Christmas 2009

Christmas has arrived at our house: We had fun decorating the stage for Santa's arrival at our ward Christmas party. Matthew warmed the chair up for him: Matthew got to open a few presents early while we were at my parents' house for Thanksgiving. He loves chewing on the coins for his toy piggy bank:
And here he is in his little bear (or Ewok) outfit:

Autumn Leaves

Our Halloween

We had a lot of fun dressing Matthew up for Halloween, and he was a really good sport with wearing his costume. I made a hat and a scarf to complete the Harry Potter look, and I think they added a lot to it.




Matthew even seemed to get into the spirit of Halloween when we let him get his hands on a Snickers.


We hope your Halloween was just as fun!

The Boy Who Lived

I had a lot of fun making Matthew's Halloween costume. We got the idea when my niece tried these glasses on Matthew to see if they fit.

Done!

Well, here it is! It's been functional for several weeks now (four to be exact), but now we've checked all the lingering to-do's off our list. Hooray!

Our Little Eater

Matthew has started eating rice cereal. He seems to enjoy it. He likes to put his hands in his mouth with every bite, so meal time gets pretty messy!

We have the kitchen mostly finished - we only have one little piece to screw in - but I figure that if I force myself to wait to post the pictures until it's totally finished then I'll be more motivated to get it done.

Good thing he's not walking yet...

We're Getting Close...

The last two weeks have been very busy, but today we reached another milestone - countertop installation! The workers were here for five hours and, voila, countertops. We're now working on putting the doors on and other finishing touches, but we are officially in the home stretch.

Progress

Our kitchen is moving along better than we anticipated. There's still a lot left to do, but we're happy things are moving in the right direction! Marc and Katie have helped SO much, and Scott's mom has been keeping us well fed!

Moving On

I love that Matthew is such a happy little boy, and - in case you couldn't tell - I'm quite captivated whenever he laughs. I took these pictures the other day, and it shows another fun side of Matthew - his fascination with his hands. Who needs a pacifier when there are hands to suck on? He hardly even realized he had Mickey Mouse ears on!


This may be one of those pictures that Matthew is embarrassed of when he's older, so I think I better share it now before he can protest. Isn't he so cute?


In other news, we had the electrician come over yesterday and now we have some extra lighting in the kitchen and a LOT of new outlets. Before we only had one outlet for all of our counter space and it (like most of the outlets in our house) was one of those old-school, two-prong outlets. I can only imagine the luxury of being able to plug in more than two appliances at a time, and I'm glad that we won't have to hunt down the two- to three-prong adapter the next time Scott uses the mixer to make his delicious chocolate chip cookies!

Now What?

Grandpa Caught a Big Fish

I was telling Scott about my parents' cruise to Alaska, and Matthew loved hearing about the 40 lb. King Salmon my dad caught.

Matthew Laughs Again

Isn't it so cute when babies laugh? Matthew's only really gotten the giggles a couple of times, and I get so excited every time it happens. Today was another one of those times:

We've been busy little bees . . .

Before:


After:


And we weren't the only ones:



We found this basketball-sized beehive in our backyard.

Marc and Katie are Coming?!

This is the most I've ever heard Matthew laugh. It was so cute and totally unexpected:

Smiles!

Matthew is smiling more and more lately and letting out a few laughs. Here's a sample:

We Love Reading!

Thanks to our family and friends, Matthew has a good-sized library of books to enjoy. It's so much fun to read with him, especially since we get to witness reactions like this:

Matthew Driving His Imaginary Car

Matthew loves to wave his hands in the air. Scott says that he is driving a car because it looks like he has his hands on the wheel. I caught him doing it last night at around 4am. I think the glow of the TV offers good lighting. :)

Matthew Goes to His 1st A's Game

Saying Hi To Dad

Matthew

We think this little kid is pretty cute!

T minus 5 days

The baby should be here soon. We have the nursery mostly ready to go!

Christmas 2008

Christmas is always a little crazy (a.k.a. super fun) at my parents' house because of the number of people involved. This year there were 23 people there! What better day than Christmas to live by the motto "the more the merrier"?

Reunion with My Friends

We don't get to see each other very often, but these girls were pretty much my constant companions from 8th grade through my sophomore year in college. I love it when we can get together even though we're now "grown-ups". Too bad Lori couldn't make it, but I got to see her a few days earlier.

29 Weeks

The weeks are flying by, and I'm getting bigger and bigger!