Memorial Day

We had such a fun memorial day weekend! Curt's parents came down for thursday, friday and half of saturday. They did a special temple trip to seal Curt's dad and siblings to his parents. It was a really nice visit! Then on Monday we went over to my parents' house to set up some forms for a cement porch and plant the garden. We also went out to see How to Train Your Dragon. Matthew thought it was a great movie, but I think I liked it more.

This is just a random picture of Hailey with her favorite doll

Helping grandma plant the garden. It may be an interesting garden because of all of his "help".
Hailey and I were out helping as long as we could but then she got tired of the sunshine and little wind. So we came in for a break.

After the movie Curt and my dad got in some fly fishing! They had quite the success too!!

Good catch honey!

more birthday pictures

My grandma Patsy is so good about gift giving and cards for everyone for every holiday. She sent this present to Matthew for his birthday. We got it on Saturday but since his birthday wasn't until Tuesday I made him wait. He loved just holding the box and reading the address on it. He can read his name, so he KNEW it was to him since it said Matthew Coates. First thing tuesday morning I told him he could open it. He was so excited!!!

Later that day my parents came over and gave Matthew an art easel and played with Matthew for a little while and I went to the store to get supplies for the cake. Then when Curt got home from work we ate out at Craigo's pizza buffet (that's what Matthew wanted, and he ate a TON!). After craigo's we came home and had cake.
So here's what I ended up creating....(Brittany, I was wishing you were still my neighbor REALLY REALLY bad!!! But since you aren't here I had to just try my best :)

Matthew enjoyed the cake anyway!

Then yesterday I took him to the store to pick out a couple of fun little things from my Grandma Thorson. She has over 50 grandchildren and I don't even KNOW how many great grandchildren (this is my mom's mom. My mom is I think #7 of 12 kids) but she still sends everyone $5 on their birthday. She's amazing about that too. I have awesome grandmas!!
So this bubble blower thing is what he wanted. It really doesn't work well but he had a good time with it.

First Jumperoo experience!

She had a great time, but could only stay in for a little bit because only her tipie toes could touch and that gets hard on the arches after a while :)

3 yrs ago today...

...was the longest, scariest day of my life. We went to the hospital at 4 am and at 6:15 pm Matthew was finally taken c-section. He was born with numerous unknown "complications."

38 hours later they flew us to Primary Children's Hospital to try to figure him out.

We were nervous, but so extremely happy at the same time just that he was here! After the c-section they wouldn't bring Matthew to me because the doctor said it might scare me (absurd) until I threatened the doctor that I was going to rip out my I.V. and go get him if he didn't bring me my baby right away. I didn't care if he was handicapped or disfigured, he was mine and I wanted him PRONTO! When the doctor handed me Matthew I looked in his eyes, Matthew looked in mine, and he said "Mommy, I'm just fine. That was a pretty rough birth and I am sore, but I'm so smart I am going to be one amazing man some day."

I knew he was fine and the Spirit confirmed to me strongly that my son was going to be okay. That helped me a LOT through the next 2 weeks at Primary's. I wish Curt could have had that experience, because he looks back on it with feelings of anxiety and still a little anger at certain doctors. Even still people will say things like "oh that must've been so hard having matthew go through so much at birth" and things like that but I just think, wow, I don't remember it being such an awful thing. And now look. Turns out all of their theories were wrong. He didn't have hydrocephalus, he didn't have genetic disorders, he will never need a shunt. He was merely sick. Sick enough to permanently steal the ability to hear from his left ear, but he is JUST FINE. And smarter than any other little boy I know. (I may be just a bit prejudice on that :)
This was just after getting to Primary's. We look frazzled to say the least!

And now look at the little dude!

My Matthew

THREE YEARS OLD!!!

We love you so much Matthew! You make life so pleasant. You are always the jokester, and you already understand the concept of "don't dish it out if you can't take it." I have never met a more tolerant 3 yr old in my life! You are the best big brother in the world and it is obvious that Hailey already looks up to you and adores you to peices! What little sister wouldn't want a brother just like you?! You are so considerate, just like daddy said you would be in your baby blessing from Heavenly Father. You have yet to meet a little kid (even the mean bullies) that doesn't get along with you. You are a joy to be around. You shock me at least once every single day with your brilliance. I have no idea where you come up with some of the things that you say, but you are hilarious and so so so smart!! I hope that you will always be sensitive to the spirit and hope that you will grow a strong testimony of your very own. I am so greatful that Heavenly Father sent you to us. I know that He has a plan for each of us and yours plays a very vital part to the eternal plan. I feel blessed to call you Son. Love you little buddy!!!!

love, mommy

A whole new world!

Hailey is starting to grab toys and things and it's so cute to watch how excited she gets each time she flails her arm and accidentally whacks whatever I'm holding. She's getting better at it every day too.

sorry this picture is blurry, I thought it was cute anyway.

She really loves to knaw on toys, but usually ends up throwing them aside and munching the fingers. They taste better :)

***Adessa: Hailey LOVES that little doll in the white outfit and bonnet you left for her last time you were here! She just loves to squeeze its belly and munch its nose. It makes her giggle! Thanks! ***

More Vacation Pictures

Huge Shark

Lion Fish

Matthew's way of entertaining himself in the hotel room while I was getting ready.

Hailey was like a celebrity! I basically had to swat people away when they'd come to touch her fat little toes, and they were always making comments about her hair. And then Matthew would shock them with some goofy comment. Such a clown :)

Nope, didn't really play this one either. He was just excited to get to hold a "ditar"!!

This was the only picture we got of the "circus" we saw before the camera died. This duo did some amazing balancing tricks!

We lived off of this stuff on the drive there. Good thing we had to stop for a lot of milk breaks, because we had a lot of potty breaks too!!

sorry this picture is sideways. oh well, you get the idea. Matthew enjoying his juice.

This was around...ah I can't remember. I played a highschool soccer game there once. Somewhere in the middle of Utah. anyway I thought this sign was hilarious and probably bad for business. What a difference a little dot makes! two hundred and fifty dollars vs two dollars and fifty cents!

Ward Basketball :)

I talked Curt into playing basketball with our ward the other night. He did so amazing especially considering the fact that he has never even been on a real team. He was like their #1 defender! a little shooting practice and he will rock! The ward they played only had 4 people show up, so some of our ward played with them but they forfeited.

Curt's the defender in the green jersey.

warming up

this is Bridger, Matthew's little buddy. They get along great!!! :)

Matthew stole a fan's cowboy hat when he was out with his baby...

When I told matthew we were going to go watch daddy play basketball he insisted on changing his outfit. I didn't know he even knew what basketball clothes looked like! when I asked him how he knew that he said "betuz I'm a smartie pants!!"

Lady Bruins

I have a looooooong ways to go to get back in shape, but this has got to be my favorite way. I'm so lucky to get to do this! Thanks to my parents and Curt for watching the kids and letting me be a soccer player again!!

wow, I swear this wasn't just me against the other team....but where are my teammates?!

just kidding.

so, we've played 3 games so far. we have another game tomorrow. We're the only team in the league that is still undefeated, so I think we're doing pretty good. I'm the only mommy on the team, and no of course I'm not a starter....booo I have only scored one goal so far. I am super rusty with the "skills" (I was never very good at ball control anyway. my game plan is to outsprint them and since I'm the mommy to a 3 month old it's not working out as well as I'd like it to- YET) But we're a good team and it's fun! The only thing I have to complain about is when other girls on the team talk down to me like they think I'm a beginner or something because I am a little rustier than I'd like to be. But it's okay because it just makes for a more dramatic effect whenever I do something good in a game :) And instead of grumbling back at them I just think in my head "we'll see if you can play this well after YOU have 2 kids!!!" Not trying to toot my own horn. I just love soccer. Vicky used to tease me that I eat sleep and drink it. ANYWAY I am so super lucky to get this chance. I'm so glad that BYU-I doesn't do "real" sports. I'll tell you what, anyone that thinks that can just come up here and play in one of their competetive intramurals and then tell me if they think it's real or not.

we've only had 2 girls kicked out of the league so far for getting into a hair pulling scratch your eyes out punch the nose fist fight. But that was the first game. sports here are just like sports at any other college except we don't travel. Elder Bednar said that when he was president during the conversion of Rick's college to BYU-I.

Vegas!

Now that it's done, I still can't believe we took an almost 3 yr old and a barely 3 month old to LAS VEGAS. Even more so if I hadn't done it myself I wouldn't have believed that it could be so fun with little ones! It probably helped a TON that the kids were complete angels!!! We did so much (as much as we could between sleeping in until 8:30 FINALLY, taking naps, frequent-I mean FREQUENT- Hailey feedings, and early bedtimes out of exhaustion)! We stayed at Circus Circus (I'll go for a LITTLE pricier room next time. it was livable, but not the best...) and went to their indoor Adventuredome. That was probably Matthew's favorite part. The best part about that was we didn't even have to fork out much money :) matthew thought he was playing the arcade games anyway. heehee. bonus that comes with taking a newbie to arcades!

This Dance Dance Revolution had to be his favorite. I couldn't pull him away from it for more than 2 seconds to take a peek at a clown on the stage.

A close second was this airplane/helicopter ride. He went on that over and over!
We did some window shopping. I had no idea that there were stores there like Gucci and all of those other fancy pants ritzy places. The funny thing is it's all in the name. Their stuff wasn't any cooler than Aeropostal or JC Penny. Okay, okay, except for the fact that their stuff had real diamonds....

My favorite part was the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. It was pretty sweet!!! Maybe I'll put some more pictures up a little later.

Matthew absolutely LOVED the starfish!!! I mean "Sea Stars" as he calls them :)

This part of the aquarium was pretty sweet. The tunnel goes right under the water. I recall something similar to this at Sea World I think.... It's been a while since I saw that though, like when I was 10.

It spooked matthew when the sharks would come swimming right at us and then swoop up just before the glass. I don't think he always took into consideration the thick glass between us and the sharks.

The little corner of Arizona we drove through was beautiful!! maybe it was part of nevada, or maybe it was still southern Utah, but anyway somewhere around there. yes, we DROVE the entire way. We left at 4:30 in the morning (Matthew woke up and stayed awake until 2 pm!!!!) and got to Las Vegas around 5 pm. matthew was so stinking good the entire time!! We brought a super thick preschool workbook and some crayons and markers (although the markers got taken away when he said "Look at my beard mommy!" and I turned around to find a red and blue face looking back at me!) And Hailey slept almost the whole time except for when she'd wake up to eat every few hours. And they both still slept through every night from 9 pm to 8:30 am (except Hailey would wake up briefly to eat around 6)!! What a trip! It was way fun! We want to go again next year for our anniversary and maybe leave the kids behind. If Lion King is still playing there we want to see that and little kids aren't allowed in. OR if anyone wants to come with us we could take turns going out and staying with the kids.....any takers?.....

What a great family vacation. It's really nice to sometimes just go out with your own little family to a destination that you've never been before and explore things and do things on your own time schedule not worrying about anyone else's plans. A family vacation like this is going to be an annual tradition from now on I think. Thank Heavens Matthew and Hailey were good and made it a good experience so Curt will want to do it again! He was worried that it would be a lot of crying, a lot of tantrums, and a lot of milk.....okay, so it was a lot of milk...but that was manageable. and it did help me learn how to nurse in public discreetly. Kind of.

So I know everyone feels this way, but I have been soooo busy lately!! Curt has been out of school and (after spending a week in Montana fixing his parents' roof and other odd jobs) spending a lot of time with us!! Well, you'd think so but it feels like even though we shoul have the most time to spend together we have the least! Curt is always busy with one project or another and so am I. Not to mention taking care of two kids is gettting busier and busier AND I've taken a couple more things on my plate; babysitting a 6 month old cute little guy twice a week and

SOCCER

on one of the BYU-I competetive teams. I'm not sure how it's going to work out though because we've only had two practices and I have already pretty much pulled some leg muscles. Who knew it would be so hard to get in shape after having a baby!! I did soccer when Matthew was 3 1/2 months old and I don't remember being so sore....but maybe I was. Anyway my first game is this saturday and I'm hoping my legs will be up for it! I can't help it, I love soccer!!

Hailey turned 3 months on the 4th!

(sorry, I just noticed right before I posted this that Hailey's flipping the bird....I'm sure it's not intentional. But maybe it was since this was about the 3 millionth picture I've taken of her since birth. she MAY be getting tired of it)

Matthew trying to be like mommy wearing a robe. Amazing how well some newborn clothes still fit him....

My Mom's birthday was on the 27th. The kids and I took her some balloons to work. Matthew absolutely loves going to "Gramma's school"

This was in the car before we gave her the balloons. matthew had the best time ever bopping them all over the place the entire drive! I had to keep saying "NO MORE BOPPING!" and he'd stop for about 4 seconds and then slowly go bop...bop....bopbop...bopbopbopbop....BOPBOPBOPBOPPITYBOPBOP! It was a crazy drive, I tell you what.

Curt took this picture of Hailey on one of our adventures to the park. I know I shouldn't say anything, because I'm going to jinx it, but I sure hope her eyes stay blue! they are so gorgeous! It would be perfect if she kept her brown hair/blue eye combo, but one or the other would be fine too. I wouldn't be surprised though if she turned into a blonde hair brown eye kid like matthew.

So we've just been being crazy as usual and having fun all the time. Curt starts work on the 17th at the Forest Service doing the fisheries thing again. This summer he can count it as his internship, will be awesome. AND a bit of bad news, I went over my classes again and I don't know what happened but apparently I still have over THIRTY credits left instead of about 20 like I was thinking before....UGH. I'll just do what I can. the plan is to take hopefully all of the classes that AREN'T offered online in the next 2 semesters and then wherever and whenever we go I'll be able to get the rest of them done online because I will have saved them for the end. We'll just see about that though. I will finish. Even if it takes me 59 years!