dr. mason

Last weekend (May 21st) my husband, Mark Donald Mason, became a real live doctor. I couldn't be more proud. It was such a special weekend in Lubbock to honor all his hard work the past four years. Here is our weekend in pictures (sorta)...

Hooding ceremony Friday afternoon. Officially a doctor after this!

 reception/ dinner afterward

Tech HSC graduation Saturday morning: 

Dr. Cooper spoke (from the Cooper clinic) it was really awesome and inspiring

so so so so proud!!!!!

and now we're off for some R&R from sea to shining sea. see ya!

ps. Today was our last day of school and I'm officially a stay at home mom!!! Yippeeeeeee!!!!

Weekends

This weekend Reese did this:

While I did this:

(packing)
and Mark re-did our bathroom (pictures of that soon)
Last weekend (mothers day weekend) we went to Branson/Columbia. We did this:
played at gigi and papa joe's house

had a happy mothers day:

met my parents new lab puppy, Maisy :) so cute!

 R met her first crawfish!

 "nice to meet you"

 had a crawfish boil for mothers day. yum yum!!

Met sweet Emerson Claire Cole who was only 10 days old - my best friend from Branson's sweet baby girl!

easter

better late than never... here are our family pictures from Easter Sunday {thanks to the incredible eric staples photography :)}

(my brother, the photog!!)

i think i've said it a million times, but it really was so special to have all of our family here that weekend!! we're so blessed.

ok, back to packing boxes.

one-year-old & more bday pics

29 inches long (50%)

17.6 lbs (7%)

yes people, our little chunk has majorly thinned out and still weighs the same that she did when she was four months old!! poor thing. I promise we do feed her - a ton actually - she just won't drink milk so she's not gaining weight very fast (or at all). The dr isn't worried at all and says he sees this a lot in kids who are breastfed for their first full year.... he says she'll probably have a big growth spurt over the summer.

Our little nugget is such a sweet heart. She has the sweetest smile (most of the time) and waves at everyone all the time, even if you've been sitting and playing for a while with her sometimes she'll just look at you and wave :) 

She seems like quite a talker! She's not really saying any words yet, but babbles and "talks" about something all the time. She has learned uh-oh and says it a lot! Especially as she throws all of her food off her high chair and onto the floor, then looks down at it and says Uh Oh with a huge smile. She repeats lots of sounds or syllables in her own little language and seems like she tries to sing along when her music is playing. Its adorable. She also loves to dance to music too!! 

She hasn't taken any steps on her own yet, but is getting really solid and sturdy at walking with her walker or with someone holding her hand. I think playing outside is going to make her start walking because she hates to sit in the grass and have it on her legs (she immediately picks up her legs and balances on her booty when we set her down - hilarious) The other day she started to crawl in the grass and hated it so she stopped and stood up all by herself, but then just sat back down. Can't wait to watch her take those first little steps :)

Still not interested in drinking milk :( sometimes she'll take a few sips. She will pretty much eat anything (LOVES LOVES LOVES mac and cheese!!!) and she will finally eat things off a spoon. She also loves to eat yogurt and applesauce now.

I think her favorite part of the day is getting the mail and tearing it to shreds! She is entertained by moving each piece of paper one at a time from one pile to another. oh she does the same thing with laundry too.

I can finally sort of clip a tiny bow in her hair!! It only lasts a few minutes, but its adorable while it lasts

She now has two teeth on the bottom and is about to cut one on the top.

Still sleeps about 12 hours at night - unless she wakes up screaming for an hour or two, i guess from those silly teeth. I treasure every minute of that cuddle time though (ok maybe not EVERY minute, but most of it :)

That's all the updates I can think of for now... more to come i'm sure. 

Here are some more pictures from her bday party:

pink party

I had originally planned for Reese's first birthday party to be a Garden Party - but quickly put that idea on hold when I realized that all the things I wanted to do with the theme wouldn't work for one year olds... so we'll have a Garden Party when she turns 3 or 4 :) instead we had a PINK PARTY!!! It was super easy to put together since basically we just did everything PINK. The party was also the day before Easter so of course we had to throw in some Easter-y things too and have a little easter egg hunt! Mostly it was just so special to have all of our family here! (my brother flew in from Nashville, my parents drove down from Branson, Mark's parents and grandparents and aunt live here, his sisters came from Dallas and Abilene and his brother and his sweet girlfriend drove from College Station) what a special weekend to celebrate a whole year with our little girl and also to rejoice that our Jesus is Alive!!!

My brother is an awesome photographer so you'll probably be able to tell which pictures he took :) (and we have about 300!!!) so this post is just pictures of the decor/food :) it's sure not anything too spectacular like my friends katie or shelbi do all the time... but it was fun and I really think Reese loved it!

{I made this high chair skirt out of tulle and sewed some frilly cupcake fabric on the top. The bib I made with an iron on cupcake I found at JoAnns}

watch Reese grow!!! I've been planning to make this since we started her green chair pictures every month :) I just cut out her picture and glued it on a paper flower on foam board. Might have been my favorite part of the party! I keep looking at the pictures over and over. It's so hard to believe how much she changes every month! 

I hung tissue paper pom pom balls around the house along with balloons (pink of course!) and mark made an awesome slideshow of pictures from Reese whole first year of life. 

Party Favor table - easter eggs of course!! We hid fun coins, candy, chocolate, bunnies, jelly beans etc in easter eggs and wrapped them in little easter bags for everyone as they left. (Didnt get a great picture of these but they were super cute!)

The Happy Birthday Reese banner I made out of felt and glued the letters on each flag then sewed each flag to pink rickrack. I hope I can keep this forever and always hang it up on her birthday :) 

I saw this huge cupcake mold thing on an infomercial during one of our middle of the night feedings when R was a tiny baby and just thought it would be perfect for her first cake :) It sure didn't turn out as pretty as the pictures but it was perfect for reeser to smash her hands into and stuff it all in her face! ha

I made pink chocolate covered pretzel sticks with sprinkles {which seemed to be a big hit} and I also made pink chocolate covered marshmallow sticks {kinda tasted weird but they looked cute ha!} I also put out tons of cheerios for the kiddos along with animal crackers, apple sticks and strawberries. 

delicious and amazingly precious cupcakes from XOXO Cupcakery (aka our friend Whitney Davis) and my true obsession, Ms. Piggys Bakery, made the cookies {i might have eaten most of them! they're just melt in your mouth fantastic}

pink lemonade and mint tea to drink {also, i HAVE to point out that my cousin Aimee painted the incredible painting behind the drinks and sent it to reese for her bday. It's adorable. It says, "Reese, The King is enthralled by your beauty!" my favorite verse!

{not pictured I've also been collecting our baby food jars over the past month and then spray painted them pink and put little flowers in them around the house. They were pretty cute. I actually still have them as the center piece on our table :) super cheap and easy!}

It was all for our precious Reese Elizabeth. I hope you know how special you are and how proud we are of you!