Walking on video, etc.

This little clip shows Mason walking, pretending to sleep on Hogarth's pillow, and playing with a birthday present (it's supposed to blow little balls up, but they all rolled away).

Enjoy!



Thanks to Nana for the cute outfit.

Birthday Parties

Mason had two more birthday parties over the weekend. Let's hope that he doesn't expect this every year.

His Greatgrandpa Russ and Greatgrandma Jo came up to help celebrate.

All of Jeni's volleyball playing cousins came over as well. It wasn't long before Mason was participating in his first drill. This was what they call "hitting."

At dinner, Mason flirted with his Great Aunt Jamee.

He of course got some presents, including blocks from Uncle Chris.

No birthday would be complete without cake. Jeni made banana cake with chocolate frosting.

On Sunday, we went to Mason's other grandparent's house for another party. I don't have as many pictures of this party, but we should be getting some more.

Mason learned all about a riding toy from his cousin Joey. Here the horn is explained.

It was also Mother's Day. Here are Jeni, Mason's Nana, Mason, Joey, CJ, and Amy.

I missed out on pictures of most of the birthday action. Mason had a good time and was more than ready for bedtime. I think Jeni was too.

Happy Birthday Mason!

Wow! Time flies when you're changing poopy diapers having fun. Here's a little flashback from one year ago today...

Yesterday Mason started a bit of a fever. This is on top of getting three more teeth (to add to his two bottom teeth) and having the sniffles for the past few days. This morning he was still hot, but I decided that he was well enough to go to daycare. I should have looked at this picture I took this morning a little harder.

I brought him to Debbie who had decorated her house for his birthday.

Ella and Riley were also there to help celebrate.

Debbie had even gotten Mason some presents and made him cupcakes.

Mason ended up getting too hot so Debbie called Jeni at work. Jeni picked Mason up early and brought him home to rest. He had some Tylenol and by 5 his fever had gone down.

So we went ahead with our plan to take Mason to Ella's Deli (no relation to Ella at daycare) for dinner. Ella's Deli is famous for having deli sandwiches, ice cream, and scores of animated displays. We had a lot of fun looking at them all.

Mason was able to concentrate enough to have dinner, and then we ordered a big banana split so that he could have his first ice cream.

I think he liked it!

We're off tomorrow for birthday parties with the family, and then next week we'll be house hunting in Champaign-Urbana. (In case you haven't heard, I'll be working at the University of Illinois starting this summer.) We won't have a chance to add more pictures for a while.

Thanks for sticking with this blog through Mason's first year. It's been a lot of fun to do, and we've liked being able to share Mason with you. He's a great little boy and Jeni and I feel very lucky to have him.

Mason is walking!

Mason took his first official steps last Friday. Jeni went to pick him up at daycare and he toddled over to her.

This past weekend, he replicated this feet feat a few more times.

He is quite proud of himself sometimes, but still prefers crawling.

Another milestone (I think)

Here's a picture of Mason reading a book with Jeni tonight.

But wait! What if the photographer zooms out a bit?

Look Ma! No hands!

Mason can now stand by himself for more than a few moments. He cruises around the furniture quite a bit, but still crawls anywhere he needs to get to fast.

Picture day!

Mason turns one year old in a little over a week!

So we took him in to have some portraits taken by a professional. Before we went left Mason had a bit of fun in the house. In retrospect, it was pretty courageous of us to put him in his nice clothes hours before our appointment.

The portrait company set up a website where you can look at the pictures here. I don't know if I am supposed to copy and paste their pictures here, but what the heck.

Two fun pictures

It's warm enough for Mason to wear shorts (even here in Wisconsin). Here he is last weekend playing with the most horrible toy that anyone ever gave him.

That blue penguin dances and sings "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" when you press a button in his foot. Jeni's old college roommate Monica sent it to us after Christmas and for a while Mason was extremely wary of it. Now he'll grab it and try to press the button. Then after somebody presses it for him, he hugs the #$%@!#? penguin and dances a bit. The only trouble is that the song is absolutely terrible and I have a hard time not punting the thing into the street.

Mason can be convinced to give kisses, if he's not in the right mood. Usually, I get lucky at bedtime. Here Jeni gets a kiss after dinner. We're working on the whole open mouth thing...

Mason's first live sporting event

Mason went to his first live sporting event two weeks ago. The University of Wisconsin football team played their spring game and Jeni and Mason went while I worked. He even wore a UW jersey.

They stopped by my office afterwards and Mason hung out with Dana, who he knows from last fall when he came into work with me twice a week.