TWO

And just like that, my baby is two.

Sometimes parenting is hard, but it is peppered with lots of joy.  Today is one of the moments as a parent where I am full of joy - celebrating our little fireball turning 2.
Mason is in a really fun stage.  He is learning new words almost daily, and starting to pair words together without being prompted.  Some of the more frequent ones are "help please" and "pants on".  We waited a long time for him to talk, so I love hearing him verbalize his thoughts and opinions.  He loves the color blue, but green and purple are popular with him as well.  He is a very active and physical little boy who lives to be outside.  He loves cars, trains, Buzz Lightyear, and balls as most little boys do.
I'm looking forward to this year.  I know we are entering the so-called "terrible twos", and he has given us a taste of tantrums already, but as he moves from baby to toddler to little boy, he is just so much fun.  There are so many more experiences to be had, and we are so excited to have them!
Happy birthday to the one who will always be my baby!

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JUST AN EVENING

Tonight really was just an evening, like any other.  The one difference? I remembered to grab my camera!
Byron had gone to his parents' house so that he could mow their lawn. Yes, he tries to get over there and take care of them as much as he can. Everyone say awwww.  He is so good to them.  So that left Mason and I home alone.  Mason loves to be outside, and quite honestly, it is nice to be able to keep him happy.  And if we are outside, I don't have to listen to the tv or help with the ipad.  We can just play. And I like to see my boy's adventurous spirit. He helps me build mine, too, since it is not really my natural tendency to choose to be outside.

So Grandma helped us plant some flowers, we played with sidewalk chalk, and we looked for ats (ants).  To be honest, we do this most nights.  Maybe not plant flowers, my garden bed is getting kind of full.

I sure do love that boy of ours.  Are you ready to fall in love with him too?  Check out this next picture.

Oh my goodness!  That face!  He has my heart.  I know as mom, I am supposed to think my child is the cutest.  And the smartest.  And the... And you know what?  I do!  Gush gush gush gush gush.

SAN ANTONIO - DAY 4

At last I've made it to the last real day of our trip. I bet you are wondering why I even try to consider this a craft/DIY blog anymore. Haha. Someday I will get back to that stuff.
So the final day of our trip was Sunday, and we had booked tickets to SeaWorld. We planned it for Sunday since it was supposed to be the best weather of the trip. In the morning it was a little overcast and even a bit chilly, so I was a bit worried, but fortunately the weather didn't come between us and our fun. It even got quite hot in the afternoon and I think we all left with pink cheeks. But enough about the weather and now for a little recap.
We started off checking out the dolphins.  Mason had actually fallen asleep on the way to SeaWorld (go figure) and so he was a little groggy while we watched the dolphins so we opted not to participate in the feeding. Plus it would have meant holding fish in my bare hands. I was perfectly content to watch.  But seeing these dolphins close up was so cool. This guy literally swam right by me. There is no camera zoom action going on here.  It was really this close!

Yeah, those boys of mine are pretty adorable. After the dolphins we made our way to the aquariums. I think this was highlight number one of Mason's day. He was in heaven and made so many fish noises. (Yes, goldfish was the first animal noise I taught him.) There was everything in here - penguins, sharks, tiny seahorses and jellyfish. This may seem a little sappy to you, but I couldn't help but think while walking through the aquariums of tropical fish and reefs, that some of these things were maybe never even intended for the human eye to see, being located in such deep water sometimes, but God still went to the trouble to make them so beautiful and colorful. Creation just gets me sometimes.
After the aquariums we finally got our act together and saw the dolphin show. It was a good thing, too, because I was starting to think SeaWorld wasn't going to be that cool. Oh no, it is that cool. The dolphin show, while I don't have any pictures, was amazing. It involved things you would see in Cirque du Soleil. I was so mesmerized, that's probably why I forgot to pull out my camera. This show made it all worth it though. I would highly recommend getting to the dolphin show if you ever go to SeaWorld.
I have to point out one other little fact about our day, so I don't forget. They had roller coasters there, which we obviously didn't ride since we were there for Mason, but he was obsessed with watching them. He thought they were choo-choos (trains), which he is also obsessed with. We would watch the roller coaster cars slowly climb up the hill, pause at the top, and then come whooshing down. Mason could probably have done that all day long.
At one point as we were walking, one of the staff was out with this bird (which I believe is a macaw). I literally said to Mason and Byron this is how you know I love him, because I HATE birds. But we went up and saw it.

What you don't realize is that about 10 seconds after this picture was taken the bird cawed really loud in my ear and I flipped. Ran away trembling is what some may have called it. And there Byron is, laughing away. Somehow I managed to recover from my very traumatic experience.
We also got the chance to meet some of the Sesame Street characters. Mason really wanted to go see them, and I was worried that after we stood in line to meet them he would be scared of them, but nope! We have one brave little boy on our hands. He loved it! I think he was even signing more to me when our turn was done.

Above, Mason enjoying his photo op with Elmo, Zoe, and the gang. Below we were watching the song and dance that the characters performed.

Mason begged to ride the carousel, but in typical Mason form, once we got on it he was less than thrilled. We ended up just riding on the bench because we really couldn't get off until the ride ended, so this is Mason's "get me out of here" face.

The last thing we did before we called it a day was to take in the Sea Lion and Otter show, but by then Mason had just about had it. We only stayed for half of it before we realized it was just time to get home. We walked the River Walk one last time, enjoyed dinner at an English Pub, and then made our way back home the next morning. So far, I'm calling this the best family vacation we have had to date. I definitely think it helped us to have a loose agenda with some places we wanted to scope out. Much thanks to this city guide that helped me find some cool places. (They have tons of other cities, too!) If we hadn't done a little research, we probably would have walked the River Walk every day and ended up a little bored. This trip has awakened in me a love for travel and I am very excited for all the adventures my family and I will go on in the future!

SAN ANTONIO - DAY 3

Day three.  My favorite day of the trip.  In the morning, we took our time getting ready for the day and then headed out to the farmers market that was being held in the Pearl Brewery area.  You know, the place I was obsessed with.  We got another chance to get some good coffee and awesome crepes for breakfast, and just enjoyed wandering around seeing what things were like.  It made me very excited for our own farmers market to start.
After that, we headed over to a kiddie amusement park.  This place was totally adorable.  We bought Mason a wristband and he got to ride as many rides as he wanted.  Here are just a few of the rides we tried. Yes, I was making a crazy face.

I love this last photo.  Mason is actually signing more.  He had such a great time.  And yes, that is a bruise on his cheek that he got a few days before we left.  Eventually though, it was clear that he was done with the stimulation and we headed out.  We drove over to the zoo, which was just a few blocks away, but in that short amount of time the boy passed out.  So we headed back to the hotel and stuck around the room resting for a few hours.  Later, we headed out for dinner and our nightly walk. And I got a little photo happy with the flora and fauna.

I showed my mom the last picture after we got home and she helped me pick out a similar plant for my garden.  I planted it last week, so we'll see if by mid-summer I have something that matches it.
There is only one day left to post about before we headed home.  But we saved the biggest and best for last - SEAWORLD!

SAN ANTONIO - DAY 2

On our second day in Texas, we headed out (though not too early) to find a little local book store that had a weekly story hour I thought Mason might enjoy. Twig bookstore is nestled in the Pearl Brewery development.  This is where my heart came alive and I became OBSESSED with everything I saw in this neighborhood.  There was a ton of modern architecture, but the plant life was amazing, too.  I was instantly dreaming of transforming our porch, our backyard, our lifestyle. But seriously.

Here are the two Stover men in front of the Choo Choo.  Yes, we rarely call them trains anymore.  We call them choo choos.  One of us was pretty thrilled to see this, even if the picture doesn't show it.

And then we happened upon this little city jewel.  The pipe was wearing a scarf! I have no idea what the inspiration for this was, but it was awesome. And then I got sad that I gave my yarn stash away because I wanted to knit a sweater for a pipe.

This next picture is my favorite picture of the whole trip, well, other than the pictures that include my husband or son.  I can only imagine that I sound silly when I talk about this, but I was head over heals for the industrial meets natural.  Give me a few years and then I'll post photos of my backyard and we'll see if I've achieved my version of paradise.

We went into the bookstore after stopping for pastries (aww darn) and Mason quickly got comfortable with the animals. Whenever we see a cute little raccoon stuffed animal, I can't help but force encourage him to play with it. But I don't think he minds.

We were eagerly waiting for story time to begin.  This picture below is just moments before Mason spilled nearly an entire cup of milk all over the floor - and himself!  Poor little guy. We reacted quickly, but we still totally made a scene. The thought running through my head was "I'll never see these people again.  I'll never see these people again." The only thing that made it slightly better was that it was vanilla milk.  So rather than stink like nasty warm milk, at least it smelled like vanilla!

After this, we went out shopping to an outlet mall, so there aren't a whole lot of pictures of that. No need to photograph me in my natural habitat...haha. We did do a bit of damage at the Gap outlet, and we also discovered that Mason has a love for ketchup. He was eating it plain, just licking it right off his finger!

On day three of the trip, you can bet I drug my boys back to my favorite little area!

SAN ANTONIO - DAY 1

It was time for the family to get away, and away we went!  Choosing San Antonio was not put through rigorous analysis by any means.  We knew we would be gone in early April, so we wanted to go somewhere warmer.  Florida was an option, but I feel like when we go to Florida I want to do it all (mainly Disney), and we just weren't ready for that.  We thought about Arizona, but for some reason, just settled on San Antonio. And I'm really glad we did, because we had an amazing time.
Our flight left first thing in the morning, which meant that we got up during what still felt like the middle of the night to get there in time. The flights were everything I could ask for.  I was armed with food, drink, movies, and toys to help Mason be as agreeable as possible.  And overall he handled the flights as well as I could have hoped.  We ended up getting to our hotel by lunchtime, so we grabbed something to eat and set off exploring.
This is the view from our hotel room.  Yes, the river is brown, but look at all that green!  Seeing the greenery was a needed change for me, and (you will see this from the rest of the trip) that it has become a new little obsession of mine.  I may have just this morning bought a new houseplant and planted something San Antonio-inspired in our front garden.

We walked around the neighborhood and the riverwalk.  Just look at how my little baby is turning into a little man!

One of the first things we found to do was explore a children's museum. Mason  enjoyed it very much.  And it wasn't very busy, either, so Mason pretty much had his way with any of the exhibits he wanted. Unfortunately one of us (me) had a little trouble figuring out the camera's white balance at first, so forgive a couple yellowish photos.

Lest you think Mason was tired of airplanes after his morning adventure, think again.  We seriously spent like 30 minutes playing in that plane. Toddler eternity.  I am very thankful that Mason got the opportunity to explore without too much hand-holding or stroller confinement.
After the children's museum, we continued exploring and found the Alamo.  Now, I have a few admissions about the Alamo.  First, I didn't know it was in San Antonio, and I surely didn't know it was in the middle of the city.  Yes, the whole city is build around this little treasure.  And little isn't a joke.  It was tiny! No, we didn't go in, but I totally imagined it to be bigger.  Really, my only knowledge of the Alamo comes from Pee Wee's Big Adventure.  Please don't think less of me.

Those pictures aren't the best, but it is nice to have pictures that include Byron and me every once in awhile.  Mason is totally at the age where we end up with a lot of pictures of the side of his face or the back of his head.  After this, we walked the Riverwalk some more and then found a place to eat and went to bed.  I definitely think day two of our trip was my favorite, or at least one of the more memorable parts, so I'm excited to recount it up next!