Happy Birthday Mason

Today is our little Mason's first birthday!! Although we are celebrating it on Tuesday I wanted to wish him happy birthday and share with you 5 reasons why we are glad he is a part of our family on this earth!

1) Mason has always been so happy and smiles all the time! It's quite contagious, he has brought so much joy and laughs to us! It's so easy to get a smile or a laugh out of him.


2) He is energetic, playful and loves being with his brother. Between the two of them they are entertained for hours on end. He is Porter's best friend and We love that! It's so fun to watch him learn and grow!


3) Mason has been a great sleeper! He goes to sleep quickly with out crying giving us nights full of sleep, thankfully! Of course we love that!


4) He is a mommas boy yet loves his daddy. It's nice to feel so loved and needed. He warms up to just about anyone given a little time but will always come back to us.


5) He loves to cuddle! Who doesn't need a hug or several everyday? We all get our servings of love from Mason. When I put him to bed I give him a pacifier, put his blankey on my shoulder at which he immediately lays his head on it and pats my back, as I pat his, singing primary songs to him.

Make a Smilebox greeting

Mason's WALKING!!

I am so excited!! Mason is walking! He's not perfect yet but he can turn, pause, get up with no objects to help pull him up, even walk from the family room to the other end of the kitchen! WOW! GO MASON! He'll be 1 year old on the 30th and walking! What a big boy! Have I mentioned how much I love this stage. They are learning and growing so much, not to mention I love holding their hand while they walk, it's the BEST!!

Thanksgivings....so far

It sure gets busy this time of year!! We are really lucky to have families who celebrate Thanksgiving at very different times in November. First we have the Olsen party, full of cotton candy, dinner (not like a traditional thanksgiving dinner at all), blow up jumper, desserets, and plenty of fun family! This is one of 2 of our yearly get togethers. It's great to visit and catch up with all the cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa, nieces, nephews and everyone else! We all had a blast!!

Porter was having so much fun when he was supposed to be eating that he was trying to eat what was left before they put it away.

Mason found some fun people there! Here is giggling with great-aunt Ilene and Great-uncle-Danny!

Next on our list is the Calhoun Thanksgiving. This is usually held at Aunt Lisa's house, but we got to go to Mom's house this year. WE always LOVE being there so it was great! After church we got our naps in and headed over. We were in charge of the relish tray (Brent and I didn't even know that's what the veggie trays were called till we were assigned it :) ). We had our delicious Thanksgiving feast with mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey the whole thing. It was delicious! Then we got to play and visit, which I must say is my favorite part. I just LOVE these people! Then the kids got to do their craft. This year they either made pilgrim or Indian hats. As you can see Porter made a pilgrim hat. It was really cute. Mom also gave us our Christmas presents early so we could display them for the Holidays. It was more pieces to our BEAUTIFUL Nativity set she gave us last year. I couldn't have picked a better nativity set out. I love it!

Cousins playing together!

Layna and Porter racing around the kitchen. A nice pink horse for Layna and a green manly tractor for Porter. They were having a blast riding all over. They get along so well. It seems Porter can sence that she is a girl and treats her differently than he treats his boy cousins, with more respect and care. It's really sweet to see that he is already becoming a gentleman. Oh and this girl is ALWAYS smiling. She is just so cute!

And their OFF......

Well it was a clost one, but by the look on thier faces I think a tie is a wise call... :)

I married one talented MAN!

Brent is good at everything! He's somewhat of a perfectionist so whatever he does he does WELL! For those of you who have seen our large shed out back, Brent build that. With no background in construction he build a miniature house fully equipped with electricity, fans, an attic, well thought out shelves, lights and insulation. I wouldn't be surprised if Porter moved out there in 16 years to save on his rent. :) He has also designed and done all our landscaping, which looks great. We acquired a couple chickens a while back and he made the most amazing chicken coup. It had a detachable play yard, stairs, a long perch, 3 bedrooms upstairs with a door for each (to collect the eggs), easy access feeding and exit doors and other features. We decided to sell them along with the coup recently so Brent put it up on Craigslist for $100 and got tons of bidders! They were literally fighting to get here first with a trailer to buy it. He got e-mails saying they fell in love with the design asking where he bought it from. And that was just something he put together with scrap constuction wood and for 'fun' one day. His latest and longest (since he got in the accident during this project) has been the firplace out back. He just finished cutting the flagstone the other day and it is looking great, considering it was a concrete nothing in the back yard not too long ago. Here are the pictures from that. Oh and did I mention he does a wonerful job cleaning it all up after working on it. He's also been great at fixing everything around the house. My favorite repair job was when he fixed my CHI iron. That thing was not cheap and not working, but brent got in there cut it up, saudered wires back together and it works better than ever, seriously. I am a lucky wife!! You're wonderful HONEY! I LOVE YOU!

Have fun boys

We all went over to the Steven's house last Sunday for a get-together. It was a lot of fun to visit and eat and let our kids all play together. As I walked past the their boys room I caught these 3 BFFs having a blast together. They had all crawled into Logans bed jumping and have a great time! These are are the first 3 of the grandkids on the Curtis side. From Left to right we have Gideon, Brayden and Porter. They are each about 5 months apart from eachother and have such fun being together. They have their hard times (it's amazing what a difference 5 months can make at this age) but as they get older they understand eachother and sharing better and better. It's so great to witness these friendships grow. I'm sure they will grow to be the best of friends!

Brent and I decided to stay the night so we didn't have to drive around so much since we were going into the valley for family pictures anyway. Once the boys woke up they wasted no time and got right to playing! They got to drive around in the garage with a cool car and quad, among other things.

They got to go outside, it was a beautiful day, and play. I asked them what they were doing and they told me "we're making food".

Of all the toys to play with, you pick a lawn mower Mason? Seriously? Are boys just born knowing their responsibilities? We let them play out there alone and would check on them every couple of minutes. Here is where we found Mason having fun. Notice all the fun colorful toys all around? This made me laugh!

Mason's 1st Haircut!!

Mason is now 11 months old! His birthday is November 30th. And he finally needed a haircut. It is such a cut little fuzz, but getting a little long. I don't ever really style it or put any product in it, because I love the fuzz. Now that it is shorter I should probably try something fun. He's such a handsome guy anything would look cute. He was just super cute when I cut his hair. I just stuck him in his high chair so I could buckle him in. Draped him with my big cape and went at it with clippers that were about the size of his head. He did so well, he was just really curious what I was doing, kept watching me and that big thing I was holding to his head. It was really vibrating too so I tried to be very gentle. He definitely got really itchy near the end so he was rewarded with a nice warm bath. I know this is a lot of pictures, I didn't narrow it down much. They were all just SO CUTE!! I love the faces he's making and that he's really eying the clippers!

What are you doing mommy? "Is that something to eat?"

Can't take my eye's off that thing?

"He he, that tickles...I think"

It's Crazy how different my two boys hair is. Porter's grew much faster (I had cut it 3 times by 11months) Porter's is somewhat curly and thicker, while Masons is board straight, fuzzy and thin. They are both cute though.

Voted & New Cousin/Niece

We Voted! Did you? What a great experience to be able to vote! I honestly wish I had done some more research on more of the issues but I feel I voted right on the most important ones. Grandma and Grandpa Calhoun were nice enough to offer to watch the boys so Brent and I could go and vote together. We got in trouble for taking a picture (we were well away from the building...not far enough I guess) But we moved away and they were okay with us taking it if we moved away.


And here is our NEW LITTLE COUSIN/NIECE

This is my "Oh my gosh, she's so TINY" face. In case you were wondering:)

She was only 5lbs 11ounces!! She was TINY!! I don't think I've ever held a baby that tiny before! She was a perfect little angel. I LOVE HER ALREADY!! We got to watch her and Layna while Launi voted. She, Layna, was so excited to be a big sister and and is also such a sweetie. She is ALWAYS smiling! Porter loves to play with her!

Memory Books

I've really been slacking with scrapbooks lately. so I have decided to buckle down and make some more digital scrapbooks. I think it is so important to, not only have the pictures to remember, but also to write about the times and experiences. Some ideas I have for books to do is; 'Before I was your Mother/Father', Brent's mission book, a baby book for both Porter and Mason, a family yearbook (one for each year) and a wedding book. I've only done this one ('A Love Story') so far, which is a the story write up of, well...OUR love story. it was so easy, about the cost of a normal scrapbook (when you include the book, print pictures, embellishments, tools, paper) and it wasn't so messy, esp with kids! All the write up was from Brent's, fairy tale version, of our meeting and dating, of which he used to propose. It was a whole day of fun, I was flown to Flagstaff, in a private plane, taken to NAU, where we met and he did a 30 min show for me. It was an incredible event that I wanted my children to know and see. Porter has a couple from MamaZelle (my mom), of him (a 'counting with Porter' book and a puppet book that has the history of our puppets and us performing) That he just LOVES!!! It's just so cool to see your pictures in a bound 'real' book!

Quiet Book

I made Porter a quiet book for Christmas last year but the couple times he tried it he was just just too young to enjoy it. I just got it out again a couple weeks ago and he has loved it. It has kept him quiet and busy during sacrament. It's great! His favorite is the race track page with the cars, I sure called that one. He LOVES cars so he spends most of his time on those pages.

This is Porter's FAVORITE