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!