AUGUST

As I try to think back to August, I don't think it was too memorable for us.  Although as I type those words memories are suddenly flowing back, so maybe I'm wrong after all.  We spent the majority of our days playing outside in the summer heat, but we also took our first family trip to the State Fair.  Yes, you read that right.  For the first time in Mason's life, and the first time in Byron and my eight years together, we have never gone together to the fair.  It's like an Iowa sin, I'm sure.

We did get the chance to zip up to our home away from home, Michigan, to meet up with my family to celebrate an uncle's wedding.  It was a chance to see all my relatives and some of our friends, too, in a very short amount of time.

Finally, August marked a big milestone for us as far as our adoption goes.  Yes, we are still hoping that adoption is in the future for us, but we say that now knowing ultimately that whatever happens is in the Lord's hands.

The rest of the year flew by.  We would soon be celebrating back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  At home, we are already starting to look ahead to what the new year will bring.  But for now, I still have a few more months to recount.

JULY

July really gives us reason to celebrate.  It's Mason's birthday!  How fitting for my 200th post.

And how crazy that I now have a four year old???  After struggling for what seemed like forever through ages 2 and 3, 4 gave us about two weeks of absolute perfection.  And then we were back to reality, but with 4 year old issues now.  And for the most part, they are much better.  Mason can be such a riot.  The things that he says are hilarious!  We are really enjoying him.

For his birthday adventure, we took him to his first movie theater movie where we saw Inside Out.  His favorite character was Disgust, and we couldn't get enough of him saying it - "Disdust".  Since then he has been to a couple of movies, which is one of the great things we are learning about having a big kid!

One of the funniest things he said to me shortly after turning four was "Don't you know Jesus died so that people could be twins."  I asked for clarification a few times (cleansed?) but he really meant what he said.

He totally surprised me one morning as I was reading to him.  I randomly quizzed him on a word (cat) and he got it right. Maybe a fluke I thought, so we tried again (dog) and he got it, too.  He proceeded to sound out three more words all by himself, so now we are working on reading as often as we can.  He would still much rather play Ninja Turtles or Legos than practice school things with mama, but I try to sneak them in as much as possible.

I'm sure there are many more hilarious things I could say about that boy, but this will do for now.  We are so thankful for the four years we have had with him so far and pray for many many more!

JUNE

This place has gone largely abandoned.  Oops.  Such is life.  I have noticed one main change in the way we do life here as my baby is slowly turning into a little person - I don't take as many pictures.  When he was little, everything used to be an opportunity for a photo shoot.  Now he's so much more independent, that we aren't just observing things any more, we are deep in the action.   Which means fewer photos.  This will be evidenced below, shortly.

Anyhow.  I do feel like a quick recap of the rest of our year would be beneficial for, well, me.  So let's see.  The highlight of June was our summer vacation to South Dakota.  We did so much, it was quite awesome, though maybe just one day too long.

Highlights were the butterfly garden in Sioux Falls, Bear Country USA, Reptile Gardens, Mount Rushmore, and Keystone in general.  Deadwood was kind of dead for me, and a bit disappointing from what Byron had been expecting, but we made the best of it.  And saw a cool shoot out.

There may be an addendum to this post, with some of our instagram pictures, but since my computer is slowly dying, it won't be today.  Just know we had an awesome time and are pumped to check another state off our list of travel goals!