Long Weekending.

And yes, it will include Easter. #sorrynotsorry

I know, I know. I'm sure you're all Easter-ed out, BUT since this blog serves as my memory book, I'm going to write about Easter. But never fear, this recap will be more weekend driven than Easter.

This past weekend, I had a long weekend. And it was AMAZING. My dad and step mom came down from Northern California for a visit. They drove down on Thursday and we met up with them first thing Friday morning. Since they don't wake as early as we do (read : don't have a Mason alarm clock), we decided to get some breakfast on our way to meeting them. I've been dying to try Sidecar Doughnuts and thought this was the perfect opportunity. And they DID NOT DISAPPOINT.

The maple bacon was my absolute favorite. Though I loved the other kinds we got too. Thankfully Sidecar isn't THAT close to my house or I would be going there every week. Or every day.

Also, you know the donuts are good when your kid who hates donuts (I KNOW!) actually scarfs some down. We always offer and he usually declines, but this time, when we offered (no matter what kind), he couldn't get it in his mouth fast enough.

When I posted about Mason hating donuts on Instagram, I had a lot of shocked people. Believe me, I was shocked too. I mean, is he my son?? But Seth is not an overly sweet guy (meaning into sweets, not personality wise) so that must be where he gets it from. There's no bribing Mason with Skittles or M&Ms, but you can bribe him with pretzels and goldfish!

After breakfast, we met Grandma and Grandpa and then headed to Newport Beach. We had a plan to be tourists and ride the ferry across to Balboa Island, walk around the Fun Zone, and walk down to the beach. Believe it or not, we barely go to the beach even though we live like 20 minutes away so this was a special treat for us too.

Mason loved the beach, although he wouldn't get too close to the water. There was a playground that he loved, he loved walking on the pier and looking into the ocean, and of course, he loved getting ice cream with Grandpa.

Saturday was Marcus' birthday party at Pump It Up. We were so excited to be able to join them in celebrating his fourth birthday! Mason isn't overly into bounce houses, so we were interested to see how he did. To our surprise, he actually initiated going on the bounce obstacle course, down the small slide, and into the bounce basketball court. But the big slides and the big bounce houses he avoided. Regardless, we had the best time and were so happy we could be there for the birthday boy. Clearly Mason thought it was his birthday (not quite buddy!) and tried to blow out Marcus' candle for him... We need to work on taking turns a little more apparently. Marcus' turn in March and Mason's turn in July.

While we were at the birthday party, Grandma and Grandpa met up with some of their old neighbors who moved down to San Diego and then we all met up for a picnic at the park for dinner.

Sunday morning we had brunch together, took some funny glasses selfies, and played a little soccer before heading over to Seth's mom's house for Easter with the cousins.

Once at Nanny's house, we took more funny glasses selfies, played with new bubble guns, and enjoyed being around tons of family. After everyone arrived, we made a little egg hunt for the kids and then ate way too much dinner and dessert. It was a crazy, hectic, amazing Easter.

I feel like Mason really 'got' Easter this year, which made it egg-stra special!

Hope you all had a great Easter as well! Hoppy Wednesday!

2nd Annual Mother's Day Mom Exchange!

Calling all moms! This post is for you!

I've participated in a good amount of blogger gift exchanges for the mini's in the past couple years since I started blogging. And while I LOVE an exchange where I get to buy something for someone's child and Mason gets a fun surprise in the mail, I got to thinking, why aren't the moms ever included?

Enter : Mother's Day Mom's Exchange.

With Mother's Day a few weeks away, it is time to celebrate moms and Courtney and I are so excited to be hosting the Mother's Day Mom Exchange for the Second Year!

Mother's Day is a day dedicated to the moms. The working moms. The stay at home moms. The moms of one child. The moms of eight children. The moms of fur babies. Step moms. Mother in laws. ALL moms are celebrated each year on Mother's Day.

Some important dates and details about the exchange:

March 29th - Mother's Day Mom Exchange announced

April 2nd at 11:59pm Pacific Time - last day to sign up if you want to participate

April 3rd - partner matches made and emailed 

April 8th - contact your partner and exchange addresses by this date 

April 23rd - last day to mail packages 

May 6th - link up on either of our blogs and share what you got!

If you are interested in participating, please email me at chasinmasonblog@gmail.com and put 'Mother's Day Mom Exchange 2016' in the subject line. Please make sure to include your first and last name, your blog url (if you have one, you don't need a blog to participate!), and any other social media links that you'd like your partner to have. And please remember to sign up by April 2nd at 11:59pm Pacific Time. I will start matching partners on Sunday, April 3rd.

The value of your box should be $20 BEFORE SHIPPING. 

This exchange is open to US residents only.

I will be collecting all the names of the moms that want to participate and then will be matching partners through Elfster. (Please be aware that partners might not be a 'couple'. The person that you are sending a gift to might not be the person that you are receiving a gift from.)

Once partners are matched, I will be emailing you to let you know who your partner is. I will also be sending you some sample questions to ask/answer with your partner to get to know them a little and what their likes and dislikes are. Feel free to use all of them or none of them and make up your own! It's only a suggestion as a little conversation starter. At this point you will also exchange addresses so no need to send it to me in your original sign up email.

Feel free to share on Instagram/Twitter using #mothersdaymomexchange as well.

We're really excited about hosting this exchange again this year and hope you are too! I hope you'll join me -- it's time to celebrate MOM!

If you have any questions, concerns, or need clarification, don't hesitate to ask either of us.

Five on Friday!

Helllllllloooo three day weekend! Ahh. I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while now. My Dad and step mom are here visiting and I took the day off work today. So! Today we're off being tourists in our own city. But before I go all Instagram and Snapchat crazy, let's share a little random five, shall we?


ONE.
Marshmallow Peeps S'mores Bars.

I made this recipe last year on a whim and it was SO. GOOD. that I had to make it again this year. If you've never made any of Mix and Match Mama's recipes, you're definitely missing out!  Her recipes are simple, quick, and easy and SO good. I've made several ranging from dinner recipes, dessert recipes, drink recipes, and more!


TWO.
Gender Reveal Poppers.

While I definitely don't need these, when I saw them on Aubrey's blog last week, I thought they were SO cute! She made them for her friend's gender reveal and I never knew how easy they really were to make. No more Etsy for me! I'll be making these should the occasion arise.


THREE.
Monster Trucks.

I mentioned the other day when I shared Mason's Easter basket that I'd hook you up with some monster truck info. Well, here we go!

These were the first monster trucks that we got.  Blaze was the very first one and I found it at Target on sale for $3.49. I knew after getting one that I wanted to get more for Mason for Easter so I went back to check while they were still on sale and I found Crusher . Shortly after we got Blaze and Crusher, I found Stripes at Target (for regular price of $4.99) and ended up giving it to him for doing so well potty training. 

Seth found Pickle, Zeg, and camo Blaze at Walmart the other day for $4.44 each. He texted me saying he found them and I immediately told him to get them. I'd never seen them at Target and they seem to be hard to find, so I told him to scoop them up then!

I found Gus and Joe at Target randomly the other day (for regular price - $4.99) when I was there shopping for something else. I think they were brand new because neither of them scanned when I took them to the cash register.

 

The same day I got Gus and Joe, I also found big horn truck. I know he's not new but I hadn't ever seen him before so I had to get him too. And then there's Starla. I literally went to Target for a couple things and had to (had to!) swing by the toy section on my way out, you know, just in case. Well I happened to see Starla and OF COURSE I had to get her. I feel like our monster truck collection is getting slightly out of hand and I told Seth we should probably return some, but let's be honest, I probably won't. #truth

Side note : I linked to them all on Amazon because it was the easiest to find them all but I would highly recommend NOT buying on Amazon because they are SUPER expensive there. Look at Target and Walmart first!


FOUR.
Hooray! It's Opening Day! 

It's so close to MLB's Opening Day and we are pretty excited over at my house! With Seth going to Arizona to see some Angels Spring Training games last weekend, he's definitely ready for the real baseball season to start. I must admit that I never really liked baseball before I met Seth but now I am a bandwagon Angels lover and I couldn't be happier to announce this fun new link up to help celebrate MLB's Opening Day. I've teamed up with some of my favorite bloggers to share our love of the Angels starting on Monday, April 4th (MLB Opening Day)! Posts will go live on Monday, April 4th and the link up will stay open through Sunday, April 10th. So, dress your kids up in your favorite baseball team apparel and show your support for your favorite team with us. Heck, even dress yourself up! Or your pets! We hope you'll join us and celebrate MLB's Opening Day!


FIVE.
Snapchat Filters.

I recently discovered all of snapchat's filters and let's just say I had a little too much fun last night. I always thought that you had to pay for the "fun filters" but I found out yesterday that you don't and Mason and I played around with them and I died laughing. If you follow me, let's just say, prepare for filter overload :)


And... that's all I got! I'm off to have a fun day exploring with Grandma and Grandpa. Happy Easter weekend!

Hippity Hoppity, Easter's on it's Way! [Mason's Easter Basket]

With Easter only a few days away, I'm excited to share Mason's Easter basket with you today! Even though I might be a scrooge when it comes to Valentine's Day and not really celebrate or do any gifts, Easter is a holiday that I love to put together a little something for Mason.

A couple weeks ago, I shared my Easter gift guide. And for Easter I pretty much got Mason everything off that gift guide... and then some.

As I mentioned previously, I like to give Mason gifts based on the gift guide that I found a long time ago on Pinterest (of course! ha) of : want, read, wear, need. For Easter, I feel like want and need are pretty similar though so I grouped them together.

WANT/NEED

For want/need, I'll start out with the food items. Mason doesn't really like candy (I know! Who's kid is he anyway??) so I opted for some more savory snacks. He LOVES goldfish and loves popcorn, and when I found these in the Easter dollar section, I scooped them up.

Mason has been really into cars and things with wheels lately. He's been loving the hot wheels cars that we got him in the past as well as the Blaze and the Monster Machines monster trucks. I got him four new hot wheels and... a lot of new monster trucks. Our collection started off with just Blaze and then was going to grow into Crusher for Easter. But then I started finding more and more and I just couldn't say no! #sucker. Shortly after we got Blaze and Crusher, I found Stripes and ended up giving it to him for doing so well potty training. Then I found the big horn truck, Gus, and Joe and of course I had to (had to!) get them as well. And Seth found Pickle, Zeg, and camo Blaze at Walmart yesterday (more on these good deals on Friday!) so... needless to say, we will have a small army of monster trucks once we give all of them to Mason. I only pulled out camo Blaze, Crusher, Pickle, and Zeg for Easter and plan to use the others as prizes for more good potty training days in the future.

I also got a couple of hot wheels tracks so we could try to set up some sort of track for him to drive his hot wheels cars on.

READ
For the read category, I thought I'd get some new Pete the Cat books. Mason calls them "Pete Cat" and asks for them daily so I thought I'd add a couple to the rotation. I had planned to give him both books on Easter but caved (see, #sucker!) and gave him the Easter one - Pete the Cat : Big Easter Adventure - already. I gave it to him a couple weeks ago and he literally asks to read it every night. For actual Easter, he's getting one of the classics, Pete the Cat : Rocking in My School Shoes. Believe it or not, as a big Pete lover, we don't have Rocking in my School Shoes yet!

WEAR

For the wear category, I got Mason some new Natives. I know it's kind of a funny Easter present to get shoes, but Mason seriously LOVES these shoes. No matter the weather, anytime I ask him to grab some shoes, he grabs the Natives. He's going to be so excited to see these new ones!

Did you share your Easter baskets today? If so, link up with us below and show us! I'm so excited to see what everyone else puts in their Easter baskets! The link up is open from today until March 30th, so no worries if you didn't share today -- there's still time!

An InLinkz Link-up

Weekending [Mommy and Mason Edition]

This past weekend, Seth went to Arizona to watch Angels spring training baseball. He went last year and a couple years before that and it's started to be a "guys weekend" tradition. It's four of them - Seth, his dad, our brother in law, and our brother in law's dad. Even though I'm pretty sure only Seth and his dad truly enjoy the baseball game, all the guys enjoy being together all weekend, drinking beer, watching baseball, and eating some amazing food. I love that he has such a good time and I, of course, love the one on one time with my little man.

The boys left not-so-bright and early at 5am on Friday morning. Me? I was still sleeping. A little while later, I woke up and got ready for work and Mason woke up shortly after that. Friday was business as usual. I dropped off Mason at school and went to work. I ended up getting off slightly early, so I went to Starbucks and worked on some stuff on the computer until Mason was done with speech at 4pm. I picked him up and we headed off to get his hair cut. He did exceptionally well during his hair cut and once we were done at 5:30pm, we were headed on our way back home to grab some dinner.

I opted for Chick-fil-a and decided to eat there instead of taking it home. I know this sounds crazy, but this was my first time taking Mason to a restaurant on my own. I've literally never taken him out to eat and eaten at a restaurant by ourselves; we're always with someone else. I'm happy to report that things went well!

Isn't my dinner date so cute with his new big boy hair cut?

It went so well in fact, that I decided to get us some ice creams to celebrate. Only...

Mason dropped his on the ground approximately 3 seconds after we got outside. He did SO well when we were heading outside and then when we went to sit down, he tried to stand it on the table and it just fell straight on to the ground. Fortunately for him, he has a nice mommy and I pretty much let him eat all of my cone with me intervening occasionally to clean up the cone and make sure it didn't totally drip all over.

Clearly he hated it.

Saturday morning, I had an early wake up call at 6am. We got up, watched some cartoons, ate breakfast, and had a lazy morning until we had to get ready for Mason's school. I attempted a few pictures before we left and he obliged for a little while and then he was over. it.

                  

While he was at school, I ran a couple errands including going to Target and shopping for some shoes for a wedding I'm in in May. I picked him up at 2pm, we came home, he took a nap, and then we had a nice, quiet night in since we're both recovering from colds. I put him to bed around 8pm and watched some TV by myself.

At some point I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to Mason crying hysterically and screaming around 1:30am. I rushed upstairs only to find that he was totally fine. I picked him up, came downstairs to turn off the lights that were on, and brought him in to my bed. I have no idea what the problem was, but we slept together all night long and woke up at 7am.

Again, we had a lazy morning and then headed to the grocery store to do some shopping. I ended up buying us both Starbucks' on the way out because when Mommy is in charge, everyone deserves a Starbucks while grocery shopping!

Shortly after we got home, we got a call from my sister in law and nieces asking if we wanted to meet at the park for a picnic, so we picked up some sandwiches and headed to a new-to-us park. My niece called it the "pirate park" because it had a pirate ship but Mason was most excited by the huge digger parked in the parking lot.

After a couple hours at the park, I thought for sure that he would be ready for a nap, so we headed home. I put him in his room for a nap while I baked some muffins, but to my dismay, there was no sleeping going on. Seth came home around 3:30pm and I ended up just getting Mason from his room. We visited with Daddy and Papa for a while before Papa headed home and we headed to Nanny's house for Sunday night dinner.

Overall, we had the BEST weekend together! As much as I love having Seth's help on weekends, it's nice to just have a Mommy and Mason weekend every once in a while too!