A quiet house

I'm just sitting here alone in front of our Christmas tree on this peaceful, quiet Christmas Eve morning. It's not often that I get to enjoy these moments, but we were out past Mason's bedtime last night spreading some Christmas Cheer with our good friends the Rueckel's and their beautiful girls. I guess we wore Mason out, so he is sleeping in (which is VERY rare). As I sit here, I can feel the first tiny movements of our new baby boy. He is up and ready to celebrate the holidays. I feel extra blessed this year and can't wait to spend some quality time with my little family!

Merry Christmas everyone!

2011 Christmas Card

One of my FAVORITE things about Christmas is getting Christmas cards from family and friends. I look forward to getting the mail every day to see what we've received. I wanted to do another photo session with our fabulous photographer Alisha (AGR Photography) and I thought Fall would be good timing so we would also have pictures for our family Christmas card. I seriously under-estimated the difficulties of getting a 16 month old to be still for a photo shoot. That, and the fact that Mason had a little virus, led to a pretty disastrous session! I wasn't expecting anything at all, but as usual, Alisha amazed us with her talent and managed to get a few good pictures. I think the final product turned out pretty good!?

Santa Sagas

We had a few 'Santa difficulties' this year, but it all worked out as you can see from the adorable picture. I was trying to avoid the mall because I hate Christmas crowds. Plus, I was fully expecting a screaming/crying Santa picture this year, so I didn't want to spend $40 on their 'picture package' (no personal cameras allowed). So, first we tried the Marietta square where we went last year (First trip to see Santa). We got there early on Saturday and there was a small line. We still don't know what was going on, but we did not move in 45 minutes and finally gave up (it was COLD). The next day, I tried Bass Pros Shops. It was a Sunday, so I expected a wait, but it was completely booked for the day when I arrived about 1 hour after opening. I'm lucky that Mason is too young to care or I would have had a nasty tantrum on my hands after 2 failed Santa attempts!

His school managed to book Santa at the last minute, but I wasn't expecting much. I was planning to hit the mall one night after work because I MUST have a memory of his second Christmas, right? Lucky for me, DCA came through and got a great shot! Mason was the ONLY child in his class that would sit in Santa's lap. My child seriously has no fear at all. I guess I'll have to plan ahead next year and get a spot with the coveted Phipps Santa.

Oh BOY!!

It's about to get a LOT more interesting at our house! We had our 16 week ultrasound yesterday and confirmed that we will be welcoming another baby BOY!!! We suspected as much after our 12 week ultrasound, but now there is no doubt! Most importantly, the baby is growing and all vital organs look very healthy. I feel great - just a little tired, but that is probably more from chasing around a very active toddler. Given my history, the perinatologist will continue to monitor me every 4 weeks for a while. I'm also getting weekly progesterone shots, which have been proven to reduce the risk of preterm labor. We don't plan to see this baby before May 30th! Someone please remind me of this when I am huge and uncomfortable...

I'm thrilled that Mason will have a little brother, especially since they will be pretty close in age. Mason 2.0 (as Chris has nicknamed him) is due exactly 1 week before Mason's second birthday. I know it will be a lot of fun, but I'm also getting tired just thinking about it! Mason has gotten SO active the past few months - he is full of energy and never slows down. And soon I'll be chasing 2!!

Here is our little peanut at our 12 week ultrasound.
And a face shot from yesterday at almost 16 weeks.

So Thankful

I'm a little late on the Thanksgiving blog, but we have so much to be thankful for this year. Especially because we are expecting Baby Henretty #2 around May 30th, 2012! Chris and I are so excited and hope we can adjust to life with 2 little ones (kinda scary!). Mason doesn't quite understand yet, but I know he's going to be a very sweet big brother. I am 14 weeks along and everything is looking good so far. We are praying for a smooth and uneventful pregnancy this time around. Isn't his shirt adorable? We used it to announce it to the grandparents and they were quite surprised!!

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with my family in Cochran, but it was my turn to have the cold virus we've all passed around, so I spent most of the long weekend on the couch. Let's hope we can all stay healthy through the holiday season!

It's a tough job

This is a common sight at our house at mealtime. This particular evening was especially bad because I left the room for a few minutes and returned to find most of his dinner on the floor (and carpet and furniture and part of the wall...). But have no fear - Shadow to the rescue! She takes her job as clean-up crew VERY seriously and does not leave a morsel behind! It always makes me sad when families get rid of pets when baby arrives because they 'don't have time' for them anymore. I think a dog is required for the toddler feeding stage!

Great job girl! Keep up the good work!

Trick or Treat!

Each year my company holds an annual Halloween event, which includes a chili cook-off, dessert bake-off, costume contest and trick or treating for the kids. It is such a fun day in the office and the best part is seeing the kids in their costumes. This year my team dressed as Firefighters since we are constantly rushing to the latest client crisis and Mason was our dalmatian mascot. That was actually a coincidence - I bought his costume at a consignment sale last summer, but it was perfect!

He got the hang of trick or treating pretty quickly. He went from desk to desk and took a piece (or 3) of candy and put it in his pumpkin. A few times he gave his candy away instead. And of course, tried to eat it with the wrapper on.
Here is Fire station #7! What a great team of ladies that I work with!
And back at home in his Halloween romper. He had a BIG day!
He had his Halloween party at school on Friday and we decided he's not ready for 'real' trick or treating yet. Maybe next year. Happy Halloween everyone! I can't wait to see pictures of all the little ones in their costumes!

Life with a Toddler

This look is all too common these days. Each week gets a little more challenging as my sweet baby boy becomes a full-fledged toddler. A few weeks ago, I pulled out the old 'What to expect the Toddler years' book since we could use a few tips these days... The very first section I read started "as the world begins to open up, the toddler begins displaying a wide range of emotions, including affection, independence, frustration, fear, anger, protest, stubbornness, sadness and puzzlement". That pretty much sums it up!! Any given hour we can see ALL of those!

I do love that he is showing more affection and he loves to give 'hugs' and 'kisses' to us and Shadow. It is so sweet! And we're in a bit of a 'mommy' phase where he wants to be with me all the time and gets upset when I leave the room. He's learning new things so quickly and is becoming very independent. He's into anything and everything and doesn't like being told 'no' AT ALL. He's started throwing little tantrums when he doesn't get his way, which is my least favorite thing. We're working on it and have made a little progress. His favorite words are 'uh-oh' (which is says to everything), 'bye', and 'ball'. The latter 2 are easily confused, but you can tell the difference because he usually waves when saying 'bye'.

Although I do love that he is interacting and learning so much, we are definitely getting our first test as parents! Let the fun begin!

Mommy and Mason's day out

Last Friday Mason's school was closed for teacher training, so I took off work to spend the day with my little boy. Unfortunately, we started the day at his pediatrician getting a flu shot, but it was quick (only a few tears) and then we spent the morning at the Georgia Aquarium! It was both mine and Mason's first trip to the world's largest aquarium and I must say, it was pretty impressive! Mason enjoyed watching the fish and seeing all of the sea creatures. We had a few little tantrums... Mason is in a phase where he does NOT want to ride in his stroller or be confined in any way. He wants to walk everywhere, but that is not always a good idea - especially in a VERY crowded public place like the aquarium!

My camera took HORRIBLE pictures inside the viewing tanks. I guess the lighting made it hard to focus - every picture was blurry.
We loved the penguins! They were so cute and playful! This one kept swimming right in front of Mason and looked like he was waving at us.
And I gotta say, Mason's favorite part of the trip was meeting 'Deepo', the aquarium's mascot. Of course, he was out front when we left, so we didn't even have to go to the aquarium to meet him. Mason thought he was hilarious.
I thought the trip would wear him out, but he absolutely refused to take a nap when we got home. Later, we took a trip to the park (it was a beautiful day!) where he decided to sleep the whole time. Oh well...

Adult weekend

Last weekend, Chris and I were lucky to have a weekend getaway. We went to Asheville, NC for my good friend Terri's wedding. It was our first full weekend away from Mason and of course we missed the little guy, but we had a wonderful, relaxing weekend to ourselves. Chris' parents are at their condo in Mountain City, TN, so we dropped off Mason and spent a few hours with them before heading back to Asheville. It was a beautiful wedding and unfortunately I didn't get many pictures there, but as you can see, Mason had a blast with Nana and Grandpa.

Here's a picture of the happy couple. Congrats to Terri and Chad and thanks for letting us celebrate your special day with you!
Here is the one picture I 'borrowed' from the wedding. Me and my girls (and Mo of course)! I think Chris had found a TV with the Georgia game at this point.
Nana had lots of toys for Mason to play with. It was like an early Christmas!
Of course he immediately finds the balls to play with.
And he discovered the doggie door - I'm pretty sure he would have been crawling through it if he had another day to figure it out.
Nana dressed him appropriately for the big game. Which was a little risky considering they were in Tennessee...
Chillin' on the car ride home. He is actually NOT the good little traveler that he used to be. He does not like to sit still anymore, so it was not a very pleasant ride home, but we all survived!

First haircut

I (finally) took Mason to get a haircut this past weekend. Daddy was not too happy about it as he likes the baby curls, but it was time. I made sure that they kept it a little long, but it is so much easier to keep clean-looking! He was great and sat still the whole time, but I've been told it's usually the second haircut where they flip out, so we'll see.

The finished product (or the best picture I could get of him being still):

Beach or Bust?

I'm afraid I have to say our first family beach trip was kind of a bust. We had a few good days, but ended up coming home early with a sick little boy. Boo!! Mason wasn't quite sure what to think about the beach and was NOT a fan of the sand at first. He was finally starting to come around when fever struck on day 2. He was OK most of the day, but did not sleep well that night and got progressively worse each day. We finally took him to a walk in clinic where they diagnosed with with strep throat. We hoped the antibiotics would kick in quickly, but after a third REALLY bad night and puny baby, we decided it was best to head home and see his doctor. He's been sleeping most of the day today, which has been nice for mommy.

We loved the gulf coast and the 30A area. We stayed in Seagrove Beach, which was beautiful and not over-grown at all. And this is the perfect time of year to go, as long as you don't have school-age kids. No crowds and the weather was perfect! Still warm, but we barely broke a sweat on the beach. We still got some good shots of our limited beach time.

First time in the ocean with daddy. He liked it, but didn't like having his feet in the sand.
I'm not sure if it was because he was sick or because we use the 'ocean sounds' at night in his room, but he usually zonked out the second we hit the beach!
He loved hanging on the beach in his stroller.
He looks adorable in his sunglasses, but refuses to keep them on.
We set him in the sand and he would hold up his feet and try to not touch it at all.
Sweet Kieran tried to show Mason how much fun the beach could be.
And he started to enjoy it a little bit.
They had fun playing together!
OK, I think I like the beach after all!
Lots more pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/chenretty/BeachTrip2011

My favorite bulldawgs

So our beloved bulldawgs are not off to a very good start this season, but we stand behind them through the good and the bad. I thought these pictures of my favorite 2 bulldawgs were pretty darn cute. And by the way, we have a full-fledged walker now. Actually, he may have skipped walking and gone straight to running. Let the fun begin!

Next up - Mason's first beach trip!!! We're leaving for Seagrove Beach, Florida on Saturday for a whole week with our good friends the Whitesides!

Little Tough Guy

If you think this looks bad, you should see the other kid... Mason had his first 'incident' at school. He's fine - just a little bite on the cheek and a scratched eye. It didn't seem to bother him much at the park.

Little Frankenstein

I'm not calling it 'walking' yet, but a few weeks ago Mason started standing and taking a few steps on his own. He gets better each day and it won't be long before we have an official walker! He still gets around very well with his crab-crawl, so I think walking will slow him down a little (at least temporarily). Here are a few short videos of our little wobbler.

He loves walking between me and daddy. He will literally dive into us when he gets close enough. He looks a little like Frankenstein ;-)


And he's very fast with a push toy for support. This is his favorite, but he gets a little frustrated when he hits a roadblock.


This is just a cute video of him laughing the other night. He was very tickled about something.

We belong at the zoo

Yes, that is true most of the time. And this past weekend, Nana and Grandpa came to visit us and we decided to take Mason to Zoo Atlanta for the first time. I didn't think he'd get much out of it, but I have always wanted to see the pandas and I knew he'd be happy just riding around in his stroller. I was very surprised that he really did notice and enjoy watching the animals. Maybe he takes after mommy and we have a little animal lover here?

First stop - giant pandas! They were extremely active and playful - especially the 'teenager' Xi Lan. The zookeeper said it was the most active he has ever seen him!
We watched him play for a while. As you can see, Mason was quite mesmerized by the pandas.
Yay pandas!! See the adorable panda stuffed animal that Nana bought him?
With mommy at the gorilla statue.
Watching the giraffes with Nana
He also loved watching the elephants. It was feeding time, so they were moving around.
I don't think he had ever seen anything so big before.
The other big hit was the parakeet house. There were hundreds of them - all different colors.
And they were so friendly they would come and eat birdseed off of a little stick. Mason swatted at them at first, but then he got the hang of it.
I'm not sure what this pout is, but it was right before he crashed.
Naptime!!!!
We had so much fun! Here is an album with a lot more pictures from our day at the zoo.
https://picasaweb.google.com/chenretty/ZooTripAugust2011