All About Mason!!

Today is Mason's 2nd Birthday. It's hard to believe it's already been 2 years since Mason joined our family, but at the same time I can hardly remember what our life was like without him. In an attempt to document who Mason is on his 2nd birthday, this post is going to tell all about Mason. This is really for me to look back on and I in no way expect anyone reading this to care about anything I write, so read at your own risk. I will throw in some updated pictures as well.

Mason Likes:

• Play-doh: he likes to make big balls and baby balls to smash, big snakes and baby snakes to "snip" with his "blue scissors", roll with the "pin" (rolling pin) to make pancakes and then use his cookie cutters to make shapes. He only plays with one color at a time. He will announce "Keem up the Blue" before opening another color so they don't mix.
• Coloring: He prefers to color with markers over crayons because when a crayon breaks or the wrapper peels off he is so concerned about it being "boken" that he doesn't want to color until "mama fix it".
• Doggies: Anytime there is a dog, big or small, Mason yells, "Its gittin Masy" and holds out his hand for the dog to lick.
• Garbage Cans: Mason LOVES the black and green outside garbage cans. Fridays are his favorite day of the week because he gets to help pull the "green gabage can" to the street and then watch from the front window when the "big green truck is gittin Macy's gabage". You would think it was Christmas morning when we go for a walk and he sees all the garbage cans lining the street. We have to pick up every garbage can that is tipped over and he tries to pull everyones garbages back to their house for them. He even calls his plastic golf bag that has wheels his garbage can and pulls it around the house making Scott and I pretend to be the garbage truck and dump it upside down.
• Lawn Mowers: His obsession has not died from last year. Loves his little lawn mower. We take it on most of our walks and he mows everyone's lawn for them. He likes to park it in our shed right next to "daddy's mawn-mower".
• Digging in the dirt: He's a little boy, what more can I say.
• Cooking: Mason loves to mimic everything we do. We have scrambled eggs and pancakes a lot for breakfast so he likes to get out my pans and a "spatcha" to "stir iggs" or "flip panceeks" like mama.
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: This is pretty much the only show he likes to watch, so we watch it almost every morning together. Pete and "Goof" are his favorite characters.
• Tools: Once again back to the mimicing. Whenever Scott gets his tool box out Mason has to go get his and set it next to Scott's and "hewp daddy fix it".
• "Baby Sweep": Ever since Mason was a baby my hair was his absolute greatest comfort item. He always wants it when he is scared, insecure, tired, or sad. Recently he found a little sample make-up brush in the bathroom and immediately bonded with it. He calls it his baby sweep. He now uses it like he used my hair. It has been the key to success in getting Mason to stay in his bed when falling asleep at night. We love the baby sweep.

Mason Doesn't Like:

• Getting his haircut: This is really horrible since he has had his hair cut every 2-3 months since he was 2 months old. Anytime we mention getting his hair cut all he can say over and over is "Kawi (Karlie) all done, Kawi all done" (Karlie is the girl who cuts his hair). We have a system down that includes many suckers and Mickey Mouse playing on the portable DVD player, but it still is an ordeal every time.
• Dad or Mom go to work: He is always sad when whichever one of us leave and the whole time we're gone he tells everyone, "Mama's at work" over and over. From the time he wakes up from his nap until Scott gets home he asks me "Daddy soon?"
• Mama's vacuum: Mason cries whenever I get the vacuum out. We usually have to vacuum when both of us are home so one of us can take Mason away from the vacuuming and hold him. The funny thing is he has a toy vacuum that he loves.
• Getting in trouble: Mason is very soft hearted and gets very upset when we get mad at him (which isn't very often).

Things Mason Knows:

• Colors
• Shapes
• Counts to 12: he does a really good job correlating a number with an item so he is actually fairly accurate telling you how many of something there are.
• ABCs: not only does he know the ABC song, but he can tell you the names of the uppercase letters.
• "Reads" (recites) a few of his favorite books.
• Talks, Talks, Talks: Mason now talks in full sentences. He starts talking the minute he wakes up and the only way we get him to stop talking and go to sleep is by putting his binky in. He gives a continuous narration of what he sees, does, and thinks throughout the day.
• Mason started sleeping in a "big bed" at Christmas. It took a little while to get completely used to staying in bed when there was nothing to stop him from getting out, but now he is doing great. He does a good job staying in bed and falling asleep after we do his nighttime routine. He will still usually wander into our room once a night half asleep and we just have to walk him back to his room and put him in his bed.

Mason Looks Like:

• Mason has thick brown hair. He still has his awesome callik right in the middle of his hairline that prevents us from styling his hair in most ways.
• Mason has my eyes and every other facial feature is totally Scott. When he smiles and laughs he is 100% Scott's son.
• We still don't know what to call Mason's eye color. He has a ring of blue, a ring of green, and a ring of brown. His eyes generally appear to be green or hazel, depending on what he wears. They are unique and beautiful whatever color they are.
• Mason has a great little boy smile with the gap left by his tooth that was knocked out last year. I wouldn't change it for the world.
• Mason keeps getting taller and taller and skinnier and skinnier.
• Mason still has very square and thick feet that limit the kind of shoes he can wear. I'm glad he's at least old enough now that he can tell me when shoes hurt his feet.

There you have it, things I want to remember about my little boy when he turned 2. I love everything about Mason! I know he's not perfect, but he is the perfect fit for our home. Mason, Mama loves you!! Now to the pictures.

All the Hale Cousins. Cannon, Mason, Kennedy, and Rachel.

Mason with his best buddy Cannon

Mason and Scott have boys' night when I go to work. A favorite activity for them both is to eat popcorn while watching basketball games. Mason loves to help mom in the kitchen. Here is Mason "cooking" notice my rubber hotpad that is his "panceek" and the Easter egg he was breaking on the side of the pan like mama. I didn't even know Mason knew the ABC song until one day we were playing with puzzles and he started singing it. Miraculously he sang it on command so I could record it. (As a side note: he doesn't have a shirt on because we'd been doing some messy activities right before this.)