Four. Years. Old.

Another year has passed and I am thankful that for at least one day, I can look back at the most memorable moments of our family.

Today Mason turned four years old.  I love him more and more every day.  How is that possible?  And in this last year, we have had big changes in the Gustafson household.  We welcomed Matthew Joseph to our family on Thursday, May 1st at 3:36pm.  We are so happy that Mason has a little brother to grow up with and he is already the best big brother!

I will post separately with Matthew's birth story, as today is a day to celebrate Mason.

Mason had a "minion" birthday from Despicable Me last weekend.  It's been a minion kind of year as Mason chose that as his Halloween costume last fall.  Grandma Carol made the cutest minion cake accompanied by cupcakes and I even tried my hand at minion cookies!

For Mason's actual birthday, today we went to The Bay in Broomfield.  It was a great day in the water, despite the rain!  Mason has taken swimming lessons since last November and he is quite the fish!  Mason has learned to swim the length of the pool, dive from the side of the pool, enjoys any slide he is tall enough to get down, and even has jumped from the large diving board with enthusiasm!

My picture collage posted today to celebrate Mason's birthday:

Some of my favorite pictures of this boy!

 


The last year was joyous and exhausting, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it (thank you pregnancy!).  Mason loved preschool (almost as much as I loved him going to preschool two days a week with me!).  September brought historic flooding to Longmont and the northern Colorado area which left us stranded at home for three days before the roads were safe to travel on.  The holidays were wonderful and spent as a family.  We travelled to Montana in April as Casey's father passed away.

Mason still cracks me up without fail.  I've been jotting down what I call "Masonisms".  Here are my favorites from the last year:

• 8/5/13 (As we pass Coors Field) "I want to work at the baseball stadium.  I want to hit with my bat at the stadium".
• On repeated occasions: "Silly Mason".
• "I live in Firestone in Colorado".  My teacher friends were very impressed by my three year old's knowledge of geography.  What can I say?
• 10/25/13 "I'm going to pancake PopPop"!  This has been a recurring theme and shows his love for his Grandpa!
• 11/8/13 On a day running errands... "Mommy, where are we going?"  "Crazy".  "Are we at crazy yet?"
• 11/22/13 "I caught a catfish and now I'm going to catch a dogfish!"  (Probably followed by a "Silly Mason").  

I am blessed every day to be surrounded by two amazing boys and a wonderful husband.  I couldn't be more proud of my family and I pray each day that we continue to love each other more.  

Here's to another year!