A Garbage Truck Birthday!!

Mason's first 3 days as a 2-year-old have been fit for a king....or actually, a garbage man. Rather than having one big birthday bash like last year (which turned out to be a little bit hectic), we decided to spread out Mason's birthday fun over the entire weekend with several smaller celebrations. Because I am a little over-the-top when it comes to my kids birthdays, I have been trying to decide what kind of birthday Mason would like this year. Last year was an easy choice with the Barnyard theme because that was clearly Mason's favorite thing. This year I couldn't decide if he'd like a Cars, Mickey Mouse, tool, or a sports party more. I decided to take him with me to Zurchers, the party store, to pick out what kind of party he wanted. As we walked down the isles I pointed out all the Cars stuff and enthusiastically asked Mason if he would like a Mater birthday party, to which he flatly replied, "Nope". We repeated this through every section I was sure he would love with the same response each time. Just as I was beginning think he might just be too young to understand or care about a birthday theme we passed a construction section that had big green dump trucks on everything. Mason's face lit up and he yelled out, "Green Gabage Truck!!" and ran over to the shelves to start pulling everything off. I asked him if he wanted a garbage truck birthday cake and party and he smiled a great big smile and said, "uh-huh!!!". I could hardly hold him back as we picked out the invitations and other party things we needed. He just kept saying over and over "green gabage truck, Masy's green gabage truck". I tried to make it more of a dump truck birthday, but in Mason's mind it was strickly a garbage truck birthday. We gave out these cute dump truck invitations. You can't really tell from the picture, but the bed of the truck swings open and shut like it's dumping to show the party information. The thing that I get most excited about for the party is the cake. You see my mom always made us awesome cakes when we were little. The one thing I can remember about every single one of my birthdays growing up is what my cake looked like. I started invisioning the perfect garbage truck cake the second we decided on the theme. I knew just what I wanted, but making it happen was another story. I thought I had it all under control until I had a bit of a pregnancy moment and started to get teary because it wasn't working out right. But Scott came to the rescue and saved the cake. Here is the final result. I have to show the back side with the waste management logo making it not just a dump truck, but a true garbage truck. I made Scott do all the detail work because he is a perfectionist and has a much steadier hand (because I have to reach 3 feet over my huge belly to even reach the cake). I love this man!!! Since Saturday was Mason's actual birthday I wanted it to be a fun day for him. Scott was on a business trip and wouldn't get back until that evening so I decided to take Mason to Kangaroo Zoo with a few friends that morning. Mason had so much fun on the "bouncy". A big thanks to our friends for making Mason's birthday so fun.

Here are Mason and Katelyn bouncing around. Mason loved all the giant slides. He loved this baseball thing. Mason, Halle, Katelyn, and Jackson. All that hard playing made the kids hungry so we had some PB&Js for lunch. After a morning of jumping around Mason took a good nap and when he woke up his daddy was home!! The birthday fun continued when we went out in the rainy, lousy weather to play in Mason's birthday present. He loves his "house" that has a blue door and an orange slide (on the other side) My parents came over to give Mason his present. Mason has been asking for a bike for the last month, the problem is he can't actually pedal any kind of bike yet so I end up bent over pushing him around on things. My parents gave him this awesome bike that has a handle we can push and stear with while he learns how to pedal and then it comes off when he can ride it himself. We have loved it so far and totally recommend it. My dad and Scott were adjusting the seat with a screwdriver and Mason thought that was better than riding the bike in the rain, so he spent the rest of the time "fixing" his bike. My parents took us to IHOP that night so Mason could get "panceeks" for his birthday dinner. Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

On Sunday we had Mason's true garbage truck party with my family. It turned out perfectly!! Here are the kiddos (Kennedy, Cannon, and Mason) in their party hats getting ready for the birthday dinner. Mason had fun opening his presents. I tried to find a garbage truck toy to give Mason, but the best I could find was a dump truck. Mason was more than happy with that!! He loves to load up all his Cars in the dump truck and push it around. Of course there were icecream cones. Whew! What a party!!, but we're not done yet.

Monday night we finished off by having cake and ice cream with the Murrays. With 10 kids sharing 3 new toys, things can get kind of overwhelming. Mason finally packed up his new chair (thanks Vance and Lisa) and tools (thanks Grandma and Grandpa) and went and sat in the hall by himself to take a break. Notice his dump truck jammies...very appropriate. Mama and Daddy with our birthday boy. It's been a great weekend, but by the end of the night a tired and sick Mason was ready to go home. I haven't mentioned that Mason woke up Sunday morning with a nasty cold that I think might be progressing to croup. He has been a trooper and hasn't let it slow him down, but he was beat by the end of tonight. Mason had such a wonderful weekend. I really liked having his birthday celebrations simpler and spread out over several days. He didn't seem to get as overwhelmed by everything. It was especially nice for him to just open 1-2 presents at a time and really be able to enjoy them. A big thanks to all our family and friends who shared Mason's birthday with him. We are so lucky to have so many people who love and care for Mason.

All About Mason!!

Today is Mason's 2nd Birthday. It's hard to believe it's already been 2 years since Mason joined our family, but at the same time I can hardly remember what our life was like without him. In an attempt to document who Mason is on his 2nd birthday, this post is going to tell all about Mason. This is really for me to look back on and I in no way expect anyone reading this to care about anything I write, so read at your own risk. I will throw in some updated pictures as well.

Mason Likes:

• Play-doh: he likes to make big balls and baby balls to smash, big snakes and baby snakes to "snip" with his "blue scissors", roll with the "pin" (rolling pin) to make pancakes and then use his cookie cutters to make shapes. He only plays with one color at a time. He will announce "Keem up the Blue" before opening another color so they don't mix.
• Coloring: He prefers to color with markers over crayons because when a crayon breaks or the wrapper peels off he is so concerned about it being "boken" that he doesn't want to color until "mama fix it".
• Doggies: Anytime there is a dog, big or small, Mason yells, "Its gittin Masy" and holds out his hand for the dog to lick.
• Garbage Cans: Mason LOVES the black and green outside garbage cans. Fridays are his favorite day of the week because he gets to help pull the "green gabage can" to the street and then watch from the front window when the "big green truck is gittin Macy's gabage". You would think it was Christmas morning when we go for a walk and he sees all the garbage cans lining the street. We have to pick up every garbage can that is tipped over and he tries to pull everyones garbages back to their house for them. He even calls his plastic golf bag that has wheels his garbage can and pulls it around the house making Scott and I pretend to be the garbage truck and dump it upside down.
• Lawn Mowers: His obsession has not died from last year. Loves his little lawn mower. We take it on most of our walks and he mows everyone's lawn for them. He likes to park it in our shed right next to "daddy's mawn-mower".
• Digging in the dirt: He's a little boy, what more can I say.
• Cooking: Mason loves to mimic everything we do. We have scrambled eggs and pancakes a lot for breakfast so he likes to get out my pans and a "spatcha" to "stir iggs" or "flip panceeks" like mama.
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: This is pretty much the only show he likes to watch, so we watch it almost every morning together. Pete and "Goof" are his favorite characters.
• Tools: Once again back to the mimicing. Whenever Scott gets his tool box out Mason has to go get his and set it next to Scott's and "hewp daddy fix it".
• "Baby Sweep": Ever since Mason was a baby my hair was his absolute greatest comfort item. He always wants it when he is scared, insecure, tired, or sad. Recently he found a little sample make-up brush in the bathroom and immediately bonded with it. He calls it his baby sweep. He now uses it like he used my hair. It has been the key to success in getting Mason to stay in his bed when falling asleep at night. We love the baby sweep.

Mason Doesn't Like:

• Getting his haircut: This is really horrible since he has had his hair cut every 2-3 months since he was 2 months old. Anytime we mention getting his hair cut all he can say over and over is "Kawi (Karlie) all done, Kawi all done" (Karlie is the girl who cuts his hair). We have a system down that includes many suckers and Mickey Mouse playing on the portable DVD player, but it still is an ordeal every time.
• Dad or Mom go to work: He is always sad when whichever one of us leave and the whole time we're gone he tells everyone, "Mama's at work" over and over. From the time he wakes up from his nap until Scott gets home he asks me "Daddy soon?"
• Mama's vacuum: Mason cries whenever I get the vacuum out. We usually have to vacuum when both of us are home so one of us can take Mason away from the vacuuming and hold him. The funny thing is he has a toy vacuum that he loves.
• Getting in trouble: Mason is very soft hearted and gets very upset when we get mad at him (which isn't very often).

Things Mason Knows:

• Colors
• Shapes
• Counts to 12: he does a really good job correlating a number with an item so he is actually fairly accurate telling you how many of something there are.
• ABCs: not only does he know the ABC song, but he can tell you the names of the uppercase letters.
• "Reads" (recites) a few of his favorite books.
• Talks, Talks, Talks: Mason now talks in full sentences. He starts talking the minute he wakes up and the only way we get him to stop talking and go to sleep is by putting his binky in. He gives a continuous narration of what he sees, does, and thinks throughout the day.
• Mason started sleeping in a "big bed" at Christmas. It took a little while to get completely used to staying in bed when there was nothing to stop him from getting out, but now he is doing great. He does a good job staying in bed and falling asleep after we do his nighttime routine. He will still usually wander into our room once a night half asleep and we just have to walk him back to his room and put him in his bed.

Mason Looks Like:

• Mason has thick brown hair. He still has his awesome callik right in the middle of his hairline that prevents us from styling his hair in most ways.
• Mason has my eyes and every other facial feature is totally Scott. When he smiles and laughs he is 100% Scott's son.
• We still don't know what to call Mason's eye color. He has a ring of blue, a ring of green, and a ring of brown. His eyes generally appear to be green or hazel, depending on what he wears. They are unique and beautiful whatever color they are.
• Mason has a great little boy smile with the gap left by his tooth that was knocked out last year. I wouldn't change it for the world.
• Mason keeps getting taller and taller and skinnier and skinnier.
• Mason still has very square and thick feet that limit the kind of shoes he can wear. I'm glad he's at least old enough now that he can tell me when shoes hurt his feet.

There you have it, things I want to remember about my little boy when he turned 2. I love everything about Mason! I know he's not perfect, but he is the perfect fit for our home. Mason, Mama loves you!! Now to the pictures.

All the Hale Cousins. Cannon, Mason, Kennedy, and Rachel.

Mason with his best buddy Cannon

Mason and Scott have boys' night when I go to work. A favorite activity for them both is to eat popcorn while watching basketball games. Mason loves to help mom in the kitchen. Here is Mason "cooking" notice my rubber hotpad that is his "panceek" and the Easter egg he was breaking on the side of the pan like mama. I didn't even know Mason knew the ABC song until one day we were playing with puzzles and he started singing it. Miraculously he sang it on command so I could record it. (As a side note: he doesn't have a shirt on because we'd been doing some messy activities right before this.)

Caribbean Cruise

On December 18th Scott and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary. We celebrated it a month earlier when we went on a Western Caribbean Cruise with some of our friends (kids left home). Here is a quick account of our trip with some pictures.

Day 1- Travel

We spent the day flying out to Florida. Nothing too eventful until Scott and I got bumped off a flight we booked 9 months previously because they changed aircrafts to a smaller plane and our seats didn't exist on the new plane. After some tears and a long wait we got on the flight and made it to Florida.

Day 2- Setting Sail

We got on the boat and set sail. It was warm and sunny, the sea was calm. This was going to be a wonderful week. We started off doing what any sane person does on a cruise.... eating until the buttons popped off our pants and playing shuffleboard.

Pulling away from Ft. Lauderdale at sunset. Scott and Jeff starting the intense shuffle board competition that continued all week. Rachel and Scott at dinner.

Day 3: A Loooong day at sea

Our third day started at about 2am when I woke up feeling terribly sick. I jumped out of bed to run to the bathroom and it was then I noticed I was being thrown back and forth across the cabin by the rocking of the boat. I quickly learned that wind=waves=rocking of boat=a lot of sick people. It seems the weather took an unexpected turn during the night and became overcast and windy. When we left our cabin the next morning, after a long night in the bathroom (I had filled my stomach with plenty of ammunition the night before), we were greeted by a ship full of green-faced passengers. Barf bags and carpet cleaning crews were stationed at every corner. Everyone in our group was feeling miserable, but me being 8 weeks pregnant and battling morning sickness on top of the sea sickness was the worst. We spent the day at the center of the ship where rocking was supposed to be the least. We bought some playing cards and spent the day perfecting our Scum and Hearts strategies. That night was the formal dinner. By that time we were feeling a little better and were at least able to enjoy dinner, although much lighter than the night before.

Katie, Dan, me, and Ali playing cards. Notice the barf bags safely placed across my lap. The girls. The guys.

Day 4: Grand Caymen

I don't think I've ever seen so many people fighting to get off the boat as we did the next morning. Solid ground sounded pretty great to all of us at this point. We were planning on going to Sting Ray City but there were still really high waves which made it unsafe, so it was closed for the day. Instead we went to 7 mile beach which was beautiful. I love the beach so much. We just walked up and down the beach for a while and then when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds for awhile we took a dip in the ocean. We then headed into Georgetown to do some shopping. It was a great day!!!

Scott and Rachel on our walk up 7 mile beach.

Scott and Rachel on 7 mile beach.Us playing in the ocean. Really the only reason I included this picture was because of the guy in the speedo. Welcome to Mexico!! Katie and Rachel sipping Pina Coladas on the beach. Unfortunately, this is the only sting ray we got to pet this trip.

Day 5: Cozumel

The next day was Cozumel. This was by far our favorite day of the trip. The weather was the best it was all week and we actually saw quite a bit of the sun. We went on the funnest excursion where we got to drive mini jeeps. I got to drive because Scott lost his driver's license the day before we left on the cruise. We traveled in a caravan along a highway and then along the coast. We stopped and saw a crocadile named Max, saw some Mayan ruins, went snorkeling, and went to a lighthouse. The snorkeling was AMAZING!! We had a guide who led us on a 1/2 mile loop out into the ocean and along a coral reef. Neither Scott or I had ever been snorkeling before and we LOVED it. We have promised ourselves we will go again soon. We finished off the day with some shopping and eating at Senor Frogs. Apparently not too many mormons eat there because our waiter acted like we were the first people ever to eat there without ordering alcohol. It really was a perfect day.

Ready to go in our "Mexican Lamborghini". Scott looking good. Rachel impressing Scott with her mad driving skills. The road along the beach. Us with Max. Look down in the water right below us and you can see him. A close-up of Max. This is a place they used to use to tell them when a hurricane was coming. The whole group after our snorkel. Scott and Rachel. All of us enjoying Nachoes at the end of a long and fun day. Day 6: Another Day at Sea

This day wasn't near as bad as the first, but I had not seen my little boy in a week and missed him so much I was just counting down the hours until I could at least call him on the phone.

Day 7: The Journey Home

We were supposed to get home in the early evening but due to some plane troubles we didn't make it home until 1 am making it so I didn't get to see Mason until morning.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. Scott and I were able to spend time together without worrying about work or Mason. We were also able to spend some time with some of our closest friends. I loved being on a cruise because we were completely removed from everything with no phones or computers. I didn't like how much something as uncontrolable as the weather effected everything. I realize now I was overly confident in my "never had any form of motion sickness" and "wasn't sick a day of my pregnancy with Mason" mentality when a got pregnant before our cruise we'd been planning for 8 months. I realize how long 7 days actually is to be away from your kids. (Just a side note, Mason stayed with my parents and he never even noticed we were gone... thanks Mom and Dad.) Overall I loved our cruise and can't wait to take a trip again.

Baby Girl Murray

We went for our ultrasound on Scott's Birthday (Feb. 11) and the baby was very cooperative in showing us that she's a little girl!! She wasn't as cooperative in positioning herself in a way the ultrasonographer could get a good look at everything she needed to so I get to go back for a follow-up ultrasound next month. She was so darling sitting in indian style with both her hands over her face the whole time. We are so excited to have a little girl!! One of each so the pressure's off. We're still completely undecided on names but we'll let you know when we have some options to choose from.

Mason's Announcement

Mason is going to be a big brother some time around July 3rd!!

Here is a little list I compiled that might help explain my lack of blogging lately.

Some signs you are experiencing "morning sickness".

*Taken from the last 3 months of Rachel's life

• 
  
  Your favorite foods are no longer based on how they taste going down, but instead how they taste coming up. (Gushers make for surprisingly fruity vomit.)


• 
  
  If you make any sudden movement in bed your husband jumps because he thinks your going to throw up on him.


• 
  
  You make sure every patient's room at work is adequately stocked with emesis basins even though none of them are nauseous.


• 
  
  You throw up so violently you pee your pants on the bathroom floor.


• 
  
  You skip Thanksgiving dinner for fear of offending your in-laws by gagging as you pass Grandma's famous stuffing.


• 
  
  Your little boy thinks it's a game to lean over the toilet and make noises.

Stay tuned for some exciting catch-up posts to come this week.

Let it Snow

Scott and I have often talked about how Utah winters have gotten wimpier over the years. We both remember school and church being canceled and playing in snow piles taller than us. Well mother nature must have been offended by our comments and has been proving us wrong this winter. It has lived up to our all our winter memories and expectations. Scott and Mason have spent many nights out shoveling the driveway, just to have it covered again the next morning. The snow piles literally have been taller than Mason. It has been an absolute blast!! So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Choo Choo Christmas

We went a little overboard with Christmas this year. Mason fell in love with the train table at toys r us. He didn't forget about it that night, the next day, or even the next week. When some big boxes came in the mail he got so excited and was saying, "My choo choo!" He was heart broken when it was just our new computer. We had fun setting up the train table with the help of Vance and Steve on Christmas Eve. When Mason came out Christmas morning he just looked at the table as if he couldn't figure out what it was doing in our house. Then he jumped right in and started playing. We put way too many presents under the tree. We got him a vacuum because he is terrified of the vacuum. He ran away and hid when he first opened the vacuum and saw what it was. Once we got it out and showed him how it worked he fell in love. The vacuum stole the show and once it was opened he refused to open any more, so we decided to put them away for his birthday. Mason also got a big boy bed for Christmas.