For SALE!!!

I know you don't normally post things that you have for sale but I would like this to go to a good home so I am posting it on my blog.
Up for sale is about 30 pounds, and about 38 inches high. Sometimes very sweet, pretty cute but A LOT OF WORK. Way too much work for us. Oh, and has red hair. Maybe that is why it is SO much work. Actually we don't even want any money, how about free! We will even toss in the presents we have for the 2 year birthday that is coming up.
Occasionally he answers to Matthew but not very often or if he does hear you he doesn't obey. He also wakes up all the time at night and takes hours to fall asleep at night and doesn't take naps during the day. Screams, squeals, hits and spits all the time. If any of you would like him, we would be more then happy to give him to you.
Can you tell he has been driving us crazy? We get so fed up with him there are numerous times we want to put up for sale or even for free on craigslist. Many people think he is cute and I would to if I only had to see him for a couple seconds.
We have been trying to get him into a toddler bed and we thought it was working. He used to have a spring in his bed and got out all the time. Now, he will sort of stay in his bed but never take a nap or just stay on their playing for hours. It makes us (me) so frustrated. I am tempted to just put him back in his crib so I can leave him and not worry about him getting out and just buying a new crib for the next child. We have the child-proof door knobs on his door knobs which keeps him in his room but not from screaming for hours and making his dad hate him again.
This child makes us so mad and frustrated we are definitely not designed to have lots of children. It wouldn't be good for them or us. As you can read, dealing with children in Primary that don't behave and then coming home and dealing with a child that doesn't sleep and is just cranky/whiney/crying all day has not made for a happy post.
What can I do? What can I do so that he will sleep? Why don't I have more patience? I am frustrated enough I better stop right here.
We ask ourselves this question all the time and continue to ask this question especially today. Why did we have children? At this point the scale is lopsided and not for the good. Why? Why?
Oh how I wish grandparents lived closer so we could get a break every once in awhile. We could let him spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and not feel guilty that we are dropping him off on someone.

Moods

Do you ever get in those moods that you just don't want to leave a comment. Sometimes I am like that. I check all the blogs religiously to see if ya'll have updated them but I don't always leave a comment. So please forgive me. Thank you to all of you that blog I love reading them.

Since I was posting Easter pictures I decided to at least change the colors on my blog. I haven't ventured out and done amazing things like many of you have. I had taken a good nap today and the boys were asleep I felt like I finally had a little bit of time to myself so I was able to leave a couple comments and update my blog a little.
Keep up the GREAT blogging YA'LL!!!!

Sneaky

My visiting teachers came this week and brought me some Easter candy in a little baggy. I left it in the living room on accident. While I was finishing dinner, I let Matthew watch a movie. When Chris came home he asked if I knew Matthew was eating chocolate and that it was all over his mouth. I had no idea but I should have guessed something was up because he hadn't been in to try and get me to come watch his movie with them. As you can tell he was so zoned just eating his candy and watching the movie. Life was good.

Easter

My friend Amy told my about this idea of doing the egg dying in the bathtub and it was such a good idea. Thank Amy! Matthew had fun with it but we only ventured to giving him 4 different colors. Chris was never a big dying eggs kind of person so Matthew and I got to have all the fun. Even though Amy told me that the dye never stained their tub or their skin I was a little skeptical. Especially when we were all done and just running water on the tub it came off but it wasn't coming off of Matthew right away. I figured well his nursery leaders will definitely know he dyed eggs if it doesn't come off. However, just giving him a bath everything came off and you couldn't tell he had done anything.

It is very interesting the difference in how one spouse grew up from the other when it comes to the different holidays and traditions. It doesn't usually come out until you have kids at least not for us. I always loved getting our Easter baskets on Sunday morning filled with candy including jelly beans with is an Easter candy in my eyes and a new Sunday outfit maybe with a something little bit more. I didn't exactly stick to that tradition but would like to more in the future but Matthew still had an outfit we got him for his Christmas pictures that he hasn't worn much because it was too big so I didn't get him an outfit but he did get a basket with candy and quite a few art/crafty things like paint, paintbrushes, and sidewalk chalk. I wasn't going to do Easter baskets for Chris and I but Chris' parents sent an Easter basket with movies in it for us along with a train book for Matthew, and a bunny so I put everything in the Easter baskets. Since church was at 9am we didn't do our Easter baskets until after Matthew woke up from his nap. Once he went down I did the Easter baskets and we put a trail of eggs for Matthew to pick up. He slept for a long time. I was excited for him to get up and start the "egg hunt" and see his basket but that day he decided to sleep 3 hours. He finally woke up and we gave him the basket right away to start putting the eggs in. I don't think he was fully awake to be really enjoying it. As you can tell he wasn't even walking at first. Then he wanted Chris to carry his basket for him. He got entirely way too many eggs but believe me he didn't get to eat everything that was in them and actually were some that didn't have anything in them. Then he saw his Easter basket and loved what he got, especially the candy that we let him eat.

Easter Egg Hunt

This year was Matthew's first real Easter Egg Hunt. Last year he didn't know what was going on. My friend told me about an Easter Egg Hunt at a Rehabilitation Center that the older people enjoy watching the kids do the Easter Egg hunt so we decided to go. Since we hadn't done one before I wasn't sure how Matthew would do. However the good thing was that he didn't know/realize that there was candy inside the eggs. I just kept telling him to pick up an egg and put it in his basket. Finally when all the eggs were picked up the Easter Bunny came out. Matthew wasn't scared at all. He was interested in the big bunny. I wanted to get a picture with just Matthew and the Easter Bunny but this one little girl came to the Bunny and wanted her picture taken also. I took a picture but was nicely trying to get her out of the way and the Bunny was also trying to keep her away while getting Matthew for a picture. The bunny bent down and put Matthew on his lap and I was able to get a pretty good picture. It was cute.
We had another Easter Egg Hunt I had planned on taking Matthew to so I never revealed what was actually in the eggs. We went to the next hunt and I didn't know/realize what part of town it was in. The guy was speaking and then all of a sudden I started to think I wasn't suppose to be there. I looked around and I happened to find about 4 other families like me and it made me not feel like I wasn't exactly suppose to be there. This Easter Egg hunt was definitely different from the first one and Matthew got a little cultured while we were there. I had fun being with Matthew and letting him do something he only gets to do during one time of the year. Chris unfortunately got to stay home and grade exams and read.
It is kind of fun going to things like that because most to all of the people haven't seen hair as red as Matthew's so he gets so much attention and I get so many questions. If it is just Matthew and I the comment is always "oh, his dad must have red hair" and when I tell them no they get a look of shock and amazement.

Look Matthew, get that egg, put it in your basket.

That little girl in the yellow standing by Matthew was the one that always wanted her picture taken and I had a hard time getting her away long enough to take a picture of Matthew and the Easter Bunny.

Joseph and Matthew just go crazy when they see each other and this day they both fell apart when they each had to go their separate ways. It is cute to see them get so excited to see each other and hold hands to do different things.

His loot was pretty good for his first Easter Egg Hunt, especially considering there were other big children.

Grandpa's Example

While we were in AZ Matthew learned something new thanks to Grandpa. Many times after we got done eating dinner we would just sit around the table and talk. Matthew imitates many things he sees and one of those things were putting his elbows on the table. Grandpa thought it was so funny. Though we didn't actually get a picture of he and Grandpa doing it together, (I wish I would have) shortly after we got home we found Matthew imitating Grandpa even though Grandpa wasn't there. It was funny to watch him.

Spring Break Vacation

For Spring Break this year we flew to Arizona to see family. It was so much fun and I didn't want to come back home. Matthew had the best time with Grandma and Grandpa Thomas and loved their dog Murphy as long as she didn't lick his face. While we were there we got to attend our niece's 8th birthday and spend time with the family. Matthew loved playing with his cousins and loved all the attention that he got from everybody.
Since I haven't figured out how to post a slide show it was really hard trying to decide what pictures to post. Hopefully these will represent the wonderful time we had.

This was the day we celebrated Emily's birthday. The kids jumped and popped balloons on the trampoline. Matthew was too busy laughing at his cousins to take a good picture. Oh well, they had fun.

Grandpa just thrived on doing anything and everything he could with Matthew. On a couple occasions Matthew got to drive Grandpa's truck home from the end of their street. This was coming home from church and Murphy was there to greet them.

Grandpa reading books to Matthew. I don't think he realizes how cool this is because his Grandpa was a very low voice that everyone just loves to listen to so to get stories read to him, what a lucky, lucky little boy.

Matthew couldn't get too close to Murphy or she would lick him but we at least got them in the same picture. They both loved having each other around and were both sad when they couldn't find each other after we left. They said she moped around looking for Matthew in his room and our room but couldn't find her little buddy. On our hand Matthew ran around the house the day after we got home calling for Murphy and crying because he couldn't find her. So sad:(

The day we left Matthew's Thomas cousins: Emily, Hudson, Tori, and Max came over for about an hour to spend just a little more time with him.
Matthew loved playing with these Fisher Price toys. I wish they still made them but they don't. These were from Chris and his brothers' childhood and since they were in such good shape after they were done with them and they had so much fun with them Grandma decided to keep them for the future grandchildren and they all just love playing with these. What ever happened to the good old toys they used to make and can last for so many years and so much abuse from small children?

Phoenix Zoo

While we were in AZ we decided to take Matthew to the zoo. I had never been to a zoo before so I was looking forward to it. This sounds really weird but the animals really do look the same as you see in the pictures and videos. The first animal I saw was a giraffe and I was speachless. I couldn't believe I was actually looking at a real giraffe. They have such long necks. I still can't believe that I actually saw some of those really rare animals. We saw lions, and tigers and bears, oh my... Just kidding. But we did see the giraffes, a tiger, a lion and lioness, different kinds of monkeys and HUGE turtles. They weighed over 100 pounds. I didn't know there were turtles that big. Chris wishes that he would have known that I had never been to a zoo before we had kids because we could have spent a lot more time there and it would have been a fun date. That subject obviously never came up until we went to the Phoenix Zoo. There were so many other things that were so cool to see but I am sure all of you have been to a zoo before and know there are fun exotic animals there that really do like the same as all the pictures:) After being there for 3 hours Matthew was very ready to be done. We would like to go again while we are there but go on a weekend so that Grandpa can come along. I am sure he would love to go to the zoo with Matthew.

#2

Many people have noticed our little poll on the side of the blog and have realized that it means that we are expecting our second baby. I figured it was about time I posted something about it. Some days we are extremely excited about it but having a 2 year old that squeals, cries about EVERYTHING, and doesn't obey, those exciting days are getting fewer and farther apart. Kudos to those of you that have more then two children. At this point, we can't imagine having more then two.
Some of you have already heard this story but I will post it for those that haven't yet. During the holidays as I was wrapping presents I started to get dizzy and I don't normally get dizzy. A couple other things were happening so I decided to go get a pregnancy test and take it on Christmas Day. We had some good friends come over for Christmas Eve dinner the day before which was very good because I was so anxious for Christmas to come that cooking all day kept me busy. Christmas morning early I got up and took the test and it said I was pregnant so I put it in a ziploc bag and then wrapped it up as a present. (My friend did a similar thing when she told her husband she was pregnant. Dadra, thanks for the great idea!) I was very anxious for Chris to open his presents. I felt like a little kid. Finally the last present to open was this special one and it was light, Chris had no idea what it could be. When he opened it, he was very excited to see that is said we were pregnant. For the for couple days after that I had to look at the test to make sure it actually said I was pregnant because I didn't feel bad at all and was thinking it wasn't true but then I didn't need to look at anything anymore. I had more then enough reminders that I was (am) pregnant.
This picture was taken at my first appointment when I was 10 weeks pregnant. It was cool to actually see a baby in there because when we were pregnant with Matthew and first went in we thought we were 7 weeks pregnant and we were only 4 weeks so our first picture of him was just a little dot/blob. I was a little surprised to actually see some resemblance of baby on our first picture. Since it is the second baby I figured I would wait longer before going in because that would mean less doctor appointments and less times I had to find someone to watch Matthew.
As of Wednesday I am 14 weeks now and I went in for my monthly checkup on Friday. I was excited to be able to hear the heartbeat since we heard Matthew's at about 12 weeks. When she tried to find it she couldn't which worries me just a bit but she went and got another machine and looked at the baby. She said the baby is still way deep in my pelvis and that is why we can't hear it yet. As we were looking at the baby she said she had to push it deep to be able to see it but was able to see the heartbeat and the baby moved around a couple times. I am surprised to hear the baby is still deep because I look pregnant already. Even though I definitely look pregnant I lost 3 pounds from last month. Hopefully everything goes well and the baby grows healthy and strong.

January 30, 2008
(10 weeks along)

Still There

People have been wondering how Matthew is doing with his bonk. Well, there is still a bruise there but it is getting lighter and smaller we think. Yesterday, when he was in nursery, his teachers didn't know that he had a bruise there until he hit himself in the head in the same spot and he looked at them like "am I suppose to cry?" A while later one of the teachers saw his bruise and thought "wow, he really hit himself hard and he didn't even cry, what a tough little boy." So when Chris picked him up they told him about the bruise and Chris reassured him that the bruise was already there. All in all, he is fine and I think I am to. We all survived. Chris thinks the bruise will still be there this Friday when we go to Arizona but I don't think it will. I hope it doesn't because it will just break his Grandpa's heart to see his little Matthew with a bruise on his head. We think Matthew has Grandpa wrapped around his little finger.