Paige 18 Months

Paige is 18 months and getting so grown up way too fast.

Paige Stats

Height: 2' 8.5'' (71%)

Weight: 25 lbs 8.5 oz (83%)

Head Circumference: 19.29'' (98%)

18 Month Comparison

She is still a huge drama queen with fits and tantrums of screaming, rolling on the ground and crying, but looking so much more grown up.

She can understand almost everything we tell her and has a few words that other people might actually understand. We know she has words for: mom, baby, dog, bye, boat, hi, dad, water, thank you, and please. She will often just make a sound like, "uhhh" and sign more with her fingers to get things that she wants.

She loves her shoes and will be entertained for a good 20 minutes with her shoe bucket in front of her, putting shoes on and then taking them off and putting new ones on.  Anytime she finds some of her shoes around the house she will bring them over wanting us to put them on, even if she already has a pair on.

She loves clothes, and especially jackets.  If I even say the word, coat or jacket she will pester me and whine until I get down one of hers to wear.

Paige loves her sleeping stuff which now consists of: her monkey, blanket, pillow, three babies, husky dog and a bunny.  She loves to take her things out of the crib and cuddle everything on the floor, carry them to another location, lay down and cuddle them again.

She loves to shove toys, paper anything she can find into small spaces or under couches. I often find trash or the toy kitchen silverware under the corner of the couch, or behind our DVD stand.  Christopher calls her a little hoarder sometimes when we find her stashes of stuff.

Some of my favorite things Paige does are:
-clasp her hands behind her back when she stands
-stops whatever she is doing and point in the direction of the dog, plane, or helicopter she hears
-the way she shakes her head yes at me when I finally ask the question she wants
-how she bounces in anticipation while waiting for fruit snacks or a poptart to be opened for her
-she loves the trampoline at her cousins house, and cries relentlessly when we have to get her off for the big kids to have a turn to bounce
-she loves to say hi and see Mason anytime she wakes up or he comes into the room after his quiet time
-she will hit her diaper when she farts or when I ask if she pooped
-she still begs to be carried up an down the stairs even though she can do them easily
-how she lies down on pillows, blankets or the floor when I ask her if it feels so nice
-if she steals or grabs a toy she knows Mason likes, she runs to me for protection
-anytime someone coughs she has to copy them with a fake one, or ten
-her noise for an elephant; she blows air though her lips like she's blowing out a candle
-she always manages to find snacks or treats that I have hidden in my bag, no matter where my bag is throughout the day
-If she wants you to read her a book she'll hand the book to you then proceed to back up into your lap
-she will cover her eyes when you say, "Where's Paige?", but sometimes just touches her hair
-the way she runs around the house sometimes just because she finally learned to move semi-fast

Hallowen

Halloween this year was a lot of fun.  Both kids were old enough to trick or treat and enjoy the holiday.

We were able to have a little party with some friends, with carnival games and fun treats.  I think the kids had a great time and I loved watching them all play and have fun in their costumes.

We went trick-or-treating in downtown Fairhaven again this year and it didn't rain.  We were able to go before some of the schools let out so we got to enjoy the less crowded dry streets to trick-or-treat,

Mason was great at going up and saying trick-or-treat and Paige was good at tagging along and gabbing candy.  She was pretty good at grabbing only one from the bucket but would sometimes end up taking more, good thing she's cute to get away with it.

Mason loved being Leonardo and having ninja stars that went with the costume. He was a little confused when we first opened it and it didn't have swords, at least he knows who has what weapon.

Paige was in heaven putting her lion costume on anytime she found it and was so happy that she got to wear it for a whole afternoon when we went out trick-or-treating.

I'm glad my kids enjoyed Halloween and that we got to spend time with friends and family.

Mason is 4!!

Mason turned 4! Crazy!

Mason Stats

Height: 3' 5.25''  (70%)

Weight: 34 lbs 8 oz (36%)

BMI: 14.26kg/m^2 (8%)

Mason was so excited the whole month or so before his birthday. He kept telling people that is was almsot his birthday and we had to keep reminding him that it was still a few weeks away.  He loved being able tell me that it was only 3 more days, 2 more days; he even told me he didn't want it to be 2 more days he wanted it to be only 1 more day.

He was so excited when it was finally his birthday.  he woke up early and loved the streamers on his door and decorations upstairs.

We went to LaFeens for donuts in the morning, when we came back he helped me make his cake then got to watch shows while I decorated the cake and we prepared for his party.

We had his friends over to eat pizza, cake and ice cream and play a game where they popped balloons with candy inside.

Mason was so excited with every present he go to open and could hardly get the presents out of the bag or packaging fast enough.  His friends know him well;  he got an awesome assortment of superhero toys, nerf gun, hat, trucks, cars and a ninja turtle.

Mason was so excited for his nerf gun!

He has carried around his toys non-stop over the last week and has loved playing with his new toys.

Mason's favorite:

Food: pizza
Color: GREEN
Movie: Chipmunks Race Around the World
Toy: nerf gun
Best Friend: Carsten
Thing to do: play video games, kindle, play BASEBALL

We love our big 4 year old and beg him to stop growing; he says he can't but that he still loves us.  Happy Birthday Mason, we love you.

7 year Anniversary

Christopher was gone on the day of our 7th anniversary but totally made up for it by taking me on an awesome backpacking trip.

 We were lucky enough to have family watch our kids while we went hiking up to Marmot Lake. We left Thursday morning with high hopes that the weather report of rain was wrong. Of course it turned out to rain the whole 5 hours we hiked up to the lake.  It was slow going for a while with huge puddles, and small streams on the trail to avoid.  But it was actually pretty fun hiking up a mountain in the pouring rain; it was quite the adventure.

It was nice enough to stop raining for about 30 minutes while we set up our tent, and started as soon as we had climbed inside to change out of our soaking wet clothes.  We were able to get our dinner cooked when the rain stopped the next time but ate in the tent because it had already started to rain.  We were warm and comfortable with really good gear we had borrowed; the hardest part was putting on wet shoes, barefoot, every time we went out of the tent to cook or go to the bathroom.

It rained most of the night, but we were warm and both slept great. We had planned on hiking up to Jade lake Friday but our shoes were still soaking wet; we would also either have to hike in our wet clothes from the day before or get our last set of dry clothes wet. It just wasn't worth it, so we spent the day at Marmot.  It was wet outside but not raining in the morning so after we ate breakfast we found the most dry wood we could and Christopher Mr. Eagle Scout was able to get a fire going.  We spent the 20 mins or so of firewood we had available drying our shoes out and drinking hot chocolate. We got our shoes mostly dry when of course it started to rain again.

We spent a lot of time in the tent eating snacks and playing card games. In the afternoon the rain really started coming down. we could hear people start to roll into camp and struggle to set things up in the rain.  We would have gone out to help but we only had our one set of dry clothes and just gotten our shoes mostly dry to be able to hike out in the next morning.  When the rain had stopped we went out to start dinner and were surprised to see about 15 new tents when there were only about 3 that morning.

We were able to secure the rest of our things and make sure our tent didn't get flooded.  It did amazing with the amount of rain we got.  There were only a few drops of water that came through the screen, the rest of out tent was dry.

We woke up the next morning and got everything packed back up and headed on our way.  It didn't rain at all on our way out.  We were able to hike on the trail without stepping in puddles and got to actually see everything. We hiked in with ponchos on and had a limited view, but we were able to enjoy how pretty everything was on our way out.

The rain was a good distraction for when we were climbing, I realized on the way out how much we actually climbed and it was more than I thought, I guess it was mostly because I was trying not to step in the deep puddles of water on the trail as we hiked.

I loved our trip and had a great time even if it rained and made some things a little harder.  I loved being able to spend time with Christopher outdoors being active, doing what we love.  I can't wait to go again!!