Happy early July 4th!

Like our new blog header? I have a new toy, Photoshop Elements! Thanks for letting me get it Dash! I promise I'll make you lots of 'homemade' cards with it too.

Mason's first food!

I don't know why they call it rice cereal. Look more like some nasty form of grits. But he seemed to enjoy it. We think Mason thought the spoon was some sort of pacifier because he opened wide every time he saw it coming towards him. He ate the whole bowl and I'm pretty sure at least half of it made into his belly. That's a pretty good start! Hopefully we'll get the swallowing thing down fast so we can move on to better food.

yummy! Thanks daddy!

The end result? A full baby with a precious rice ceral beard.

We hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend! We got to have lunch with Dash's dad and dinner with mine, so it was a great day. I planned a Father's Day weekend for Dash and we had an amazing time! A couple of weeks ago, we had a garage sale with some of our friends (hi Claire and Teresa!). We were pleasantly surprised by the money we made but more excited about what we were able to get rid of! You know what got the most offers?....

... this little man. But he is priceless.

So we took our garage sale money and headed for a weekend in the hill country. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Austin. Cooked to order breakfast - score! Two separate rooms with a baby - jackpot! Saturday morning we drove to Fredericksburg and stopped in at Marburger Orchards. The peach crop was ruined this year from a late freeze, but the blackberries were at the peak of their season.

Poor peach trees!

I can't wait to make something with our blackberries - maybe cobbler or pie? Or smoothies?

We then went to Main Street in Fredericksburg, shopped and ate lunch. Somehow we escaped with only fudge as our purchase, despite being tempted by a $130 sock monkey for Mason (seriously?). Driving back to Austin, we drove through (if you can call it that) Luckenbach. Our last stop was Grape Creek Vineyards. We sampled their wines and tag teamed a crying baby.

Back in Austin for the night, we took Tommy and Ruth's recommendation and tried out Moonshine Bar and Grill. It was mouth-watering good! We had 'corn dog' shrimp, chicken almondine and rainbow trout with cornbread stuffing. Homesick yet, Ruth? We even saw our friends from church, Erica, Colin and little Nate, there! Small world! After taking turns again with a fussy baby (his shots from Friday were still catching up with him), we made it back to our hotel and finished the weekend with a pay per view movie. It was a great, memorable weekend and we want to go back soon! Next time, we want to stay longer... and maybe bring a babysitter!

Hope you had a great Father's Day Dash!

milk does a boy good

Apparently the old saying is true.

I braved Mason's 4 month appointment by myself Friday - shots and all. It turns out our little man is not so little anymore. Mason weighs 16 pounds, 6 ounces and is 26 inches long. All in the 90th percentile. At least he is perfectly proportional. And a grade A baby!

We got the go ahead to start introducing foods so it's time to crack out the food processor and Super Baby Food book as the adventures in baby food making begins.

Confessions

I've become a bargain-shopping, coupon-hunting, budget-creating addict. My poor husband has been putting up with my symptoms for awhile now. I get some weird adrenaline rush out of saving money or sticking to my weekly budget. Who's know when we will all need our rainy day jar though. With everyone pinching their pennies and holding their pocketbook tighter, here are some of my favorite finds and I hope somebody finds them useful (or addicting) like me.

dealseekingmom.com - the run down of all the best deals at the most popular stores. Plus coupons and more. Last week I scored 2 packages of photo paper (50 sheets each) for $1 each at Staples after finding out about it here. I usually find my grocery store steals here and then hop on over to 5dollardinners.com (below) for a few recipe ideas.

5dollardinners.com - this mom has some great healthy ideas all for under $5 bucks a pop. She does a weekly plan and then posts photos and recipes after she cooks every night. She is feeding a family of four so it is plenty for Dash and I and leftovers. I've tried her oven-fried chicken nuggets, quesadillas with black bean corn salsa and some others. They are good, simple recipes that don't take very long which is great for me as a working mom. Plus, she just got a cookbook deal, so others must agree!

babycheapskate.blogspot.com - a great one-stop shop for all things baby (and kids). You can find amazing deals on toys, clothes, diapers, etc all here. This site tempts me to make impulse purchases because some of the deals are just that good, but I've held out so far and just scored things we needed for Mason.

oldnavyweekly.com - well, I've visited this site quite a few times since I discovered it a couple of weeks ago. It's a coupon hunting site where you have to time your visit just right to score the best coupons before they are gone. If you know you have some Old Navy shopping in your future soon, check this site out. I'm still waiting to grab a $75 off $100 purchase. One of these days I'll be lucky.

Know of any other great sites? I'd love to hear about them. Or if you liked one of my favorite sites above, let me know!

Caution Ahead

Mason rolled over last night. From front to back. Twice. Gone are the worry-free days of leaving him on a bed alone. Or stepping away from his changing table to grab something. I'll try to get a video of him doing it soon.

Social Bug

This past weekend was a marathon of parties! 4 to be exact. Wow, it makes me tired just thinking about it. The craziness of our so-called weekend started with a graduation party for our friend, Scott Louis, (or Dr. Louis now) who graduated from med school. Good wine. Good friends.

Saturday, we went to a graduation party for a high school student from our church that I worked with planning youth events. Don't tell anyone that Mason 'sprinkled' somewhere in our church when I was changing his diaper. At least we managed to stay semi dry for our next shindig.

That evening, Mason and I headed up to Dash's work to watch him play in an exhibition match. It was Mason's first time to watch tennis and I'm sure not the last. He loves being outside, so we had fun playing in the grass as we watched. After a little cheating to make the match more exciting, we had dinner as Mason got passed around.




Sunday night, we had our Senior Send-off back at church. For the past 3 years, Dash has been the small group leader for the senior guys that were graduating, so he spoke at the send-off, cracking a few jokes about the parents trusting their sons with a guy named Dash and about the spotlight pointed directly at his balding head, and giving them advice to use as they enter college. Dash's group of guys shared what they had learned and loved about high school. I really wished Mason could have understood what they said about his daddy. I am so proud of the impact he made on his guys. And we now have a gift to remember them by, as we soak up spills with our new Sham-WOW towels. Well, at least it wasn't Rogaine like Dash had guessed.


More pictures of our buddy...