If you build it, they will come...

Matthew built something out of his blocks and all the other little things that ended up in the box we throw his blocks in at the end of the day.

He used EVERYTHING that was in the box and made a special place for all of it in his little creation. He worked very hard at it, placing something in this place, then moving it to another place when it didn't quite fit in that first place.

I have never seen him be so meticulous and careful. It was really amazing to watch. Several times he would find a place for something and then step back, look at it and clap and say "Yay!!" It was hysterical.
Once he had used everything he stepped backed, clapped, and said, "Yay!" and then forced me to clap also.







After he made it I told him, "Don't destroy it yet, I am going to take a picture." He immediately seemed to like the idea and helped me look for my camera and then stood back as I took pictures of his beautiful creation. Every time I took a picture he wanted to see it on the camera screen to make sure it looked nice.

Then he just laid there and stared at it for a couple minutes. He was so proud of himself.

He saw what he made, and saw that it was good. :)

Baby Boy Kisses

I never thought I was much of a mushy person. I have never been the type who likes people to fawn over me or to show a large amount of affection. I don't need any of that mushy stuff to know that a person loves me. However, it sure does make you feel good. Especially once my one and only son starts doing it.

Recently when I say to Matty, "Can I have a kiss?" One of 3 things will happen:

1. He will say "No!" and smile and walk away.

2. He will say "No!", smile, lean his head toward mine, give me a kiss, and then walk away.

3. He will say "okay!", smile, give me a kiss and then walk away.

It makes me melt every time, even when he just says "no" because it makes it easy to picture him as a teenager and that makes me laugh.

I wanted to share this series of pictures that were taken by my friend, Lindsay- her fiance, Matt and of course my son, Matt- are best buds- Sooo cute!!

Gotta' Have More Cowbell

I was a bad mother this weekend...I took no pictures of my child and all the cute things he did. Go ahead, slap me on the wrist with a ruler like the nuns used to do in Catholic school, only I didn't go to Catholic school. Since I have no pictures to share I wanted to share a couple of other things.
On Sunday night we went to a friends house for their housewarming party and we all were playing volleyball in their yard. Matty was so cute, he HAD to be a part of the volleyball. He pretended he was a part of the teams and was mimicking what everyone was doing. Chasing after the ball and pretending to hit it and giving high fives when everyone else was. It was adorable to watch. I love that he always wants to be around people and wants to be a part of everything. He is not shy at all and is becoming quite the social butterfly. Times like these remind Steve and I that he is ALWAYS watching us and wants to be like us and mimic what we do...so we better be mindful of everything we do and say.
Secondly, I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning and needed a little pick me up once I got to work. I read something that reminded me of this skit, so I went looking for it, watched it, and it instantly gave me the "little pick me up" that I needed. This is one of my all time favorite SNL skits. I love Will Ferrell and when I say love I mean, I would leave Steve, run away with him, and marry him. Sorry Steve. Anyways, for anyone who needs a good laugh on this Monday morning. Here is a link....Enjoy!

http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html

Do you have a question?

Why did I take a picture of Matty standing on crutches?



Actually....Why were there crutches at our house at all?



Because that is what the emergency room gave Peter when he checked out of the hospital on Matthew's birthday.


Why did Peter go to the ER on Matthew's birthday?

To get 11 stitches in the bottom of his foot, of course.

How did Peter get a disgustingly, huge gash on the bottom of his foot while he was at a 2 year olds birthday party?

Because he jumped our fence to go in to the neighbor's yard to fetch a gigantic bouncy ball that we were playing "volleyball" with- Duh. And because when a 2 year old's birthday party ends in an ER visit, that 2 year old will forever be totally cool.

Are you sure we are allowed to go in there?

Sunday night we had a little surprise from some of our friends. They told us they had some extra tickets to the Avalanche preseason game and they wanted us to go with them. I will be honest I was not too thrilled to go, I was feeling quite lazy that day and the thought of sitting in tiny, hard seats with Matt in my lap while trying to keep Matt entertained to minimize the amount of mean looks from the people sitting around us; just did not sound like fun. Well....Steve convinced me to "chill" (He says that a lot to me, I can't imagine why?) and off we went to meet them for the game.


Well, the surprise comes now....they handed us the tickets and they were tickets for a suite. That's right a suite at the Colorado Avalanche game. A little private room. The whole wing of suites (pretty sure 'wing' is not the correct terminology) has a separate escalator that has people at the bottom of it in suits that check to make sure you are the elite and you have a suite ticket. I wasn't sure if they would let me in, since I had left my designer handbag, designer clothing, Gucci sunglasses and fur coat at home, but they actually did! And the door to the suite is locked and only our fancy tickets will unlock the door. I thought for sure my ticket was a fraud and it wouldn't unlock the door, but it actually did!





We had a suite view (get it! Play on words!! I am so clever)

I guess Steve thought we were going to a Broncos game because he wore his Broncos jersey.

I am pretty sure Matty will never be the same again. If we take him to a game in the regular seats he will scoff at the hard plastic. These seats were soft, padded, plush black leather.

And the Avalanche won. I am not much of a hockey fan, but I really do like going to sporting events, especially is they are in a suite. I can definitely get used to this. Although I won't get used to it, because it will never happen again, but I can dream.

What Happens....?

What happens when we are running late to dinner with friends, trying to get out of the house fast?

We get out to the driveway about to get in the car when I realize I forgot the diaper bag. So I run back inside, Steve is saying goodbye to his employees....no one is paying attention to Matty.

I get back outside say to Steve, "Let's go, we have to go!!"
He says, "Alright, get in the car. Let's go!"
We both turn to get in the car....
We both say, "Wait... where is Matt?"
We hear him giggle and come around the other side of the car looking like this...






So what do we do? We put him in the car seat, take a picture, and go out to dinner. Thank God for baby wipes, they took the car grease right off his face and hands.


He thinks he is sooo funny...

Happy Birthday Dear Matthew, Happy Birthday to You!

Matthew was born on September 19th, 2007. Exactly 2 years later we celebrated his birth on a beautiful Saturday.

So many friends and family came out to celebrate, we felt very blessed. We played a lot of badminton and created a volleyball game involving a really big volleyball.


The only 2 kids at the party, Alaina and Matty had a great time.

Matt even tried to play Badminton.

He was very spoiled by everyone and got more presents than he could handle. Including a truck, what little boy's birthday party would be complete without a truck?

A tricycle from his grandma and grandpa.

A glove and ball to fulfill Steve's dream of him being in the Major Leagues someday.

And of course an airplane cake. Grandma made it for him, it turned out awesome- not sure how I will top this cake next year. I better start working on it now :)

Happy Birthday to my little baby, Matthew, who is not a baby anymore....tear.

2 years ago...

2 years ago today....

I was packing to go to the hospital. I was supposed to check in to the hospital at 6:00pm on September 18th for my induction to begin. They were going to give me some medicine to prepare me for induction that night and let me sleep, and then officially start the pitocin at 6:00 am on September 19th. And this is exactly the way it all started.





2 years ago....

-I weighed almost as much as Steve

-I waddled and had a slight limp when I walked

-Every morning I would go in to work and at least 3 people would look at me and say, "Oh darn, you are here again. No labor, huh?" I wanted to cry every time someone would say it.

-My pelvis throbbed when I would sit in certain positions and every time I would stand up it would feel like a brick was being pounded in to by hips.

-I had heartburn approximately 37 times a day and ingested 48 Tums a day.

-I had a hard time taking a deep breath and had a hard time breathing in general, something was pressed up against my lungs :)

-I was doing everything possible to induce labor. Eating spicy food, drinking raspberry leaf tea and Steve and I were walking about 2 miles every night.

-I had to pee every 30 minutes (that is no exaggeration)

-Every time I called Steve he would say, "Is it time?"

-I would have sawed off all my fingers and then poured alcohol in the wounds if it meant I wouldn't have to be pregnant any more. (that is maybe a slight exaggeration)

-I had dreams every night about labor; giving birth to a dog, bleeding all over the hospital room, having 500 people in the birthing room, etc.- Those dreams were really beneficial to my mental health- Not!

-My ribs ached from being kicked so often.

-I was very short tempered and was not the most pleasant person to be around. (Sorry about that!)








Do you think it was all worth it?

P.S. Both pictures were taken with Steve's phone. The first one was taken right after we checked in to the hospital on September 18th, 2007 and the last one was taken 10 minutes after Matty was born.

He is so green!

I am really sick of all the "Go Green" stuff. The media has definitely out done the green movement. I understand trying to save our resources, but the saturation of the word green has been too much for me to take. And "nobody puts baby in a corner"- okay that made very little sense, but I adored Swayze in Dirty Dancing and I am obviously thinking of him today.

On that note let me tell you a story about my "green son".

Last night he reminded me 3 separate times to turn off the kitchen light while I was leaving the kitchen. He would follow me in to the kitchen, hang out with me while I was in there, and then I would walk out of the kitchen and Matty would stand right below the light switch and say "light". He would continue to say the word "light" until I would go over there and turn out the light. It was so adorable, but so annoying at the same time. I think Steve secretly taught Matt to do this because he is quietly annoyed with my wasting electricity disease which I have always been plagued with (just ask my parents).

My son is so trendy. Soon he will be asking us for a Prius, demanding solar panels on our roof and will start to bathe every other week. He is totally cool.

What do we do now?

What do you do after the Broncos win their first game of the season in the last 30 seconds of the game?


Eat orange cupcakes, of course!!

Laugh at the fact that you can see each other through a window!! Wow!!

Jump from the coffee table in to Dadda's arms.

Make Dadda toss you through the air on to the couch.

Try to jump from the coffee table to the couch using Dadda as a spring board.

And last but not least, laugh at how much fun it is when the Broncos win because it might not happen very often this year.

Rock Band?

You're never too old to start a rock band right? Well, that's what we think, so that is exactly what we did along with our friends on Friday night.


Mark was lead guitar

Steve was on vocals, he wanted the ear piece with the microphone, he said it made him feel like Britney Spears.

Matty tried to play Bass, Alissa gave him a quick lesson.

Alissa and Steve traded lead vocals back and forth and even did many duets. Peter and Landon tried to play guitar, but Matty kept interrupting, I guess he didn't realize how important our rock band is and how serious we are about becoming rock stars.

Matt and Alaina helped Sean with his drumming skills. We are all going to hit it big some day!!

Apparently Matty thinks it is hysterical that we all think we are going to be bigger than the Rolling Stones.

Alaina is trying to stay positive and encourage us to never give up on our rock star dreams.

Pool Party!!

For the majority of the summer I thought to myself, I really should get Matty to a pool a couple times this summer just to get him used to it and keep him from freaking out about swimming later in life. Well, I know it is hard to believe, but it is now September and I never brought him to a pool. Every time I thought about it I would be driving by one of our local pools and see 6,000 children in the pool and think that shoving shrapnel in my eye would be more fun than venturing to the crowded pool.
Yesterday a friend that Steve plays softball with had a pool party and my motherly guilt melted away as I introduced Matty to a swimming pool.

At first, he was very interested in it, but was quite apprehensive and cautious.


He slowly got more and more confident and even started letting go of his dad and our friend, also named Matt.

Towards the end of the night, Matty even jumped off the diving board in to Matt's arms. (the picture turned out way too dark)

He really seemed to enjoy being in the pool, when it was time to get out of the pool he was very, very upset- which I would call a success. Next time we will just have to see if he will let us put the second Spiderman arm floatie on him.

For Better or Worse

How gorgeous is this picture? This is Steve's brother and our new sister in law on their wedding day this last Saturday. Cyndi, my other sister in law, took all these pictures, she is amazing.

She was a vision, absolutely gorgeous- in a beautiful setting. Don't you love Colorado?

Their adorable daughter was running around making the day even more complete.

And of course Steve HAD to be the jokster, even to the poor bride.

And I had to be a part of the wedding cake eating. I always get in to this part of a wedding. This is the only time you can get away with smashing cake in your beloved's face. So why not do it??!!! I just don't understand why people nicely and gently feed each other wedding cake. Steve and I practically punched each other in the face with our cake. Believe me, there will be times in your marriage that you will think back at the time you smashed cake in your spouse's face and think...you totally deserved that.

So in this picture I restrained my brother in law who was running away from his new wife, because I knew he needed that cake in his face. Your welcome, Mandy.

Long Weekend

Our long Labor Day weekend was a long weekend we will surely never forget. Steve's brother, Jim got married to his long time sweetheart, Mandy, on Saturday. All of Steve's family was in town for the big day and the rehearsal dinner was at our house. It was such an exhausting, full weekend, that I didn't even have time to take any pictures. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to share some pictures from the wedding from someone else's camera. It was a beautiful wedding. All I can say is Matty and Steve both wore a tie, for that reason alone, this weekend was momentous!!

Monday was a wonderful day...it was our recovery day. After all the fun we had this weekend, we needed a day in which we mostly sat on the couch and did nothing, but laundry and the occasional cleaning. Matty worked on his couch jumping skills, something that Steve thinks is hilarious and I think is not.




Here he is winding up...

And then he just jumps on to the couch and laughs his head off! He did this approximately 49 times yesterday.

During this wedding weekend, my mind turned to the day my baby will get married, while I don't believe there will ever be a woman who will be worthy of my son, I still thought about the possibility of it.

And when I think about the day my son will marry, I love that I have pictures like this to show to his fiance one day.

Don't you just love baby bath time pictures??

Hope you all had a great long weekend!! By the way, did you know Labor Day originated in Canada? It isn't even an American holiday, America just liked the idea of it and decided to copy Canada. There is your trivia for the day...your welcome.