unfortunately

by and large, mason has been an excellent big brother so far. he's been gentle, attentive, and very loving toward his sister. but the boy has a competitive streak and i'm pretty sure he comes by it honest. ;)

you see, i started this game with him a couple of months back to try to speed up the getting in the car process. we "race" to the car to see who can get in their seats the fastest... mason or madison. i'm in charge of madison's speed, so mason always "wins" when we play.

brad didn't get this memo.

he picked up the kids from school a couple of weeks ago and they "raced" to the truck. and madison won. everyone was fine until brad walked around to the other side to buckle mason in and madison was screaming her head off. this is not normal behavior for her at all. brad surveyed the scene and mason looked pretty guilty.

"what happened?," brad asked.

"i wanted to win!," mason cried/whined.

"you do not hit your sister because you didn't win, mason."

fast forward a few hours when i asked mason about the incident.

"mason, did you hit your sister today?," i asked.

"yes, unfortunately," he replied.

agreed.

pappy's tricks

mason has a special relationship with all of his grandparents. they adore him. he adores them. it's so heartwarming to see.

he and pappy also share a mischievous side. as i was snapping photos of them playing in the river, it became even more obvious...

 the calm river

hanging on to pappy

where are these waves coming from?!

big splash!

it only took a couple of times before mason figured out what was going on and splashed pappy back. a little while later, this happened:

let's play with rocks!

 look at this pebble, mason!

let me give you a hug

... and maybe slip the pebble in your shirt

i love you, pappy!

hey! how'd that get in there?!

there's just nothing like the bond between boys and their grandfathers. and we can't wait to see granny & papa in a few weeks! we hope you're ready for us... we're a wild bunch!

down by the river

memar and papa live on a GORGEOUS piece of land on the guadalupe river. when they first built their house, they were one of the only ones around. we would go on long walks and see a house here or there, but mostly just open fields with beautiful trees. almost 30 years later, there's a lot more homes and people, but it remains breathtaking.

mason learned firsthand what kind of fun my sisters and i had visiting memar and papa's house. playing on the porch, running around like a wild man, and of course, swimming in the river. thanks, pappy, for handling the river swimming!

memar and papa's house

one of the many amazing cypress trees

"where do you want to go, mason?"

THERE!

he didn't let go of pappy!

headed to the big rock

can't even count the number of times we've hung out on the big rock

(and he's still holding on to pappy)

pappy love

meet the (great grand) parents

one of the renovation weekends in may, grammy & pappy went crazy and invited me and the kiddos to go with them to new braunsfels to visit my grandparents memar and papa. ok, they really didn't go crazy, but we probably drove them there after two days traveling with them! 

we all piled into my dad's truck and headed west. thank goodness he drives an f-250 since my designated seat was between the two car seats in the back! 

pappy drove and drove and finally let us stop at bucky's for a snack and a potty break. then we drove and drove some more until we made it to memar and papa's.

it was a short visit (we drove over saturday and returned sunday), but we had a great time talking, laughing, swimming (more to come on that) and catching up with family. special thanks to annelle and claudia for coming over from san antonio to visit too!

and if you want to see just how much mason and madison look alike, check out mason's first time to visit memar and papa. he was 7 months old at the time, so he has 2 months more hair and chunkiness than madison does, but it's pretty crazy... :)

madison hanging out with aunt 'nelle & memar

getting some snuggles with memar

madison was fascinated by papa

papa is SO funny!

memar, papa and the babies

four generations of crazy nasse genes

what were we thinking? kitchen renovation project

we survived. barely. while we are quite pleased with the final outcome, we seriously underestimated the inconvenience of renovating the kitchen with a baby, a toddler, a husband working nights and contractors that work weekends too. the 3 week project ended up taking 6 weeks. the kids and i had to escape the house for 5 straight weekends (thanks grammy & pappy). enough said.

here's what we started with when we bought the house:

breakfast nook

kitchen

lovely, eh? we thought so too. 

that's why we gutted it. 

to be fair, before we moved in we neutralized the paint and replaced the floor. so it wasn't nearly as bad as it started. still not great, though.

... and here's the final product. i'm still looking for a new light fixture over the kitchen table, but the rest is DONE!

and now that the project is done, i think we'll sit on the couch for a while! :)

soul food

so i'm still behind on photos :/  for the past 6 weekends, we have been out-of-town (mainly due to the kitchen project). we will be home for memorial day and i can't wait to sit on the couch and catch up on the photo backlog!

until then, enjoy these from my friend kimberly. we went to lumberton last weekend to help celebrate riley's 4th birthday and catch up with the bledsoe family. the party at the waterpark was a blast, but spending time with friends was down right good for the soul. they used to live a half mile from our house; now they are an hour and 45 minutes away (and it's crazy to think they've been there for 4 years!) we sure do miss our friends!

and how cute are these kids of ours?!

ryan, riley & mason

little bit in her little bitty swimsuit

flash forward... i swear mason looks 12 in this photo!

hang in there...

my mommy and daddy have been really busy lately 

but there are lots of cute pictures of me from the past two months. 

hang in there and hopefully they'll be posted soon!

the fastest 5 months ever

i cannot believe our little girl is already 5 months old! time is flying by and she is growing up WAY too fast. rolling, sitting, laughing, babbling... i'm just not ready for all of this! she still doesn't want to eat rice cereal, so i guess she's holding back a little for me! :)  we've graduated to size 3 diapers and 9 month clothes; apparently the lack of solids is not stunting her growth.

she continues to be incredibly laid back, loves to be held and snuggled, and prefers to play on the floor on her tummy surrounded by toys. she rolls all over (and off) the blanket from toy to toy and frequently makes her way toward mason's toys if we turn our backs for a second. what a joy she is!

i didn't time her 5 month photos well (it was nap time), so there are just a couple of smiles. don't let that fool you, though. her gummy smile lights up a room. love this girl!

 what are we doing grammy?

ok, just one smile!

my serious pose

sometimes you have to improvise. and yes, she loves to cross her ankles!

seriously, mom, i need a nap!