ONE Year Anniversary

Today marks the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Aiden & Kyra's arrival here in our home. WOW, we can't believe it's already been a year. So much has happened. Let's see if we can re-cap a few highlights and our thoughts of things we have learned in the year about ourselves and the girls.

What we have learned (in no particular order)

• When they say the 2 week honeymoon is over...it is when it came to Aiden slightly changing as she got used to living with us
• It is a complete change of lifestyle from having 0 kids to 2
• That no matter what happens that Family & Friends are always there for us
• That a just turned 2 year old has a Terrible 2 switch embedded in her somewhere (can we switch it back?) LOL
• The many miles add up when you drive to/from Fresno for visitations
• Baths are required after most meals
• That almost everyone who's ever seen the girls mistake them for twins
• Aiden might be allergic to dogs
• The Magic Box (TV) is the girls favorite thing ~ and Mommy & Daddy's when we need to keep them occupied for a little while :o)
• Aiden & Kyra have learned to LOVE DISNEY as much as Mommy & Daddy
• Having a laptop on an airplane or train with a movie to entertain 2 little ones comes in very handy when flying somewhere for a long period of time
• Getting to experience the girls first time going to Disneyland back in April was more fun than we could have ever imagined
• They do like seeing Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny
• Girls sit through an animated movie really well and even wearing their 3D glasses throughout
• They liked flying in an airplane
• Breaking the girls habit of TV all day, everyday was very hard
• Getting them used to only watching TV Mon, Wed & Fri for 2 hours was quite challenging because they were used to having TV all day, everyday in previous homes

The biggest changes

• Taking in 2 BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRLS THAT WE WILL CHERISH FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!!!
• Going from 2 mouths to feed to 4
• Buying a new home

Aiden's Milestones & What she has learned

• Aiden turning 3 on September 19th, 2009
• Aiden turning 4 on September 19, 2010
• Was potty trained within 2 months in Oct. 2009
• Learned to dress herself without any help from Mommy or Daddy
• Learned to count past 30, learning colors, saying ABC's without help from anyone
• She is a an Artist. We can see her possibly being an artist when she grows up, she draws & colors really well
• Learned to ride a tricycle
• Learned to swim
• Learned that Santa does exist...my Dad ~ LOL
• Learned what Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter & July 4th were all about
• Starting Preschool in the Fall 2010

Kyra's Milestones & what she has learned

• Kyra turning 2 in May, 2010
• Crawling & walking within the first month
• Learning to feed herself & talk more (she had no words in the beginning)
• Brushes her teeth before bed
• She's a really great climber
• An AWESOME problem solver
• Learned to ride a big wheel
• Learned she is a Big Time WATER BUG (just like me :o))
• Taught herself to climb up ladders & obstacles @ the playgrounds by herself
• Learned what Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter & July 4th were all about
• I don't know if I would call this a milestone but when you flail yourself like a Monkey your bound to get hurt and fracture your collar bone. That's what happened within the past week.

Not only has our lives changed but changes have occurred in their lives as well. Here are a few snapshots of the girls from the 1st time we met to current. My how they have changed. Emotionally and physically. They have come a long way in a year. IN THE BEGINNING. We also have all our photos from this past year on our Webshots so if you'd like to reflect on them, please feel free to do so.

Aiden ~ 7/23/2009 ~ 1st meeting

July 2010


Kyra ~ 7/2009 ~ 1st meeting

July 2010

Jake & I would like to Thank each and every Family member & Friend who have welcomed Aiden & Kyra with open arms. You all mean the world to us and we know you love our girls just as much as we do. We hope the coming years you all will always be a part of their lives as you have ours. Our girls are so lucky to have you all in their lives. With many heart warm hugs & Thanks, we Thank You!

Kyra's Woes

Poor Kyra has been through a lot this past week. Last Wednesday while we were out for a family walk she fell onto the grass and hurt her shoulder...or so we thought. Jake & I took turns carrying her around the block not realizing she was really hurt. We got home and she was really cranky. She had been awake over 11 hours. She hadn't had her nap that day, not for lack of trying from us though. I put her down for her nap at her usual time at 2 but she just wasn't tired. I didn't fight her about it, figured she'd just go down for bedtime earlier that night. Anyway, we get home and I'm cuddling her and she is just crying in pain. When I'd ask "Where does it hurt"? she'd point to her shoulder and say "oww". Poor thing. We debated back and forth about taking her to urgent care or the ER. We didn't see any bruising or swelling so we thought she just banged it within the shoulder. We gave her some children's Motrin and that seemed to help. Although all night she was restless and we could hear her whimper every 30 minutes or so. We realized she must be rolling over on her shoulder where it hurts. The next day Jake made an appointment with the pediatrician Dr. Shaw. What an awesome woman & doctor she is. We really like her. She's so good with the girls and the girls really seem to take to her. She and her husband are parents of a 4 year old boy they adopted at infancy so she knows what we are going through with the girls adoptions. It's nice to meet someone who's gone through this and can relate to us and especially that it's the girls Pediatrician.

So we go see Dr. Shaw and she did X-Ray's and found that Kyra's clavicle a.k.a. collar bone was fractured. She referred us to an Orthopedic Surgeon because she thought it might lead to her having surgery being that the bones were overlapping. She put Kyra in a sling & wrapped an ace bandage around it to get her to keep her arm in the sling. At first Kyra didn't like the sling nor the ace bandage but she got used to it after a few hours. By the next day she was wearing it like a champ. However 2 days after she would wiggle her arm out of the bandage and use her hand to do her usual playing and eating. We'd put her in it at night and when we get her out of the crib the next morning the sling & bandage were on the floor.

Friday came and went and we had an appt on Tuesday with the Ortho surgeon. He came in looked at the X-Rays again and basically told us that surgery was not necessary. Let me tell you we were so relieved. I can't imagine what that would have been like for her. Body cast perhaps. LOL. I don't know and I don't think we want to find out either.

So here we are a week after the accident and she is doing really well. She still has the fractured collar bone but the Orthopedic surgeon said it will heal itself within 3-4 weeks. We have a follow-up appt. at the end of 4 weeks but if she hasn't complained about it or doesn't seem to have any problems to just cancel the appt.

She has been through a rough week though, 1st the fracture, her ortho appt yesterday and then today she had her 2 year wellness with Dr. Shaw and she got 5 shots, 3 in 1 leg and 2 in the other. Kyra is now officially caught up on on her immunization shots and is in the percentile that she needs to be in. She weighs 30.3 pounds and 37 inches tall. I feel bad when they have to get the shots, especially in their poor little legs. But Dr. Shaw made it up to her by giving her a sucker and 3 stickers. One being Buzz, she seems to really like Buzz lately.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers regarding Kyra's condition. We truly appreciate you and love you all very much. See you next blog.

Adoption Date Change

Jake was asked the other day to go on a very important business trip the week the adoption date had been set. He's flying out to Houston on Sunday, September 26th and will be gone until that Friday. So this pushes the date of the adoption hearing to Thursday, September 23 at the Fresno Juvenille Court at 11:30am. Again, if you would like to come please let me know and I will send you details of time/place and so forth.

After the adoption proceedings we will then make our way to a restaurant and have some lunch and we'd love those who are attending the hearing to join us as well.

Adoption Day!!!

On this day we received some amazing news from Aiden & Kyra's Social Worker in Fresno. She gave us our adoption day date for Aiden's adoption finalization. The date is going to be on Monday, September 27th at 11:30am in the Fresno, CA courthouse.

Jake & Iwould like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who would like to attend the proceedings in Fresno. We understand if you are unable to attend as it is a 3 hour drive and during a workday. We are allowed family & friends to attend. We'll need a photographer so if anyone would be willing to take pics before, during and after we would greatly appreciate it. If you are interested in attending please let us know and we'll send you final details with date, time & location.

We are truly Blessed to have wonderful family & friends in our lives.

Swim Lessons

Aiden is learning to swim and she's getting really good at it. Here we are on the boat over the weekend. ENJOY!!!

A Splash of Summer Bash!

So this being our first official summer in our new community we were invited to the Lincoln Crossing annual A Splash of Summer Bash! that was held at our clubhouse on Saturday, the 17th. Tickets were dirt cheap, $5 per adult and FREE for kids under 4. Good thing too because neither of the girls really ate that much. They were too excited about the cotton candy and snow cone booths. The BBQ started at 11am and lasted till 3pm. Jake's Mom Joan went with us to the event. It was really awesome. We had BBQ beef brisket, chicken, beans and cole slaw, all supplied from JR's Texas Bar-B-Que of Sacramento. The beef brisket was really tender and yummy but if I'm being honest here I much prefer the brisket from Lucille's BBQ in Rocklin but that's just me. 8)

They had food, a DJ, a magician, a face painting booth (the girls got their faces painted - see pics) a cotton candy booth, snow cone booth, bubble blowing booth, an arts & crafts table for the kids and 5 water bounce houses & slides, a rock climbing wall, a bungee jump thing and a dunk tank. Kyra and I went on the water bounce slide, not once but twice. I, being the brave parent opted to do the water slide with Kyra. I'd have been OK however at the end of the slide my pinkie finger on my right hand got caught in part of the plastic and pulled in the opposite direction. Did you know that your fingers aren't supposed to go the opposite way? Now my finger is all purple and hurts so bad. I think it's sprained, thankfully not broken.

We had such a blast at our first community BBQ. We'll definitely be attending next year. To see all the photos from the BBQ go HERE.

Jake & I got ourselves ready to go to Jake's 20th High School reunion at Fat's Asia Bistro in Roseville for appetizers and drinks. We had a pretty good time. Out of 98 people he graduated with about 30 of his classmates came with their spouses. Not too bad of a turnout.

Well that about wraps it up for now. Stay tuned for more updates. See you next blog.

Little of this...little of that

The Mason family has been super busy these past few weeks. Toy Story 3 in 3D, Birthday party, camping trip and celebrating the girls first July 4th.

Friday, July 2nd - We celebrated our nephew Erik’s 7th birthday with him and his slip-n-slide party! Jake’s Mom made him an awesome birthday cake of a dirt bike on a hill. It was pretty awesome!!! Great job Mom!!! Eriks Party pictures.

July 3rd - We tried a new adventure with the girls...seeing an actual movie in the theater instead of at home on DVD. We went with the Pascoal family to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was great. Kyra & Aiden actually sat and watched the whole thing without fuss or talking. They both kept their 3D glasses on the whole time. I guess it also helps that Kyra had a box full of popcorn to keep her occupied while she watched the movie. After the movie we went over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

Andrew and Maria had plans afterwards to go his sister’s house and do some fireworks so we parted ways after dinner. On the way home, Jake, I and the girls went back to the house grabbed our lawn chairs and headed to scope out a spot to watch the city of Lincoln fireworks. They were really beautiful. 30 minutes of ooing and aahing was some great fun! Kyra wasn’t fond of the noise in the beginning so she covered her ears but after awhile she uncovered them and enjoyed the fireworks display. Aiden was asking lots of questions but finally quieted down and just watched along with us. She seemed more interested in who those people were in the car that was parked in front of us was. LOL. She finally settled down and watched.

City of Lincoln fireworks

July 4th was an unexpected surprise. We were initially going to go over to Andrew & Maria’s house to celebrate the 4th but they had called just before we were heading out the door and told us that their air conditioner had went out and had to call a repairmen and being that it was a holiday and a Sunday they would have to wait till Monday to call anyone. So we moved the festivities over to our house instead. Drew had cooked up some hot dogs, steaks and corn earlier in the day and we ate when they got to our house. Man we had so much food but it was yummy in our tummies. July 4th Pics.

After eating a good dinner we headed out to the front yard to let off our fireworks. They had brought some with them as well as bringing some sparklers for the kids to do. I am amazed at the sparklers these days. I always thought they were supposed to be safer for the kids when they don’t really seem to be. First of all, our friend’s son Aiden (same as our Aiden) got burned by the sparklers pieces being flown off the end on his poor little foot. Then Kyra was holding her sparkler and twirled it and the end of it flew off and onto the ground still burning hot almost hitting our Aiden in the arm. WHAT THE HECK!!! Safe for kids, my butt, we beg to differ. I’m beginning to think that the metal ones we had as kids are safer. This is just my opinion anyway. They were called Morning Glory sparklers. I’m considering writing the company and letting them know how unsafe their sparklers really are. Again, just my opinion.

Kyra was being a typical 2 year old and running all over the place just before we set off the fireworks so Jake brought out her highchair from in the house and she was okay for a little bit then she wanted out. Took her out and sat in her little lawn chair with the other kids and had a fun time watching our own family fireworks display. All in all we had a great 4th of July 2010.

Thank you everyone for reading our latest blog. See you next blog.