In-laws

I consider myself lucky to have such fun inlaws! We love it when they come visit us. Matthew absolutely adores them. He calls them mama and papa totes (for coates). They came down for a visit a couple of days ago. We were able to go to the temple and get Venice's brother (who died at birth) sealed to her parents. It was really special. This picture is of Matthew sitting on grandpa Maurice's lap drinking his rootbeer. Maurice made the mistake of giving Matthew a sip and the next thing he knew little matthew was up on his lap chugging his drink! They thought it was so funny because Matthew just sat there with his face in the cup for 5 minutes drinking and drinking!

I dealt with the sugar rush later

Tanna and Grandma Janet's Birthday party!

Last weekend we went down to my ol' hometown (Tremonton, Ut) for a little birthday shindig for my neice Tanna and my mom who happen to have a birthday on the same day! How lucky. It was a great party! And Matthew LOVED playing with his cousins. This first picture is of Matthew (left) and Isaac (right). I have to designate which is which because I think that they look so alike from behind! The sad thing is that Isaac is almost a year younger than Matthew!!! They had a ton of fun though. Tanna got a swingset for her birthday, and it was a HUGE hit!

This slide was amazing. Matthew shot down it so fast! The first time I didn't know it would be so fast, so I just let him go down, and he went rolling out on the grass. So we caught him after that, except for once. He went down and flew off the end and bounced off his buns. Then he quickly stood up and said, "OUCH that hurt!" I asked him if he wanted to go again but that was the end of it.

Thanks Lance and Kara for the fun party and for letting Matthew and me sleep over!

Cakes

Take a look at my friend's amazing cakes! (this is the blog I was telling you about Brittany!)http://cakesbywhitney.blogspot.com/

Montana

I guess I should warn you. I like to talk about my family and I enjoy posting pictures of my oh so cute hubby and son.

Forgive the pics of me.

We spent the last few days on a wonderful trip to Montana to see Curt's family. It was so much fun, and the weather was perfect for us. We hiked a lot, went to a reception, and visited with all the fam. Lake Como was just gorgeous! Thank you again wonderful neighbors for letting us use the child backpack. It was a dream! Of course, Curt was the one who carried Matthew most of the time. Matthew loved riding along looking at the trees, naming all of the colors he saw and numbering the rocks. Anyone who is thinking about getting a backpack like that, DO IT!! We have to go out and get one of our own, because we think now we'll do it almost every week since it is soon to be summer!!! What great exercise too! I was surprised by how good Matthew was in there. I thought he would complain and want out a lot, but mostly he was content to swing back and forth on daddy's back and sing songs to us about the birds and spiders. I swear he turned 8 on that trip! He talks so much now and is such a goof ball!! He loves to make us laugh. Matthew just loved all of the attention, and especially from Papa and Mama Coates! And he LOVED the candy from his auntie! Bribery. :) But we have also now seriously entered the tantrum age (what?! but Matthew doesn't turn 2 for another month! Don't tell him that. I don't want these tantrums getting any worse!) All the same he is such a sweetie.

Curt got to pan for gold at the end of our Como hike. Didn't find anything except for small garnets. But I think he had fun anyway.

Is that chocolate on Matthew's face....again? Ooops. Caught ME bribing the kid. I guess the aunts aren't the only ones to blame...Oh and you can see me holding his hand. Crazy kid thought he could wander all over those cliffs alone.

No siree, not with this paranoind mommy.

Here's the little monkey himself pulling faces for you. He was saying something off the wall here I'm sure.

Oh, can't forget to slip in another hilarious sleeping picture. I caught him napping in his chair in his room with the easter eggs.

Still obsessed about them. Speaking of eggs and tantrums, he just had one today at my mom's because of those darn fake, plastic, good for nothing except to hold candy (or money *wink wink*) eggs.... Ahh toddlerhood.

On a side note, I had a birthday last week. 23! Oh I'm so old.

My love spoiled me rotten. See, I got spoiled for Christmas too, so the deal was that I wouldn't get anything for Valentines....but I got spoiled there yet again. I wasn't supposed to get anything for my birthday either as a result of that.....but.....SPOILED! Cheese cake, rose, perfume, Taylor Swift CD, Chocolates (not just ANY chocolates...Lindor), Theater....

I think I like this not getting any presents thing.

Curt's excuse? "Oh yeah, I forgot"

I love you HONEY!!!

Easter Weekend

This Easter was a blast! It was Matthew's first year hunting eggs. He is just like his daddy! Curt absolutely loves going out and hunting for things, whether it's antlers, gold, saphires, deer, rocks....and Matthew obviously has that gene. Ever since he hunted for the eggs, every time we go outside he looks all around at the ground and keeps saying, "eggs?" He'll pick up a rock and ask me if it's an egg and I'll say "No, that's a rock." So he throws it.

Matthew actually did really good and he overfilled his bucket. So I just picked up the eggs he dropped as we went. He was so in the zone!

After we were done Grandma was swinging with Wesley and Matthew wanted a turn, but he would NOT let go of his bucket of eggs!

I was doing a bit of spring cleaning, going through my clothes and everything, so Matthew decided he wanted to try everything on.

My mom gave me a huge bucket of cookie cutters for christmas. They are Matthew's favorite thing in the world right now! He dumps them out and sorts them and names each cutter.

Here's a video of Matthew egg hunting.

This video is Matthew's new game. He'll go down like this and say "Oh no, I down down!" Which means I fell down!

This video is from a while ago while watching Brooke. She was sitting in the bouncy watching signing time, and Matthew pushed his little body in there and took it over, so I told Brooke to go sit on Matthew since she had it first, thinking that would make him get out. They both got a kick out of that!

We had a really good easter with Horse riding, 4-wheeler rides, house cleaning, picnics and a beautiful talk by my dad in sacrament meeting. But there was a bad part to the weekend. It was that last time we'll see Cody and Trish and wesley for a while. They moved to california today for Cody to go to medical school. We're all very proud of Cody and how hard he works in school so that he can provide for his family, but we are going to miss them SOOOO bad! Matthew's already asking for Wowie (wesley).

This was the beginning of their friendship, their first halloween party together!

Goodbye you guys! I hope we get to see you again soon! We love you!!!

WASN'T CONFERENCE GREAT?!!!!!

I love to hear the messages from the Prophet and all of the other inspired speakers!

I learned a lot and have made a lot of new goals. Hopefully I can improve myself and be better at doing the things that I should be doing.

On a side note: School is almost DONE! Curt and I only have a few more days and then we'll get a little break. I do love school, because I love to learn. That doesn't mean I don't love a good break too!! We sure do appreciate everyone that has helped us this semester. We are very lucky to have such good friends and family!

Play Zone

A little while back we went to Arctic Circle with Cody and Trish for shakes. The boys LOVED playing there. I can't believe how big Matthew is getting. It seems like he's still a baby to me. Curt and I both get protective when we go to places like this. We worry if Matthew will be able to go down the slide by himself, if he'll get scared and wonder where we are, or mostly if he'll get knocked over or pushed around by bigger kids. But I think we're BEGINNING to realize that he's a big boy now as we try to let him grow up. If we're this bad at letting him go down a slide alone imagine how we'll be when he goes off to college!

My dad really liked this picture. He said that he can picture Matthew and Wesely when they're really old and they'll have looks on their faces just like this. I just think they're adorable.

See, all alone. So big! Ok, honestly, I KNOW I'm not the only one that feels like this. It's so hard to let him become more and more independent but only because I hope that Matthew will always turn to me in some degree when he needs help! But I do love watching him accomplish and learn things and conquer his own tasks.

And the best part is when he says with glee written all over his face,

"I DID IT!"

April Fools?

Oh what a morning. The first april fools joke played on me was before I even knew that it was april fools, actually, so was the second. Matthew was eating breakfast like usual in high high chair and I ran upstairs to move the laundry along and I came downstairs to a lovely scattered mess of cereal all over the floor. April Fools. So Curt promptly showed Matthew that it was a no no and took him to time out while I cleaned up.

Que the Knock on the door.

Melissa: "Oh crap. I don't want anyone to see this mess!"

Curt: "Just get the door, it's ok"

I opened the door and no one was there. I looked down and saw

THIS

Can you tell what it is?! This is THE best april fools joke I have EVER had played on me!!! Corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with butter and gravy, and you can't forget your veggies! Peas and Carrots! But get this, it's all cupcakes and candy!!!

Whoever did this, I HAVE to know. You have to teach me how to come up with cute ideas like this and perfect them. so awesome. So clever. So fun