Matthew's Birthday

Matthew had his 3rd birthday! He was so excited and had been talking about all his plans for quite awhile. Did it live up to all the hype? Of course. He's three. As long as he can open presents, eat dessert and play, he is happy. And he got to do all of those. We also watched the movie Planes that night. He chose to forego his nap and so he was super tired by the time bedtime rolled around.

With his birthday balloon and gifts.

The unwrapped gifts.

The Recycle Truck came on his birthday. He loves the Recycle Truck and he especially likes when it honks at him. The driver is really nice and honks every week. Matthew held up this sign for his birthday and he got lots of honks :)

Matthew wanted sweet potato pie for his birthday. (He's not scowling here--he's just really tired.)

He may be super tired but he managed to eat two pieces of pie

Matthew showing off his new Lego crocs while wearing his new Cars shirt!

Matthew is so much fun to have in our family! He likes to joke around and is often doing "knock knock" jokes. The other day at lunch, he closed his eyes and said, "Mommy, I can't see you!" He turned his head all around as if trying to see me while keeping his eyes shut. He thought that was pretty funny! He has the hugest smiles and laughs to go along with his jovial attitude.

He also likes to have his whole family with him. When Sarah would leave to go play with friends over Christmas break, he was sometimes inconsolable. In his ideal world, we would all be together all the time.

Matthew especially loves his daddy right now. He is an early riser, often getting up early enough that he can shower with daddy. He always waves to daddy when he goes to work. It's cute to hear Matthew in the tower saying, "Bye daddy! I love you daddy!" over and over again.

Matthew loves to sing. If you call him up, you might be privileged to hear him sing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" or "What Makes You Beautiful." What's really fun is that, while he gets most of the lyrics correct, he mixes some up. For example, in "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," instead of singing "He knows if you've been bad or good," Matthew sings, "He knows if you're a bad guy." In "What Makes You Beautiful," he sings, "I don't know you're beautiful." It's super cute to listen to him sing. The other night, I was rocking him to sleep singing "I am a Child of God." Partway through, he must have decided I was doing it wrong because he sat up and started singing it himself in a little bit jazzier fashion. He's also singing a lot of Frozen songs and has his favorite lines like "sandwiches" {in First Time in Forever} and "happy snowman!" {in In Summer}.

Matthew is obsessed with firemen. He wants to be a fireman when he grows up and loves watching the "Fireman Sam" movies we get from the library. He got a fireman puzzle for his birthday that he and Megan love putting together. Once the puzzle is put together, he likes to just look at it.

Sarah's input on Matthew: He's an awfully good brother!

Matthew had his 3 year doctor's appointment (in January 2014--post moved back to 2013). He weighed in at 25.4 lbs (2%) and is 35.25 inches tall (7%). I was thrilled with how much he'd grown since his two year check (3 pounds and almost 2 inches) as at sick visits earlier in the year he hadn't put on any weight! He seems to be doing well developmentally as well.

Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas!

Our kids were up nice and early. Sarah and Matthew were both up and playing before 5 (Sarah claims to have woken up around 12:30). Megan got up a bit before 6 at which point the kids thought we should go open gifts. However, we'd agreed upon 8, or maybe 7:30 so we told them they'd need to wait a bit. We ended up going down around 6:30.

Three excited kids!

The stockings and Santa gifts before the kids came.

U and I were good too.

Matthew with his Santa gifts. He'd asked for a Mack and Cars cars. He was super excited to have gotten 2 Macks! In fact, he was so busy playing with them, he didn't start opening the rest of his stocking until the girls had finished opening theirs.

Megan with her Santa gifts. She's asked for a bed for her doll and matching outfits for her and her doll. She was excited about the outfits, as evidenced by the fact that she's wearing one of them, as is her doll who is sleeping in its bed. She liked all the Tangled stuff too.

Sarah showing off her stocking and other Santa gifts. She loved the Rainbow Loom and has made a lot of bracelets and rings. She told me that once you do the Rainbow Loom awhile, it's boring. But then when you don't have anything to do, you just have to do it more (kind of sounds like an addiction to me:) ). I think she actually likes it and enjoys coming up with new creations. She also got her water bottle that mists.

Me and my stocking. I got some puzzles books and new soft socks and guitar picks.

U with his stocking. He got stockings in his stocking:)

We then ate a yummy breakfast of cranberry orange pancakes with a cranberry orange sauce on top. Yum! When we finished, the kids thought it was time to move on to the other gifts. Here are some pictures, although I know we didn't get all the gifts in the pictures.....

Matthew with his family gifts, as well as a few Santa ones.

Megan with family gifts plus baby in her new bed.

Sarah with her family gifts. She's showing off her new socks that she got in her stocking.

Me with my family gifts. I got a super soft blanket and nice warm slippers:) I also got a new yoga DVD, a DVD with Pixar shorts and a 72 hour kit.

U with his family gifts. When I asked him what he wanted, he told me he wanted time so I got him a watch for his birthday (that's time, right) and then a book (time to read), a game (time to play) and a microscope (time to learn/explore) for Christmas. He also got a shirt, Legos and a soda stream.

Matthew shows off some of the kid group gifts--books and games!

Matthew loves his fireman stuff from Grandma and Grandpa. Pretty amazing that his new fireman jacket trumps his Cars jacket.

Megan loves putting together her puzzles.

Sarah showing off her new boots. It's pretty much the only pair of shoes she wears right now. Also, the pink shirt she has on is her shirt of choice.

The girls love their matching dresses. Even babies get in on the fun!

Matthew loves his train outfit.

Fun playing Monster Chase, one of our new games.

Cute picture of the kids with Animal Upon Animal game.

Christmas Eve

Sarah, Megan and Matthew are all super excited about Christmas. In fact, Matthew is in Megan and Matthew's room telling Megan that they need to go to sleep so Santa Claus can come. Sarah, on the other hand, has assured us that she is going to stay up until Santa comes so that she can see him. We will see how that works out for her.....

We enjoyed our traditional Christmas meal followed by our Christmas program, using the Little People nativity to act out the first Christmas. Ours was definitely unique, complete with Mary pulling baby Jesus in the cart (instead of a donkey). We sang some Christmas songs and decorated cookies.

Sarah putting frosting on a cookie.

Megan adding sprinkles.

Matthew and daddy discussing the best strategy for decorating the cookie.

Sarah's cookies

Everyone else's cookies. The ones that look super nice are U's. The one with a bite out of it is Matthew's.

The kids then wrote a letter to Santa (it is quite the epistle!) and set out some cookies & milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

Our tree with all our presents. Wow!

The kids opened their Christmas jams. Megan's even came with a matching nightgown for baby. They also opened their gifts from each other. We decided to do that so they would appreciate what their siblings gave them instead of it being just another gift to open. They sure loved the gifts they got! And they like playing with them. They certainly would have gone to bed earlier if we hadn't done sibling gifts (we actually had to call Matthew back downstairs to open the presents--he wanted to get to bed before Santa arrived. But once he opened them, he just wanted to play.). Overall it was a very enjoyable evening.

Merry Christmas!!!

U's Birthday

U celebrated his birthday on Sunday. He started out the day nice and early by going to his meetings at church, followed by church and then home for lunch, which Sarah made. He then opened presents. He had many helpers who were even willing to open gifts if desired.

Admiring daddy's new watch.

We had a yummy dinner of beef stroganoff followed by a cranberry apple cobbler.

Yummy cobbler

Just in case you ever wanted to see how the video taping happens....

We then watched the Muppets Christmas Carol for movie night. Daddy got lots of snuggles!

Happy birthday U!

As a side note, it was kind of humorous at church as people were talking about the birth we were celebrating and remembering the reason for the festivities. We did! It was for U's birthday :)

Zoolights

We went to Zoolights last week on Sarah's last day of school. It was a little cooler and had actually rained quite a bit not long before we got there. We thought maybe that would mean it wouldn't be so busy. We were wrong--there were lots of people! We decided to mix things up a little and do our normal Zoolights loop backwards: Normally we do the Arizona Trail followed by the lake loop clockwise. This time we did the lake loop counterclockwise followed by the Arizona Trail. Don't know why we normally do it how we do and don't know why we did it backwards this last time. We are glad we did, though, because we ran into some friends from church, the Fosters, at the very beginning of the lake loop and were able to experience it with them. Sarah, in particular, liked it as they have two girls she could hang out with. Favorites included the big blue LED tree, Jengo the talking giraffe and the music and light show on the lake.

Other celebratory happenings

Last week, Sarah had her Christmas concert. It was nice. They had a nice mix of songs--some Christmas, and some Hanukkah plus a few others. After the concert, there was a little reception with cookies and lemonade. She really is enjoying choir.

Megan and Me.

We had our ward Christmas party Friday night. It was a potluck where people brought something from their
heritage or mission. We brought pulla.

They had a photo station set up where we got a few pictures.

Gotta love Matthew's glasses! He actually put this on himself--it was not parent-inflicted.

The next day, we went to see Santa and actually talked to him. (The other times we've seen him this year, the kids haven't been able to talk to him.)

Sarah asked Santa for a water bottle that also squirts water and a Rainbow Loom with orange rubber bands.

Megan, who surprised us by not wanting to sit on Santa's lap by herself, asked Santa for a bed for her doll and for some clothes for her doll.

Matthew asked Santa for some cars and trucks.

At the mall, the fire department was having a Toys for Tots toy drive. In exchange for a toy donation, you could ride on a firetruck. That's pretty cool for any kid but for little boys who want to be a fireman when they grow up, it's extra special. As soon as we arrived at the mall, he spotted the firetrucks driving around and wanted to go on one. So it was really exciting when we finally got to go. And daddy and Matthew Fireman Sam (what he calls himself sometimes--Fireman Sam is a fireman on a tv show) even got to sit in the front of the truck.

We also went to the temple to see temple lights and the creches. They added another nativity outside this year and switched the narration and location of the other scenes plus they added a bunch of lights. It's definitely a fun tradition. Matthew would claim we didn't go, though, as he slept through the whole trip! However, we have a picture to prove otherwise:)