Thanksgiving, Part 2

After spending some time with Jeni's parents', we headed over to Ken's parents' house. We shopped for Mason's next car seat (we settled on the Britax; thanks Hank and Sandy), but the highlight was trying to take some family pictures.

Mason's Great Aunt Barb is an excellent quilter. She previously made a quilt for Mason that now hangs in his room. For Thanksgiving, she made matching sweatshirts with quilted moose for all of the little kids on that side of the family. Mason's Nana's favorite animal is the moose so we wanted to take a picture of Mason and his cousins Joey and CJ wearing the sweatshirts.

This turned out to be harder than we thought. Amy, Jeni, Nana, Papa, and I brought the boys in their sweatshirts out to their front porch and tried to pose them. CJ was very patient and smiled very nicely. Joey also smiled very nicely, but is only 16-months old and only follows direction 50% of the time. He is also easily distracted. Mason had just woken up from a nap, and seemed very confused by, well, everything.

So we ended up with a lot of pictures that look like this.

We eventually gave up on the idea of getting a picture of only the three boys. Nana and Papa posed with them while Amy and I clicked away on our cameras trying to catch all five of them looking in the same direction at the same time. Amy finally took a winner on, I'm guessing, the 30th attempt between us.

Behold!

A video interlude

Mason spent some time with his Uncle Chris during Thanksgiving break.

Thanksgiving, Part 1

We had a great first Thanksgiving with Mason. He had a few issues sleeping at his grandparents' houses, but kept to his nap schedule which made everyone happy.

Last Wednesday, Mason had a bath in the morning before we left for Illinois and I had a chance to take this shot.

We went to his Grandma Hollie and Grandpa Tom's house Wednesday and Thursday night. He quickly figured out that the flashing red light (anti-redeye) from Hollie's camera meant that the flash was coming. So she has a lot of pictures that look like this.

Mason got in the spirit of Thanksgiving and had sweet potato for the first time. At first he was very wary, but soon really seemed to enjoy it.

On Black Friday, Mason was up bright and early to go to the sales, but for some reason I just tried to get him back to sleep. Oh well. Later that day, he was feeling much livelier than I was.

This post is getting a bit long. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Pre-Thanksgiving

Before I post Thanksgiving pictures, I thought that I would put these pictures up.

Mason makes this new face often these days. He'll usually do it when he's excited about something or someone. Frequently, he'll alternate between smiling and 'ooing'.

Mason and Hogarth continue to get along well. Hogarth is like one of those little fish that swim around larger carnivorous fish and eat the bits of food that the larger fish leave behind. Every once in a while, the smaller fish will dart into the larger fish's mouth, find something to eat, and escape unscathed.

Hogarth does enjoy cleaning up any stray barf, and in return he just has to put up with getting his fur pulled occasionally.

Six month check-up

Mason went to see Dr. Leah today. He got three shots, and only cried a little, and of course was measured.

He is now 27.5 inches tall and weighs 19 lbs, 4 oz. This puts him slighlty above median on the weight-for-length chart.

Unfortunately, things continue to worsen on the head front. His head is now 18.5 inches in circumference which is in the 50th percentile....for a 14-month old.

On to some pictures. These are from a few weeks ago (just before Halloween) and Mason is obviously in his lion costume. They show Mason with his Great-grandma Gene, and cousins Gillian and Christian.

Rice cereal

Mason has started eating rice cereal mixed with milk for dinner every night. We'll start him on some new food soon.

This video is his first time eating the cereal. He still makes these same faces sometimes, but overall I think he likes it.

Cold mornings

Sorry we haven't put any new pictures up lately. We've been slacking off.

Mason has started eating rice cereal. We taped his first try and hopefully will have a movie of it up soon.

Here are some pictures from the other morning. As you can see, it gets a bit cold here in Wisconsin.