She's so easy!

It is Stephanie’s birthday and this is a special occasion. I just wanted to say it has been a great birthday so far. First, Steph did not want a gift. This was weird at first and I can’t help but ask about it again and again. Then, the night before she says, “cards are nice. I like cards. I better be getting a card for my birthday”. I am now thinking of places that are open at midnight that sell cards. I guess I will have to slip out of bed and… whatever, I fell asleep. Morning comes and I have temporarily forgotten it is her birthday. I sleep in until 9am. I get up and Mason has been playing non-stop with mom for hours. I could tell she was very happy. It occurs to me as I am getting some breakfast (cereal), that it is the big day. I remember that she wanted me to make her breakfast. Hmmm, this could be dicey. If she has already eaten her breakfast and I bring it up, I could be in for an earful so I brace myself and ask her what she would like for breakfast. She tells me in a super sweet voice she would like an Muff McEggin. No sweat. I crank that out and next is the odd request of… cleaning. Yes, that’s right, she would like me to help her clean the bathroom and bedroom. This is all so, um, odd. Whatever, it is her birthday. I clean the tub, shower, launder/fold/hang cloths etc… All the while I told her I was on diaper patrol. I keep Mason clean and fresh while we clean and then later while she plays with him till noon. Then she wants to take a nap. I put her to bed with a kiss and I play (quietly) with Mason until his nap-time at 1:30. When he goes down, I get on the computer and I make a custom card via Photoshop. When she wakes up she gets her card and cries a little. Just another Sunday really. Nothing new at all. I am pretty sure I have the lowest maintenance wife on earth. I love her so much and it is a joy to be with her and Mason both.

Random Update Time!

We recently got Mason a little picnic table which he helped Jake put together. We have kept it in the house and he will push it around, with a fair amount of grunting, to a particular place in the house that he can't access because of his height. He has definitely spent the majority of his time on top of his new table. It's actually quite amusing to see him problem solve, though I think we are two shakes away from a disaster.

What else? We took Mason to get his 1 year photos this past weekend. That went the opposite of well. He was only interested in the camera and the various objects in the room that had nothing to do with getting a good photo of him. Jake and I were sweating at the end of the session, which was well over an hour. The results? About 4 good shots. I'll post them when they come in.

I guess that's about all for now, we're all just plugging along!

WANTED

Any information leading to the positive identification of the person (it appears to be the hand of a man) who gave my child some ice cream sandwich on June 30, 2008. I know there were plenty of witnesses at this particular pool party in Utah, and I'm pretty sure the photographer was my mother, though she will give no clues as to the perpetrator who is trying to introduce my child to the delight which is sugar.

"Grandma, please don't take a picture, my mom is going to be mad! Oh, and I don't like chocolate on my face."

So UnAmerican

We got our boy back last Wednesday and although he screamed (not cried, mind you, screamed) most of the two hour ride home, I didn't care one bit. Jake, on the other hand, tore up an entire paper towel and stuffed it in his ears "to take the edge off".

My friend Erin has come up over the 4th of July 3 years in a row now, and this year she got the pleasure of giving Mason a haircut. He has desperately needed one as we was sporting a mullet in the back, but I wanted to wait for Erin to do it. She did a fantastic job and actually cut herself because Mason was constantly turning his head to see the scissors. He looks like a little boy now and I am coming to terms with the fact that he is more toddler than baby.

I didn't feel like trekking downtown for the fireworks this year. They don't start until 10:30 because it's still light at 10, which means we would have to wake up Mason and roll the dice on whether he would enjoy the fireworks or make us regret ever waking him up. Our neighborhood was having a block party and when Erin and I returned from dinner the entire neighborhood was at the house across the street from ours. I had forgotten about it completely and didn't really want to party with the neighbors anyway. As a side note, we are known as the "antisocial Bennetts" because we spend a lot of time inside our house or in our back yard as opposed to our front. It should also be noted that almost every one of our neighbors has children between the ages of 4 and 8, which means they are always outside with their kids.

Yeah, so, as we pulled up around 7:00 my neighbor said "Hey you guys, come on over!" I waved from the garage and then put the garage door down. We never left the house again that night. Everyone pooled their fireworks and I was annoyed by the sounds of them for over 90 minutes. My disdain for home fireworks is another blog entry entirely. The next morning Jake was out front and one of the kids said "Why don't you guys celebrate the 4th of July?" Jake told him that we do celebrate it, just in a different way, inside our house. Later the same day, the 4 year old neighbor girl said to me as I was getting the mail "My brother says you don't believe in the 4th of July, don't you love America?" Ok, so I think it's safe to say that we've taken anti-social to a whole new level.

I miss my boy...

Last week my mom came up to help take care of Mason while I had my third and final kidney surgery. Yippee to that! While she was here we took Mason to the zoo, which he loved when he could actually see an animal. He also got to hang out in his pool and we went to a Luau on Friday night, where he discovered the sand box and spent most of his time.

My mom offered to take him back to Montpelier with him for the week since his babysitter is in Hawaii and though I initially said no, I finally caved and said that she could take him. I thought of all the things we could get done and all the fun we would have being baby free. Well let's just say I shed more than a few tears on more than one occasion on Saturday and Sunday. The house is so quiet! And although I enjoyed reading the Sunday paper in 30 minutes without it being ripped out of my hands and torn to pieces, I just want my monkey back. I had no idea it would be this difficult to not have him around. We pick him up on Wednesday, so I think I'll survive.

I was tagged a while ago by my cousin and never posted so here are the answers to her tagging...

List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, , 3 random surprising facts about yourself.

3 Joys

1. Spending time with Jake and Mason. No other joys even come close to this one. I don't care what we're doing, I just love doing it with them.

2. Working. I occasionally feel guilty about this one, but I do like my job and I enjoy using my adult, educated brain.

3. Going out to eat. I like when someone else cooks me a really good meal. I especially like going out with girl friends that I haven't seen in a while because then I get good food and good conversation.

3 Fears

1. Mason getting seriously hurt.
2. Losing my job.

3. Hydroplaning/sliding on ice to my death.

3 Goals

1. Be completely debt free by the time we're 40. That's everything, mortgage, student loans, etc.

2. Be a size 8 or 10. This has probably been a goal since I was 16, but one day I'm going to make it happen. You'll see!

3. Spending at least a summer, and possibly 6 months, traveling the world with our children when they are preteens. I would like to focus on the humanitarian side of things, visiting some third world countries helping the less fortunate. I would also like to visit some of the true wonders as well.

3 current obsessions/collections

1. Spending the least amount of money possible, which means I spend about 2-3 hours a week finding sales, coupons, etc.

2. Being the high scorer on the Wii bowling and WiiFit games.

3. Carmex and mini charleston chews.

3 random surprising facts about yourself

1. I love to make garbage. I get a rush when the milk is gone or a box of cereal runs out because then I get to throw out the empty container. I spend serious time on the weekend combining almost empty containers of things or going around the house looking for stuff to throw away. Love love love it.

2. I am an excellent shooter and really like to shoot guns. When Jake and I used to go to the range, I would smoke all of the other guys there. I graduated number one in my FBI firearms class during private investigation school, which consisted of 10 men and one other girl.

3. My favorite television show of all time is Deadliest Catch. I've seen every episode at least twice and actually caught a marathon while I was in labor with Mason.

Video Stuff Again

This is kind of old but we dug it up and are posting it for all to enjoy!

Couple of Things

You know the saying (or the Cinderella song) "Don't know what you got 'til it's gone"? Yes well, I have experienced this phenomenon with tomatoes. While I appreciate that every store and restaurant is removing them from shelves because they don't want to be liable for the Salmonella poisoning I may get, I really, really miss tomatoes. Now I can still buy them on the vine at the store, but no restaurant is serving them. I have discovered that I don't like salad without tomatoes and this evening I ordered a BLT and when I remembered that tomatoes were not an option and told the sandwich maker that I would like to change my order he said that it was too late. So I had bacon and lettuce on bread because I like a good juicy tomato instead of any kind of sauce. Please bring back my tomatoes, preferably Salmonella free.

A couple of months ago Jake said he wanted a PlayStation 3. I said he would have to sell his worldly possessions because that was definitely not in the budget this year. So, he sold his gun and PlayStation 2 and proudly reported that while he had enough money to buy the PlayStation 3, he would rather buy a Wii. So that's what we set out to do last Wednesday. We wanted a Wii and a WiiFit, which are not so easy to come by. Many thanks to Joe, who called every place within 20 miles of our house. We actually saw an area we had never seen before, downtown Nampa, when on our quest. Anyway, I'm not sure how we lived without a Wii, and more specifically the WiiFit. It's fun and exercise. What?! I always thought those terms were mutually exclusive. I honestly never thought a little gaming unit could be so fun. We actually haven't watched TV since we bought it and anxiously look forward to putting Mason to bed so we can get some solid Wii action. I highly recommend this device to just about everybody.