It's been a while since I've posted, and there have been a couple reasons for that. One of those reasons was our laundry room. On MLK day, Scott and I came back from a service project at a school in Oakland and, after he went off to work, I decided to try to figure out what was going on with our clothes dryer. The dryer came with our house when we bought it, and it has never worked really well. I started by cleaning out the vent and quickly realized that the vent was too small and poorly (aka, not really) connected, so the steamy air from our dryer was escaping into the wall (and our dryer was producing a lot of steam). It was at this point we decided it was time to tackle our next home improvement project. This is what our laundry room looked like before: Notice the peel 'n stick vinyl tile that wasn't quite sticking anymore: As we tore up the flooring, we realized that there was a bit of a hole in the wall: Then we decided, why not paint it while we have the room empty: We picked a gray-blue that we ended up loving: We now have the washer and new dryer in there, and it's mostly done. Just a few lingering items to cross off the list, and then I'll post an update. Now on to the really fun topic: MATTHEW! He is learning a lot of new tricks that keep us entertained. Just this last week, he started waving back to us, as demonstrated in the following video:


We went into San Francisco to Lucy Packer's 1st birthday celebration and stopped by the Golden Gate Bridge on the way: Then Matthew and I slept over at my sister's house one night when Scott had to go out of town for business. Matthew was very cozy in this cradle: Last week, Matthew really enjoyed receiving valentines: And this past Friday, we went to LDS night at the Oracle Arena. The Golden State Warriors played the Utah Jazz.

Every so often I realize that I should check Matthew's closet for clothes that he's grown into. Today I found this cute outfit, which was fun!

Here is Matthew practicing his standing:


Then I caught a moment of excitement:


I'm a sucker for those blue eyes.

Then he decided the excitement was over, so he started trying to slide forward. He hasn't learned how to get very far yet, so he mostly just ends up on his back.


This isn't the best shot, but Matthew loves to get his socks off and wave them around and/or chew on them. This is an action shot of that celebratory dance:

Nine Months

Christmas Pictures

We had a rockin' Christmas Eve:


With new PJ's left by the Christmas elves:


Matthew enjoyed his first visit from Santa:


Aunt Katie even gave Matthew a bath in the kitchen sink:


He seemed to enjoy it:

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!