Getting So Big!

Matthew got all of his outside gear on all by himself. Then he told me "I ready to go outside mommy, you ready?" I can't wait until it gets warm again and we can stay outside much longer!

Some other big things he's been doing lately is actually saying your welcome after you tell him thank you. Also if you ask him why he'll give you some kind of a random made up "because" answer. He's also big enough to turn off the tv after watching some morning cartoons and says "that's enough tv. I don't need it anymore, that's boring." Whoever said two's are terrible never met a child like Matthew! Now I hear it's the three's we really need to look out for, and that's coming up right around the corner!!!

Cards

Kim invited Matthew and me over to make some Valentine's cards for her "14 days of love" first day project. It was so much fun! Matthew had a great time playing with his cousins!!!

Thanks for letting us come!

This morning we got a surprise phone call from Vicky saying Jexten really wanted to talk to Matthew. This absolutely made Matthew's day, except now he says that Jexten is naughty because he was too loud :) I like the part at the end best when he sushes me because I was having a hard time not laughing. I wish you could hear what Jexten's saying on the other end. My camera microphone must not be that good. It was hilarious.

Thanks for the fun call!!

Because today is "We need a laugh WEDNESDAY"

Bear with me...this was really fun. I love going through our old pictures, and sometimes I find ones that I don't really remember and they're hilarious!

super pudgey one year old Matthew. How could the doctors ever have made me believe he was SKINNY?

I miss the wet muddy days where it was warm enough to send our kids out in nothing but t-shirts



Just after falling in the river and getting his pants wet.

Gosh we miss this little girl! (And the rest of the Jones' of course :) )

figuring out the straw

Doesn't want to show favoritism..

I have no clue what's going on here

Brooke really brought out the best in Matthew

ouch, I wore ridiculously cute shoes to walk to school in. Cute shoes are rarely practical.

Not sure here. I think I told him to be superman in his super underwear...this is what I got.

Wow, Halloween can be scary

I don't really want to talk about this :)

and "Dat Lance wiwwy like dat snow sled, huh mommy"

IMPROVEMENT!!

Matthew is really catching on to the poop in toilet thing. My method? I hardly dare tell you! I can figure that after breakfast he'll most likely poop, and if not then it will be after lunch. So...about 20 min after he eats he takes a potty break and he typically goes peepee. Then we just leave the pull ups off and yes, he runs naked for the next little while until he informs me he has to poop in potty because he does not want it to go all over the place. He knows that's bad news. I think this will be temporary because sooner or later he's going to realize that pants on or off he needs to poop in the toilet. HOPEFULLY!

I spared you the scandal of this picture. It's been cropped :) It was during his nakie time. Except for daddy's hat and super tie of course.

Toddler Lab

Matthew got to go to his first day of toddler lab on the BYU-I campus today. It was just orientation day for me, but he got to play the entire time, so it was like a real day for him. He absolutely loved it. I love how much he loved it and how he was fine to kiss me goodbye and play the whole time.
The only problem I can see is that the sink and drinking fountain are at just his level and boy does he love to wash his hands...one of his teachers said they finally just had to put the soap away :) I think that toddler lab will be a great growing experience for him. I'm sure he will love every minute of it! It's basically like a preschool, but just made to be a little more 2 yr old friendly.
In the orientation they kept saying they appreciate us allowing them to teach our kids and let the students work with our kids, but I'm just glad they are allowing Matthew this great opportunity to socialize and learn! The timing is great too because he'll need some kind of out once Hailey's born. I'm going to get exhausted I'm sure and he'll need something to entertain him and keep him busy and I'm going to need a break! So every Wednesday and Friday at 1:00 he gets to go to school! When I told him he gets to go to school today he said "Not mommy's school, not daddy's school, MATTHEW'S school! I go a school!! You want to go to your class mommy? I go a my class."

Fun Time

For our fun time yesterday I put some blue food colored water in a spray bottle, turned the nozzle to shoot a straight stream and let Matthew loose out in the snow! He thought it was pretty awesome. We're going to have to do this more often because he liked it so much and asks for it all the time now. It's such an easy way to entertain him!

This was him laughing because he "accidentally" sprayed me once again....

Such concentration!

I also have to throw this one in there. I love how he draws faces! I drew Elmo on top and he wanted to try to draw him too. Most of his characters that he draws end up looking like the sun. It starts because ears to him are just a straight line coming off of the head. Once he has 2 ears maybe it just doesn't look quite right for him and he decides to finish it off as a sun. I don't really know. But I love it.

Superhero Matthew

This was our 10:00 craft that doubled as a snack! What I didn't know is that froot loops give little boys super powers!! Try it for yourself if you don't believe me!

Shortly after he was stripped to the pullups, ready to rescue with his superhero cape!

He says "Super hero Matthew...TO THE RESCUE!"

CURT

I found this picture just going through our New Years stuff. I can't believe I didn't notice it before! Look at that determination! No wonder he creamed us all!

That's one thing about Curt, if he's going to do something then he's going to be the best at it or he is not happy!!!

I love his go-getter attitude, his do it himself, don't tell him he can't, be the best at everything he does way of life.

Sure it makes for a lot of stress along the way, but in the end it is always worth it and I know I will always be well taken care of and loved because if he is going to love me then he's going to love me BEST.

Poetry in motion

The Ancient Greeks would have loved to carve a statue of that man! :)

What Am I Missing?

Day #3

We have had no accidents in the peepee variety...
......
......
We have had NO success in the poop department.

I don't understand what I am missing! This morning Matthew was RIGHT NEXT to me and I was playing with him. All of a sudden I smelled something. He pooped without ever pulling a face or using any form of body language at ALL. How am I going to teach him to poop in the toilet if he is the master of sneaky poo? He has pooped in the toilet once before, last sunday. I thought once he had done it and saw how nice it was to not have it stick to his cheeks he would be far more willing to do it again, but I guess I was wrong!
Everything I read and everyone always says "It is obvious and easy to catch your child when they are about to poop because you can tell if you pay attention." Yeah Right. That is NOT the case with Matthew. He does not poop on a regular schedule. It can come at 10:30 am one morning, 2:15 the next afternoon, right after he wakes up the next day, not until after dinner the next....on and on in no particular order or pattern. That does not help.
WHAT DO I DO?
I guess I'm just hoping that after a week or two of perfect peeing he'll catch on that ALL of his waste products are supposed to go the potty way and he'll suggest it himself.
ahh, I don't know.
Hurray for the 10 or so peepees a day that make it where they belong.

The Beginning of the End

Today is the first day of REAL potty training! He has his spongebob underwear on and everything. We have the sticker chart (much fuller now. I took this picture early this morning), candy every 15 minutes for being dry and clean. MORE candy (when I say candy it's not always like chocolate...it's more like a snack of his choice. One time it was crackers with peanut butter, it's been fruit snacks and a poptart too) every time he actually goes on the potty along with getting to place a sticker of his choice on his special chart just outside the bathroom door. I hope this works. Thanks for any and all advice.

No accidents yet! (waiting for the pooper time bomb though....he's not a poop at a regular time kind of kid, so who knows when that will happen!) Keep it up Matthew!!!

our new microwave!

Potty Days

I don't know why it is that I'm so intimidated about this whole potty training thing, but I am. I think it's just because it's my first time teaching a child how to use the potty and I am mostly afraid of failure on my part. For a long time now we've had Matthew sit on the potty here and there - always before a bath and any other time he asks (which is rare). We've decided that as soon as his last package of diapers run out we're going to try it. We bought some underwear (Matthew had a good time putting that on his head), my neighbor handed down the Pottywise book to me and I've read it (gave me some good pointers but mostly made me even more nervous to try it) and this morning Matthew pooped in the

TOILET!!!

By his choice too! Wahoo!! So I'm pretty sure he's ready but I find myself getting more and more nervous every time I change his diaper and see the diminishing stack!! We'll give it a shot. The worst that can happen is for him to just not be ready and we give up to try another time.

Any advice would definitely be welcome.

I never get tired of Matthew's silly dress up sense of humor. This morning he had stripped his clothes off earlier, of course, but he came running into the kitchen where I was doing the dishes and he told me he needs to keep his clothes ON! Maybe it's finally getting through to him :) Now we just need to work on HOW to put his clothes on...

New Years weekend

Lance and Kara and their kids were able to come up to my parents' house for New Years. We had a really good time with them! New Years eve we stayed up watching movies, playing games, visiting, and of course eating! They brought these really cute hats and some noise makers for the kids. New Year's Day we all went bowling. That was really fun too! Matthew fell asleep on the way there and slept through the entire thing, but that's ok. He really needed a nap because he stayed up until midnight for new year's and woke up earlier than usual the next day! Kara and I also got to spend some time making some hair bows for Hailey. I was glad that Kara knew some cute ideas to try out. Then the next day my parents watched the kids (thanks again!) and the four of us went to see Avatar. It was a really fun movie and Curt couldn't stop talking about it for a long time, but the semi-nudity of the natives (even though they were blue aliens) made the movie kind of sour for me. Then we went over to my parents and built a snowhill. Matthew was taking a nap for that too (it always seems like he waits for the funnest activities to fall asleep) but Curt had a good time sledding down it!!! I even went down a couple of times! It was gentle enough for 2 yr olds and pregnant ladies who look like they could burst any minute. It was a really fun weekend and fun to spend the time with Lance and Kara!! Matthew asked where Tanna and Isaac went and I said "they went home to Tremonton" and Matthew said "I want to go to Tremonton too!! That Tanna and Isaac fun, huh mommy!"

I especially liked how Matthew called me a princess when I put my new years hat on :)



Matthew slept the whole time but Isaac woke up for the last couple of frames.

Hahaha, mom cracks me up!

I bowled my worst game ever!!!! But it was still fun. I guess I didn't really expect to do amazing. Kind of hard when my equilibrium is thrown off (I'll use it as an excuse anyway).

Curt had an amazing game!! He beat us all and came within just a couple of points off from his BEST bowl ever.

Here we are shoveling the snow for the hill (I mean there Curt is shoveling while I stood around and watched. I feel really useless when I'm pregnant. I always tell Curt I'm pregnant, not handicapped. But it doesn't matter, he still doesn't let me do a lot).

Curt really enjoyed sledding :)