the inner circle

so mason is officially "in" madelyn's inner circle - she has chosen to share friend with him. not only did she have friend give mason kisses and then let mason hold friend, but she asked me to take a picture of the two of them in the swing together.

then madelyn took the photo shoot into her own hands and snapped a few pictures of her own of mason and friend. she hasn't quite figured out how to manage the camera without putting her fingers over the lens. this is probably the best of her shots because you can see mason and friend behind her finger.

after this photo session, madelyn was very excited to be taking mason to church with her. she kept telling us to "get dressed" so that we could go. once she was dressed, she wanted to have her picture taken with mason. she even smiled several times while saying "cheese" without any prompting by me.

church was our first outing in the car since coming home from the hospital and madelyn was just talking to mason the whole way. she was pointing out everything we passed, telling him what it was, and telling him about the veggietales characters singing on the cd playing. when she couldn't come up with something new, she would say "um....trees" as filler conversation.

people were pretty surprised to hear that mason was only two days old and we were all at church. mainly they were surprised that i was there. i am telling you, this time is SO much easier than with madelyn. but i also had the spinal leak headaches after having madelyn. i just want to get right in to normal life.

on a personal note, i wore non-maternity jeans to church this morning. it took me two weeks to get there after having madelyn, but i did only put on about 25 pounds this time versus the 30 i put on with madelyn.

mason had a pretty good sleeping night last night. i was a little worried when he woke up every hour to eat for the first three hours after i went to bed. but after i fed him at 1am he slept straight through to about 6am when i woke him up to eat. he did make some noise like he was waking up at 3:30am, but when i tried to get him to eat he went back to sleep.

this afternoon mason went on his first trip to the park. it was such a nice afternoon that it seemed like a shame to be sitting inside. he slept the entire time, but i think he enjoyed the fresh air. i also think that he likes it when the birds sing - weird, i know, but it really did seem like he would perk up to listen when they would sing.

i wish that i had taken video of madelyn at the park. she was hysterical! first she was wearing her bike helmet while playing (she requests to ride he bike while mason rides in the stroller - making me very happy). then she was yelling "hi. hi! look at me! look at me!" over and over to a little boy and his grandma that drove over to the park. they weren't people we knew either, but that did not stop madelyn's excitement to see them and have them look at her. and if anyone stopped to see mason, she would run over to tell them that he was her brother, mason. she is so proud to be his sister.

adding to madelyn's independence, she now fills her own cup in the refrigerator door water dispenser. she actually does a pretty good job of not overfilling her cup. she didn't spill any water all day until dinner time and i guess it was a big spill because daddy put the dispenser lock on so that she would not be able to do it any more tonight. either way, it was good progress to her being able to help herself. love.