July 21, 2010
Five year statistics: Weight: 50.5 lbs. Length: 45 inches. Clothes: 5/6
Dear Mason,
Happy Fifth Birthday! Wow – I feel like I don’t even know where to begin. I never intended for it to be a full year since my last letter. Not sure where the past year has gone. So many things have happened so let’s just do a quick year in review.
Last September we made our annual beach trip to Bethany Beach. We had one, just one, beautiful sunny day and then the rest of the days were rainy and chilly. Nana came with us and we still had fun – we even flew our first kite.
When we returned from Bethany Beach you started soccer on Saturday mornings. The team had practice for 30 minutes and then played a scrimmage against another team for the last 30 minutes. You seemed to enjoy the practice part of it, but didn’t much care for the game time. You spent most game time on the sidelines sitting with dad.
At the end of September, we were very blessed to have grandma come to live with us! What a treat! I’m not sure she knew what she was getting herself into by coming to live with us, but she has quickly adjusted to your early morning wake-up calls! You enjoy playing with her and we continue to reap the benefits of her amazing sewing skills. For some reason you love to tease her by saying “Cloud Car” all the time.
October and November brought cooler weather and we visited several local farms with friends. You also enjoyed helping dad rake leaves. Good thing we got all the leaves up before the snow came! We had several big snowstorms this year. December 19th we got over 24 inches of snow and then in February we got two more snows with another 15 -20+ inches each!
Christmas found us making our way back to Las Vegas to visit friends and family. We were hoping to get to meet your cousin Harry, but he decided to wait until January to be born. While we were in Vegas, we had lots of fun with our other cousins. You continued to love playing in Nana’s backyard with Mary Lynne and Howard IV. Uncle Dennis, Aunt Christy, Danielle, Kaitlyn, Cameron and Aedan stopped by one afternoon for a visit as well.
In March you started swim lessons again and you finally made some huge improvements. You had a wonderful teacher – Mr. Eric – who really helped you learn to love the water. The first day of class, he sat you aside the pool and then proceeded to do a huge back flip into the pool, splashing you to soaking. When he came up he asked, “Who wants to learn to do that?” Your little hand shot right up! Over the next three months, you would begin swimming with your face in the water. No back flips just yet, but we are so proud of you!
Springtime brought Easter, and Nana came for a visit. Your dad and I went on a short trip up to NYC by ourselves for two days while you, Nana, and grandma stayed home. We heard something about you taking a road trip to West Virginia, getting lost, and enjoying an ice cream cone. Sounds like fun to me!
May brought a very sad time for us, when our dear dog, Miss Bianca, went to heaven. Your dad and I felt like Miss B was our first baby. Losing her was much more difficult than I ever imagined. We had some sad days around the house as we talked about Miss B passing. We read a great book called Dog Heaven, which helped you to understand that Miss B was up in heaven now with Nanny, and that we will get to see her again some day. The book also describes how sometimes dogs come back down to earth to check on us. A few weeks ago you came running into the house declaring that Miss B had been back for a visit. Apparently you found a little doggie poo in our backyard (not really sure how it got into our fenced yard) and you just knew it was Miss B back to check on us.
In June, dad was part of the Tour de Cure bike race to support Juvenile Diabetes. The race started in Reston and you were so excited to see a local carnival opened after the race. For the first time you were thrilled about going on rides. You rode your first little roller coaster, which you later told us had some speed issues. You also enjoyed the little cars, Ferris wheel, and little motorcycles.
Also in June we started camping again. We went to Mathew’s Arm at the beginning of the month, with friends from church. We stayed two nights and in spite of some pretty good rain showers, we still had fun. That first night sure did see some rain though – we were ringing out our clothes we were so drenched. You had a great time with Betsy Pepper, exploring the surrounding areas, and Fr. Rob gave us a tutorial on how to identify and stay away from poison ivy.
Our second and final camping trip was to Bear Creek Lake with the Chamblin’s. A beautiful weekend filled with laughs and friends, but oh – so –very – HOT! Thank goodness we spent all day Saturday in the lake, but even the water felt really warm in most places. Dad had to buy us a fan for the tent and I decided that maybe it was just too hot to take a pregnant lady camping.
And that leads us to the biggest news of all during this past year – you are going to be a big brother! Sometime around October 17th, 2010, we are expecting a second baby boy in our house. We told you the news around Easter and you weren’t quite sure what to think of this big brother business at first. However, I think the idea is growing on you now. You are watching us get his room organized, and pretty soon here your dad is going to paint. About two weeks ago we went to the store and you bought your brother his very first lovie – a little white lamb. It is almost a miniature version of your own lamb. You love it so much you haven’t been able to let it go since we bought it. We know you will be an awesome big brother!
In addition to all the fun activities, you also managed to go to school three days a week at Classroom of Discovery. You really loved your classmates, especially: Lex and Kyle and Helen and Maddie. Next year, we have decided that you will do another year of preschool at Lola’s Place – a Montessori school close to the house. Your dad and I think you will benefit from an extra year of playing and growing before heading into kindergarten. You are already so intelligent – you know all your letters and most letter sounds, your address and phone number, you count up to 50 alone or 100 with help, and you occasionally sound out words. We are so proud of all that you have accomplished. Given all those feats, you are still very apprehensive about your writing. While some of your friends spend hours drawing, writing and coloring, you are much more interested in playing Legos or practicing your Jedi light saber techniques. In fact, you are so accomplished that you said if the ultrasound showed we were having a girl baby, you would simply use your Jedi powers to change her into a boy.
Oh, I almost forgot you have of course provided us with your choices for names of your sibling. If it was a girl you liked the name Betsy. Not sure if this is from your sweet friend from church, Betsy Pepper, your friend from school Betsy Welt or from your rocking’ Auntie Betsy, but that is the name you liked. If it was a boy you like the name …. Prepare yourself for this… Bread and Jam, Cheesy Noodles Turner! What a mouthful. I think your brother will thank us one day for making our own choice.
This past week you went for your semi-annual dentist visit. Dad has started to take you because you just seem to do better when he is around. You had a great visit. Your teeth were cleaned and you even let them take your first x-rays. We can see your two bottom adult teeth starting to come in. No loose teeth yet, but I’m sure that will be forthcoming.
Last weekend you had a wonderful fifth birthday party - with 100 of your closest friends. Well, not quite 100, but about 23! Lots of friends and siblings were there to help you celebrate. Once again, we set up the backyard for some water fun. You enjoyed the slip and slide and pool and we even had some water balloons and a sprinkler rescue. You received many lovely gifts including Lego's from mom and dad, and nana, and a magic set from grandma. You shook each present prior to opening and would announce if it was a Lego or not. You tried to skip the non-Lego packages, but we took this as a good opportunity to practice our manners.
I feel like there are probably other things I should tell you, but I can’t remember them all now. I’m sorry for going a whole year without writing. I’ll try to do better next time.
Much love to you my sweet little five-year old boy.
Love,
Mama
