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.