Last Cake

Today was my last cake class for course 1. It was a lot more fun then last Saturday because I wasn't so frustrated with my icing. Considering it was the first time I had actually attempted a rose, I am actually pleased with this end product. These are suppose to be roses but they look more like carnations. I did learn a lot more information today that I should have learned the second class and things would have been easier but now I know and hopefully I will remember them when I do my next cake.

Slacker

I feel like such a slacker lately because I haven't done much blogging. The newness of blogging has kind of worn down and my family doesn't look at it as much as I would like them to. It is a good thing that I have some loyal friends out there that are avid readers of my blog or I may consider putting it off for a little while because I am so busy right now. Since I have started working again for my old boss, life hasn't stopped. There is so much to do and so little time. Somehow I managed to find some time tonight to update the blog but then again I believe it is all about priorities. The blog just hasn't been a priority lately. My priorities have been my family and then when Matthew is sleeping it has basically been work except I didn't do any work on Christmas Eve or Christmas. Chris was very appreciative of that.

I thought I would post a couple more of the photos that we took recently. We just think Matthew is so cute we can't get enough of him. Hope you like the pictures also.
(Then again, how could you not? hehe)This is Matthew saying "cheese". It scrunches up his face.

Another Cake

This is the next cake that I did. I have learned just how important it is that your frosting is the right consistency. If it is too thin or too thick then you can't do much of anything. I was frustrated with my frosting this week but hopefully it gets better for next week.

Uncle Ty

Right before Tyler came to visit we asked Matthew if he could say Uncle Ty. We were actually surprised that he tried it and it sounded somewhat like Uncle Ty. If you didn't actually know what he was trying to say I don't think you would be able to figure it out. But since we did know we thought it was so cute when he said Uncle Ty. Especially since he drug out the Ty part. You will hear Matthew say Uncle Ty many times on this video but he also shows off with some other things. It is really fun watching him grow and learn new words.

Busy Week

Last week was quite full. Chris had his own final on Monday and we were glad to have his semester done. On Tuesday I went into Aggieland Carpet One (my old job) and put in 6 hours there. (My old boss had a baby last week and she needed me to help while she was out.) Then I went to my night time job, then went to book club. While I was at book club, Chris had some friends come over to the house and play Rock Band with him. I finally left book club about 12:30am.
Wednesday Chris had to go to Blinn and give his finals and thought he was going to be done a whole lot earlier, but he finally got done, and turned in all of his grades. Chris was going to teach the winter minimester but not enough students signed up so since Chris is the lowest on the totem pole, he is not teaching which makes him happy to get a longer break but he is a little sad he is not going to be earning a little money.
Thursday we got to have playgroup at my house and then Chris picked his younger brother, Tyler, up from the airport. I had to go to work that night but I was excited to know it was the last night for this year. I have been so busy lately I am glad to not have to go there any more this year. It will be a nice break but I am sure I will welcome it back next year. While I was gone Chris had his friend Mike come over so he, Tyler, and Mike were jamming out on Rock Band when I came home. They convinced me to come play with them so we had a drummer, lead guitar, bass guitar, and I came in as the singer. It was pretty funny actually. We started taking turns singing and playing different instruments. It was so hilarious. We stayed up until about 2am. We were just having way too much fun but 7am came really early when Matthew woke up.
Friday I had to go to work for about 4 hours and then Matthew and I went out shopping while the Tyler and Chris played. That night I went to the annual ward Christmas caroling. I absolutely love caroling since that was a family tradition growing up. I enjoyed spending some time with my ward members singing. When I came home I got to finish preparing my cake for my cake decorating class. My class is 4 weeks long for 2 hours on Saturdays. We have to make a cake and have it frosted for the last three classes. I didn't read the direction carefully enough and frosted my cake with white frosting instead of light blue so instead of just leaving it I made more frosting and colored it blue, then frosted it.
Saturday I went to my cake class but didn't get to finish the cake in class so I finished it when Matthew went down for his nap and decided that since Tyler wouldn't be here for any other cakes I should be his name on it. I know that Tyler is only 23 but as I was putting the number on there I started writing a 5 so I decided it was a futuristic birthday cake for him. Chris said later I could have just put my name on it after putting 25 since that is my next birthday and it is coming up in a month but I wanted Tyler to feel special so I put his name on it. I definitely need a lot more practice. It is a lot of work to decorate a cake well. I can't believe how much time it takes. It is fun though and I love learning how. We enjoyed spending the rest of the day having fun with Tyler here and that night we stopped by the ward Christmas party to see Santa. When Matthew first saw Santa he wanted to be right next to him but when Chris actually put him on Santa's nap he wasn't such a big fun. We are now 0/2 for Matthew liking Santa.Sunday Chris sang in a Sextet and it sounded really really good. I just love hearing Chris sing. It was great having Ty come to visit us. We had to take him to the airport Sunday night so that was sad but we enjoyed having him here and hopefully he will come back sometime soon.

Full Plate

So I haven't posted anything in a whole week. Can you believe it? Well, the blogging fever has worn off a little and I didn't think my family was looking at it much anyways so I decided I didn't need to post every little move Matthew did. I have also been really busy lately and just trying to keep my head above water. It is Christmas time and so things are always more hectic. About a month ago my old boss called me up and asked me to help her out. She has gone through 4 or 5 Accounting Managers since I left almost 1.5 years ago. Since they changed systems since I have been gone I can now bring work home and do it whenever Matthew is asleep. That was great to keep me busy but my boss was pregnant. I say was, because she just had her baby and since she didn't have anyone else to help supervise the company, yours truly gets to take over that role. I have so many things to do there and get caught up on while she is out it makes my head spin. Luckily Chris is almost done with his semester so he can help take care of Matthew. I am really excited that next week is my last week working at night for the year since we get a really long Christmas break this year. I am glad to get at least something off of my plate for the time being.
One thing I am really excited about is that my brother-in-law Tyler gets to come visit us for a few days this week. We don't get many visitors here so we absolutely love it when someone is actually willing to come see us. To make it LOOK like I am a good wife, I have lots of cleaning to do before he gets here. I am hoping that I will have an oven by then so I can be the good wife that cooks every night. Our oven broke again, same part, and so we are just going to buy a new one eventually and then it takes awhile for it to get delivered so we will see what happens. The part is so expensive to fix it is almost cheaper to just buy a new one but we didn't know that the first time. Oh, the joys of owning your own home.
Since my plate wasn't overflowing yet, I decided to take a cake decorating class which I have always wanted to do but I thought it was only 2 hours a week for a month. There is a lot of prep work that goes along with it and you have to buy so many things for cake decorating right now it is a little overwhelming. Today was my first class, next week I actually decorate a cake so we will see how terrible I do. After that I went to our Stake Volleyball Tournament. It was so much fun. I really enjoy playing and my ward was so fun to play with. We actually ended up with about 25 people from our ward when we thought we would barely have enough for one team. They let us have two teams so it was really fun.
There may or may not be very many posts for the next couple weeks as I try to not drown. We did take some pictures and this one we told Matthew to fold his arms but in this picture it just looks like he is a gangster.

Black Friday

I think I have started a bad tradition. I have never gone out of my house on Black Friday but somehow I came across the ads for Black Friday and I got hooked. There were such good deals I could not just let them pass by so Matthew, Chris, and I went out among the crowds and snagged some cheap items. One of those items was a train. I have always wanted a train to go around the tree and so it was a good deal, we just had to get it. Growing up the tradition was putting the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving and we were going to do that this year since we actually stayed home but we were out and about too long. We put the tree up on Saturday and put the train around it. It seems really big compared to other remote controlled trains I have seen. Matthew loves watching it but we have been trying to express to him that he can't touch the train. After watching it for a long time we turned it off. I was in the kitchen and Matthew came in with the caboose in his hand. I was not very happy that he wasn't obeying his parents and so he got in a little bit of trouble for touching the train. Now instead of just saying choo-choo, he says choo-choo na-no. I think he has finally got it into his head that the choo-choo is a no-no.

Choo-choo, na-no

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Some friends, The Trousdales, weren't going anywhere for Thanksgiving so we decided to have Thanksgiving together. They have a 2 year old girl, Elaina and a 4 month old girl Erin. Allison and I came up with a plan, Chris and Matthew went over to their house in the morning and Allison brought Erin over here and we cooked dinner without the toddlers around. Chris took his XBox with him and he and Mike tried to play while Matthew and Elaina played together. It was wonderful. Allison and I had a wonderful time talking all day. It was so nice to just be able to cook without constantly having to get Matthew out of cupboards or hold him. We ate later then we wanted but it was pretty good. It wasn't as wonderful as my mom's Thanksgiving dinners but then again she has many more years of experience on me. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing but it turned out pretty well, thanks to Allison's help. However, I did not achieve my main goal which was to not have the white meat dry on my turkey. So if anybody had juicy white meat, please share your secret with me.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

First Mess

You know when you start hearing something that you shouldn't be hearing and you just think, oh no! Yep that is what happened. Matthew is tall enough and smart enough that he has learned how to open doors now. I am not very excited that he knows how to do that. I am really glad that our front door is really hard to open. Even adults can't get out our front door sometimes. Matthew gets into the pantry on a regular basis now and it doesn't always make me happy. We need to go get those childproof (adult proof) door handles. Matthew just got done eating 2 big pancakes, two sausage links and a good sized bowl and yogurt for breakfast and he was apparently hungry within 30 minutes of eating breakfast because he went to find more food. I was in the other room and just heard a noise I shouldn't hear and knew exactly what was happening. So I jumped up, grabbed the camera and went to assess the damages. I am so glad it was only Kix and not like sugar or something worse. Chris said he was glad he wasn't the one that was here because be probably would have freaked out but I just had to laugh. It could have been worse and I know there will be a lot bigger messes then this in the future. Once he poured them out and I got my pictures, I didn't want him to move because every time he did, he stepped on some and smashed them. I am glad I got pictures of his "first mess". It is something we just have to laugh about.

Oh, NO!!

"Now I can eat what I want!"

Beautiful Weather

I wrote this a couple weeks ago but just never posted it. The weather right now is only in the 40s and it has been raining a lot the last couple days.
I took the garbage out and Matthew followed me and then he didn't really want to come inside and so I decided it was such a beautiful day then it would be good for us to spend some time outside. It has gotten so nice here. Now it is only in the 70s during the day. It is WONDERFUL. However that means that we do get in the 40s at night and I don't necessarily like it that cold. Yes, I am originally from MT but I have been in the heat of AZ and TX for the last 6 years and I am acclimated to the warm weather. I am a wimp when it comes to cold weather. The sad part is 40s isn't even all that cold compared to MT but when you are used to 100+ weather it is cold. The days are beautiful though. We spent many hours outside. Matthew found some sticks that kept him occupied for a very long time and I got some yard work done. I weeded and trimmed trees. We now have a big pile of branches for bulk pickup. When Chris came home he asked if I felt like a beaver and I was completely lost as to what he was talking about. He said there were so many branches and twigs I could build my own damn. The back yard looks a little better though. There are trees in our back yard and two of them actually have hooks for a hammock. Normally I don't like to be outside here in Texas because of all the bugs and everything but I really enjoyed it yesterday being in the shade of all the trees and feeling the cool weather. I wished I had a hammock to lay in so badly. Maybe someday we will get one for these nice fall days. I only saw two wasps the whole day and only one spider which was in the mailbox. The insects must be hibernating since it gets so cold at night but that is ok with me.He thought this metal box was fun to drum on since it made noise. He would use his hands and also his sticks. He was having fun using his sticks as a broom, sort of. He would try to sweep away all the leaves and little berries that had fallen on the back porch.

Ready For My Date

Chris and I actually get to go out on a date tonight. I am so excited about it and I even got all prettied up for it. Not very often do I think I look sort of cute so I had to make sure I took a picture because this doesn't happen very often.

Stake Conference

Today we had stake conference. It wasn't just any ordinary stake conference though. We had to go to Reed Arena on Texas A&M University campus to attend conference. It has been about ten years since we (well not us but the stake) sustained a new Stake President. We were told that Elder Holland was going to be at our stake conference so we knew we were getting a new stake presidency. As we first drove up to Reed Arena I felt like I was going to General Conference because there were a bunch of Mormons dressed in their Sunday best walking into a big building. Not to mention, an apostle was going to be there speaking to us. Elder Holland released the old Stake Presidency and called the new Stake Presidency. We do actually know the 2nd Counselor so that was pretty cool. I am sure the new Presidency will do an awesome job.
When Elder Holland spoke at the end, I almost didn't feel like it was real. To actually be listening to an apostle talk specifically to our stake was so incredible. I loved how he talked about President Hinckley. To someone that has never physically been to General Conference and just watch it on television, the apostles including President Hinckley seem so distant from me. But to actually have Elder Holland there talking to us about seeing President Hinckley everyday made me feel like church headquarters wasn't so far away. It was a really good experience to get to go to Stake Conference today and listen to an apostle speak.

18 Month Check-up

We just went to Matthew's eighteen month check-up and the overall conclusion is that he is a healthy boy. I love when the doctor tells me that I am doing a good job. It makes me feel so good. All moms need to hear that they are doing a good job every once in awhile. Matthew's measurements are:

Weight: 25 pounds 11 ounces
Height: 34 inches
Head: 19 1/4 inches

He is around 50% for his weight but around 90% for his height. He is a tall boy. Many people guess that he is at least 2 years old because he is so tall.

Matthew still sits in his highchair when we eat but occasionally for snack time I put him in his big boy chair and give him a big boy cup to try and help him use those types of cups so it isn't so new when he is in nursery. It is funny, some days he just loves sitting in his chair and drinking out of his cup and other times he doesn't really care. This particular day he was having fun being a big boy.




Eighteen months means nursery!!!!! Chris has been going in with him for the last month to get him "used to it" and it is nice to be able to go to class and actually listen for a change. Since Chris wasn't able to go to church with me, I was glad that Matthew was "officially" nursery age and I didn't have to go in with him. I thought it was going to be dramatic when I left because he is such a mommy's boy but he pushed the door right open and I didn't even go in with him. They have toy time first so it is a big distraction for them leaving their parents. I checked on him occasionally and seemed to do fine until I had to go in the last 20 minutes to do the singing time. As soon as I walked in, it was like his mood changed or something but he wanted my full attention when I was trying to do singing time. He needs to get used to me being the teacher and not mommy for a whole 20 minutes. We have about 30 nursery kids and that is a lot trying to keep them sitting on the floor on their little rugs. I believe we have more coming in before the end of the year and we are only losing 6 to Sunbeams next year. We have had so many new families move in, I feel like I am visiting the ward because I don't know many anymore. All the "student" families that were here when we got here, have all left. There are the core families that work for the University so they are not going anywhere but other then that I don't know many. It is quite crazy.

OH!!!

Recently Matthew has been making this face. I am not sure what it means but it is funny and cute. It looks like he is saying oh but he doesn't actually say anything when he does it and then after he does it he laughs, probably because we are laughing.

Another "oh" face

Halloween

We weren't going to take Matthew trick-or-treating since he can't even say trick-or-treat yet but then right as we put Matthew's pajamas on our friends came trick-or-treating to our door. I had wanted to see Joseph's costume and so they convinced me that Joseph needed a trick-or-treating buddy to go around our neighborhood with. I put Matthew in his costume and out the door we went. The boys had so much fun knocking on the doors. That was the best part. They were really sad if nobody answered though. It was the cutest thing watching them knock on the door. We were having so much fun watching them knock that we went down a couple more streets. Since we live in a retirement community it wasn't very successful but the boys still had fun.

Knock, Knock

Halloween Family Home Evening

Our friends, The Martins, had us over for a Halloween Family Home Evening. Dressing up was optional. Since we think Matthew is too young to go trick-or-treating we didn't find a costume for him this year but then my other friend had an extra costume so Matthew got to borrow a lion costume that I had him wear to FHE. It was so much fun. There were 5 other families there and lots of laughing going on. The lesson was on teamwork and how if we work together we can get things accomplished. She read/sang a book called The Big Pumpkin and the witch wanted this big pumpkin but couldn't get it off the vine. Along came the ghost, mummy, vampire, and bat and helped her. It was a really fun cute book that a good theme to it. Then we sang songs and she did a little skit/poem about the Five Little Pumpkins sitting on the gate. Then we played Halloween bingo, decorated cookies, ate pumpkin chocolate chip bread (which was SO good), ate caramel apples, drank apple juice/cider, and had a donut eating contest in which the donut hung from a string and you couldn't use your hands to eat it. It is a lot harder then it looks. Matthew was a little too young for things but he really enjoyed playing with Kyle's toys, especially all the balls he has. Matthew LOVES balls, any size, any color. If you have writing on your shirt and it has an o in it he points to it and says ball. He is cute. Chris unfortunately wasn't able to come with us since he has class Monday nights but we still had a really fun time.

Witch's Brew......Ok, not really, it was the apple cider juice mix with dry ice. A cool affect though.What a surprise, Matthew found a ball.

Amy reading/singing the Big Pumpkin and her son Kyle.

This costume got a little hot with all these bodies around.

Sickness

Matthew finally got over his fever and his tooth came in but it was only his other bottom tooth and not any molars so if he hurts that bad or worse when his molars come in....I don't want to think about it. So now Matthew officially has 8 teeth. Four on top and on the bottom. He started sleeping through the night eventually and then a couple days after he finally got a full nights sleep he woke up at 11pm crying. It was a different kind of cry though. When I picked him up, his arm was wet and then I took a wiff. I knew exactly what had happened. I figured he wanted me to hold him and not just put him down while I cleaned things up so after I changed his pajamas I put him in my sling while I changed his sheets thinking that this was just a one time occurrence. However it was not a once time occurrence. After I cleaned he and I up the second time, surprisingly he didn't get anything on the sling so once again I put him back in the sling. I finished putting clean sheets on his bed and then once again he threw up on me since he was in the sling. I finally figured that he wasn't done and decided to have a bucket ready for him the next time instead of being in the sling against me. Matthew just laid on me in the chair but he wouldn't ever fall asleep. I thought once he didn't throw up in an hour I would put him to bed. Finally at 4am, he was so exhausted I felt mean not putting him back in his crib, so I finally put him to bed. He still woke up at his normal time the next morning even though he was up literally all night long. He acted just like a healthy little boy running around and everything the next day but he did take a 4 hour nap that day and was glad to get put to sleep that night. Poor little guy.
Then a couple days later, Chris got sick but thankfully it was during the weekend. He is SO swamped with all of his school work and lectures and GRADING he can't even breath and he was getting SO burnt out. Chris was very sick, including running temperature and very nauseous. He was on his back all Saturday and most of Sunday. I was surprised he was able to make it to school on Monday but he is so busy he can't afford to miss any days. This is the busiest semester he has ever had, mostly because he not only teaches 3 classes at Blinn Community College and has to do the lectures and then all the grading, but he has his TA assignment at A&M which he just got over 210-4 page papers, and he grades another professors tests and quizzes, not to mention his own schoolwork. I feel so bad for him and offer to help him but there isn't anything I can do. I wish I could grant him more time or all these papers graded. In a way though, it was good for Chris to not even think about school for a few days because I think it has helped him not be quite as burnt out at least for the time being. So that Matthew wouldn't bother Chris I took Matthew to the Fall Fest that was downtown Bryan but it was definitely geared for the older kids. There wasn't a whole lot of anything for Matthew to do there and there were so many bees around I thought Matthew would get stung for sure. Since there wasn't much for Matthew to do there besides get stung we came home and played outside until dinner time. This is the one thing Matthew could do at Fall Fest and it didn't seem much fun to him.

One Cool Dude

The weather is getting so nice here, I love it. It is now only getting in the 80's and the humidity hasn't been bad at all the last couple days. We have been able to take walks during the day but then that means it is much, much brighter out. Chris had to finish up some work when he got home so I took Matthew for a walk and prepared him for the sun. The glasses were slightly too big on him, but someday we will get a pair that will actually be his. Until then, this will have to do.

Poor Baby

The last few days have been very long for this little family. We think Matthew has been teething. It started with him just being really cranky and whiny ALL DAY LONG! Chris would walk in the door and after a minute he would be getting bugged by this constant wining. Of course I had heard it all day. He would also wake up about 4 to 6 times a night. Then one night when Chris got him out of the bath, he was shivering and shaking he was so cold. When I got him to finish up the bedtime routine I felt his head and he had a fever, but he was still cold. We gave him some Tylenol, but needless to say I was up all night long with this poor little guy. The next day we went to the grocery store and Matthew started freezing when we got to the dairy section. He did not feel well. We only live about 3-5 minutes away from the store and Matthew fell asleep in the car, about a minute into the drive home. He was obviously trying to catch up on that sleep that he missed the night before. His molars have got to be coming in but I can't see anything. We will all be happy and more rested when he stops hurting so bad.

Basket

I am not too sure what Matthew was doing, maybe enjoying the heat since they had just come out of the dryer but it was kind of funny because I was looking for him and then found him in here. We think he is such a cute little boy.

Inspired Housework

Last time we had General Conference it was a lot easier to watch/listen to because Matthew was still taking two naps a day and he just happened to be down for his nap when conference was on so we didn't have any interruptions. This time however was a completely different story. Matthew slept between the two sessions. Needless to say we didn't get a whole lot out of the conference talks. How do you watch conference with little children?
Since byu.tv.com had all the sessions that you could listen to anytime after conference I decided to try to listen to them again on Monday. I started playing it as Matthew and I were eating breakfast. Since just sitting and watching/listening to it wasn't an option I decided to clean the house while listening to the talks and that way I could get Matthew to help me and he would be excited about being involved. Other then vacuuming the whole house cause obviously I wouldn't be able to hear with the vacuum going, I was able to listen to all four sessions of General Conference and my house got a very good cleaning. Chris was very impressed with the way the house looked when he came home that night. It was funny because as I was cleaning I was thinking of all the wonderful things Chris was going to say when he got home and he actually said most of them. As I said, Matthew was my helper. I wiped the table and he saw me so he wanted to wipe the table also. Of course I had to get a picture of it.