My Matthew, man is he a good dad

I saw a glimpse of what a great dad Matt would be when I first started dating him. He has 7 nieces and nephews and his gentleness and patience with them was very attractive. How he is with our fury kids and his grandparents proved time and time again what a wonderful father he would be...so on that snowy day in November when Mason arrived via C-section Matt instantly assumed the role of father. Never leaving our little guys side.

I saw something on dateline a few weeks ago and Chris Rock the comedian said "80% of being a good dad, is just being there." I wish he would have defined that a little more. Being there in person physically, mentally, and emotionally is 100% what Matt does. He is one awesome dad and as the woman in love with him, I fall in love with him time and time again.

He is a hands on dad. From changing diapers, to giving baths, playing, reading, and lots of huggin and kissin...which makes the lack of help during those middle of the night hours acceptable. Hey I didn't say he was perfect but darn close.

We share a deep love for the outdoors, our families, knowledge, and each other and he shows that to Mason everyday!

A family member recently complimented us while on vacation and it made me love and appreciate him even more. Matt's Aunt Janet said "It was so nice to see how we handle Mason
as a team." I love that. The days of Mom does all are a thing of the past. Raising children is a team effort and we are a team and though we bicker like ever other couple we always come back to each others side knowing our love for one-another and most importantly Mason is the number one thing in our lives. Thanks Babe for being such a wonderful Dad to our baby, you will have more of an effect on his place in this world that you will ever know.

On a less mushy gushy note...Matt passed the PE. I think the photo above describes how he feels about it. He also is starting a new job tomorrow and though change is always scary, we know that it is the right decision for our family.

Come back soon...I am going to try and post more frequently. Also our Crested Butte trip photos will provide an Internet scenic tour if you need a few minute escape from reality.

That was a close call....

As you may have noticed our blog and e-mail have been MIA since Friday....but we are back in action. Someone hijacked our google account and sent out some lovely Viagra e-mails to everyone in our address book....this made google mad so they temporarily disabled our e-mail and blog. The e-mail was ok, fixable, but our blog, so many memories. I cried and cried trying to figure out how I would tell Mason that I did not have any tangible information about his life thus far.

I contacted google daily....and when I almost gave up hope, they let me in! Thank you google person who restored our accounts. Let this serve as a reminder that I will back up our blog and print out info from Mason's first year (at a minimum).
The same friday that we were hijacked our landscaping was too! Just as we were packing up our cars and getting ready to head to my parents for the night this lovely storm came over the foothills. Literally, in 30 seconds of loading Mason in his carseat and me sitting in the car the heavens unleashed some huge hail.....

Mason and I sat in my car looking at Matt standing on our porch helpless. The hail was so loud you couldn't hear. I wasn't worried about the hail as much as the tornado warnings along the front range. I looked back at Mason and he was kind of scared so I asked him "do you want me to sing to you?" and he shook his head "yes" So I belted out "Wheels on the bus" as loud as I could muster. I am not sure what is scarier...me singing, our golf ball size hail? Matt, don't answer that.

After about 5 minutes there was a break in the weather and Matt rescued us with a huge box over our heads. Our trees and flowers did not fare so well....and our street looks like a tornado hit.



But as with all storms in life they eventually have to move on and the sun will shine again. Guess I am feeling philosophical today...I am overwhelmed with joy that our memories were retrieved from the world wide web and I can blog again. Also thanks to our local news station I was able to "borrow" these weather pictures.



We are heading on a little adventure with family so we will talk to you next week, at which point I will share some really exciting news. No. I am not pregnant.

Heat wave

After seeing a FB status posted by my cousin Katie "stating it was a 111 in the southern California desert" I feel like a real wimp saying its been HOT:) But the middle 90's seem like a real scorcher to me, especially in early June. So what do you do when god turns up the heat?

You get naked....Friday evening the whole family hung out on the deck naked...just kidding. We just let our kid do that.

Have you meet our son Claus? Matt and I kid that some ancient German stock genes combined to form Mason. The kid loves to power lift things and when he is angry he has to lift or throw something. So we use our best Arnold accent (I know he is not German) and we joke with each other...this helps us get through the stressful moments of parenting.

Why are all these normal activities so much cuter when he doesn't have clothes on?

And when do kids realize their reflection is their reflection? Mason sees himself and says "Hi Me" and than he throws the ball to his reflection. He also kisses his reflection, we are big on self love in this house.

On a side note: as a mom who is only 18 months into this parenting thing I have to reflect on something and laugh. Your child's stats! When he was baby I felt this was something that defined who Mason was and you post every one of them on your blog and tell people..."Ya my son is in the 90th percentile for weight" like its telling people "Mason just got into Harvard."
So with that said I am not posting this current stat for a bragging reason but more as a record because I am sure I will misplace that little post-it the doctor gives me and when he is older I will want to remember this for some odd reason.

He was in the 95th percentile for height at his 18 month which means he going to Harvard:). Like I said ancient German stock. We love you Claus...I mean Mason.

CBS Sunday Morning is a Mason favorite

Not into Seasame street yet...how about Builder Bob? Or those weird dinasour things on PBS in the morning...NOPE. But the intro to CBS Sunday Morning comes on and Mason stops in his tracks! Man I love this kid.

Memorial Day and DIYers

The holiday weekend began on Thursday for Mason and I when a BIG dump truck arrived to deposit all this rock in my driveway. My husband the engineer/athlete/landscape/fix anything himselfer had big plans for our back yard and he spent most of last week prepping for his precious rocks. Mason and I just climbed them and threw them.


See that look, that is the look of mischief...but see those flowers (lilacs) in the background those are the sign of summer. Every time I walk out our front door, I stop and bask in their aroma. I would like to rub them on myself but our neighbor's already think I'm odd and I don't need to feed the gossip mill.

Anyways, I would like to point out a Colorado fashion statement...so its warm enough to have shorts and a T-shirt on in the morning but socks are still needed with your sandals. Ya its cool and so are Mason's fleece diapers!

I would also like to report that Mason has begun his training for the Boulder Boulder next year...Nick he can run in the same heat as you! Seriously this kid is fast or maybe its that I am slow but regardless he loves to run.

"Whoa that was some good runnin Mama how about we stretch, get something to snack on and head over to meet Baby Ari"

This is baby Arianna "Ari" Borrego. Is she not the cutest cupcake you have ever seen? Only 3 months and has more hair than Matt.

She is the daughter of a good friend of mine, Alicia. Mason and I went over to finally meet her and catch up with our new mommy. She is such a good baby and I told Alicia you are so lucky. Please don't get me wrong but Mason was a high maintenance baby and I love him no less but I do admire these good easy going babies and can only pray that Gilbreath baby # 2 will not follow suite to her big bro.

Congratulations Chuck and Alicia! She is one cutie but you might want to lock her up in lets say 15 years.




SO back at the ranch...the landscaping project had begun

It doesn't seem like much but when your name is Matt Gilbreath and you are a perfectionist it takes some time to get the job done to your standards. Nice straight line honey, did you really lay 60 of those bricks yourself?

Mason and I "helped" if you mean by help drove Matt crazy!

I love DIY projects because you always forget something or don't have enough of something and you have to hop in the car and head to the "Deper" (That's our nickname for home depot) at 7:30 at night when your toddler should be getting ready for bed but instead you feel like since it is a Friday night maybe getting out of the house would be like an adventure plus the deper is only 5 minutes from our house.

So you get the lil' whipper snapper in the cart

All seems good until

you didn't give him the camera and he flips out in the checkout line...that's what I get for wanting a "late night" outing.

BUT After a good nights sleep and a whole lot of shoveling of rock first thing in the morning (I actually did help with this while Mason napped) we cleaned up and headed to a party.

We saw lots of good friends and Mason tried to jack Sawyer's keys until Sawyer sat on Mason just kidding. I love when babies are in their chunky phase and Sawyer is one plump lil' monkey.

We celebrate our good friend Wes's 30th, his wife Amanda's graduation from Med School, and than wished them farewell because they moved to Phoenix yesterday where she will complete her residency. Looks like we will have to go and visit the land of the sun but maybe we will wait until the winter or at least fall. Congrats, good luck, we will miss you and please come back someday:)

Oh yeah and Mason and Matt went for a swim, the end.

Until Sunday that is...man this story seems long but trust me its worth it.

After another labor intensive morning and a run, we drove up to my parents for some BBQ and R and R. They had been raking all morning and we had been shoveling, so we decided our work was harder than theirs...here is our kid...we are going to take a nap...

We didn't really nap but we did stare off into space a lot and mumble words like "no more shovel"

Mason on the other hand found the mountain air energizing. You can't tell in the picture but Mason does not have a diaper on. We let him run naked quite often but my dad and Matt decided to snap his onesie because they feared where splinters might end up if he were to fall on the deck..ha ha.

Ok so the end is not totally worth it to our readers but to the owner of this backyard it is....

good job honey, thanks for all your hard work!

But um there is still a lot of rock in our driveway...do you need me to review some simple math equations like calculating a volume?

What's that? You are going to rock the side of our driveway as well. Hmmm that wasn't in the contract I signed off on.

Our hardworking family and friend filled weekend was great! But taking a few minutes to reflect on our freedom and give thanks is really what this weekend is all about. To our grandfathers who served in the WWII and Korea, our uncles and my dad who served in Vietnam, our cousins and friends who served in the military during times of peace and to all the people whom we don't know personally who serve(d) and gave your time or the ultimate price your life so we can live in a FREE country....we will never be able to thank you like we should but we will hang our flag in your honor. Amen!