This Week

I haven't done just a good old fashioned update of what we did this week for a while; so that's what you're going to get today.
I actually started working out again and it has felt great. Last week I went to a zumba class that was a lot of fun. I have also gone running a few times. It is a little hard to motivate myself to go some nights but I'm always glad that I went when I come back. Hopefully I can keep it up. I got to go in and substitute this week which is always a bitter sweet day. I enjoy being in the classroom and working with the kids, and the money is a huge bonus, but I always hate having to find a babysitter for the entire day. It worked out pretty good this time because Kimi was able to watch him most of the day; for some reason I just feel better and not as guilty when I leave him with family. I also cleaned out our filing cabinet; cleaning out junk is so refreshing.
Justin found out that he can get paid to do his research! Yeah for an income, even if it is really small. He will be adding about 8 hours of research each week to his schedule but it should work out great. He has also started shadowing our bishop who is a Urologist. Justin got to shadow him doing surgeries on Wednesday and he said it was really neat. He also is going to be volunteering in the Oncology department at the hospital this semester so he will get to spend time with the children who have cancer and are staying in the hospital; I think it will be a good experience. His MCAT studying is coming along great. He continues to imporove his score with every practice test he takes. I think that come May he will be ready with no problems. Justin also got to go ice fishing this weekend with some guys from the ward. He caught 3 fish but had to throw them all back because of the type of fish they were.
We took Matthew swimming on Monday (Justin didn't have classes) and he of course loved it. We really wore him out because he took a 4 hour nap afterwards!! He wants to play dog all the time and loves carrying things around in his mouth like a dog. He even brings us shoes like my parents' dog Zeke. : ) Lately he has wanted me to do EVERYTHING with him and he will grab my hand and drag me around the house. Sometimes he doesn't want me to play with him, he just wants me to be sitting right next to him. It is fun to play with him but sometimes it gets a little old since I haven't been able to do much else. He also makes us smile every day with his cute words. I've been wanting to make a list of all the words he knows and uses, here goes:
shoes, nose, eye, light, puppy, ball, bubble, hot, soft, dude (this is what he calls his sunglasses), stinky (he will mimic this word when I ask him if he is stinky but he doesn't just tell me on his own that he is stinky), uh-oh, tah-dah, all done, more more (he always says more twice in a row) banana pronounced baba, and he has even said no no a couple of times. And when he tries to read (he recognizes text) he always does this jabber that seriously sounds like he is going through all of the vowels, "a, e, i, o, u". He will say that when he is writing or coloring too. This week Matthew also mastered his animal puzzle; he can put all the pieces correctly where they belong.
That's all the exciting things I can think of right now. I hope you all had a good week as well.

Oh, the Irony

Last night before falling asleep Justin and I were laying in bed talking. Justin randomly asked what we were going to do when Matthew learned to climb out of his crib. I answered that it would definitely make life interesting since his crib was already on the lowest setting. I said we would probably just have to transition him to a toddler bed since a crib would do no good if it didn't keep him in. But I didn't see that happening in the near future since he has never gotten close to climbing out, so I wasn't really worried about it.
Matthew's new favorite game is to lay in his crib while you pile all the stuffed animals on top of him. Then he has to climb out of the pile and then he loves to jump and lay on the pile. We were doing just that this afternoon when I noticed that his crib wasn't actually on the lowest setting and could be moved down one more notch. Cool, I thought- and stored that piece of information away for a later day when it would be relevant.Little did I know that later date would be today. We were again playing the stuffed animal game this evening when Matthew suddenly was trying to climb out of his crib; and he succeeded with little difficulty. Wow! But no big deal, he was standing on top of all the stuffed animals so that gave him extra height. So we moved all the stuffed animals and got him to try and do it again when to our amazement he again climbed out of his crib with little difficulty.
At this point I didn't want to encourage him but I really wanted him to do it again to catch it on camera. So we bribed him with some chocolate. This time it took him a little longer but once he got it he was quick. Down went the crib to the lowest setting. Now I guess it's just a matter of time before he grows tall enough to climb out. Oh, the irony of it all!




And here is just a cute picture of another thing Matthew enjoys doing, and a super cute video of him saying my favorite word: bubbles!

3 Years : )

Yesterday Justin and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. It was quite exciting for us because it is the first time since we have celebrated our anniversary; in fact it is the first time we were even in the same state on our anniverary!

The first year I was in Virginia doing this:

The second year Justin was in Phoenix doing this:
And this year, we went to ice cream and then got a couples massage. It was heavenly-let me tell you. I think it should be our new anniversary tradition; I mean, who doesn't love an excuse to go get a massage. It has been a happy and exciting three years. I love you Justin!

Christmas Vacation

Our Christmas vacation was perfect. We had two weeks to just relax and hang out with family. We were up in Idaho with my family this year and I always love hanging out with my sisters and my mom. We have always been in such a hurry lately when we go up to Idaho that it was nice to actually have down time to just hang out and do whatever we felt like.
The grandkids all got matching pajamas. When we were taking pictures of them, Matthew insisted on sitting on Maddi's lap-silly boy. The girls all got matching pajamas too.
Christmas morning was lots of fun. Matthew got a trike and he loves it! After he saw his bike, he was done. We couldn't even hardly get him to open another gift-he just wanted to sit on the bike. Santa did a good job : )
My sister got a Wii and we had fun playing Just Dance 2 and Super Mario World. Justin gave me my blog printed as a book; I love it!
On Monday we went up above Idaho City and went snowshoeing. It was a perfect day and the snow was beautiful. It was awesome just walking through a winter wonderland. Sorry Dad, I only had a picture of you from the back.

Justin wrote I Love U in the snow; we are sitting inside the heart in this picture.
On Tuesday we had a craft day and made Satin hair flowers. I have been wanting things for my hair for a long time so I was very excited to make these. They all turned out great.
I also got to watch my sister dance, hang out with old friends, eat lots of yummy food, workout with my mom & dad, play with my nieces, visit family, and best of all hang out with Justin. Now it's back to real life. Here we go!