A Day in the Life: 2 years

Normally, I don't add anything but captioned photos to the "A Day in the Life" posts, but I have to share our shot experience from the doctor's office yesterday. After the doctor finished with her exam and we said goodbye, as I got Mason dressed I explained to him, "A nurse is going to come in next and she is going to give you a poke in the arm and it's going to feel like a pinch."

Mason repeated, "Poke in the arm, feel like a pinch."

"That's right," I told him, "and when she's finished we'll go back into the lobby and see the fish again."

"Go see fish", Mason replied.

So in comes the nurse and her needle. I take Mason's left arm out of his shirt and he doesn't take his eyes off the nurse as she sticks the needle in his arm.

Nothing.

Not even a flinch!

She pulled out the needle, grabbed the Band Aid, and Mason wanted to help her put it on.

THAT. IS. IT.

No crying, no tears, no screaming.

Just me and the nurse, looking at each other like, "Did that just happen?"

And off we went, to see the fish.

Such a great day with this little two year old! :)

Mason's 2nd Birthday

Several times a week we read Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish before bed, so it seemed like the perfect theme for Mason's big "2".

Matt's sister and her family came down from Redding on Saturday and stayed with us. Here are Samuel and Mason making breakfast on Sunday morning.

These were all of the kids at Mase's party (except Samuel)! We only invited our families and still ended up with about 25 adults and 5 kids. Thankfully, it was a gorgeous Nor Cal day and guests could sit outside or inside (of course, most of the men chose inside so they could watch the football games).

Lunch time! I used THIS pulled pork recipe and it was delicious! Katie came over early to help and made the coleslaw from THIS recipe. Of course, you can't have a Dr. Seuss party without green eggs. We also served fresh veggies with ranch, baked beans, and raspberry Jell-o with gummy sharks "swimming" in it.

This *might* have been my favorite part of the party. :)

I found an overhead projector on Craigslist for cheap, copied an image from Google onto a transparency, then used craft paint to create Thing 1 and Thing 2. Home Depot sells 4x8 styrofoam boards that are a half inch thick for $8, so I had them cut one down to a manageable size for me and I cut out the holes for our faces.

Guests took turns getting their pictures taken and I'll send a copy of each couple's photo to them with thank you notes.

Mason and Uncle Jared

Mase and Jenna (How funny are their expressions?!)

To mimic Thing 1 and Thing 2 hair, dessert was Cotton Candy cupcakes. They are french vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting mixed with cotton candy. Plus a little on top for garnish.

Tessa, from The Frosted Cake Shop, made Mason's smash cake again this year.

I always request a low-sugar, organic recipe. This year she did a chocolate cake with strawberry filling. Mmm...

Me and my birthday boy.

I still can't believe he's 2.

Everyone should have a special birthday outfit! I made Mase's shirt with applique a simple "2" and two small blue fish.

And a birthday hat a'la Cat in the Hat!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can make anything with felt and hot glue (and, in this case, pipe cleaners).

At first we gave him the whole cake and told him to go for it. Being my OCD kid, he gingerly licked a finger's worth of frosting off and that's about it. Our families were trying to tell him there were toys inside so he would dig in. No go.

I handed Mase a fork and he made a small dent in one section of the top-- being careful not to disturb the pretty yellow writing.

And that was it for the cake. There's a lot left over for me and Matt!

Our attempt at a family picture. At least one of us is looking at this camera. :)

We all had a great time and spent the evening playing with new toys (Mason), putting together Mason's cool new play table (Matt), and cleaning up (me).

This year's One Fish, Two Fish party was a LOT less work than last year's golf party, and even more fun!

Oh, and favors were bags of swedish fish and gummy sharks. (Matt and I might've stashed a couple extras to keep for ourselves!)

Wednesday is Mason's actual birthday and I've got a fun-filled day planned that includes a visit to the pediatrician for his 2 year shots. Don't worry, there willl be sufficient birthday treats involved too.

Now, time to start brainstorming for the 3rd birthday party...

I can't believe

my BABY is turning TWO next week!

I'm told this happens. I refused to believe it until now.

We are celebrating this weekend.

Pictures to follow. :)



Cranberry Sangria

Here is the Cranberry Sangria recipe I made for Jaime's shower. It was adapted from THIS Bobby Flay pomegranate sangria recipe. Lucky for me, there was a bit left over by the end of the shower, and I finished that off last night. Mmm. :)



Ingredients:

- 1 bottle fruity red wine (I used Crane Lake Cabernet-- it's $3 a bottle at Winco)

- 1 1/2 cups Trader Joe's Sparking Pomegranate juice

- 1/2 cup cranberry juice
- 1/2 cup brandy (VSOP was quite tasty)
- 1/2 cup Triple Sec
- 1/4 cup simple syrup (equal amounts sugar and water, heated until sugar dissolves, cooled)
- 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
- 2 Mandarin oranges, thinly sliced
- 1 green apple, cored, halved and thinly sliced

Directions:
Combine all ingredients except for the Sparkling Pomegranate juice in a pitcher, cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 48 hours before serving. Immediately before serving, add the Sparkling Pomegranate juice and serve over ice.

I doubled the recipe for a shower of about 12 and it was so yummy, I will definitely make this again. In fact, Mason's birthday is next weekend... I could work that into a "One Fish Two Fish" theme, right? :)

Sprinkled

Sunday we celebrated Jaime's 2nd son, "Baby G" with a baby sprinkle. How good does she look for having a due date of February 11??? Craziness.

Some of the girls drove up from the bay area for the occassion. This is Laura, Lindsey, Jaime, me and Heidi...

We all happened to be wearing boots, a la Jaime. Funny! :)

The menu:

Three Cheese Hot Artichoke Dip

Roasted Cinnamon Almonds

Smoked Salmon Gaufrettes

Bruchetta with Goat Cheese, Pears & Honey

Mini Cheddar Herb muffins

Brie en Croute (thank you, Laura!)

Red Velvet mini cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting

Cranberry Sangria (which was by far my favorite part... mmm...)

Heidi brought the cupcakes, courtesy of bay area baker Sinful Bliss. They were little bites of heaven. Mmm...

After such a full day, I was in bed by 8pm. So there are already two posts covering this shower, HERE and HERE. Thank you for taking pictures, Heidi! I will definitely share that sangria recipe soon. It was SO good.

Congratulations, Jaimes! We can't wait to meet Baby G!!!

Three Days of Christmas

Finally, some Christmas pictures!

Our church had a kids Christmas service on the morning of Christmas Eve. Mase lasted about half an hour, which I thought was pretty good! He has been singing "Jingle Bells" ever since.

After church we came home and Mase took a nap while Matt and I packed up our cars. We headed over to Grandma Pete's and Matt let Mason open one of his gifts. A Transformer! The boys looked like this for about a half hour...

Family picture time

Around 8pm, Mason started to wind down... (and wanted to snuggle with his new baby)...

That is, until his Christmas jammies gave him a second wind!

Christmas Day I drove up to Redding to meet Matt at his mom's house. What did he find? His old letterman's jacket. Yep, it still fits. And looks pretty adorable.

Matt absolutely loves Christmas and wanted to play Santa.

Here are Matt and Jon, his brother, being goofy and reenacting our engagement, which I'll save for another post (on THIS blog-- if you want to read that one, send me your email address).

The day after Christmas we had my mom's side of the family over for dinner. Mom got Matt an ice chest... which my brother let Mason crawl into and then pushed him around the house in it. I guess that's better than last year where he carried him around in a paper bag?

Mason got a harmonica, which he has already figured out how to play! Other favorite gifts were a farm set, a fire house, cars and musical instruments (which I may or may not keep out of his reach...)

We were all so amazingly blessed this Christmas and it truly couldn't have been better. We are already looking forward to next year!