Happy Birthday Mason Wade!

Our little Wade turned one year old on the 5th, but we had a whole weekend of celebrating! I tell ya, 4th of July birthdays are pretty awesome to celebrate! We first started with a BBQ on Saturday with the Day family, combining Mason's birthday with Haws' (which was June 23rd). Mason was not feeling very well. He had had a fever Thursday, and both Friday and Saturday he was just a little cranky with a random rash coming and going with the heat. I thought he was getting a new tooth with the amount of drool he was producing (notice how wet his shirt his below) but actually found out he had a canker on the tip of his tongue and a sore in the back of his mouth...

The birthday boys waiting for their shindig to begin. That is a Jenga block in Mason's mouth; weird kid haha

After we were finally done eating the delicious ribs, fruit, and salads my little man was worn out! He fell asleep while we were cleaning up and did not want to wake up to open presents. I felt bad knowing he wasn't feeling well, but we had to hurry so we could make it to fireworks...

He was still so tired he wasn't really interested in the new toys, like I seemed to be, but he did like the wrapping paper...

Aunt Shawna gave the boys pull along poppers. Mason isn't walking yet so doesn't really pull it along, but boy does Mya love dragging it everywhere!!! The next day I sent Shawna a text message saying thanks again for the wonderful gift that my 3 year old loves to make the rhythmic popping noise with over, and over, and over! haha Man those things are annoying!

Here is the freakin awesome cake Jamie made for the two boys! I think I will make Jamie always combine their cakes so Mason can have cool homemade, creative cakes rather than the store bought square ones! haha

Trying to figure out blowing the candle out...

I love this picture! Mason was a little hesitant with the cake. Still being tired and a little grumpy he didn't seem to have as much interest in the cake-

compared to Haws!!! haha This pic cracks me up. One of the kids put their 3D glasses on Haws and he pulled the funniest faces. Haws knew just what to do with the cake!

It looks like Mason is either trying to get tips from Haws on how to eat his own, or thinking "Man that kid is crazy!" LOL It was so fun to have them celebrate together!

This was Mason's desperation look and my cue to get him cleaned up and ready for bed! After the clean up we all hurried over to Miss/Mitch's house to watch the Riverton fireworks (I'm an idiot and forgot my camera!) It was a fun night, just wish Mason would have enjoyed it more.

Mason had birthday party number two the next day (Sunday the 4th) with the Curtis fam. Thankfully he was feeling better and understood the routine a little more. He was actually excited to open his presents this time and tried opening them before we were ready...

He would laugh every time Scott would blow in his face trying to teach him to blow out the candle. I love this picture because this is a good image of how Mason reacts every time daddy comes home too!

He started off a little slow again...

But it didn't take him long to realize how good the cake was, but even more how much FUN the cake is to destroy! He loved it his second go around! :)

Much more of a mess! But I'm glad he devoured it!

We continued the birthday weekend on his actual birthday Monday the 5th since we both had work off. We went to a fishing pond with Scott's brothers (I'd say we went fishing, but since our poles were in storage and no one even had a nibble the whole time we were there) and had a little picnic. Then we went to a fun splash park to cool down and let the kids play.
After the splash park just the 4 of us went to the new Incredible Pizza in Draper. Because it was Mason's bday they gave us some extra prizes and sang to him, and again I forgot my camera to document!!! We played their mini bowling, mini golf, let the kids ride the little rides, played arcades and had all you can eat pizza and ice cream! It was a good ending to such a fun weekend!

A few new things about Mason Wade; he now weighs 18 lbs 14 oz (5th percentile) is 29 1/2 inches long (50th percentile) and his head is still 75th percentile. He is getting closer and closer to walking, just hasn't mustard up the guts yet to just go (which I am completely fine with!!!) He has mastered going up and down the stairs. He is so funny to watch turn around at the top and scoot himself to the first stair! He can say mama and dada, he attempts saying ball and dog, and he has just started pointing. He loves to play with the light switches, any size ball, and to chase Mya around the dining room table. He can be such the joker at times when he tries to sneak eating paper when I tell him over and over not to! He loves to laugh and is such a snuggler! The first thing he does to Scott when he comes home is give him hugs and lay his head on Scott's shoulder. We love you so much little Wade and are so grateful you're apart of our family!

Viva Las Vegas!

So we went on a fun, quick family vacation over Memorial Day weekend... Even though today is Mason's birthday, I will need to blog about that one later this week after I've downloaded all the pictures I took! :)

Mya and Daddy being goof balls checking out the hotel bed. This was Mya's first time at a hotel- she loved it!

Our first night there we just went to see the sights. We parked at the Excalibur and Mya fell in love with the Princess castle!

Looking over the Strip... Mason was asleep in the stroller :)

The Fountains at the Bellagio. I think this was my favorite...

My two adorable kids anxious to go swimming! We played in the pool every day. The weather was perfect!

Cooling off in the nice pool... Random note, the girl in the background is Michelle Taboe from Lehi. Such a random place to run into an old acquaintance! Her little girl actually fell into the pool and Scott jumped in to save her. Crazy...

We had a fun day at Circus Circus. Watching the acts and playing games!

Mya loved all the rides!

Mason loved chewing on his shoe while sister rode the carousel :)

The volcano at the Mirage in the day light...

In front of the pirate ship, at the not so "G rated" Treasure Island outdoor show!!!

So there was this random guy on the street with his two birds. Mya kept wanting to pet them and finally after the 3rd time passing him we finally let her go up and ask. But dude had a better idea to do a big family photo shoot!

During our picture session we gathered quite a crowd- well Mya gathered quite the crowd. Everyone would stop and say, "Look how adorable she is!" "Oh my gosh (except use the other word, which is another story to write about) look at that cute girl!" etc etc Mya did do awesome and wasn't scared of the birds at all. After taking all these pics then the guy tells us his fee is $20... Yeah, how do you say no to that??? Oh well I love all the pictures!

The volcano erupting at the Mirage...

For those of you that know Mya, know that she LOVES M&M's so she LOVED the M&M Factory! :)

Mason liked the Factory too... more so for the escalator rides up and down the 4 stories!

We went to a dinner and show at the Excalilbur called Tournament of Kings, where it was all mid-evil. Our meal was Cornish hens, potato wedges with broccoli, and tomato soup which we had to eat with our hands- no silverware! It was a fun show, and Mya loved it but I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone! :)

Mya loved the horses. They did different games such as spear throwing and jousting that was fun to watch. They said we weren't suppose to take pictures, which was really stupid, so the few I had to sneak in aren't the greatest!

Here is Mya posing with our King from Ireland (each section of the arena was a different country) By Mya's face you can tell how hot it was in the arena!!!

This last pic of me with the kids was in Mesquite when we took a quick pit stop at one of the Casinos... Where's Scott you ask? haha I'll just say he was winning a free night stay at the Casa Blanca LOL

A few other things we did was ride the roller coaster at New York New York, people watched, walked forever, saw Terrell Owens, and of course listened to a stupid time share sales pitch!!! My favorite story to tell about Las Vegas though was while we were walking on the strip Sunday afternoon Mya was singing the primary song "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know who I am! I know God's plan, I'll follow Him in faaaiiiittthhhhh!!!" She kept repeating that part of the song over and over and over, for a good ten minutes straight! My first instinct was to tell her to be quiet and not sing so loud, but then I realized she was so happy singing that song and I was so proud of her for knowing the song. It soon dawned on me how grateful I am to know who I am while walking amongst "lost souls" that thought the Las Vegas lifestyle was the way to be happy. I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and love that Mya loves it too!

So on the flip side to that story, is the one I referenced above about taking the Lord's name in vain. I can attest that "What happens in Vegas" does not always stay in Vegas!!! So we returned home Monday evening and on Wednesday I thought I heard Mya say OMG. I ignored it the first time, but shortly after she said it again and again! I took her aside and asked what she was saying. She said "OMG" taking His name in vain. I told her we don't say that but can say gosh instead. She said okay and I thought problem solved. Well unfortunately as quickly as she learned it, it became a habit even quicker!!! She was saying it about everything! She would say it while pretending with her toys, when she'd stub her toe, or even after a joke. After MANY talks about how sad it makes Heavenly Father and a few time-outs she was still saying it, and most of the time she'd say it without even noticing until I got after her her! On the second day she still was saying it out of habit, so we had to break out the bar of soap... I think this tactic finally caught her attention and she began catching herself say it, but only after she had already said. I told her we would wash her mouth out with soap after every time I heard her say it. Sure enough she said it again so I took her in the bathroom when she immediately started sobbing, "No, no not the soap!" I told her I wouldn't make her put the soap in her mouth if she said a prayer and told Heavenly Father sorry. She said the cutest, sweetest prayer as she cried her way through the whole thing, "I'm sorry for saying the bad word. Please help me not to say it so I don't have to eat soap. I am sorry. Please forgive me..." I wish I could say that was her last time taking His name in vain, but it was a hard habit to break! After a few more prayers, and threats of soap, we finally replaced the OMG with holy moly! :) It took three whole days to get her to replace it. She would go to say it then stop herself and say, "Mom I didn't say the word. What can I say again?" then I reminded her of "holy moly" and she'd go on her way. The only thing I can think of of where she picked up that phrase was while in Vegas. It served as a good reminder to me how she watches/listens and picks up on everything! Although I wish we didn't have to go through this with Mya we used it as a good teaching experience, and hope she always remembers it! If not, I now have it written in our blog to serve as a reminder! haha

In my blogging absence....

During my drought of blogging, there were a few cute things I wanted to show/write about. Thankfully just watching Jamie's cute blog of Haws, reminded me of the video of Mason I wanted to share. Nothing can make you smile faster than a baby's giggle. I love this....

A quick story I wanted to journal about so I won't ever forget is about Mya. On the Saturday morning of April's conference I told Mya to come sit by me and listen to the prophet. When Pres Monson got up to speak I asked her, "Do you know who that is?" She nodded her head. Then I said, "That's the prophet, Pres Monson." Mya then responded, "Oh he is so cute! (slight pause) Isn't he handsome mom? (slight pause) I just love him!" It was so cute how she expressed her love for the prophet even though she doesn't fully understand all the aspects of the gospel, she can feel of our Savior's love through His chosen leader. I love watching her grow in the gospel!

It's been a while...

I have finally found some down time for me to update my blog! Being so busy with work and the kids it's hard for me to find time to blog instead of doing the dishes, or laundry, or making dinner :) But without further delay here is a quick little update!

For Mother's Day my sweet husband decided to sign us up to run a 5K... For those that don't know me, I really don't like to run plus I am an asthmatic so the thought of running 3 miles was not my idea of fun! But for those of you who don't know Scott, he loves to run! He ran track and cross country in high school and as always wanted me to run with him. Well the thing that persuaded me into doing it was that it was the Koman Breast Cancer 5K and I thought it would be neat to do in honor of my mother. So I talked a few of my siblings into running it with us. Scott soon became Coach Curtis and put me on the treadmill for training :) In addition to the training, Scott also said it was mandatory for me to get running shoes and shorts so I could be official! After just 3 weeks we were ready for the big day....

The night before the race I made a couple signs for Mya to hold while I pushed them in the stroller.

Left to right: Scott, me, Nathan, Shawna, Chad, Landon, then Rob and Jamie in the front. Nathan drove down from Montana to surprise mom. We were hoping she would be there at the finish line to see him run across with the others, but unfortunately mom was too sick to make it. So we had to capture it on video (thanks to Jamie who didn't race) then show it to mom back at home to surprise her. We know it's a good surprise when mom starts to cry, and sure enough we got the tears! :)

I could not believe how many people were there! I think they said the final number was over 19,000! It was so crowded that it really made it hard to maneuver the stroller in and out of all the people walking, but with Shawna's help we still made pretty good timing.

Here's the picture after the race at the finish line. Although they didn't keep time so there was no winner, Scott came in the top ten. Shawna, me and the kids did it in about 40 minutes- could have been 30 had it not taken us ten minutes to get where we could start running! Notice Rob lifting up his shorts to make fun of Scott and I in our running shorts... LOL

As proud as Shawna and I were to finish the race, we are more proud of our awesome mom who battles this ugly disease with more courage and heart than anyone I know! For a quick update on my mom... The cancer has now started to spread into her other lung and continues to spread on the bones. She just started a short "lower-level" chemo treatment that will last 12 weeks. She just had her 2nd treatment last week and it made her awful sick! We sure hope the next ones don't make her feel this awful! We love you mom!!!

Scott secretly asked Jamie to take a picture of our legs... I am very self conscious about my legs and fought Scott in wearing the short running shorts, but I did it! So this pic is for you babe! The race was a lot of fun and I am thankful my awesome husband had us do it. It was neat to see all the people run in honor of women they know that have/had breast cancer. We want to make this a family tradition but be better prepared with a cleaver t-shirt... Our two favorites were: Save 2nd Base and We Support Our Boobs; Stop the War in My-Raq! haha

So in my absence of blogging my little boy continues to get bigger and bigger! He is now just a month away from his first birthday and it makes me so sad to think he's that old already!!! Here's a pic I took at ten months since I forgot to do it after his 9 month check up!

He is such a goer and is constantly on the move. He is not yet walking but pulls himself up to everything. He loves to play with balls, stick out his tongue, and laughs at whatever Mya is doing. He is so much fun!

My sweet Mya chipped her tooth a year ago and it just recently went gray. Shortly after it turning gray she got an abscess above the tooth. We finally found a good pediatric dentist to fix it. Here is the before picture (also take a look at the 5K pic of her in the stroller and you can see the bubble on her gums):

And here is the after shot showing off her pretty princess teeth. :)

Mya is such a good helper and is learning so much. She is so interested in letters right now and loves to write the letter M. She loves to play outside, go swimming, and be daddy's little helper!