Warm fuzzies

Having young children can be hard on your ego. 

For example: We were driving home from church as a family last Sunday and I was enjoying the drive with my favorite men. We were not really talking about anything in particular when Mason sweetly pipped in from the back, "Mom?"

 "Yes?" I replied, already feeling warm with the with the expectation of something sweet coming from my darling five-year-old. 

"Do you have the longest nose in your family?"

?!?!?!  I couldn't help but wonder how long my oldest son had been eyeing my profile while James and I chatted away?

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Or how about when we recently drove past a wedding shop and Mason exclaimed, "Wow! Those wedding dresses are WAY prettier than yours!!!!......Um....Mom?....I love you."

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Or when he said, "You are Char's favorite and Poppy is mine!"

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Or the other night when James took a break from studying to make some eggs and hash browns for dinner. We all thought they were tasty and gobbled them down in no time flat. Afterward, our honest son, Mason, went up to James and said, "Thanks for dinner. The eggs were a little bit too yolky and the hash browns were a little bit too salty".

Mason's birthday

Mason was THRILLED that the birthday fairy decorated the house with streamers and balloons during the night. Actually, it was 4:30am after James left for a day of vet school fun. I knew that if I didn't decorate, Mason's little heart would break. I hope that was the only time I ever blow up thirty balloons at such an ungodly hour.

 Mason turned five last Thursday and he is still beaming about it. In fact, minutes after her woke up, as he tried to climb into McCabe's crib to say hello and happily called out to me, "Look! I can already climb higher now that I am FIVE!!" Later he said, "I'm glad I'm five now 'cause four is closer to little three." Yes, this boy feels mature!

Unfortunately, if you ask Mason, he'd tell you that his birthday was sort of "disappointing". It's safe to say that he used that word to describe something or other throughout the day as it progressed. Thankfully, if you also ask Mason which of his birthdays has been his favorite, he would say his fifth.

For several weeks leading up to Mason's big day, we were excited that we got to spend his big morning on a private tour at the bug museum on K-State's campus. We had been there once before and Mason couldn't wait to get back with a tour guide who would let him hold some of the cool bugs and tarantulas to his heart's content. I ended up inviting some new friends to share the excitement with us. Unfortunately, she was about as flat and dry as could be and did nothing to make our bug lover-birthday boy feel special besides let him wear the birthday hat that he brought himself. Boo. On top of that, he didn't get to hold anything. Just pet a couple bugs and spiders with his pointer finger. He was disappointed.

 Luckily, after we were freed from the watchful eye of the boring lady, we got to pork out on some mini spider cupcakes that we made before the tour. That was not disappointing!

When McCabe saw the cupcake pictures today he leaned in really close to the screen and then actually started smacking his lips! So funny!

 But then one of his new friends almost drowned in the fountain. While I stood two feet from him. (Humiliating. What can I say? Fountains are loud!) That ended our friend adventure on a very scary and sad note. Disappointing.

 When we got home I let Mason open up the jello pack that he had been wanting to taste for for a whole year straight. I refused to buy it for his last birthday, knowing that it wouldn't be any good, but this year I broke and Mason was thrilled! Not only did he get a jello cup, he got a pack of twelve of them!

 Unfortunately, Mommy does sometimes know best. They were nearly void of flavor. None of my boys finished any of them (but McCabe found it quite fun to spread the tasteless gelatin all over the table).

When dinner came around, we presented him with the blue soda drink of his dreams that wiped the blahs away! (I also made his favorite meal of chicken strips (made with bread crumbs and parmesan) but he was far too excited to eat more than a nibble.)

Mason had been looking forward to present time all day long so when we finally finished eating he nearly burst with glee! This whoopee cushion did not disappoint....

 ....until it popped two minutes later. How could the Dollar Store let us down in such a fashion?!!!

 Unfortunately, it wasn't the only one that was a bust:

Mason putting together his big present, only to find that it didn't work. Go figure. We have since returned it and spent the money on a tackle box for our little fishing enthusiast.

But that's okay 'cause they weren't all bad:

L: Helping Poppy set up the flying bat that he spotted at our local home improvement store in the Halloween section. Mason is going to be a bat for Halloween and is currently in love with the winged creature. R: Opening a gift from McCabe that was wrapped in a diaper.

He saw one online the day before his birthday and begged for it for about an hour straight. But there were no bat stuffies in town and no way to get anyone to ship on overnight for us. So Char and I put a show on for Mason later in the day and headed down to my craft room to see what we could do. I am thrilled that it worked! Prayers are answered!

After he unwrapped his gifts (and promised more as soon as the stores opened the next day), we headed outside for his pinata:

An anaconda. I was going to fix it up after we got our candy and put it in the boy's room for a decoration, but when I asked Mason if he would like it, he said, "It will probably give me nightmares....but....YES!" Um...no. I don't feel the need to wake up in the night any more than I already do.

After the younger boys gave it their best shot:

 Mason finally broke through to the goods:

Back inside we went for cake and ice cream. Mason was tickled pink to be sung to but just when the song ended, Charlie blew out the candles. Oops!

 So we tried again:

 Oh well, we tried, right?! Even though Mason was honest about all the failings, he was cheerful about it all day long and thanked us over and over for what we did get right. We love our big five-year-old!

McCabe decorated the gross cake after we had our fill. Mason said that he didn't mind that the cake was gross because he loved his spider cupcakes that we had earlier so much. What a sweety.

Mason's birth story

Yesterday Mason turned five. Five! Since Mason is the only one of our boys without a blog post about the details of his birth, here it is:

When I finally got to hold him

Mason's due date was September 19th, 2007 but he had a c-section scheduled the week before on September 11th. His pregnancy was relatively easy but a month before his due date, I had to take my maternity leave early since it was clear that if I stayed up on my feet working all day, he would be coming early and we wanted to keep him in as long as possible. He was so low that it was incredibly painful to walk any sort of distance, let alone work a 12 and a half hour day. So I played it safe and lounged around the home. I figured I had a month, but I ended up only having two weeks.

On the night before Mason was born, we were laying in bed when all of a sudden my water broke. At least, I was pretty sure that was what it was but since it didn't keep coming, I couldn't all the way rule out the possibility that I had just wet the bed. I hemmed and hawed but finally awkwardly called the on-call doctor to see what he wanted me to do. He said that it would keep coming if my water did actually break and that intense labor pains would quickly follow. If none of that happened, he said that I didn't have to worry. I felt really lame. But at the same time, I just knew Mason was on his way and had James give me a blessing. In the blessing, it said that there was a special time appointed for Mason's arrival. I thought that was so neat and so comforting and eventually fell asleep feeling like everything would be okay.

Next thing I new, it was the morning and I was shocked that no Mason had come! Luckily, it happened to be James' day off, so we spent the morning running errands and getting ready for James' new semester. Around 1pm I couldn't help it any more and had James drive me over to my OBGYN for a check up just in case I was right about what I thought happened. Everyone was nice, but you could tell that they thought it was all in my head until the amniotic fluid testing stick turned blue. Hot dog, I wasn't crazy after all! They sent me over to labor and delivery and hooked me up to the machine where the monitor read that I was having regular contractions but for some odd reason I just wasn't feeling.

Dr Rees did the c-section with Dr. Broberg assisting. The whole time they happily talked about golfing while James held my hand and kept excitedly telling me how the things they were using were similar to what they used in his vet clinic. Then, at 5pm sharp, little Mason arrived! I didn't get to really see him till a while later, since I was feeling so gross, but I remember everyone ooing and awing over how much strawberry blonde hair he had and how perfect he was. I should say that I wasn't surprised, but in truth, I was so worried that I was going to have an incredibly ugly child since James and I don't really look much alike. I guess what I should have worried about was if he would take to sucking on the stinkiest blanket in town for at least the next five years. 

 I remember feeling a great responsibility to live up to the trust that Heavenly Father placed on me when He let me become a mother to Mason and I felt incredibly honored.  I still do. We loved him from the start, but each year we seem to love him even more!

Mason James Sieg

August 30th, 2007

5pm

7 lbs 6 oz.

19 3/4 long

Tuttle Creek Fishing

James has a very rigorous schedule these days. He is up and out the door by five-thirty, is in class from 8-5 and then has to return for more studying after dinner. Because of this, we have to get creative when planning our family time. Yesterday evening James surprised us with the idea of spending our dinner break fishing. We were all tickled pink but probably no one more so than Mason! This boy has really taken to the sport and can now do nearly everything by himself. And boy is he pleased with himself! You've probably heard of whistling a happy tune, but when Mason's happy (which is about 99% of the time) he deedles a happy tune. It consists of about three notes and a whole bunch of D's. It goes something like this: "Deedee-diddly-dee. Dee-dum-diddly-dee!"You can hear him happily deedle away throughout the day but when he's really excited, his deedles turn into rapid fire! Last night was no exception!

This drum was huge! Probably at about two to three pounds! Mason was beyond pleased with himself. While he was reeling him in, he said, "This one's a big one! Three hundred and fifty dollars!" I have no idea where that came from.

 Char kept catching catfish of all sizes.

 James, removing the hook from one of the catfish

 Char liked catching the fish, but even more, he likes playing with the fish for a little while after. Lucky for everyone, catfish are amazingly tough little buggers. Thank goodness, since Char's releases around the most gentle. Boy does that little guy have a good throw!

 Mason can now do almost all of his fishing prep work by himself. Char and McCabe are happy to let Poppy do it for them while they explore.

 McCabe decided to try his hand at the sport.... but ended up spending the rest of the time rooting around for food.

 Cabe

 We found this HUGE dead carp a little ways down from us on the bank. Just slightly too big for Mason's net

 Our Tom Sawyer

 If Mason's Tom Sawyer, then Char is Chuckleberry Finn....and he almost got swallowed whole in a little quicksand/mudsand patch. No joke! He was up to his waist when I heaved him out of there! Luckily he made it out with his shorts (partially) in tack! :)

 This is a bluegill fish but Mason thought it should be called a checkered fish due to his cool scales.

 Right before heading out, Mason found a little crawdad. Hot dog!

Our view from the dock. That floaty thing is a fish feeder that goes off every so often to keep the fish happy. Mason thinks he's the worlds greatest fisherman, but we don't have the heart to tell him that this feeder should be getting most of the credit.