Christmas Fun

we had a wonderful christmas! Curt took this picture. Matthew was very tired after opening presents

Grandpa Kit and some of the kiddies that came to celebrate Christmas at the Andersen's. Grandpa is holding Jexten, and adessa is sitting beween Matthew and grandpa.

Curt worked very hard to build this huge snowman. It was at least 12 feet tall!

Matthew got a cookie monster and and an Elmo. He got a LOT of other things, but Santa should have known that he'd be satisfied with just those two things!

playing peekabo with Grandma Janet

Christmas before it got ripped into

The happy tired Coates family on Christmas morning

We got dumped on with snow! It was a wonderfully white christmas in Rexburg!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for all of the great presents!

The movies below are of first me and then Curt sledding with Matthew. This was his first time sledding. We tried to go up on a hill on Campus, but the roads were so bad and everyone got stuck so many times that we gave up before we could get there. Plus it started storming again. So we made do by piling snow on top of our old car that doesn't really work. Hey, it was a snowhill of sorts! Thanks everyone for coming to visit. We had a great time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!!! Be safe! We love you all.

Random Happenings

Alright, I know it has been a long time. Finals are over. They got over last friday, but things have still been crazy since then. We did a much needed house cleaning on Saturday, Christmas shopping on monday, we went to the temple yesterday, so today I am FINALLY able to fit time to post! These pictures aren't in any particular order. The one above was Matthew at the Thorson family Christmas party a week and a half ago. That turned out really good. We had a lot of fun! Thanks mom and dad for putting that together.

We were trying to take some more family pictures to put on our christmas cards, but Matthew was NOT cooporating. Oh yeah, he has a cute smile here.....but he HAD to hold Elmo and Ernie!!! Come on! He's such a little rascal! This was pretty much the only picture we got of him half smiling too.

Matthew's had some really needy days where he won't really let me out of his sight. I think its a direct result of finals week. We really weren't able to spend a whole lot of one on one time with Matthew. So I was trying to cook dinner here and he would just cry if I put him down. Since I needed both hands I just plopped him up on my shoulders. He liked that.

Matthew is holding pictures of my parents. He loves carrying these pictures around sometimes and kissing them. What a goose.

We stayed at my sister, Vicky's, house when we went down to Utah for the Christmas party. Her kids are so funny! Jexten is a few months younger than Matthew, but he's a Hulk!! Matthew came home sporting a nice bite shaped bruise on his upper thigh right below his bum. I don't really blame Jexten, Matthew's little legs do look really tasty.

Matthew was in book heaven at Vicky's. They have a lot of books, and especially books about Pooh Bear!

and Matthew spent a lot of time perfecting his Sonata in D minor.

This is a picture of my Grandma and Grandpa Thorson. I am REALLY glad that we got to see them. The day after the party grandpa woke up and he couldn't talk. They took him to the hospital and they found a blood clot in his neck. They transferred him to the University of Utah hospital. They were going to surgically remove the clot, but decided that he was too high risk because he takes blood thinners. If they opened him up they're afraid he would bleed to death before they could close him back up. So they're just kind of waiting it out. He improved enough to where he can talk now, but things just aren't looking too good. I have many fond memories of my grandpa. I will never forget the day that my family was working in his Green House (like we did every saturday in the spring) and Grandpa called Vicky and I his little dutch girls because we both had little pigtail braids. And the time we were coming home from some family event in Salt Lake or something and we had to go the long way around because of road construction. Grandpa got us all singing fun songs. Those are just a couple of really great memories of my grandpa. We're all praying for him and hoping that the doctors can help him. We love you Grandpa Thorson!

This was the baby in the manger that was supposed to be baby Jesus for the backdrop. It just kind of ended up getting carried around by a lot of the littel girls!

This is about the best picture we could get of all of us....even though matthew was a little bit blury. That's typical. That kid can't hold still!

My little man seems to always have a bonk of some kind or another on his head. For the party he fell on Vicky's sidewalk just before we loaded up in the car. So he's got a nice big red bump. That mark went away, but the other day he pulled the bar stool down on himself again. So he got a bruise on the other side. That is almost gone but yesterday he mysteriously came up to us with a large scratch on his cheek. We don't know where get gets them sometimes. At least its nothing life threatening. right?

This is his amazing new haircut that CURT gave him. curt is really good at it. We decided that he'll be doing all of the haircutting from now on. Matthew was SOOOO good too! Curt just sat matthew on a towel on the bathroom floor and curt cut away. Matthew just kind of sat there. We were impressed.

Now he looks even more like his daddy!

Here's the story to top them all! We went to see Santa Claus, and Matthew refused to sit on santa's lap! So.....I sat there with him. How embarassing. Curt said that I made santa's day. I didn't feel so bad after Vicky had to do the same thing with Jexten.

Matthew loves his Grandpa Kit!

Sorry for the delay in an update! Next week is finals at BYU-I and I have been busy!! We had a great thanksgiving in Hamilton, Montana with Curt's family. The food was great, the conversation was great, and the kids were hilarious!!! This picture is of Matthew messing around with a dish cloth. I tried to get him to look at me, but he was being really silly. Every time he would look and see I had the camera he would hurry and turn his head before the picture would snap. SOO frustrating. But he was still cute. Curt and I, like many many others, tried out this black friday thing. All I can say is HOLY COW!!!!! We tried to do the 5am walmart thing! The nearest WalMart to Curt's hometown is almost an hour away, so we left a little after 4am. Matthew woke up when he heard us getting up. He was the most pleasant thing in the world! I was shocked. Not many 1 1/2 year olds would be happy to wake up early! But really he was good, and we got some great deals.

The jacket that Curt's wearing was one of those deals. I was excited because now Curt and Matthew match with their cute leather coats!
This picture is of Tanner, Matthew and Hunter (two of matthew's cousins) during thanksgiving. They had so much fun together! Matthew loved sitting in this chair with them, and giving them high fives and knuckles. He thought he was such a big boy playing with the older kids.

One day I was tending Wesely. Matthew has this new thing where he likes to be pulled around on a blanket. Wesely's blanket was on the ground so matthew got on it and I started to pull it. Wesely thought that was great so he plopped on there too. matthew was so excited to have a friend to go riding with! He has his arm around Wesely. We switched blankets after this because these two boys are heavy together! I didn't want to get Wesely's blanket dirty or ripped or something aweful. It was so funny though, because MOST of the time Matthew was just looking right at wesely's face smiling like this was the greatest thing in the world!

Well, I got a new haircut. This picture doesn't show it very well, but it's SHORT! I can't believe it. I needed a little change, but I didn't know it would be that big of a change. That's usually what happens though, you tell them to take off a little and their little is different than your little.

This movie is of Matthew's new obsession. He LOVES Curt's hats!! I love it how he puts them on himself now. It used to be that whenever we would put a hat on him he'd rip it off as quick as possible. He's growing so fast and getting SO SMART!!! We went to his 18 month checkup last week. Height- 31" 16%, Weight-21.5 lb 5%, Head- I don't remember the inches, but 64%

The doctor said, "Little guy, big brain!" I thought that was funny. matthew's vocabulary really is picking up though. We love watching Baby Signing Time and other Signing Time videos. Matthew signs pretty good now. While we were in Montana we went for a little hike above Curt's parent's place. I was holding matthew for a little while, and all of a sudden Matthew looked kind of behind us and said, "UH OH!" He says that if he thinks anything is wrong or out of place, so I was looking around like what's uhoh? All I could see was a fallen tree behind us, so I was like "Uh Oh that tree fell down?" Matthew shook his head no, said uh oh again and signed shoes! I looked down at his foot and his shoe was gone! So I back tracked a few steps and saw it sitting there just off the trail! How many 1 1/2 year olds would even care if they lost a shoe, let alone be able to tell their mom when they did! I just love how Matthew can communicate. His new words are "nunny" for funny and "touch". He'll laugh and say "dat nunny!" and when we tell him not to touch that he'll say "touch." I hope that everyone had a great thanksgiving! and congradulation to everyone that had a baby over the break!!! Chris and Kim had their new baby girl yesterday at 7:30am. She is sooo cute! 7 lbs, 21.5 inches! Tall and skinny! But adoreable beyond belief. I hope Kim's recovery is fast and that all is well with them.

SPARE!!!

We went bowling tonight with my parents and my brother's family (Lance and Kara). We had so much fun! Thanks mom and dad for the bowling game. Matthew is now completely into bowling! Notice the SHOES!!! The smallest size that they had was 6. matthew wears fives, so I thought that was close enough. These were actually the ones that Tanna, my neice, was wearing until she got tired of them. Matthew LOVED them.




This is Isaac, Lance and Kara's youngest. He is so incredibly cute, and such a happy baby! I love his smile.

This picture is kind of dark, but this is Tanna bowling and Lance helping her. Tanna was hilarious all weekend. She is such a cutie and growing so fast!

HoW mUcH iS tHaT dOgGy In ThE wInDoW?!!

Matthew loves sitting in the window watching people go by.



This next video is of matthew bowling. He absolutely LOVED it!!! And amazingly enough he got a spare!!! He's a born bowler. Good at sports just like his daddy.

The last movie is of Matthew, Tanna and Isaac on a little merry-go-round toy in the kid's play area at the bowling alley. Matthew wasn't so sure about it. I wonder if his balance issues with his ear make him get sea sick really easy, because he looks like he's about to puke. He was a good sport though!

Kissy Face

Last night Curt was taking pictures of me in different dresses that I'm selling to put on the school bulletin board. Little Matthew was so sad because he wanted to be in the pictures too. So when we were done we took a lot of pictures of Matthew just to make him happy.

Curt had a lot of fun messing with the camera options

There's my amazing photographer!!

Cheese, Geese and other birds

Here's Matthew's "Cheese" face. Only he calls it Geeeeeese. He loves smiling for the camera now.

Today Curt and I were very burned out from school and everything, so we took a quick trip up to Henry's Lake in Island Park. Curt is a Geology minor, but sometimes I think that he should be a Geology major. He loves rocks and things like that. I think it's cool and all, but I don't know nearly as much as him.


That's me posing with a beautiful rock specimen of some sort.

Here's what Matthew did while we looked at rocks. I propped his coat up under his head because his poor chin was clear down on his chest and I was afraid he'd wake up cranky from a kinked neck! Poor guy, that can't be very comfortable...but he took a nice long nap.

We also went bird watching. Curt has a wildlife managment class where he is supposed to write down as many new birds that he sees as he can. He's got this awesome little bird book and everything. I love that!! Curt said that I was good luck, because we saw 4 new birds today!!! Usually he's lucky if he sees one new one on any particular outing.

And this is what matthew did while we were bird watching...slept. See, he did take a long nap!!! He eventually did wake up, but the camera batteries were dead by then. There was the most beautiful sunset! I was so dissappointed that the camera was dead. We had such a good time. It was a much needed break!!

Cocoa Bean

Last night we went to Cocoa Bean with Cody, Tricia and Wesely for family night. They have got amazing cupcakes and their hot chocolate is delicious!! Thanks Tricia and "Dodo" (that's what Matthew calls Cody) for inviting us. We had so much fun! Curt stuck the sticker from the hot cocoa on Wesely's head. Matthew thought it was funny so we stuck it on his head. He didn't really like it on himself though, he just pulled it off and put it back on Wesely.

What a goofball. I forgot to post Curt's new haircut!!

This is just a picture of Matthew and I before church.