A new post! How exciting!

Couple of things, Jake and I have joined the throngs on Facebook and instead of blogging we have been looking at friends and family and their adorable, and some not so adorable, offspring. The other thing is that we need to either set this blog to private or change the identifying information so this blog can't be googled. Any suggestions? By the way, I think I should mention this has nothing to do with "Anonymous" from the last post! It actually has to do with people at work finding my blog. Luckily I haven't said anything incriminating, but I sure would like to!

On to the recent haps of the Bennett fam...

We took Mason to the park to feed the geese and he initially loved throwing the bread to the birds. That is until the geese, who were taller than him, were within inches of him. He stopped saying "Geese! Geese!" and started saying "Scary! Scary!".

In an effort to find activities to do on cold winter days outside of the house, we decided to go look at Honda Pilots, as we know we will have to upgrade eventually. When we walked into the showroom Mason was as excited as I have ever seen him. He yelled "Mommy cars!" and then proceeded to point to each one and exclaim "Nice!" He was clearly overwhelmed with the beauty of new cars inside a building. This got the attention of anyone within earshot. We actually thought that bringing him would be a good idea because he has a short attention span and we could just say we had to take him home. Yeah, not so much. We were there for two hours and had to drag him out of there.

It's been a fun month as Mason talks nonstop and we don't have much difficulty understanding him, which is nice. He loves hanging out with other kids, from the babysitters to the gym, which is also very nice as he's perfectly fine when we drop him off somewhere.

Alright, other than that, it's business as usual here. Please let me know any suggestions for keeping the blog unsearchable.

Hat's off to my favorite cousin

I need to give a little praise to my favorite cousin and BFF, Jen. She willingly watches Mason for me whenever I need her to and is willing to accommodate all our needs with our busy work and school schedule. And she makes great pizza -- I had some tonight. To pay her back for all she does I am going to watch her three sweet kids all weekend so she and Cris and have a great Valentine's weekend.

I Love the Sun!

This weekend was my annual winter retreat to San Diego to see my friend Erin and get my hair cut and colored. It just so happened that Boise had been blanketed with a nasty inversion for over a week prior to my departure and everyone was just a little cranky about the lack of sunlight. It was the perfect weekend for me to get out of town. It was about 63 when I landed and Erin was a little late picking me up. I told her I would wait outside and she said "What? It's so cold!" Well I suppose that is all relative.

We have been saying for years that we wanted to try the best brunch in San Diego, which happens to be at the Hotel Del Coronado. It was amazing, it really was. And it really should be for the amount of money it costs for one person to eat there. Since it was a ridiculous price, we decided we would try to get our money's worth and be there for at least 3 hours. We were, and it was a lovely 3 hours of conversation with an old friend. There was so much food and of such a high quality, I left zero room for one of the dozens of desserts. Never fear though, Erin had ziplock bags in her oversized purse so I put some cookies in one and a caramel apple in the other. I am fully aware that this is not in any way classy or socially acceptable but I am also happy that I had one heck of a delicious caramel apple for breakfast this morning.

I had such a great time in San Diego this weekend that we have decided to bring Mason down for a visit in March to show him where his parents met and fell in love. I'm sure he'll appreciate that significance. We haven't been back there together for 4 years and we think it's time. Jake has grandparents down there that have never met Mason and we have tons of people to visit. Should be good/crazy times!

For the Love!

Mason is a fairly easy going guy, he doesn't get upset about much and generally goes with the flow. He started to show an interest in Elmo from Sesame Street a couple of months ago and we ran with it. He got several Elmo themed gifts for Christmas, one of which was an outfit with an Elmo jacket that lights up when in motion. So on a one and a half year old those babies are always on. Well it seems as though our easy going baby has grown attached to his new Elmo outfit and flat out refuses to take it off. That's right, he eats, sleeps, and tries to bathe in that jacket. If we go somewhere he wears a shirt, the Elmo jacket and his coat. We convince him to take it off for a bath and before he's even out of the tub he is inquiring as to its whereabouts. One night it was warm in his room and he had his pajamas and the jacket on so I snuck in to take the jacket off while he was sleeping. Well not only did I not get the jacket, I got a baby who was beside himself at the sheer gall of someone sneaking into his room to rob him of his most prized possession. It took us over an hour to calm him down and I will not be trying that again. It has only been washed once and Mason stood by the washer the entire cycle and then supervised the transfer from the washer to the dryer. He then stood by the dryer until it was dry. So this is what attachment looks like!

After a long hiatus...

We are back! The holidays were hectic for sure and I had no desire whatsoever to blog. Here is a numerical breakdown of the last two weeks of December...

Number of Associates Degrees earned from Boise State: One, by Jake.

Roundtrips to Bear Lake: 2

Number of Xanax taken by Steph to deal with snowy roads: 7 on trip one, and zero on trip two (that is some coma inducing stuff but seriously I wouldn't have cared if I started on fire while under the influence of those babies)

Audiobooks listened to in the car: 1, The Last Lecture, highly recommended.

Wii's given for Christmas: 1, to Kyle and Sarah

Number of hours spent playing Wii with Kyle and Sarah and my mom: 20, easily

Number of movies seen over the break: 1, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, triple loved.

Time we started opening presents on Christmas morning: 9:15 a.m.

Time Mason finished opening his presents: 1:00 p.m. After he opened a few presents he went in his room, got his blanket and said "night night?" So we put him to bed and resumed after his nap.

Number of people that got some crazy flu bug (or were poisoned) on Christmas day: 3, Steph, Sarah and Jake

Number of times Mason brushed his teeth in a day: 4 to 5 on average

Number of fish Mason was obsessed with feeding every day: 2

Number of cookies consumed in one sitting by Kyle on several occasions: 20, and these are not bite sized cookies either. He's a machine!

Hours Mason spent outside on either a sled, snowmobile or 4 wheeler: many

Number of Elmo themed gifts Mason received for Christmas: 6

Days Mason spent with Grandma and Grandpa (mostly grandma) while mom and dad came back to Boise: 4

Hours we spent cleaning the house while Mason was not in it: 8, we're good for a while.

Score of highest game while bowling: 165, earned by my mother.

Number of times Mason said Papa (grandpa) in a day: hundreds, he is officially obsessed with everything Papa does.

Number of new phrases Mason learned over Christmas and uses regularly: 2, "thank you" and "love you".

We had a really great (and snowy!) Christmas and we are very excited to see what 2009 holds for us. We love and appreciate our extended families and friends so much and hope to spend more time with them this year. We are also considering adding a member to our own little family as well, but this is in no way any sort of announcement. I said "considering". Happy New Year!

Hi gang. This is Jake. I just wanted to brighten your Holiday spirits by providing this little video. Mason can be so cute sometimes he just makes me laugh out loud. When I laugh, he laughs back and says "money" (his version of funny).

I don't even know where he is picking up all these words now. Often Steph and I will look to each other as if to ask, "did you teach him that?" So far it has never been a bad word but some words seem a bit rare for him to just learn on his own.

I am trying to teach him ornament now. He says "nunamimn". Oh yes and poinsettia too. There are no letter to describe the word he states back to me for that one. We will keep trying.

Mason is much more interested in snow now. We went out and shoveled the walk together. Well, I shoveled and he ran into the garage and got a broom. He then pushed it all over the snow in the driveway. Then he jumped in the slush and got all wet. We made snowballs and threw them till our hands were cold (translation: My hands were cold).

He seems to be waking up every morning saying "Kuhlure" (Color) like a million times in a row. It would seem that he wants to color with markers and crayons every waking moment and probably every sleeping moment as well. He really likes it when I take his hand, put a crayon in it, and help him draw something like letters, shapes or numbers. We keep a very close eye on him when he has his coloring stuff. He will try to hide it because he wants desperately to color on the walls but he can never do it while we around. He is very forward thinking. He plots. That is scary. :( He thinks about 3-6 hours ahead for now but soon it might be days in advance. I don't know if I can keep up with that.

Thats all for now. I hope everyone has a fantastic Holiday.

Peace

Fun with Dad

Every year Jake gets Omaha Steaks for his birthday and every year he gets ridiculous amounts of joy out of filling the kitchen with the "smoke" that dry ice emits when in water. This year he got to share this pleasure with his son and found out that this already enjoyable adventure is made even more enjoyable and funny when you add a 1 year old. Mason loved every second of it until the end when he started yelling "Eye! Eye!" That's when we wondered if maybe having him a foot from the dry ice might be a bad idea. Not to worry though, we did what all good parents would do. We backed him up a little.