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.

Montana Pictures

My brother, Jon, took these pictures when we were in Montana this summer and they turned out clearer then my pictures so I am deciding to post them. Of course I think they are cute so I have to post them. My parents company, Western Romance Company, took a family out while I was there and they let us tag along with them and enjoy the western experience. My mom home made all the delicious food. We had steak, cowboy beans (which is the reason why people come..they are SO good), potato salad, fruit and scones. It was a really fun time despite the 100+ degree weather. If you want to find out more, go to www.westernromancecompany.comJon thought the idea of putting the scarf around the neck for the bid was a good look and then having my plate in front of him was picture perfect. Matthew was enjoying the food so much he was stuffing big pieces into his mouth.

My dad was in the movie "Far And Away" and they filmed the race out here on this land. It was pretty cool to drive in the wagon with my dad as he was telling us the experience he had during the race. He is lucky to come out in one piece by what he told us. While my dad was talking to the family they took out I needed to change Matthew's diaper so I got off the wagon and into the open prairie. It is a good think I had a changing mat for Matthew to lay on. I don't quite know why Jon wanted a picture of me changing Matthew's diaper in the middle of no-where, Montana but it is a little funny.This is my dad, aka Happy Pappy, driving this team.

Hair Cut

Chris and Matthew both needed hair cuts badly. We just recently bought Matthew a booster seat, so we had him sit on that for the hair cut and then we put the cape around him. We put Baby Einstein on the laptop for him to watch and Chris sits in a chair behind him to keep everything under control and so Matthew won't get away. It has worked pretty well so far.

Our little boy that is growing up:-(

Texas Renaissance Festival

Ever since we have been in Texas we have heard about the Texas Renaissance Festival but for some reason we never went. Now that we have gone, we wish that we had gone before we had kids, but oh well. (If wishes were fishes we would all have a fry....right mom?) We drove about an hour to get there. We were very surprised with how organized everything was even with the parking. It was so much more then I ever imagined. Obviously they make it so you feel like you are living in that time but wow did it ever work. I was very overwhelmed when we first walked in the gate. I was not expecting so much. We thought that just the actors and people working there would be dressed up but no, we were actually the odd balls out. Some people get so into it, it is crazy. Like I said, I was quite overwhelmed. Matthew stuck out like a sore thumb and everyone wanted to talk to him because of his hair. Some were asking us how we got the sun on top of his head, and this one guy put his hands up to Matthew's head and said he could feel the heat coming off of it. It was really weird, I didn't want to have to talk to anybody, because I was way out of my comfort zone. Not only was I overwhelmed but I think Matthew was to. We sat down to listen to this band and look at our program to figure out what shows we wanted to attend and these girls came over because of Matthew's hair. We finally got Matthew out and Chris asked who wanted to hold him. They all just screamed with excitement and reached out for him saying "I do, I do."

As you can tell by the picture Matthew wasn't to excited to be surrounded by all these "weird" people. He is normally a flirt around girls but not this day. Too much for him.

There was so much to see and do we didn't get pictures of any of it. Like I said, there was so much it was overwhelming.

There were also pony rides that Matthew kept pointing at and making noise. He really wanted to go on the ponies. While Chris was getting me an early Anniversary gift, I took Matthew on the ponies. He absolutely loved it. Even though I never got a good one of him really smiling he LOVED it. I am sure Grandpa McNiven would be very proud. Matthew cried and cried when we left the ponies. Right before we left for the day we let him go on them one last time. He loved it until he had to leave once again.

I am not usually a flower person so Chris was surprised when I wanted these but these roses are made out of wood. Can you believe that? Wooden roses. It was so awesome. Like I said, I'm not a huge flower person because they just die a couple days later. But these won't ever die. It was a little too hard to hide these from me until our Anniversary in a month so I got my present early. I absolutely love them.The guy that sold these roses was from Ireland. He braids them all together for you and there are many different braids that he can do. He said he had been braiding since he was a boy. One braid that he did took him over 4 hours but it also had 200 roses in it. I really like the idea of them standing up on their own so that is what I wanted. I love looking at these. The best part is that they won't die. He had the buyer pick out the color and then he would do the braid and then scent it for you.There was a petting zoo that we took Matthew in. They had a pig, goats, a sheep, a lama, and a donkey. I think we need to work on the whole petting issue cause he just liked to pat them sort of instead of petting them. This pig seemed a little different because it reminded me of a pug with the smashed nose. I don't think I have ever seen a smashed nose on a pig and we raised pigs when I was growing up, along with goats, and chickens.

Grab the goat by the horns That is some orange hair!In the morning we had overcast so it was really nice, still humid but still nice. Around noon the sun came out and it got hot and uncomfortable. Matthew started getting really tired and he was just too hot to sleep in the sling, and we had enough so we left about 3. Matthew doesn't sleep in the car and we were barely on the road and he fell asleep. He must have been exhausted. We had a fun day as a family though. We want to make it an annual event now. Hopefully next year I won't be so overwhelmed and be able to enjoy it more.

A Date (finally)

Chris and I finally got to go on a date, sort of. We put Matthew to sleep and then went out our back gate through trees and into an open field and shot our BB gun for the first time. We had snacks and bbs, life was good. We had the baby monitor with us just in case Matthew woke up. It was fun to shoot our gun. It worked out pretty well. As one was shooting, the other was keeping the ants off the blanket. It was still pretty humid out so it felt hot and it got dark too soon but then we just packed up and walked the 5 feet to our house. We are definitely going to have to do this again.

Splash Pad (Second Try)

Today for Playgroup we all met at the Splash Pad one last time before it gets shut down. Even though he likes swimming and his bath, he does not like the splash pad. I am glad that there was a ball there for him to play with. He ABSOLUTELY LOVES balls. Any kind, big or small. He loves them all. I thought that he might be more interested in the splash pad having all of his friends there playing in the water but he had his ball so that is all he wanted and was very happy playing with that.

By Foot

It is amazing the things that we miss when we get to drive everywhere. Since our car was in the shop, we got to take that opportunity and walk to "run errands". We enjoyed the fresh air and I got plenty of exercise walking around. On our way home from doing the errands we saw some ducks and so Matthew started saying qwack, qwack. It was pretty cute. He really wanted to get out of his stroller and see the ducks closer so I let him get out. Unfortunately for Matthew the ducks wouldn't stay still so he could get closer to them. We are enjoying that the weather is only in the 90's now instead of the 100's with the humidity.

Random Pictures

Here are just a few random pictures that I have taken. Nothing eventful going on when these pictures were taken.

Like Father, like son.
Rocking Horse

Giving his rocking horse a hug.

Daddy giving him a horsey ride.

Slithering on the floor.
(I don't have any idea why.)