Leah's Engagement Party

Top: me, Rachel
Middle: Ashli, Leah, Ashley
Bottom: Emily, Brianna, Tamara, Bethany

Last night 8 of my friends from high school hosted an engagement party for one of my closet friends during high school. It turned out wonderful! Congrats, Leah!

Here's some old pictures from back in the day...
Me, Leah, and Ashley

Top: Me, Brianna, Ashley, Leah
Bottom: Natalie, Emily, Beth

Who's Who?!

I have been waiting to take Mason's picture in the Jumperoo for weeks because I had a wonderful closeup picture of Madi at 3 months 3 weeks. This was the week for the picture! Besides the obvious girlish outfit that Madi has on (pink with white polkadots), could you tell the difference?

The Formula Debate

Ever since Madi was born we have had issues with formula in our house and Mason is no exception. Madi had to have a tablespoon of rice per ounce of formula beginning at 7 weeks because of such severe reflux. She maintained 50% in weight, so we continued this regimine until she began "real milk" at age 1. After some investigating around her first birthday, I decided that she had a milk allergy which was causing her to keep a cold and ear infections (the doctors agreed with me, Brit did not). So Madi drinks soy milk instead of real milk and eats all soy products instead of real dairy.

Mr. Mason is another story...we started him on normal milk based formula. He too had severe reflux - worse than Madi. Whatever went in came right back out in waterfalls. Since he was not gaining any weight, he was put on Axid (a prescription reflux medicine) at 1 week old. Brit and I were not loving this idea at all. Dr. Stone also suggested that we change him to soy. This worked much better and we stopped the Axid and started putting 1 tablespoon of rice per ounce of formula. Worked wonders. Then the colic started. The screaming and screaming and screaming for hours and hours and hours. Dr. Stone suggested changing some things like start the Axid back (which helped) and change formulas. So we changed formulas to Nutramigen.

And magically Mason didn't cry anymore! At all! It was a miracle! But he was also 3 months old and we thought it might just be developmental...so I gave him normal formula - milk based normal formula. This made him vomit for 2 hours. Back to soy and he screamed. So Mason now has his hypoallergenic Nutramigen and is a happy little camper.

Just this week I began to give him applesauce as a suppliment and he LOVES it!

Oh and by the way:

Normal formula = $0.47 a bottle

Nutramigen = $1.48 a bottle

Lovely.

4th of July weekend

This past weekend, we departed from the Friday night norm - eating at The Depot in Helena (www.helenadepot.com) - and ate there on Thursday night instead. So Friday night we went to Habaneros in Alabaster. When we got home we heard fireworks. Madi claimed that she "don't like those fireworks. Fireworks scare me. I go inside and those fireworks won't scare me." We were concerend about Saturday night knowing that there would be fireworks within 50 yards of us. We also started Mason on Nutramigen Hypoallergenic formula in hopes that it would really stop colic within 48 hours (the claim on the package). Friday night he did not cry at all. He smiled, he cooed, he giggled...and no crying!

Saturday morning Madi and I fixed Uncle Craig a Dirt Cake. A great recipe for toddlers to make!

1 to 1 1/4 lb. pkg. Oreo cookies
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1/2 cup b

utter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
3 cups milk
1 (12 oz.) tub Cool Whip (can

use chocolate)
2 (3 1/2 oz

.) pkg. instant vanilla or chocolate pudding
1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 gummy worms and/or other

critters

Crush Oreos. Put 1/3 of the crushed Oreos into a new, clean flower pot. Set aside. Mix butter,

cream cheese and sugar and vanilla

together. Set aside. Combine milk and pudding mix. Fold Cool Whip into the pudding. Fold together pudding mixture and butter-

cream cheese mixture. Layer this mixture (about 1/3 of it) onto the crumbled cookies in the pot. Next, add another layer of the pudding mixture,

then another layer of cookie crumbs, continuing until all ingredients are used. As you're layering the ingredients, decoratively place several

gummy worms and critters in the "soil" so they will be seen emerging. If you have a toy garden trowel, a plastic daisy, or some edible flowers,

these can also be used creatively to embellish the presentation.

After cooking our Dirt Cake, we drove to Palmerdale, Alabama to my Aunt Peggy's house for a family gettogether. Madi really wanted to drive the boat on Emerald Lake, but we were unable to get in cranked.

We left Peggy's house around 1:30 headed to Florence, Alabama to visit with Brit's family. I had not been to Florence since Christmas because of Mason and this was Mason's first trip. It was fairly uneventful trip - both kids slept most of the way! We ate supper at Aunt Janice's house and

Madi played on a slip-n-slide for the first time. She REALLY loved it. We left Janice's house to watch fireworks at Aunt Connie's house. Madi was initially scared, but ended up having a good time watching the fireworks too. Sunday we went to church and then to Chuckie Cheese's...also a first for Madi! No more ball pits at Chuckie Cheese's though :( but it was still fun.

Mason has still not had a single colic symptom - YAY!

I've been asked by friends why I have never started a blog...well because we actually have a family website (www.themansellstory.com). And that satisfies the question of blogging and we go on with other conversation. However after the blog addiction I have developed since being at home after Mason was born in April, I really feel a bit left out. Our family website is mostly pictures with the occasional paragraph commentary of a picture. And that's a bit boring. Plus, everyone has cute blogs and my family website isn't cute at all! So as I sit in the quietness of my house (big thanks to a Baby Einstein DVD) I've actually spent some time creating a blog. How cool is that?!

Anyway

Recent happenings at our house basically revolve around our two kids - Madi and Mason.

Madi is 2.5 years old and is a bit of a diva. Everything must be clean,

everything must be in its place, and everything she wants must be perfectly the way she wants it...I think it is a "two

year old" thing/phase/nuisance. She loves her Ariel camera and her Minney Mouse cell phone. She's

attached to a cat that she lovingly calls "meow." Madi is a picky eater and prefers cooked carrots and vanilla soy milk over most "real" foods. Her favorite snack is "fish" otherwise known as gummy snacks to the rest of the world (we originally bought her Nemo shaped gummy snacks...hence the name "fish"...we've gotten cheap and have started to buy them at Sam's now, but they don't have Nemo shapes in the cheap section...but they are still called fish by miss Madi). She loves to dance! Her favorite kid song is "Itsy Bitsy Spider", but ask her what her favorite song is and she'll say "Apple Bottom Jeans." And yes, she does know the entire chorus to "Apple Bottom Jeans" better than she knows "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Mason is almost 3 months old. He seems to have an intense infactuation for Baby Einstein DVDs and ceiling fans. When I talked to the doctor about Mason's vocality (screaming) for hours (and hours and hours), he smiled and said that babies like Mason need extra stimulation because "studies have shown" that babies "like that" have higher IQs...so we thank the ceiling fan for adding IQ points to our child's score (*reread last sentence with sarcasm*). Once you ignore the screaming (for hours and hours), he really is a happy baby. Really. He smiles, giggles, coos...all normal baby things. He is very physical and can bear all his weight on his legs already. He loves sitting up (he does pretty good at that too) and can roll over from his back to his stomach. I think he will crawl sooner than Madi mainly so that he can keep up with her! He LOVES Madi and will actually stop crying when she gives him attention. Though you can't really explain to a 2.5 year old that she needs to play with a baby so he is happy. I try though.

Brit and I met in college at the University of Alabama. We lived in the same building at the University Downs appartments off 15th Street. We became friends (and secret crushes) while in college, but didn't truly date for a few years. We went out once (to Highland's Cafe) and then didn't date again for another year...we were engaged a year and a half later, and married in June 2005. Brit is a website designer and owns his own company (www.octanemedia.com). He loves anything that is fast and/or a challenge. Recently he has gotten into mountain biking, but still loves motocross (and he is counting the hours until Mason can share the love with him). I am an 8th grade science teacher. In my spare (haha) time I like to spend time with my family, get together with friends, take Madi to the park, paint, etc.

So cheers to the beginning of our blogging story, may it be a journal, an adventure, and an entertainment for my spare time