December Activities

We had a very fun December. First for my birthday Christopher took me and our friends the Renchers up to Vancouver for bowling and food. When we got to the bowling alley all the Canadian 5 pin bowling was taken so we bowled the normal 10 pin game for about 30 mins till a lane opened up.  The 5 pin bowling was different but really fun. First of all they only have 5 pins, and the pins are more rubbery, you get three bowls per frame, the ball is a lot smaller and all the balls weigh the same.

We loved being able to chuck the little ball and see how many pins we could knock down. Then it was interesting trying to decipher how they scored, they had the total listed but sometimes there would be a letter like Y, HP, Io, R, or other things. We still haven't looked up what they meant but it was a blast.

For lunch we went to get chinese food since I have been craving it and haven't found anything great in Bellingham yet. We went to the Peaceful Restaurant one I saw featured on Food Network's Diner's, Drive In's and Dives. It was amazing, we got pan fried dumplings, a chicken dish, noodles, and a one-of-a-kind beef roll. I was in heaven, I was so happy to finally have good chinese.

I had a great birthday and loved being able to spend the day with Christopher and our friends.

Christmas

We had Christmas down in California this year and had a very fun filled time.  We got to spend time with all my siblings and Mason got to see his whole family and play with his cousins.

Some of the things we were able to do this trip were:

See Santa- We saw Santa at both my in-law's ward Christmas party and at my parents house. Mason was great both times and didn't cry at all

Go to different parks- Mason loved being able to have new parks to play at and have cousins to play with. It made it so much more fun for him having friends to run around with.

Bike Ride- The boys were the ones that went out mountain biking a couple of times, the first time they went it had rained pretty hard the day before so they came back extremely dirty but they had a blast. They also went road biking one day with all the boys and Tori. My mom says that Christopher was a bad influence on my dad going on the ride and having so much fun that now my dad wants to buy a mountain bike.

Bounce at a bouncy house- The day we originally planned on going to Fairytale Town it was closed so we went to Party Palace that had some arcade stuff, bouncing things and slides. Mason loved playing basketball, jumping around and shooting the ball. He also loved pretending to drive the snowmobile on one of the games.

Take Family pictures- Since we actually had everyone together we took family pics, which with the size of my family you can only imagine the chaos. It actually went pretty quick and had minimal amounts of complaining and we got a few good shots. The best was watching the people act funny to get the kids' attention to look at the camera.

Play in the backyard- There was a lot of time spent playing in the backyard. It was so nice to have a space fenced in for Mason to play around outside as long as he wanted, without me being with him the whole time.  The kids loved the trampoline, climbing on the play structure and going down the slide, playing baseball, running around on the tennis court, kicking balls, and swinging on the swing.

Decorate gingerbread men- We decided not to do full-on houses and opt out for gingerbread men instead, the kids didn't care one bit. I could barely get the candy on the gingerbread man fast enough before Mason snatched it off to eat. He loved being able to have lots and lots of candy and treats at Grammie and Paka's house.

Christmas Bingo- Normally we do bingo with Christopher's family at Thanksgiving and it's Turkey bingo, but I thought it would be fun to do bingo with all of my family at Christmas.  They loved it, The kids made their bingo boards with pictures and were so excited to open their prize when they got a bingo. 

 The adults were almost more fun to watch. When you got a bingo you had to "Ho..Ho...Ho.." and some of the results were awesome. Shaun called his out so fast you could hardly understand it, and Brittany had one where she was a little excited and ended up saying it almost three times more than necessary. I loved being able to call out the words and listen to everyone say"One more...just one more."  Or, "Enough with 'Over the River' already."  The prizes were a laugh and we had fun playing with them.

Frisbee Golf- We borrowed some frisbees from a friend of ours and with his fribees, our own, and an early present of frisbees my dad got we had enough for everyone to go out and play frisbee golf two different times. It was windy and pretty cold but we had a lot of fun anyway.  Watching and listening to people throw the frisbees was great. 

We had some pretty good throws and some that ended up in crazy places. I was glad that I wore my rain boots that day and was able to fish out the three or so that didn't make it over the water hazard we encountered. Tori threw hers up into a tree so she climbed on up and threw it from there. The kids were good considering how cold it was and Mason was a dream sitting quietly in the stroller the whole time.

Nativity- Every Christmas Eve the kids re-enact the nativity and this year Mason was a wise man. I know I'm biased because he's my kid, but he was the cutest wise man ever.  He didn't do exactly what he was supposed to, he gave his gift to the baby but changed his mind and took it back.  It was so fun to have that tradition along with rice pudding where we all say a rhyme and eat rice pudding hoping for the lone almond so our wish will come true. 

 

Presents- We were able to open the pj's my mom makes for us every year on Christmas Eve but all the other presents had to wait till morning. 

Christmas morning we got to sleep till about 7am when Mason woke up. We took him over to the room with the rest of the kids until everyone was ready then we headed down the stairs.  

Mason got a magna-doodle and ABC/123 superhero book from Santa.  He wasn't too interested in opening presents at first and was too impatient to wait his turn to come around each time so he took a breakfast break and came back later.

Once he opened up a couple and understood the things were his, he kicked it into high gear and continued to open each and every one of his presents within a few minutes.  He loves all of his gifts and we are so grateful to everyone who got them for him, and for all the gifts we got too!

 

 

We also got a chance to skype with my sister Wynne who is currently serving a mission in Brasil, we are so proud of her and can't wait to see her very soon.

Fairtytale town- We checked to make sure it was open before we went the second time and we did make it to FairytaleTown. It's mostly slides and fun things for the kids to climb on.  Mason saw the cow through the gate as we were walking toward the entrance and wasn't really interested in anything until we had seen the cow.

 After that he could thoroughly enjoy himself and loved seeing the other animals, going down all the slides, and running the crooked mile 5 or 6 times. 

 

Leatherby's-  A trip back home would be incomplete without Leatheryby's.  Christopher and I split thinking I wouldn't be able to eat a whole sundae by myself, and I left as I always do wanting more, but this time I could have actually eaten more. I wasn't too heartbroken considering how many treats I had eaten over the last week and a half. Mason got his own bowl of sorbet and downed it within a couple minutes and asked for more.  I guess next time we'll have to make sure he has enough also.  It was so good and we will be looking forward to it next time.

We loved our time there and are so grateful to spend the holiday with family. Thanks to everyone for the presents, laughs and memories. We love you guys!

October Fun

We loved October. The weather is cooler and it has started to rain more often, which allows Mason to wear his rainboots. He is in love with them, he always wants to wear them even inside the house.If we ever need him to wear other shoes like on Sunday we have to hide the boots the night before so he won't see them and throw a huge fit because he can't wear them.

We took a tip down to the zoo with our friends the Renchers and had a blast.  Mason loved seeing the animals and some of them were quite exciting. The gorillas mostly sat and ate things but right before we left one jumped towards the glass and slammed its fist at our friend and her daughter. It definitely startled them but their daughter Malea thought it was pretty cool and wasn't scared.

Then at the lions, the male was actually awake instead of sleeping like I have seen on the majority of my zoo trips.  He even walked from the rock he was sitting on to the viewing area and marched back and forth in front of us a couple time, then proceeded to pee on the glass at us twice. It was quite exciting. Mason pointed it out as is slid down the glass saying, "Wady, wady"(which is his way of saying water).

The kids spent the most time at a statue of a baby elephant, go figure right. They tried to feed him leafs and sang him songs as they danced around him in circles laughing.

Mason also really liked the bears and immediately started roaring as soon as he saw them. Once we were inside the viewing area for the bears he was distracted by the water and all the kids, but he still roared every now and then.

We had a great time showing Mason around and watching him and his friends have fun looking at the animals.

After the zoo we went to Renton to stay at Brianne's house.  We went to the temple with Christopher's family to do some of their own family names.  It was an amazing experience to get to be there and be a part of that special day for them. Mason also got to jump on their trampoline and thought it was amazing, he didn't like not holding onto someone but still had a great time jumping and playing with his cousins.

The weekend before Halloween we went to Bellewood Acres to get apples and pick a pumpkin to carve. We went with John and Debbie and Mason had the best time running around in his boots, pulling the wagon and riding in the wagon.

We also got apple cider donuts which were delicious. Mason liked riding on the large rocking horses, rocking cows and rocking pigs they had around to sit on. We had a lot of fun trying new types of apples, eating food, and walking through the mud and water to pick out a pumpkin.

We carved our pumpkin for FHE with the Renchers, the kids mostly ran around while the big boys did the hard work. They turned out pretty good. After carving and when the kids were getting cold we went inside to eat a Halloween treat, some candy and caramel corn.  The kids ate so much sugar they ran around the house wild for the next hour.

Western Washington University had a free basketball opener with a scrimmage, 3 point contest and dunk contest one night. Since it was free we thought it was a good chance to see how Mason would do at an actual game. So Christopher went with his dad and took Mason to watch.  Mason loved it, it was loud and there were a couple times he got nervous, but overall he loved it.  I was told that he sat in his chair the whole time, and jabbered excitedly to Christopher motioning throwing similar to the basketball players dunking.

He loved their mascot, the viking guy that would walk around. Mason kept pointing to the mascot them himself saying, "me" wanting the guy to walk over by him, but he never did.  Mason didn't want to leave and had to be bribed to even get into the car, and was reluctant to get out even when they got home. When he finally came inside he was so excited and had to tell me all about the basketball game and the guy. Since then JB has gotten free tickets from work and we are all so excited.

This year Mason got to experience Halloween a little more.  Christopher was a lumberjack(he just picks something he can have a beard with ever year) and we dressed Mason as a lumberjack also.  Mason did not like me putting the beard on his face and said "uh oh" every time he saw it in a mirror, luckily he was distracted by the time we started trick or treating he forgot.

We went down to Fairhaven Village, a group of small stores that are more like boutiques, to trick or treat. It was nice being somewhere it wasn't dark or even far to walk and everyone was dressed up even all the adults.  The first shop we stopped at Mason was nervous and didn't want to go, but I walked him up and after he got the candy in his bucket he was a lot better, after only a couple more shops he was dragging me through the crowds of children to get candy.

Here you can see how comfortable he was just reaching into the bowl grabbing as much as he could.

  He even stopped at random adults by shop entrances thinking they would give him candy.  He loved getting candy and seeing all the kids in their costumes.  He even got to see a couple good Batman costumes and would point and say Batman, but got shy if they came close to him.

He had so much fun trick or treating I can't wait to see how it goes next year.