New Years Eve

(Posting by Jes)
It's New Years Eve...about 10:40PM and everyone's asleep...pretty typical New Years for us. I'm the only one up...
We did light a fire in the backyard tonight, make smores, light some fireworks, and Wendy and her family came over. That was fun. But once 10PM hit...it was lights out for everyone (except me).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

At first Mason was scared and ran from the sparkler I lit; however, he eventually came around and had fun!

Pictures in no particular order

The little boy table on Christmas eve! They had the cutest conversation going!

Jumping on the new tramp Santa brought with Daddy

Here is the next segment of "that's what he said"

After jumping with Daddy for about an hour Mason came in and sat down to play a game. After a minute or two he said...

"I think our house is bouncing!"

Daddy helping Victoria open her presents.

yay! I got cute boots!

Christmas!!!! YAHOO!

Here are a few pics from our Christmas eve party last night, and some of today. Merry Christmas!

Crazy fun party!

Christmas Jammies!



Mason got a computer game from Grandma and Grandpa Springer! He loves it!

Goodbye Old Friend...

(Posting by Jes)

I guess I'm a big traditionalist. I love Christmas, and with Christmas comes many of the favorite things (mostly food) I remember about growing up... This was food you didn't normally eat the rest of the year: The Lifesavers book, tin(s) of Danish short-bread, peanut brittle, fudge, popcorn balls, and of course egg nog.

As I get older, some of these traditions have had to stop, such as the Lifesavers book. The last time I ate some Lifesavers, I had to follow them with half a bottle of Tums. Short-bread doesn't last long between myself and Mason, and the peanut brittle, fudge, and popcorn balls have slowly diminshed after we left Utah (too hard to ship). But egg nog? I'm certainly not going to give up one of my FAVORITE holiday joys?!? No way. I love it and I'll continue to drink it like water from Thanksgiving to Christmas day... Or so I thought....

It's now December 22nd and the only egg nog I've had this season was a thimble cup sample at Costco (and it was excellent!). While I almost bought the 5 gallon container of it, thankfully I had just sampled the cheesecake, truffles, muffins, chocolate cake, and some weird chicken roll...so I didn't...

I've worked hard over the past 6 months to lose about 25 pounds. My goal was to simply maintain my weight during the holidays and so far I've been successful. So each time I go to reach for that wonderful glass of egg delight, I stop. And I keep thinking, "I'll have some tomorrow." With only 3 days left and the holiday treats appearing like fire-ants after a rain (Texas joke), I fear I'll have a hard time justifying drinking 1 cup of egg nog at 400 calories (and who can simply have 1 measured cup?) when I can eat 2-3 times the amount of the other cookies, candy, cake, popcorn, etc while breaking about even in the calorie count?

So, I guess this is goodbye old friend. We shall meet again next year.

(by the way, yes, in Mason's stocking this year will be a Lifesavers book, Danish cookies, and other "traditional" treats that I remember growing up).

That's what he said... sorry Meghan!

So, My friend Meghan had this great idea to post the funny things her son says each week. I thought this was a great idea, since Mason says the funniest, weirdest things daily!!! This way I will be able to look back and remember the funny things and laugh all over again! I hope you get a laugh out of it too. I am going to title these segments "that's what he said". Sorry to steal your idea Meg!

So, first post of That's what he said... story courtesy of Jes...

Jes was giving Mason a bath last night and Mason was playing around. He was lying flat on his belly and lifted his arms and legs up into the air, kind of like superman. He excitedly exclaimed
"DADDY, I'M STANDING ON MY PENIS!!!"

Old Faithful

(Posting by Jes)
Two comments to put this story in perspective. First, on our property we have a second house (our guest house) that we've rented. Currently, a woman and her daughter live there.
Second, we have a nifty little contraption called a septic tank that breaks down all the waste from the house, chlorinates it, and waters the lawn with it. I used to think this was cool...

Why do bad things always happen on weekends? Saturday night, we returned from shopping to find our renters standing outside. The mom approached me and explained that sewage had backed up and overflown from the shower and toilet and ran all over the guest house main floor. (Luckily, it's all tile). I won't explain what I saw on my first inspection...

Since BOTH the shower and the toilet were full of ...well, sewage, I decided the source of the problem must be outside. Armed with a flashlight, I approached the relief valve between the house and the septic tank. Now...are you familiar with movies involving water and the ominious scenes where little streams of water are shooting from the cracks? Obviously that means there is a large build-up of pressure and you SHOULDN'T open it, right? Well, I had to. The result? Old Faithful in our backyard! I've been to Yellowstone Park before and I probably would have appreciated the scene a bit more had I not been running for cover from flying...well, sewage.

Needless to say, it worked....

To make a long-story short, the septic tank was clogged and full. I opened up both relief valves for the main house and the guest house to get us by until Monday morning. Yep...that means everytime we used the shower, the toilet, the dishwasher, etc...it sprayed into the yard. Just the sight of it made Ashlee gag and we had to keep Mason inside (likes to run through sprinklers).

It's all fixed now, but now I need to clean-up the yard. Hopefully it will rain today. Maybe I'll just plant some bushes there. They'll probably grow really good!

Consider this before ever becoming a land-lord.

Victoria

Here is another of the cute pictures Kathy took while she was here! I am so lucky to have a photographer for a Mother in Law!!!