Fear

Last night Matty was sitting on the arm rest of one of our couches thinking about jumping over to the arm rest of the other couch. I noticed this active thought process and let him sit and negotiate whether he should jump or not, as I watched. He began reaching out for the other couch with his hand and started leaning with his body over to the other couch, then he would get scared and lean back on to the couch he was sitting on. He continued to lean back and forth, reaching his hand out and then changing his mind over and over again. Finally he looked at me and said, "Mommy, hand" so I reached out my hand, he grabbed it and jumped over to the couch using the assistance of my hand.
I let him do this many times. Each time he would get back on the couch and think about jumping without my assistance, but then he would get scared and ask for my help.


I had the opportunity to go to a seminar my work sent me to a couple weeks ago. There were many speakers and they were all there to motivate us to work hard and be successful. One of the speakers was Rudy Giuliani. He talked a lot about courage, the point that stuck out to me the most was this; "Courage isn't the absence of fear. It is the management of fear."

Matthew was scared to cross that chasm between the 2 couches, he was afraid he might hurt himself. After thinking about the potential of falling and the potential of making it to the other couch with a sense of accomplishment, Matthew decided he was indeed scared, but that he would still cross that chasm. He decided to cross it with the help of someone else.

Matthew wasn't being a wimp. He was being courageous; he managed his fear, negotiated his fear and decided the best way to manipulate that fear would be to ask for help. This little 2 year old is a pretty good teacher, who would have thought?

P.S. Thanks Cyndi for the beautiful picture of Matthew, as always you are so talented!!

Model?

Bored at home on Sunday with snow coming down outside I started taking pictures of Matty. I decided I should work on his picture taking skills. How awesome would it be if he would just automatically give me a cute smile whenever he saw the camera? I figured this would not be a hard skill to teach, let's see how it went...

First I explained that everytime I point the camera at him he has to smile. So lets try it, give me a smile.

Apparently his smile consists of showing his bottom teeth. So we worked on smiling. I showed him how to smile, by ridiculously smiling at him and telling him to "smile like Mommy."
Then I said, "Let's try to take another picture with a nice smile. Smile for me, buddy, come on, give me a good smile!"

Okay so then his smile turned in to sticking his tongue out. Great! Let's try this again. Give me a good smile!!

Again with the tongue!!! What the heck is with this kid? He will not smile for me!!

After many pictures of Matthew with his tongue sticking out, I told him to show off for the camera. And this is what he did...

He wanted to show me his hand?? hmmmm, interesting....

Then I discovered something. He loves showing things to the camera. He gets the whole camera concept, but doesn't quite understand why I would want a picture of him. But he does think that I should want a picture of his food or his toys. Let me show you what I mean...

Maybe he could become one of those models on The Price is Right? You know those girls who show off the stuff that the contestants can win. I think Matthew would be really good at that. Or maybe we need to work on his modeling skills a little bit more. I'll let you know how that goes :)

Warm and Cozy

What do we do when it is cold and snowy outside?

We cuddle with our little Matty in front of a fire, of course...






What is Matty's favorite new word? Fire!!!
And after we built this fire he said the word about 87 times.


I pray we get many more warm, cuddly nights by the fire.

While I was painting my nails...

Matty and his Dadda were outside playing with remote control trucks. What a manly thing for a father and son to do, right? Steve would drive the truck so crazy that it would sometimes flip over. This would leave Steve with a problem, he would have to walk, sometimes a long distance, to the truck to turn it back over. Now comes the part where we had a child.... Steve doesn't have to walk to turn the truck over, Matt will!!!


Now comes the best part for Matt; Dadda let him drive the truck all himself. This led to Momma (that's me, in case you are confused) coming outside to take pictures and having the truck slammed in to her shins. And me giving Steve a dirty look and Steve saying, "What?? It was Matt, not me!"

What a great afternoon for the boys. Trucks, boys and sunshine-

This guy is so cool!!

This guy is soooo cool..... He has his own motorcycle that his aunt and uncle got him for his birthday.





This guy is sooo cool.....He gets all kinds of chicks to ride on the back of his motorcycle.

This guy is sooo cool....He thinks going to jail is nothing to cry about.

In fact he thinks going to jail is quite funny!

He is so totally cool, isn't he?

Photography, if only I had some talent...

Katie Smith and I were inseparable. We were always together at school, at her house, at my house, in the car, at the mall, at the movie...you name it Katie and I did it together. In high school Katie was a great friend. Sure we had our fights, but most of the time we were together laughing and talking. Katie understood me like no one else did and I understood her. I remember there was this boy in high school that essentially dumped me and I felt embarrassed and stupid. The next day Katie gave me a sympathy card. It was so hysterical, it made me laugh and instantly changed my mood, she always knew exactly what to do to lift my spirit.



After high school we kept in touch, but slowly drifted apart. We lived hundreds of miles away from each other which proved to make it hard to be friends. But we always contacted each other from time to time to check in. Our connection proved to be unchanged when we both found out we were pregnant with boys that were due 3 days apart. God has a crazy way of bringing people together, doesn't he?

Katie and I all got to see each other the other night. Rhiannon, another great friend from High School and I drove to Conifer to see Katie. It was a fabulous time. Katie is an extremely talented photographer and it was such a blessing to see our boys together and for Katie to take some pictures of Matthew.

This is Thaddeus, Katie's little boy. What are they looking at? Hmmmm....

Now let me explain this next picture. Katie is working on building her photography portfolio, particularly her bridal pictures. So, she talked me in to putting on my 5 year old wedding dress and she took some pictures of me. I told her these pictures might ruin her portfolio, for I have NEVER been called photogenic, however I learned a good photographer can make anyone look good.

Mr. Potato Head

Matty got a Mr. Potato Head for his 2nd birthday from the Combs' family down in Texas. He was not so sure what to do with it at first. He just kind of stared at it and pointed at it. Then I started taking the pieces off for him and he got the point of Mr. Potato Head quite quickly.

He loves Mr. Potato Head and has even demanded that he sleep with him a few nights.


Here is the first night he played with Mr. Potato Head. He inspected him thoroughly, even his booty opening (which a little disturbing- the toy making people crack me up!)

Check out that forehead of his...Unfortunately he gets that forehead from his mom. Poor guy!!

Now where does this go??? Hmmmmm....

This was the finished product. For some reason he got every body part correct except he mixed up the mouth and the eyes. We have played with Mr. Potato Head many times since and Matthew always does the same thing, the mouth and eyes are always reverse. Can a psychologist please tell me what this means? My son will be a dentist? My son is psychic? My son can read lips? My son thinks I talk too much? My son is trying to tell me my teeth are yellow??? Hmmmm......

What a weekend!!!

I wish all weekends could be like this weekend. Of course if that was the case, I would probably not enjoy the weekends as much because this great weekend would become the norm and "a great weekend" would then have to entail a getaway to Tahiti- which I guess wouldn't be bad, but it would get a little pricey.

Anyways, Steve, Matty and I all took a short car ride to Colorado Springs. We stayed at the Embassy Suites and enjoyed a fun, relaxing weekend. We had planned to go to the Zoo on Saturday and frolic in the park (not really frolic, I mean who does that anyway) but then our plans were changed when we woke up to this:


Saturday's high was 32 degrees. The roads were icy, the trees were plastered in frost and I was freezing!! So, we decided to go to The Cave of the Winds. It is well.... a cave. No matter what the weather is like outside it is always around 60 degrees in the cave. The best part is, there are no bats in the cave. Thank goodness, because I don't have my rabies vaccine up to date.

Here is Matt and I in the cave, doesn't Matt look like he'd rather have gone to the cave then the zoo? He is so excited.

Steve took a lot of pictures in the cave, but they turned out dark and really don't do the cave justice. There were a lot of cool things that I do not know the name of and lots of knowledge passed on by the tour guide that I did not absorb- none the less it was a good time and Matthew did phenomenally well.

This is right outside the cave. Really beautiful and really cold.

The highlight of the weekend for Matthew was the hotel lobby. There is a waterfall and a little river inside with fish in it. This kept him entertained for hours!! Steve and I would just sit and have a drink while Matthew would almost fall in the river about 50 times. Thankfully he never actually fell in, but he did put his foot in it once and track water all over the lobby floor, I don't think anyone noticed until we had already left....shhh, don't tell.

It was a weekend full of excellent food and good family time.

Even with all the adventure on Friday and Saturday, the highlight of the weekend actually came on Sunday. The Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots to make us 5-0 for the season. It was a great game, Denver played their hearts out and our quarterback, Orton, outplayed Tom Brady. I am still pinching myself. Thank God for weekends full of things to celebrate!

How many years? Are you kidding me? Really?

Guess what today is? I'll give you a hint, on this day 5 years ago Steve wore a tux. This is a big hint because he has only worn a tux twice in his life. Once was for my brother's wedding and the other time was......

Our Wedding!!!

5 years ago on October 9th 2004, Steve and I pledged to stay together forever.


We have endured a lot in these 5 years together. Steve has not always been a perfect husband and I have not always been a perfect wife. But we have grace on our side and we are committed to each other.

Happy 5 year Anniversary!!

Someone asked me once, what do you think is the key to a good marriage? I answered very quickly with, "A sense of humor."
Sometimes when everything else fails all you can do is laugh and remember not to take everything so seriously.




“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”-Rodney Dangerfield

The Ya Ya Sisterhood

Women can be very dramatic, very petty and very psycho. I know this because I am one. (Sorry to throw us under the bus women!) With that said, women can also be supportive, loving, and tons of fun. The lateral is how I would describe all of my girlfriends. I am extremely blessed to have phenomenal women in my life. Thank you to all my girlfriends, including the ones who will get 2 margaritas at once,

the ones who will put a face mask on half their face and let me take a picture,

and the girlfriends who think it is funny, as I do, to switch name tags and make everyone at the event think we have a different name.

To those girlfriends and all my girlfriends out there. Thank you for making me laugh, keeping me grounded, showing me compassion, and giving me a part of yourselves. I am forever grateful.

What do we do on Monday Nights?

Monday nights, this time of the year are a very busy, productive time for us. We run for 15 miles, then go to a soup kitchen and serve the homeless, then we organize our pantry, then we make a meal of tabouli with a nice spring salad.

Wait...maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. We actually don't always organize the pantry, sometimes we organize the coat closet.

Wait...you know what? I cannot lie any longer. We are a very typical American family and I am not ashamed!!!
On Monday nights we sit on the couch and watch Monday Night Football!!!
Last night was definitely no exception, I mean who could not watch Brett Favre play his old stomping ground, Green Bay? It was a great game and a lovely night, even though we ate pizza instead of Tabouli and spring salad.


Shorty, our dog, like usual sat on the couch with us. He gets irritated when we yell at the TV while watching football, as you has no trouble hearing.
Peter came over with his crutches and he forced me to serve him beer and pizza since he still cannot walk. I then in turn made him hop on one leg to the kitchen before he left and put all the glasses in the sink. Not sure if he will ever come over again.

As you can see, Matty gets a little irritated with the camera flash.

Peter brought over his dogs, 2 big yellow dogs that weigh about 40 pounds each. Usually these large dogs are continually growled at and beat up by our 2 dogs that weigh about 6 pounds each. Hmmmm....

Steve saw that I was trying to take a cute picture of all the boys taking a drink while watching football and he quickly tried to ruin it. He thinks he is so funny- whatever.

Matthew is really starting to watch football, kind of. He definitely knows when football is on the TV and he knows that he should react when the people on the screen are moving. He often will throw his arms up in the air and yell, "Ohhhhhhh!!!" or "Yay!!!" He just is not so sure when to react, he will often yell "Yay!!" when the team we are routing against scores or when there is an instant replay. None the less, Steve and I are very proud of him for trying to be a part of something Steve and I like so much, football. I pray someday he will spend his fall and winter Monday nights sitting on the couch watching the age old tradition of Monday Night football and will fondly remember the days he did it with his mom and dad.

Casa Bonita....again!!

On Friday we went to Casa Bonita, again. That's right, we went to the pink restaurant with a waterfall inside, a fountain out front, cheese enchiladas made out of Velveeta and bathrooms that smell like the rest area's on the side of the interstate. Steve and Matthew loved it!!!

We went there to celebrate our friend, Sean's birthday. You are probably picturing Sean as a little boy, since Casa Bonita is a place that most children request on their birthday. You are wrong, Sean is the same age as Steve and I. Steve and Sean are very good friends, they have a ton in common, one of them being they both love Casa Bonita.

Many of our friends went, even Peter, who is still on crutches.

Alaina even sang her daddy, Sean, Happy Birthday.

Alaina and Matthew stuck together like they usually do and bugged Peter and Alissa, who are total suckers and always play along with them and pay more attention to them than anyone else.

Matt and Alaina are entertained so easily.

Now, for the bad part. Half way through our Casa Bonita adventure I fell ill. All of a sudden I felt like a Greyhound bus hit me and I could barely function. After a long drive home with me holding my head out the window, I got home and proceeded to "get sick" about 5 times that night. The first time was the loveliest because I got to see this lovely food all over again.

And, yes, you are welcome for giving you that picture in your head. I know you wanted to know all the details.

After I had a rough night, Steve then "got sick" Saturday morning and proceeded to have a raging fever all day Saturday. So, Steve and I got to take care of Matthew on Saturday from our couch. We tried putting in Finding Nemo and the movie Cars to entertain him while we tried to keep from falling in the coma, we so desperately wanted to fall in to. All in all Matty did very well and Steve and I managed to get well rather quickly and some how we managed to keep from getting Matthew sick which was our main concern.

This weekend I was reminded of something that I have been told numerous times from other parents and that is that being sick while trying to take care of your kids is like a blind person trying to thread a needle. It is extremely hard and not very fun. This week, I am getting my flu shot and increasing my Vitamin C dose, let's pray for a healthy rest of the winter!! :)