9 Months of Mason!

Mason turned 9 months old on Sunday. He is 3/4 of the way to being one years old. I better get on planning his first birthday bash. We already know we are going to do a farm theme, but I'll need to start working the details soon! We had pony rides at our Halloween party, but I learned that you can also rent 'petting zoos' with farm animals! I am excited that he has a summer birthday so we'll actually be able to have his party at our house this year, since we'll be able to make use of the outside. Mason is growing so fast and seems to have changed so much this month.

Mason has had a another tooth pop through on the bottom - it is coming in a little cock-eyed though. He now has 3 teeth on the bottom and no teeth on top. He wants nothing to do with baby food these days and wants real food all of the time (even though he only has three little teeth). This month, Mason has been on a culinary adventure trying lasagna, ravioli, mostacolli, mashed potatoes, grilled cheese, peas, carrots, a turkey sandwich, pizza, french toast sticks, pears, peaches, pierogi's, brocolli, chicken nuggets...in addition to the other table food he tried last month. This kid is a beast. He'll eat devour whatever you put in front of him. Anything I can cut up into tiny little pieces, he will gladly accept. I think Leah started out this way too, but now she is Miss Picky over everything and won't even try most things. She sticks to her staple items.

Mason is becoming less and less my little baby, to more of a little guy. Although he is not crawling yet, he definitely can get around (by rolling, scooting, stretching) to anything he has his eye on. We've upgraded his carseat to a big boy carseat. No more carseat carrier for him! He is still rear-facing, but it's like a whole new world for him. We had his 9 month well-baby appointment today. (Actually, I was home from work with Leah because she had a bad stomach bug all weekend and I wanted to get her into the doctor too, so we just scheduled his 9 month check-up since we were going to be there). My big guy weighed in at 21.75 pounds (70th percentile) and is 30 inches tall (90th percentile). Holy cow - he is a big dude! I checked Leah's baby book and she was only 19 pounds, but was also 30 inches long. The doctor seemed to give me a hard time that he is not pulling himself up yet or crawling. Ahh - well...he'll do it when he is ready. We had to upgrade to a size 4 diaper. Little man was almost busting out of he size 3's. He is in almost all 12 month clothes. I feel like I am constantly buying new clothes for him because he is growing so fast.

Mason is a vocal guy - always saying his momma's and dadda's. For the past few weeks or so, he has turned into a 'screamer' which is NOT good for business. I think he thinks if he screams, he'll get our attention or get what he wants (i.e. to be picked up, etc.). We need to work on this. We do not give into him. The boy needs to learn! We have nothing new to report in the sleeping department. He is still sleeping 11-12 hours each night and rarely wakes up. If he does, he soothes himself back to sleep. Mason loves to play and learn new things. He is such a good boy and steals my heart several times a day! Happy 9 months Mason James!

My happy guy 

Can't get him to stay still 

He is all over the place 

Not a happy Mason... 

Cousin's swim party! 

Always going after the food!

Give me that hotdog! Don't worry - he just had some of the bread...no hotdog.  

Give this guy some food and he is a happy camper!

The Held's Big Night Out

Rob and I have not been out on a date, just the two of us, in months!!! I think the last time we even went to dinner alone was back in November. Crazy! So I was beyond excited to have a big night planned for this past weekend! Not only were we able to go on a date, but we were able to stay overnight at a hotel. With no kids. By ourselves. It was much needed!

Several months ago, tickets for Maroon 5 went on sale. I love, love, love Maroon 5 (and have for the past 10+ years). I’ve seen them once before at an intimate show at the Chicago Theater (it was awesome). Anyways, I really wanted to get tickets to the concert. I am a nerd and I joined the Maroon 5 fan club (for $45) to get access to a ticket pre-sale. Early access scored me tickets in the 27th row on the main floor. I was so excited! I bought the tickets so long ago that it seemed like the date would never get here! Well – it did and it was such a great night!

I went and bought a new outfit and got a mani and pedi for the occassion. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law agreed to watch both kids overnight! It would be Mason’s first sleepover. We dropped the kids off around 4:00 pm at their house and were on our way. We were going to go out to dinner and then go to the concert. We wanted to stop and check into our hotel first. We had made arrangements to stay at the Hilton (since Rob is a Hilton Rewards Member). Little did we know that there are 2 Hilton’s in the area of where the concert was being held. We ended up booking the wrong Hilton! Instead of being at the Hilton that was super close to the Allstate Arena, we were at the Hilton AT the airport. It is literally attached to the airport. On our way there, I was thinking OMG…we are going to the airport! Not ideal, but oh well. It was a little further from where we wanted to be. After we checked in, we went to grab something to eat and have a few pre-concert drinks.

We went to Toby Keith’s – I Love this Bar and Grill. We’ve never been and it was fun. It is a very large place and it was pretty crowded. It was open seating at the bar, so since we found two open seats, we decided to sit there instead of waiting for a table. We had a good dinner and a few beers. We drove to the restaurant, but wanted to go back to the hotel because we were planning on taking a cab to the concert. Well…since we were at the airport, it was very easy to catch a cab. We got to Allstate Arena just after the opening act started. Owl City and Neon Trees were the opening bands. Both were pretty good. We had great seats on the main floor. Of course, I still would have liked to have been closer. Maroon 5 was awesome! I think the venue kind of stinks, but the show was still great! We decided to head out just before the show ended because we had no idea what the cab situation was going to be like to get home. Good thing we went outside when we did because cabs were pretty much nonexistent. They did have a cab line, which we were probably 30th in line and then there were over 100 people behind us. Only one cab came ever few minutes. You’d think there would have been lines of them just waiting. Allstate needs to work on this. It then started raining and was pretty miserable waiting. We waited about an hour before we finally were able to catch a cab. It was awful. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 1:30 am or so. Oh well – it was still worth it to get a night away since they are so few and far between. We had a great time overall!

Easter Weekend

Rob and I both had a 3 day weekend for Easter. Rob had Good Friday off as a holiday and I used a vacation day. We didn't have plans but spent some time running errands. I hit up the Promenade (all by myself!!) in search of a new outfit for the Maroon 5 concert. I found a few things at Macy's. Later on, we all went to Babies R Us to look for a new carseat for Mason. He is getting so big and is outgrowing his infant carrier. He's heavy too so it's been a pain lugging that thing around. We were going to buy 2 new convertible carseats (one for each of our cars) but decided to upgrade Leah to a big girl booster seat/car seat instead. We'll just pass down her seats to Mason. It all worked out nicely. We also stopped at Toys R Us and bought the kids a wagon. We've been wanting to get one for awhile and they were all on sale. I'm happy with the one we ended up getting. The kids l.o.v.e. it!

I LOVE this little guy. He is so stinkin cute!

New wagon!

Saturday we had Easter plans with my family. My brother, SIL, nieces and dad were all going to come over for lunch. I had a little Easter egg hunt planned for the girls. My brother called me that morning and told me my niece Annabelle was sick so my sister-in-law Sarah had to stay home with her. Leah was crushed. She was so excited that her cousin was going to come over so she was bummed when I told her that she had to stay home. My brother and niece Alyssa still came by with my Dad. We had a nice lunch and hung out. My brother brought some Easter treats for the kids. After a few hours everyone went home. We felt bad for Leah that she didn't get to do the egg hunt with her cousin. We still decided to do it for her anyways. Rob placed all the eggs in the front yard. We plopped Mason in the grass and Leah had a blast collecting all of the eggs. She was pretty happy! Some eggs had candy and others had money! It was fun watching her.

My sweet kids 

Leah! 

Mason and cousin Alyssa

Lamb Cake from my Dad 

Bunny Treats from the bakery

Getting ready to head outside for the Easter Egg hunt 

Looking for eggs 

So fun! 

Mom - look at all my eggs! 

Hey, there's one! 

Sharing eggs with baby brother! 

Is this a hat?! 

Wait!!! Where did everyone go?! 

Oh - there you are! 

Candy loot! 

Cash too!

Later on in the evening, we decided to color eggs. I made 2 dozen eggs and got everything for Leah. She is at a good age and was really into dying the eggs. She did a great job! She was careful and at tentative to her eggs. She even asked to taste one and to my surprise - she actually liked it! Both of the kids were tired and ended up going to bed pretty early. Luckily that gave the Easter bunny plenty of time to get things ready for the next day!

So fun! 

Mase watching from the sidelines!

Being so careful! 

Trying a hard boiled egg for the first time! 

Finished product! 

Brother and Sister love before heading to bed!

On Sunday morning, Leah woke up and was super excited to run downstairs to see if the Easter bunny came. To her excitement, he did!! He left baskets, treats and other goodies for them! Leah was in heaven. She noticed that there were eggs hidden around the house so she had fun gathering them. By 8:30 am she was on a sugar overload!

Look Mom - he came! 

Bunny Mason! 

Bunny Leah!

The Easter Bunny found these cute baskets on Etsy 

All of the Easter goodies

We didn't have any plans for the day so we decided to hit up the zoo! We got there around 10:00. It was a little chilly but not too bad. The zoo was pretty empty! We brought our new wagon and the kids had a great time. We went and saw the dolphin show. Towards the end, Leah got in one of her moods and kept telling us she wanted to go home. We were hoping it would pass, but she was pretty cranky. By then, she had ruined the fun and we decided it was time to go. We were going to grab lunch but Leah was pretty clear that she didn't want to do that either. We just came home and enjoyed the afternoon as family.

Trip the zoo! 

He is such a happy guy! 

Watering the flowers 

Waiting for the dolphin show to start 

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!