heart melt every time.

The Great Pumpkin!

And the cutest Great Pumpkin at that! Originally he was just going to be a pumpkin, but once I knew we were going to a Halloween party, I decided Brandon and I needed to dress up too - which meant coming up with some sort of theme that went with his pumpkin costume. Not an easy task. Finally I decided on calling Mace The Great Pumpkin and I would be Sally and Brandon would be Linus. It was going to be so cute. You probably see where I'm going with this one.

Brandon was a pretty good Linus. Luckily he already had a red striped polo and just toted around one of Mace's blue blankets. I, however, failed miserably. I tried to find a blue shirt at DI and then bought black construction paper to put polka-dots on it, but I failed miserably. It was terrible! So instead I wore a blue hoodie. And no one had any idea we were even dressed up. Epic fail. Oh well.

At least Mace worked his pumpkin. We had such a fun time at the Halloween party! Laura and Bekah did an AWESOME job - we loved it! And I feel like much less of a failure than I did for Mace's first Easter. Win-Win.