New Camera

So this past weekend we got a new camera - Canon G12.  I thought it would be a perfect camera for us because it's a (huge) step above the PowerShot point-&-shoot I've been using for the past 5 years, but not as intense as the larger, more advanced DLSR cameras.  I'm a complete technology idiot, and am completely uninterested in educating myself to make myself less so, so I needed something that is fairly simple.

After playing with it for a few days (read:  I read the manual, turned the camera on and started taking pictures), I'm actually not sure if I love it.  I think the picture quality is good, but I'm not sure if it's as good as I expected it to be.  I have 14 days to return it, so I'm going to try to take as many pictures as I can between now and then to see if it starts to grow on me. 

So, my question is ...what do you think?  Do you think I'm doing something wrong?  Help!

Playing with my new camera during pre-dinner playtime

Mason's first mohawk - is it just me or does he look like a TOTALLY different baby here??

Having some cereal at breakfast.  Yum yum!

New sippy cup!  Recommended by a fellow mama, and he caught right on!

Playing with Daddy

Daddy taught Mason a new trick, makes him laugh every time!

Happy Weekend!

Just thought I'd share some cute pictures from this weekend!

I went in to check on Mason towards the end of one of his naps and this is what I found.  Within the past few months Mason has become quite attached to this monkey, and he is now a permanent fixture in his crib.  It's hard to see, but Mason is sucking his thumb here too...I mean, how cute can you get???

Mason joining daddy in a little Saturday morning newspaper reading. 

By the way, I am obsessed with these PJs.  I took this with my cell phone so the quality is horrible, but look at those alligators!

RBHS boy's soccer was in the CIF Championship, so the 3 of us headed over to watch the game.  It was an absolutely gorgeous, warm day, so we made sure to keep our fair-skinned and bald baby covered.  The hat did the trick!  He of course also had to wear his "Future RBHS Bronco" shirt.  Poor guy was not a fan of soccer though, every time everyone started cheering he started crying.  By the end of the game, he and I were sitting at the top of the stadium in a corner eating grapes to keep him distracted.  But he liked being above the noise, and we got to watch the end of the game which ended in a big W for RBHS!  Go Broncos!

Later that day, getting some good crawl practice in with daddy.  He's now getting up on all 4s and rocking back & forth, and is doing a great job with the army crawl.  Today he figured out how to go from a sitting position to a crawl position without just falling over sideways haha.

Another bad cell phone shot, but had to show the big boy standing up in his crib!  We lowered his matress a few weeks ago, and he loves standing up holding onto the rail after his naps.  I obviously have to put him there, but I know the day will come sooner than later that we walk in the door to see him standing like that on his own!

Bath time!  My first attempt at a mohawk - still not much there to play with!

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend, minus the fact we still didn't find a home.  On a fun note, I bought a new "big girl" camera today, so look for some better-quality photos to be posted soon! 



Army Crawl

As I believe I've mentioned before, our child will only crawl for food.  He is officially all BOY, motivated by his stomach (better than other things he'll be motivated by 16 years from now, right!?).  Because of this, we have to to "bait" him with food in order to practice crawling.  We've tried toys, but apparently he doesn't care about a single toy enough to try to crawl for it, he instead chooses to roll over, or just find a closer toy. 

But he's getting better at his crawling [for food] - it more resembles an army crawl, but hey, he's moving!

We have sad news that we have yet to break to Mason...this past week he's had a light rash along his belly that this morning was much darker.  After asking a pediatrician friend, we believe it's a reaction to berries - he's been eating lots of blueberries and yesterday tried strawberries.  He LOVES them, so will not be happy to hear that he can't have them for a while.  Hoping the pediatrician will tell us on Friday that we can try again in another few months though!

9 Months Old

Yet again, another month has flown by, and Mason is now 9 months old!  Hard to believe he's been around as long as I was pregnant with him, and how far he's come.  He is still an absolute joy - just the happiest baby.  He is still sleeping 11-12 hours at night, and is a great napper.  He loves his crib so much that when it's time for a nap he doesn't even want to be rocked or cuddled - as soon as we take him into his room he's reaching for his crib, where he uses his monkey "lovey" to cuddle, chat, and put himself to sleep.  And he wakes up with a huge smile on his face ready to play and EAT. 
He eats EVERYTHING - he's on all kinds of baby foods, and also loves grapes, cherries, blueberries, bread & butter (Gigi's contribution), cheese, black beans, rice, cereal, peas, chicken, turkey...the list goes on & on.  He can feed himself which makes going out to dinner so great - put him in the high chair and he is in heaven as we feed him little pieces of food from our plates.  Meal time is definitely his favorite.
He is starting to scoot, but is not crawling yet which is totally fine by us - so great that we can still leave him somewhere for a minute and when we come back he's still there.  He loves to stand and can hold himself up for a few minutes at a time, but we're trying to encourage him to crawl some before he walks.
He also talks all day long, and his "words" are getting better.  Bababa has turned into bla bla bla, etc.  We are constantly working towards "mama" and "dada".  He knows how to wave and clap (well it's an air-clap), and think "hi" or "bye" may be one of his first words.  He also loves to giggle...in case you haven't seen any old posts :)
Size-wise he's gotten so big, and is actually in 12-month tops.  This makes us so happy, since he was so scrawny for so long.  We go for his 9-month appointment next week, I'm interested to see how much he weighs, and if he's bumped up in percentiles or not.  Don't get me wrong, he's still pretty small, but you should see that root beer belly!
All in all, life is great and it keeps getting better.  He's so easy that I am actually at a place where I can imagine us having another :)

This Never Gets Old

Makes me laugh every time :)

Gigi is Here!

Gigi came yesterday to spend the week here and watch Mason while we work.  In true grandma fashion, she had Mason giggling hysterically within 20 minutes of her arrival.

They've already been having a blast together today, riding in his new car (please note the shirt):

And are now at the park having a picnic.  Ok the first one is from my picnic with him yesterday but it's still cute and relevant :) 

Looks like it's going to be a great week for Mason & Gigi!