Christmas 2010!

Christmas 2010 was AWESOME! Here is a breakdown of all the going-ons.

Saturday, Dec. 19: Rob, Mason and I went to Weber Dam to see the Christmas lights display they do every year. We got to ride on a horse drawn sleigh through all of the lights. That part was amazing- (waiting for over an hour to get on the ride was not so amazing). Despite the freezing cold and long wait Mason was a trooper. He just hung out in his stroller and pointed at everything and everyone that came by.

Thursday, Dec. 23: We had the opportunity to visit Clayton and Jean for an absolutely FANTASTIC dinner! I learned something new while there. For all the rest of you as uncultured as I, apparently melting cheese on your apple pie (or whatever pie) is a very popular thing to do. Does that sound as weird to anyone else as it did to me? I decided to try it and honestly, it was REALLY good. :) We then continued our trip to Fillmore.

Friday, Christmas Eve: My dad and Rob went out Coyote hunting first thing in the morning. The rest of us stayed warm and cozy at the house. When they got back my dad got to work digging steps into one of the giant snow piles next to the house while Rob and I went to find some snow boots for Mason. We wanted to take him sledding. Unfortunately in a town of only 2500 people and three stores, chances of success on this kind of venture are virtually nil. So, Mason had to make do with just his shoes. (No we are not bad parents, it’s just that Roy has not gotten enough snow yet this winter to need boots). As is typical Mason, he wasn’t sure what to think about the sled ride…no emotion...except for maybe a little distress...(sigh)-haha!

(This next part not suitable for young children) We had a delicious turkey dinner and that night Rob and I got to play the role of Santa Claus for the first time! “Santa” got Mason an absolutely beautiful blue tricycle complete with tassels and a bell. Grandma Day got him a little wagon full of blocks he could push around (this info will become pertinent in the next paragraph). In addition, every year our neighbors (in Fillmore) do a Christmas Eve party with a talent show and food. Mason danced and did somersaults and clapped for himself…I would give anything to have a video of it, but I just don’t.

Saturday, CHRISTMAS DAY!: Christmas morning we woke up about 7:50. I got situated behind the main “Santa” presents, camera in hand to record the excitement I knew would be on Mason’s face when he saw his presents. Here is that moment:

(Yep. That’s right. The wagon and beautiful blue trike were overlooked because of a little plastic frog worth about two pennies.) That afternoon we went to my grandma’s for a delicious ham dinner; after which everyone took a little nap…except for Mason…and I. That’s ok though because after dessert the family was kind enough to watch him while I took a nap. yea! Rob then took me out for a night on the town. This means we went to Maverick and got some chips and dip (only place open Christmas day) then came back to the house and watched Pirates of the Caribbean. Simple but I loved it!

Sunday, Dec. 26: After morning church it was time to say good-bye. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but luckily we had a couple fun stops on the way. First we stopped at a friend’s of mine in South Jordan. I’ll just say this: most gorgeous home EVER! (Well, that' I’ve been in). Would I live in it? No. I can’t keep a single bedroom apartment clean… This friend has a little boy not even two weeks older than Mason name Treyson (side note: the oldest boy of the family is named Morgan which is what our baby #2 will most likely be named). I was really hoping they would be the best of friends right off the bat, but as it is with most toddlers, they didn’t really seem to notice the other was there unless the “other” was stealing a toy or sippy cup. haha! Maybe when they get a little older…

Anyway… after a lot of visiting, cheesecake, razzleberry pie, icecream, crackers, BSing, and so forth, we let them get back to their Sunday afternoon.

The last stop on the Christmas Express was Rob’s family. It was a lot of fun visiting with them and opening presents. Mason had a blast playing with Rob’s little sisters and his new toys.

We got a couple of family pictures with Grandpa Matheson* and then made the last leg of our journey home.

Monday, Dec. 27: Monday night we decided Mason’s new Christmas toys needed to be properly broken in. I like to call it the ‘After Christmas’ party. Rob and Mason were SOOOO cute playing together; they are the best of friends. (+++)

Thanks for sharing Christmas with us!

*This is wonderful and amazing because Rob’s grandfather passed away the next night (Monday). When I get the pics from his mom I will post them.

Journal Entry

It's been a couple of weeks, and I realized there are several things I never blogged about; mostly because I don't have pictures. This is a journal entry for me to catch up on little things here and there we've done, so not really for entertainment purposes.

In November Rob and I had the opportunity to use his company box seats at the Jazz vs Clippers game. A week or two later we took Mason to the BYU USU basketball game, and holy cow was that fun! (Despite USU losing...) There were a lot of USU fans there, so both teams had an awesome cheering section. As such, any time either team scored and the crowd started to go wild, Mason would also go wild. He would clap as fast and hard as he could, and screech, and wave his arms around and bounce up and down. hahaha! He was a very good equalizer for Rob and I since neither of us could convince him to cheer for only "our" team.

Last of all, about three weeks ago we took Mason to the Chuck 'e Cheese in Layton. We thought there would be a ball section with a bunch of those little plastic colored balls they used to have in McDonalds, but such is not the case. That's ok. He had fun anyway...for the most part. As you can see on one of the videos he takes after his mom and is deathly afraid of any kind of amusement park ride...haha! Poor guy...he'd better brave up or life's going to be hard. Here are a few shots/videos of him seeing all the sights. We did use $1 in tokens; Mason won the most tickets out of all of us which we traded in for suckers.

Honestly I think he was the most amazed/entertained by the man playing basketball.

And here he is with some awesome ticket winning game moves and dance moves. Pay no attention to the squeaky voice in the background.

And lastly we learn the sad truth of Mason's fear of rocking rides...(and mother and father's lack of videoing capabilities).

The fun didn't stop with Chuck e' Cheese. Up the road from said establishment is a Krispy Kreme which offers free glazed donuts at night. We took them up on their offer and enjoyed every sugary, oozy minute of it.

You can never get too much of a fresh, hot, krispy kreme donut.... or a night of family fun which only costs $1! :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had the opportunity of spending this Thanksgiving with Rob’s family down in Salt Lake. We arrived about 9am. Rob spent the day hanging out with his little bro Adam; Mason got to play with the girls, and I helped do some cooking. I only sliced my finger once! About 3:50 the guests started to arrive. Rob’s step-brother Nate, and his family were the first to come. Grandpa Matheson followed; then Rob’s uncle Frank and fam, some of Brian’s cousins, and then the Iraqi/Pakistan crew. (These are refugees which have moved close to the neighborhood Rob’s family has befriended; very interesting to hear about their experiences in the Middle East!) Frank’s wife is from India, so both sides of the globe were very well represented. Everyone brought a traditional food or two which made an awesome meal!

That night we went to see Clayton and Jean for some DELICIOUS pumpkin pie, and then off to Roy again.

Friday we went shopping for a Christmas tree and a few “stocking stuffers”. It’s fun living in a place where you can hit a lot of different stores…and having a toddler so you can shop in front of him w/o him really catching on…and having a toddler who appreciates toys and so will appreciate Christmas—not that that’s all Christmas is about…. I don’t know what I’m going to do next year when he’s old enough to understand.

Saturday we put up our Christmas tree. Mason was very helpful as shown in the video below:

It was so funny to see him get so excited about the lights and the red and silver balls! Because of his excitement (and his need to play with the shiny, round things) we decided not to decorate the bottom half of the tree. (Yes he can still reach that little red one. I need to move it).

All in all I think it’s a very pretty tree, and we keep it lit all the time! (Because like Mason, I am a sucker for little lights—and please notice the Dt coke can on top. This is the same can which has adorned our Christmas trees ever since we got married).

After the Christmas tree we got the nativity scene put up. Mason has a BLAST moving the little figures around, and he knows the shepherd is the one with the stick. (For some reason, he does not allow one of the cows or the camel to be in the cave/stable with everyone else).

And this is the part where disaster strikes. I was trying to decide what to do with a beautiful Christmas candy house I have, when all the sudden I heard running and then tripping over garland. I heard Mason start crying and turned around to see him sprawled on the floor. Now, in my defense, he falls and cries all the time so my reaction time was not very superb. Rob got to him before I did, and when he lifted him up there was blood all over his face! I started swearing, and Rob did the more practical thing of taking him to the sink to wash him off. He starts yelling at me to call his brother Paul to see what we should do. I said, “He’s not going to know anything we don’t know”, but…I did it anyway. He didn’t answer and I came back in the room and got a bag of ice. We stuck it on his forehead and off to his doctor,s/the insta-care we went. Now, I’ve always known this day was going to come, but I had hoped it would be later rather than sooner. I am MOST GRATEFUL this year, though, that it happened when Rob was around. Mason was screaming bloody murder, but I think it was more from the cold of the ice than anything. Once we got in the nurse cleaned it up and the doctor concluded that super glue was the best solution. Once there was no more ice on his head and his wound was glued shut he calmed back to his normal self.

I think Rob and I were more traumatized than Mason, so to calm ourselves we went to Wingers. haha! When we got home there was a lot of blood to clean up off of people and carpets and cabinets. I can’t believe how much facial injuries bleed! Later that day Rob and Mason went down to Salt Lake for a couple hours to spend time with Adam on his birthday, and I took care of a few Christmas things. It was a big day for father and son, and by 8pm I found them both like this in front of the movie Cars:

It was a VERY exciting/unusual/adrenaline rush weekend!

Halloween-&- The “Feminine” Side of Mason :)

Halloween was super fun! Since Mason loves dogs so much, that was his costume this year. Our ward had a chili cook-off and trunk-or-treat. The chili was AMAZING and the company was a lot of fun. Mason may not know how to say “trick-or-treat” but he can hold out a beggars hand and grab candy like the best of them. HE LOVED IT! Here he is with his basket of goodies and a couple of fellow doggy friends who came to the party.

On Sunday Rob had to fly out to Chicago for work. This meant a trip to Fillmore for Mason and I. We had so much fun! We did the usual such as go for walks, drive trucks, and talk to the great Grandparents’ cow, but Mason also did some fun things which may be classified as more on the “feminine” side…

He did dishes,

some tumbling,

some dancing,

ignored the man of the house (at the beginning of this video my dad his telling him to stop),

talked on the phone,

and did some delegating. My parents had a bunch of balloons left over from Halloween. Many were tied up in a bunch, and he kept giving them to my mom or dad to shake. At one point he saw that there were two loose balloons. He picked up one, looked at it, and then handed it to my dad (my mom had the balloon bunch). He then picked up the other one, looked at it, and then handed it to me. Next he pointed and grunted at each of us as if to say “get to work shaking those balloons and entertaining me”.

What can I say? We had fun!

Cousins!!!

Last Friday (holy cow, I can’t believe it’s already been a week ago!), Rob’s brother and family drove down all the way from Washington for a fun visit! So much to say and so much to do that I’d better just tell the story in pictures with one or two line captions.

Friday Night

Aaron, Brit, June (2.8) and Logan (15 months) came to our house in Roy. The night was spent watching Mulan and eating delicious popsicles.

 

Saturday

Saturday morning we met Grandpa Clayton and his friend Jean for breakfast at Marie Calendar’s. They gave each of the grandkids some fun books.

 

Next the guys went shooting while the women-folk and kids went to the zoo with Grandma Strong and Aunt Nicole and Julia. The best part was the carousel!

 

That night we all attended an extended family party in Salt Lake, then home again, home again to baths and bedtime.

Sunday

Sunday we had a leisurely morning and went to church in the afternoon. (Mary Ann and Clayton, you owe me big bucks for this pic).

  (no, I am not in any of these pictures; my way cute sister-in-law is though!) Afterwards we drove to the cabin near Oakley.

Monday

Monday we spent at the cabin, and woke up to four inches of snow!!! This meant a morning of pulling kids behind the suburban in a sled. So much fun!

Since we hadn’t really planned on snow, the kids were soon wet and we didn’t have TONS of clothes for back-up, so we were off again by the early afternoon. That night Brit and Aaron went to SL to celebrate their anniversary (Happy Anniversary last month!) while we watched the kids. It was SUCH A BLAST to have them down, and we MISS having them closer. To get a much better write-up of the weekend and more cute, cute pics, (and because honestly, her blog is much cuter than mine) please visit Brit’s blog at: http://stevens1007.blogspot.com/ . YEA!

The Cabin—&—My Two Boys

The Cabin

This past weekend we had the opportunity to hang out with Rob’s family at their cabin near Oakley, Ut. The bright yellow aspens contrasted beautifully with the dark green pines! One of the families has horses, and Mason had fun poking his finger into the nose of a very patient horse. The inlaws and outlaws went for a ride in the mountains in the back of our old truck. We also drove to the picturesque Smith & Moorehouse reservoir. Rob took me on the four wheeler into the mountains which were gorgeous. We rode back late in the day, with the sun lying low on the horizon; making our surroundings appear to be pillowy soft with gilded edges. It was exceptionally relaxing to know Mason was safe with the grandparents back at the cabin while Rob and I had some time to ourselves. The good Lord really blesses us. Thanks so much to Rob’s family for the fun visit (and for drinking all of Mason's whole milk necessitating another trip to the store).

Baby Boy #2

Today I had my ‘target ultrasound’ to make sure baby is growing properly. It was amazing to see his little hands and feet and face! I also got to see his heart and the four chambers. This was most cool to me, because although I’ve seen many pictures and movies about the heart; and I’ve seen pigs and other animals’ hearts; this was my baby’s and I just thought it was awesome (plus this heart was in full function and when you dissect an animal that is usually not the case). The ultrasound tech said everything looked perfect and he’s in a great position. His length is 6 days ahead of schedule and his weight (1 lb 6 oz) is 5 days over, but that that was ok. She also said he has a cute little nose and a very round little forehead; haha! Sounds like Mason all over again already… Here is a picture of his little foot and his onery little face (I apologize if ultrasound pictures gross anyone out).

My Mason

Yesterday Mason turned 18 months and also had his first real day of nursery! We only had to rescue him twice for being sad and missing us, so I count it as a success. Today he had his 18 month check-up and his last shot until kindergarten!!!! YEA! Here are his stats: * 25.13 lbs, 50th percentile * 32.5 inches, 50th percentile. He grew TWO full inches since his last appointment; and he’s right there in the middle! The PA said he looks very healthy, wealthy and wise (ok, maybe not the wealthy part). He is where he should be developmentally except for his speech. We were told just to keep working with him on it. The nurse and dr were VERY impressed because he stayed quite calm during the entire visit. The dr kept saying over and over again “most 18 months old just scream and scream”, but not my Mason- as the nurse said, “he’s the perfect specimen of a little boy”!!! And now, for my memory’s sake, some of his daily doings and likes and dislikes.

LIKES:

• cars, trucks, and diesels especially
• the Disney movie “Cars”
• Airplanes
• the great outdoors
• any furry, four-legged creature
• rocks
• water (as in rivers, lakes, etc)!!!
• bath time and brushing his teeth
• his slide and ladder
• the park
• swings
• BOOKS!
• milk, marshmallows, peaches, tomatoes, bread, pasta, juice, kidney beans, and carrots
• WHEELS!

DISLIKES:

• the vacuum
• bedtime/naptime
• being indoors
• the shower
• baths at other people’s houses
• getting his diaper on

DAILY DOINGS

Every day we go for a walk outside, and every day he stops at the rock piles and throws rocks around. He especially has fun when the gutter has water in it and he can throw rocks into the water. He waves at every car/truck/etc which drives by. He loves watching dirt fall from his hands/shovel to the ground. We read several books several times a day. He climbs up his treehouse and slides down the slide; makes me roll his truck up the slide to him; and then makes me push him in the swing. He takes a bath each morning and LOVES IT! Each afternoon we go for a little drive to put him down for his nap. Every night he runs to his daddy when he walks in the door from work, and immediately becomes his best friend and most advent follower. I love my little Mason and cannot imagine life without him :)