Mason's First Birthday

While we were home for the holidays we celebrated Mason's birthday. He turned 1 on December 27th. It's amazing how quickly the past year has flown by. As you can tell from the pics he really got into it, and he LOVED the cake! He did get a red wooden wagon for his birthday, but it was much easier to transport back to Oklahoma in the box so we didn't assemble it for the party.

What's this?

Ummmm

I'm so full!

He had to shed the shirt to open gifts - it was covered in icing.

Getting some help from Miles, Kristin, and Noah.

Mason's First Christmas

We went home for the holidays. We stayed at Drew's parents' house but we spent the holidays with both of our families. Santa was very kind to Mason!

Merry Christams!

See what Santa brought me.

He is walking all over the place now. He took his first steps by himself the week after Thanksgiving.

See my new boots!

Seriously, when are we going to eat?

He loved his new fire truck. He just can't reach the peddles yet!

I blogged too soon!

We managed to keep our electricity the longest of anyone I know - it didn't go out until Monday evening. But it went out none the less, and it was out until around 7:00pm on Thursday. We hooked up a generator on Tuesday evening to keep the fridge, heater, and a few lights going. (We were trying to save the firewood just in case the generator went out). We have a gas water heater so we had hot water the entire time. We ate sandwiches and dined out. We managed to make it through this stretch. We're just praying the freezing rain and snow that is supposed to hit today isn't as bad as they think it will be, and if it is, we're hoping we'll manage to keep our power.

Current weather conditions

Winter Weather Hits Oklahoma - First Ice Storm of the Season

We got hit with our first ice storm of the season overnight. Fortunately, we still have power - there are some 200,000 people across Oklahoma without power right now. These are a few pics from around the house Drew snapped this morning.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

Flowers from Dad and Miles

My birthday was actually two weeks ago, November 2nd, but I'm just now getting around to blogging. Things have been incredibly hectic in the Dyer household these days. Anyway, 11/02 was the big - I turned the Big 3-0! Drew and I celebrated the evening before by having a wonderful dinner at Michael Fusco's Riverside Grill - it was phenomenal! Drew took Friday off from work and we took Mason to the Oklahoma Aquairum. He had fun trying to catch all of the fish! He particularly liked the catfish! I got wonderful gifts and had a great day with my family before Drew jetted off to East Texas. Yep, it was opening weekend of deer season, of course, and we can't miss that!

Trying to touch the sting rays

Trying to catch the catfish

Come here, fish!

With Drew gone, that let me have a girls & Mason weekend with my friend Amanda who drove up from Longview to celebrate. We went out to eat with another friend, and just spent alot of time talking and catching up. Good times!

Happy Halloween!

Mason didn't go trick or treating but we did dress him up in his costume to help pass out candy at home. He had a ton of fun seeing all the kiddos in costume. We sat on the porch for a while, until the wind drove us inside anyway.

Dixie got into the Halloween festivities, too - until the doorbell started ringing!

Silly Spider

Helping Daddy pass out candy.

What's in here?

I'll have that!
Don't worry, he didn't actually get to eat any candy!

Pumpkin Carving

So today we carved our first pumpkin. It turned out really well if I do say so myself!

Scooping out the pumpkin guts

We used a pattern, of course, since this was our first go at pumpkin carving.

Trying to get those details just right.

Dixie tried to help.

Good job!

The finished product.

BOOOOOOOOO!

First Tooth

Our little guy's first tooth finally broke through yesterday morning! We're gonna miss that toothless little grin!

Won't you take me to PUMPKIN TOWN!

Today we took Mason to Pumpkin Town (located at 81st and Mingo). As we expected it's a total parent-trap (aka money pit) - pony rides, hay rides, face painting, inflatables, etc. Thank God Mason is still too young for all of this. It was nice though - we got tons of pictures of Mason and we even left with a pumpkin. Can you believe it, neither Drew nor I can ever recall carving a pumpkin! I have a pumpkin carving kit that's been in the cabinet for years - I actually think it made the trip from Houston! Anyway, when we left Pumpkin Town we decided to just drive out to Carmichael Pumpkins in Bixby (off Hwy 64). It was really nice, and, it too, had the pony rides, petting zoo, mazes, hayrides, etc. It was a nice day to get out of the house for a bit - cooler and breezy, anyway. These are just a few of the pics we took today.

PICTURES FROM PUMPKIN TOWN

PICTURES FROM CARMICHAELS

9 Months Old - Already

Mason had his 9 month checkup on Tuesday. He weighed 21 lbs. 12.5 oz. and measured 29.25 inches in length. He's getting so big! He got a small diaper rash from sitting in his car seat all day on Monday so she (the doctor) told me how to treat it - it's his first one. She said that he looked great. Drew and I questioned her about the autism-vaccination link, and she stated that she couldn't say whether or not there is or isn't a link because we just don't know yet. But she did say that Mason is our child and if we want to wait on immunizations that we can, and she won't refuse to see him like many physicians do if parents try to postpone shots. She was really great and she talked to us about probiotics, and indicated that she believes the medical field is making a move towards using probiotics more frequently. Drew and I tried to research some of the information online, but it was so overwhelming! Anyway, that night after his checkup Mason fell asleep in his highchair around 7:00! I put him in his bed thinking he would wake up after about 30 minutes, but I had to go in and change his diaper and put pajamas on him around 9:30pm. He briefly woke up, unhappy, but within 5 minutes he was back asleep until 7:30am the following morning. "Great!," I thought, "he just picked up something from the doctor's office", but he's been doing well. I suppose he was still just tired from the weekend.

I want my bottle, and I want it my tunnel. He sat in here until he finished it!