Fire 9 Family Picnic

Yesterday we went to the Fire 9 Family Picnic. I guess this is an annual event for Fire District 9. They had this jump castle in the shape of a fire truck. All the kids had a great time playing in it.Savannah, Isabella, Cooper, Mailee
Mason

Cooper wouldn't go down the slide. He wasn't scared or anything like that. I think he thought that if he went down the slide that he wouldn't get to go in the jump castle again. So I got in and helped him down the slide. The jump castle was really hard to walk in without falling over. When I sat down at the top of the slide, I pretty much fell over like a drunk person. (I seem to be doing "drunk people" things lately, huh Jared?) Once I recovered from my drunkenness, down the slide we went.....

Then Cooper was off for another turn in the fire truck.

They also had an obstacle course like the physical agility test that the recruits have to go through. Only the kids got candy at the end, instead of permission to puke like the recruits.

Mason's 4th Birthday Party

Mason's actual birthday got started off with the BEST present EVER! For me at least. My BFF Nicole and her little family arrived from Utah at 7:30 in the morning. It had been 1 year and 3 days since I'd seen them. Not that I was counting or anything....I'm just really good at remembering the day they moved....and the last day, OK and months I cried really hard.

Mason didn't have any presents from his dear ol' mom and dad to open, his present (and Cooper's) is right behind them in this picture. Mason and Cooper did get to open their present from Nicole and Ben though.

Mason REALLY wanted a skunk themed birthday party. Luckily we were able to convince him to change the theme to something easier to find party supplies for, or so we thought. Mason changed his mind to: Yup, Bob the Builder, piece of cake, right? Wrong. No one carries Bob the Builder stuff, not even bulldozer and back hoe knock offs. So here is what we came up with:

I (well Nicole) made a chocolate cake, thank you Nicole, with chocolate frosting. Then I crushed Oreo cookies, minus the filling, and put that on the cake. It was finished off with some sour worms and mini construction stuff. Mason was so proud of his cake, he insisted on taking a picture with it.
Once the party guests started to arrive, they all got right down to business playing in the dirt and on the new play set.

Ethan mowed the grass for Uncle Justin....uh...I mean Uncle Jeff. After all the guests had arrived we got down to real business, party business that is. First came the pinata....
Birthday Boy

Hannah

Cooper
Zachary

Isabella

Ashley

demolition of the pinata!

then the presents....

then singing to the Birthday boy....

Enjoying cake and ice cream with his Papa Borders.

Happy Birthday Mason!

I CAN NOT believe I have a four year old! Too crazy! Masno, I mean Mason is such a great son. He has a great personality and is sensitive to others and tells us all the time that he wubs (loves) us. Here is a look back at four years of Mason.

Birth
First Birthday

Second Birthday

Third Birthday

Fourth Birthday

I made a birthday cake for Mason today so he could celebrate with his cousins that I watch and also with our friends who are staying with us. We will be having his birthday party this Saturday, so I will post pictures of that later.

Shelf Reliance Give Away!

Shelf Reliance is giving away a Pantry 72" this Friday. I already have a Harvest #10 72" and LOVE it! Go to www.shelfreliance.com to enter or just click on the widget to the right.

Masno

A few weeks ago, we had two couples from our ward over for dinner. Mason spelled his name with our fridge magnets. He spelled his name M.a.s.n.o. Jarom saw that Mason spelled his name this way and started calling him Masno (Maz-no). All night long it was Masno this and Masno that. For the most part Mason took the teasing really well. The name has stuck and we have been calling Mason, Masno ever since. Mason has said that Jarom says, "hi Masno" to Mason at church. Then Mason will say, "that's so funny, Jarom calls me Masno". (Jarom is the Primary kids music teacher at church, so Mason gets to see Jarom in Primary every Sunday.)

Last night after getting Mason and Cooper into bed, Jeff and I were watching some TV and heard Cooper talking to himself saying, "Masno, Masno, Masno, Masno".

I'm thinking Mason has found a new nickname for himself....what do you think?

Aprons

Cooper wanted to wear my a-pin as he calls it. He thought he was quite the stud with mommy's apron on.

Mason wanted to be a stud too, so he found another apron to wear.

Play set extravaganza!

Every time we go to Costco, Mason begs to go look at the play set they have set up. He sits in the cart and drools over the play set, much like adult men do over hot rods, until I push the cart away from the play set (with lots of whining of course).

I really liked the play set, but HATED the price. We looked around for another, cheaper play set, but were disappointed at how cheaply made they all were. We found the same exact play set they sell at Costco at Spokane Discount, for much, much, less. So, we bought it last week.

Saturday morning we began the process of putting the set together. The instructions stated that it would take 18 hours to assemble, if only person is doing it with one adult helper. Jeff and I worked on it together for about 14 hours, Jared and Michelle came over and helped for 6 hours and Michael came over for 5 hours. And we STILL have a few hours of work left to do.

3 1/2 hours in5 hours in
6 1/2 hours in
Ethan helping out
messy Cooper
Mason man and his mommy
12 hours in

I wanted to post another picture of our progress made last night, but my camera is not working at the moment, thanks to a little boy with the name Mason...

hopefully the carmera will be working when we get the play set all done, so I can post a picture of the final product.

Photography by Mason

When I went to download all the pictures we took on Saturday of our new play set, I found about 40 pictures taken by a little boy about 3 1/2 feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Here is a sampling of his photography skills.the "dirt box"
one side of the yard
the beginnings of the picnic table on play set
wood
box of screws

tools

he said there was a plane in the sky

Garden 2009

Some of those 40 pictures taken by Mason were of our garden. I was just thinking yesterday that I should really take so pictures of the garden, now I don't need to, thanks to Mason. In the bottom left corner is the pumpkins, then the zucchini squash and cucumbers behind the pumpkins.
Cucumbers
Zucchini squash
Corn
Strawberries
Raspberries

Both my strawberries and raspberries were starts from other people, so I don't think I will get much from either of them this year.

What you get when...

the camera falls into the wrong hands!

The best medicine...

laughter.

I love to hear little kids laugh, espically mine. The both have the best laughs ever!

Fun on the 4th.

With everyone else posting about the fun filled 4th they had, I now feel obligated to blog about our 4th.

We were going to have a backyard camp out with Jared, Michelle, and Ethan, roast some marshmallows, sing campfire songs, and share fond memories of one another. But with my recent ER visit and throat dilation procedure, I really didn't feel up to planning a camp out. Sorry Jared and Michelle, maybe we can plan another one before you leave for good ol' Utah.

We started out our day by going out looking for a swing set. My Dad saw a "For Sale" sign for one in the valley, so we decided to go have a look. The swing set was very disappointing. Old. Homemade. Needs lots of work. No Thanks. Then it was off to Walley World to check out their selection. Disappointment yet again. Chincey. Over priced. No Thanks.

By the time we were done looking at swings, it was time for lunch and nap, so we swung though the fun and exciting drive through of our local Taco Bell. Cooper fell asleep on the way home, we tried to get him to sleep some more once we got home. He wasn't having it. He thought yelling, laughing, and keeping Mason awake was way more fun.

So after an hour of this, we got them up and went to Jeff's parents for a BBQ. Sorry no pictures, forgot the camera. I seem to be forgetting a lot lately, I wonder if something is wrong with me....

We got home from the BBQ around 5:45pm. Cooper was REALLY feeling the consequences of deciding to play earlier in the day instead of sleeping, so he retired to his crib at 6:15. Mason followed by 7:30.

As for Jeff and I, well, my mind is drawing a blank as to what we did with the rest of our evening, must have been real exciting, something like watching TV.

So there you have it, our 4th. Not too exciting, really, just another day in the life of the Borders.

Update

I thought I would take a moment to update everyone on how my recovering is going.

As yesterday progressed my pain got much better. I was able to eat some noodles last night and only had a little pain swallowing, as long as I chewed each bite fifty million times.

Today has be a 360 degree turn around! The pain is much better! It feels like I just have a soar throat now. I didn't eat much until dinner though because I was so sick of eating yogurt and applesauce for every meal. I was absolutely STARVING by the time dinner came so I loaded up my plate with some of my yummy home-made pizza, salad, and fresh fruit. It probably took me over 45 minutes to eat it all, but it was well worth it.

ER Visit

I have a pocket in my throat just above my esophagus. I found out that I had this pocket on Jeff's baptism day (September 29, 2001). We went to Golden Corral afterward to celebrate. I ate one piece of pork and it got stuck. The pork was so stuck that I couldn't even swallow my own saliva. We ended up in the ER that night having an endoscope put down my throat to push the pork down the rest of the way. After letting my throat heal for a month or so, I went in to have my throat dilated.

Then in 2005 I started to feel like food was having a harder time going down my throat, so I went in and had my throat dilated again.

Tuesday night we were signed up to feed our missionaries dinner. I made BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, and zucchini squash. We sat down to eat about 6:30pm. I cut up my chicken into small pieces and took one bite. I soon noticed that the chicken wasn't going down, so I got up from the table and went upstairs to my bathroom to try to push down the chicken with some water. Usually I can gulp some water and whatever is stuck will be forced down. Not this time, just like the time at Golden Corral, I couldn't even get my saliva down. So when I tryed to swallow the water, and it wouldn't go down, I would have to puke it back up. Fun. Fun. Let me tell you! After trying this for about a half hour, with no success, I went down stairs and asked Jeff and the missionaries to give me a Priesthood blessing. I then went back upstairs and continued trying to get the chicken unstuck. I was finally able to get the chicken to move a little so I could swallow my saliva. At around 10:30pm I drank about 6ozs. of milk, this took me about 30 minutes just to get in down.

After that I decided to go to bed in hopes that my throat muscles would relax enough for the chicken to get unstuck and go down. I woke up Wednesday morning and the chicken was still stuck. Jeff called in sick to work, we dropped the boys off at some friends of ours, and we were off to SHMC ER. Luckily there wasn't anyone in the waiting room so we got right in.

My nurse got right to work on plan A: she put in an IV and put some medicine in the IV that is suppose to relax my throat muscles enough for the stuck chicken to be able to go down on its own. The medicine is suppose to work within 45 minutes. (They tried this the last time in 2001 and it didn't work.) If, after 45 minutes, the food was still stuck, it would be onto plan B. Well plan A did not work, so plan B it was. A gastroentologist (sp) was called in. I was taken to endoscopy and put to sleep. The Dr. put an endoscope down my throat and pushed the chicken down into my stomach. During the procedure he also dilated my throat.

This time has been way different that the two times before. I am in SO much more pain! Because the chicken was stuck for a longer period of time, and they pushed the chicken down and dilated my throat in the same procedure, my throat hurts way more. It also hurts all the way down to the top of my stomach any time I have to swallow. I don't remember having any pain past my throat the last time. I also can't take deep breaths with out it hurting really bad.

Yesterday I could literally feel everything going down until it would reach my stomach. It hurt so bad that I would usually be in a hunched over position until it reached my stomach. (it even hurt to swallow my saliva) So, I was basically in a hunched over position all day. From Tuesday at 12:30 until now (Thursday morning) I have only been able to eat probably about a cup and a half of soft food (yogurt, applesauce, and ice cream). And I have only been able to drink a few ounces of water. (The bite of chicken that got stuck at 6:30 Tuesday night was my first bite of food)

Since I can't eat anything but soft foods, I also can't swallow any pain pills. The hospital didn't give me any prescriptions or anything and Target pharmacy didn't have anything over the counter in adult strength. So I am stuck taking the Children's strengths, but they don't make the pain go away, they just make it so I am not hunched over in pain every time I swallow.

Oh and unfortunately for me, the dilation procedure is not a permanent fix. My throat will go back down to its normal size after about one year. I have heard that there is a new procedure that is suppose to basically dilate the throat permanently. The last I heard, it was still in its trail phase, not an accredited procedure. I don't want to be a Genia pig and have the procedure go wrong and end up with a feeding tube the rest of my life.