friends!

We had dinner with friends last night and I was reminded (again) how important it is to do that every once in a while. Otherwise I can easily get in a rut and pout because of the snow, for example...

We forgot our diaper bag at home so Mayli let Mason borrow these cute Elmo pj's.

Thanks for a fun night, friends!

a trip to Bellevue

I got a pair of pants from the North Bend outlet mall and found when I got home that they didn't take the inventory control tag off. I thought they had the store at Bell Square so we packed up and made a day out of our trip to Bellevue.

We started by going to Lowes. This week Andrew built a really cool race car and he loves it - he said it's his favorite thing he's made so far. When we got to the play area at the mall, he had it with him and was the popular kid for sure! He picked one kid he liked and they shared the car. :)

Then the boys enjoyed their first trip to Burger King...

Andrew picked a tiara for Mason and thought he was hilarious. He also picked up some crowns for us to wear.

Andrew, mesmerized by a superhero video game...

We also went to this cool toy store by my office for their Lego event. It's literally a block from my office but it took a Saturday to get me there for some reason. I'll be back for sure - it's a very cool toy (and art & frame) store.

winter hat

popcorn

Mason loves popcorn.

I remember Andrew loving popcorn around this age too - he used to jump up and down when we asked him if he wanted popcorn. Mason shows his love by saying 'popcorn' (one of his handful of words) and going to his chair to get ready.

He's also pretty cute.

three things

1. Andrew seriously plays with superheros all day, everyday. Even outside he usually says something like "I'm He-Man, who are you?". Sometimes he takes a break to play with other things, but it's for a short while and then he's right back to it. Here he is taking an army man break with Mason.

Mason, reading a book in a bin. Also a fairly common sight at our house. (sorry the picture is so bright - just another reason I don't like the snow) :)

2. For Christmas, Andrew got this really cool superhero book. It's meant for someone who wants to know everything about every superhero, but to Andrew it is just the most awesomest book ever. Each page is about a different superhero, and each page has a main pop-up part as well as multiple little pop-up sections. He looks at it almost everyday and is very careful with it so it doesn't get ruined.

3. Today on the way home from church, we were talking to Andrew about his class and what he did and if he had fun. Matt asked if he wished he could stay at church longer and Andrew laughed while saying "no...! I wish I was a superhero". He doesn't want to be wasting any wishes on silly things like playing longer at church!

notes

I have little notepads all over the place. I use them mostly for writing down what pictures I want to use in a blog post or our meal plan for the week, etc. I was skimming through an old one and I found the notes I took while I was talking to the doctor when they first told us about Mason's hypothyroidism.

PKU
Sophia (our doctor wasn't in that day, of course...)
elevation in thyroid hormone
M at 388.9, normal is <45
hypothyroidism
Children's for thyroid scan
lab results tomorrow

I remember it like it was yesterday.

maybe we need a pet {fish}

We fish sat for the Tuomistos while they were in Disneyland and the boys seemed to really like it. We got Andrew a fish for his 2nd birthday and he really didn't care about it at all. This time, he reminded me (about every other day) to feed the fish and always wanted to feed it by himself. Mason loved it too - every time I got the fish down to feed, he would sit down and put his hand out for the food.

I wanted to get a turtle but they don't recommend them for kids under 5 because they can carry salmonella... That freaks me out, and we're not ready for a 'real' pet, so I guess we'll stick with a fish.

Unrelated. I tried to have fun with lunch today and let the boys make little pizzas (my attempt to not be crabby because of the stupid snow) but it's tricky when you don't have any pasta sauce. I drained some Spaghetti O's and tried using the sauce from that. It's as gross as it sounds. We had rolled up turkey and string cheese instead. :)

sleet and snow, day #2

Thanks to a man at Lowes, I learned that there is a difference between sleet and hail today. I guess I never really thought about it before... I got bored while I was doing my research, but you basically have sleet in the winter and hail in the warmer months (often connected with thunder storms). You're welcome.

When I headed out for work this morning I passed 2 accidents in our neighborhood. At the same time, the weather report was warning of a 'treacherous afternoon commute' so I decided to go back home and call it a day. Matt told me the main roads were fine and around 9:00 it stopped snowing, so I decided to head into work. I was prepared to leave at the first sign of the storm, but luckily (I guess) I didn't have to leave early because the sun was out and there was no trace of snow.

After work we headed to Lowes. We were in there for about 15 minutes and when we came out, the storm had finally hit. It started with a crazy downpour of sleet and then turned to snow. We don't have much yet but I have a feeling this won't disappear as fast as yesterday's did.

snow day #1

Yesterday we got some snow. Today we have even more and apparently it's supposed to get worse by this afternoon so I decided to stay home. I don't like the snow, but apparently my boys do...

mop. check.

My chores are more likely to get done when Andrew takes care of them for me! Thanks to Andrew's love for sweeping and mopping, I now have no excuses to not have a clean floor. This is the second time in a row Andrew got very excited to help me. He sweeps and mops the living room while I do the kitchen. He even moved the rug out of the way before he swept. He's hired!

do I look like I know what I'm talking about?

A friend of mine at work asked if I'd be willing to talk to her MOP's (mothers of preschoolers) group about blogging. Since I love to talk about blogs to anyone who will listen, I signed up. People were definitely interested - hope I convinced at least a couple of them to give it a try!

just a minute

Part of Mason's routine at night is to sit with Matt for a couple minutes. Cute.

Last night when I went to grab him, he asked for one more minute. :)

I'm pretty sure he thinks it means 'go away', but it was still pretty rad.

all for a lollipop

I had planned to get Andrew's hair cut before heading to North Bend but kind of forgot until we were about to go. When I said something, Andrew got really excited and really pushed for us to go. I love how much he loves haircuts lollipops.

I tried to get a picture of him with his new hair but instead I got one with a weird smile, a cute picture that cut off his hair, and a blurry one. Enjoy.

lunch

Yesterday we met Aunt Melanie for lunch at McDonald's before hitting up the outlet mall. For some reason I took a series of pictures of Mason. They make me laugh - partially because I took pictures at McDonald's, but also because I actually kind of ended up catching his personality pretty well...

I love this because it looks like he desperately wants out. :)

meeting Landon

Lisa, Zane and Landon came over to play today. It was fun to meet Landon, but I was reminded again that if it's not my baby, I'm a fumbling mess. I gave him his bottle and you would've thought I was a 13 year old babysitter rather than a mom of two! Whatever... it was still fun to have some baby snuggles.

Mason did a good job of giving Zane a taste of life with a (mobile) little brother.

Cutie!

The boys were willing to let Mason tag along for the most part. And even though you can't tell in this picture, Andrew actually did have a good time.

Thanks for driving up, Lisa! We'll have to do it again - if we're feeling wild, maybe we could meet in Bellevue somewhere and let the boys play. It has to warm up soon (or there's always the mall!).

xoxo

My little Valentines...

Such a natural in front of the camera... :)

Thanks for all the goodies, grandma!