Mason can almost ride a bike

Mason got a hand-me-down bicycle for his birthday. Thanks Joe and Corey! He never really got the hang of his tricycle, but he and Jeni have been working on the bike for the last few days. He just about has the hang of it, though is prone to becoming distracted and riding into the grass.

This video is a bit long (~2 1/2 minutes) so don't worry if you can't make it to the end. But if you're ever in town we can show you the entire 6 minute version.

Alice loves to bounce

We pulled the "Johnny Jump-Up" out of the attic for Alice to use. We only have a few doorways from which to hang it, so she only gets to bounce if one of us is in our bedroom.

She can bounce forever in it.



And Mason wanted a ponytail in his hair again today by the way.

Mason's birthday trip

On Mason's birthday we traveled to nearby Monticello and their railway museum.

We walked around and through the display trains first.

The big excitement was an actual train ride. It was a beautiful day and the train ride was a nice length for a three year old (30 minutes or so).

Mason is a pretty great three-year-old. It is hard to believe how quickly the time has gone.

Update: Video!

Mason is three now

And he really likes to remind us of that.

We had a nice little party at our house, and the weather cooperated so we spent most of the afternoon in the backyard.

We invited some family and three of Mason's friends. The kids made bird feeders and stuffed nest-making materials into little cages to hang from trees. They really seemed to like it.

"Betty", "Jughead", and "Veronica" went for a ride in the wagon.

Alice got lots of lovin' from her GGMa, Nana, and Papa.

Mason had a really great time. And of course, he couldn't wait to eat cake.

Spring Picture Potpourri

This post will just have some pictures from our spring. You can always go to our Flickr page for more

Here is Mason with his friends Natalie (standing) and May. The other night, Mason told me that he loves Natalie "really much" and will be marrying her when he is four. Of course, today at the park he became infatuated with a little girl that he met there, so I hope Natalie is keeping her options open.

This is our most recent family portrait (in front of downtown Urbana's beautiful parking deck).

Mason likes to dress up in all of the medical stuff from his surgery. Here he and his friend Audrey are ready to make you feel all better.

Alice got to spend a bit of time with her Aunt Amy a few weeks ago. This picture also does a good job of showing off Alice's "healthy" thighs.

Finally, here is Mason in front of his 100-piece zebra puzzle. He usually wants a little help finishing it, but this day he completed the entire thing by himself. I think that we could probably buy him a new 60-80 piece puzzle every few days and he would be in heaven. Is there a Netflix for children's puzzles?

Brookfield Zoo

Last month, we took a trip to the Brookfield Zoo with Jeni's parents. The zoo is displaying animatronic dinosaurs this summer, so we have a nice picture of a dino eating Mason and Jeni.

Later Mason took the zoo map and helped us find our way.

While Mason and I rode the carousel, Jeni got this lovely picture of Alice.

Semester done- Recommence blogging

School's out for the summer, so I finally have a bit of time to update our blog.

Alice is doing very well. As you can see in the pictures, she has started to eat rice cereal. She really likes it and we think that it helps her to sleep a bit longer at night. We can usually depend on her to sleep from 8pm-3am and then until 6am or so. Much different than a month or so ago when she awoke every few hours.

Alice has started to scoot around the ground a little. She can spin around on her stomach and back, and can push around in a line (just a bit). We think that she watches Mason too much though and wants to skip straight to walking. She loves to stand (with support of course), and bounce around in her "Johnny Jump-Up".

We can hardly believe that she'll be 5 months old on Saturday.