Conference Sunday

We went over to the DeGooyers house and hung out with them and the Rappleyea family for Conference on Sunday. We ate a lot of great food and in between and after the sessions we hung out outside. Dev had fun playing with his RC buggy, Kev built us a great fire to keep us nice and toasty, and Mathias had a blast playing cars in the dirt with his little friend Logan. It was so nice to just hang out and relax with family and friends.

Phantom

I have to say, my mom got us the greatest gift for Christmas last year. She got us season tickets to Hale Centre Theatre in Salt Lake. I love this because Dev and I can actually go on dates more often and for free. This month we saw Phantom. I thought it was good but Dev thought it was boring. It was not Andrew Lloyd Webber's version, the one most people are familiar with. This one touches a bit more on how the little boy came to be and why and when he started living in the basement of the theater.

We also were able to go out to eat at Thaifoons using the last of our gift certificates. This was such a fun date and only costs us the tip for the waitress.


Can't wait for the next play in about a month or so. It is so great to be able to get out and just be with the hubby for a bit. It does not happen often enough but with these plays we are working on it.

Finally a nice warm day!

Today, after Mathias' much needed nice long nap, we decided to head over to Discovery Park. Lately all Mathias wants to do at our park is swing, and quite frankly I am getting tired of pushing him for hours. Discovery Park is pretty big and there is tons to explore. It worked out perfect - he only got on the swings once and it was for about two minutes, tops. I loved the nice weather we had today and can't wait for more of it to come!

Jumping Jacks

A couple of Saturdays ago we met up with the Jackman family at Jumping Jacks in Springville (it is just like Kangaroo Zoo). This place was so much fun and pure heaven for both kids and parents. Not only did the kids run around and love climbing on everything and going down the slides, but us parents loved that the little boys could get all of their abundant energy out and sleep hard that night. After Jumping Jacks we went back to their place for some pizza. We then put the kids down for bed and played some games. It was so much fun! I love that we have so many friends around with kids that are all about the same age.

boys = dirt

A couple of Fridays ago, on one of the last nice weekends, we went and hung out for a bit at my friend Betsy's house. Mathias loves to play with Wyatt.

We had a yummy lunch of PB& Js outside in the wonderful sun and the boys played forever in the dirt and gravel with some cars. We had so much fun just hanging out.

It was kinda hard to get both boys to stop playing in the dirt at the same time to look at the camera but I eventually got it. Aren't they both so cute!

Potty Training!!

This is more for my journal purposes.

Mathias had been interested in the potty on and off since just before he turned two. He would tell me when he went potty in his diaper. I decided then to go and get him a little toilet and let him get used to it and and to not be afraid of going to the bathroom. He would use it a couple of times through out the year. I would sometimes sit him on it before bath times and sometimes before bed time. Then it got to the point at about two and a half that he would use it at night just as a way to delay bed time but he would actually go. Then closer to three he would come up to me and tell when he was going potty or that he had to go. I thought, "Great! Let's really start potty training!" We tried it for a couple of days then just gave up. It was too much of a hassle. It was frustrating for me because I knew that he was ready for obvious reasons but he just did not want to stop playing long enough to use the toilet. Then the month after he turned three I had had enough. I knew he could do it and I was just sick of changing big boy diapers. So I told Dev that once that last pack of diapers was gone that we were gonna potty train and that there was no going back. That is how we started. Mathias woke up one day and I told him we were out of diapers, so he had to wear his big boy underwear and go on the big boy potty. He was actually okay with that. He got to pick out his own underwear and was pretty excited to wear Cars.

This week I pretty much told him when to try and go. We spent a lot of this week in the bathroom. We also bribed him with candy for #1 and a match box car for #2. Also we only used pull ups at night. This is how the first week went.

Day 1-- We did not have a single accident. He even took a 2 1/2 hour nap and we ran to three stores. He asked a couple of times for a diaper but I told them that they were all gone and that he is a big boy now. This day also proved to me that he was ready since he was able to hold it for so long.
Day 2-- He had two accidents and one of them was during nap time
Day 3-- He had one accident but stayed dry for a 2 hour nap. He also told us for the first time that he had to go poop.
Day 4-- Didn't really want to use the potty and put up a fight when we made him go in there. However he only had one accident (first stinky) and it was at his friend's birthday party. I kind of expected this though because it was still early on in the potty training and I just knew he would get too distracted but I did not want to use a pull up cause I knew he would just view it as a diaper.
Day 5-- He really did not want to do the whole potty training thing during the morning but we stuck to it. He took a 3 hr nap and stayed dry. No accidents this day
Day 6-- One accident but stayed dry during his 2 hour nap
Day 7-- No accidents

(Here he is with some of the cars he earned for "learning in the potty". I love how proud he looks.)

The second week went very well. Instead of me telling him when to go he would tell us when to go. The only down fall this week was that he was kind of afraid of other toilets. He would only use ours. He would sit on others but just wouldn't do anything. We still only had one accident this week. He also was staying dry at night now!!


Third week went even better. He decided that he was not afraid of other toilets and told me for the first time at a store that he had to go and actually went. I am sure it was a funny site to see us racing to the bathroom with my cart and making a dash into the bathroom, but I don't care - I was just so excited. This week we decided to take away the pull ups at night because for the last 4 or 5 days he had been waking up dry. This was awesome, he only wet the bed once and it was on the fifth night of not wearing pull ups. I love that in the month of doing this I only had to change the bed twice from him wetting it! (Devin's note: somehow I got hosed into changing the bed in the middle of the night though)


Fourth week Has been awesome. We are all done with the potty training for now. The only thing we have left is going from sitting to standing (any advice on when to do this?) as well as him being able to go all by himself with out needing one of us to be in there with him. And the best day would be when he learns to wipe himself! I can't complain though, because it went a lot better than I thought it would and I am surprised at how fast he learned, especially with not wetting the bed at night!
It makes me kind of sad that he is growing up so fast, but man am I excited to not have to change any diapers!

Update: The Day that I typed this up ( I think it was in the fifth week) Mathias decided all on his own that he was done sitting down to pee and wanted to stand up. I like that he is just basically potty training himself!

The past couple of weeks

Ok, so it looks like I am becoming a blog slacker. There is just not that much going on in our lives right now to post more often. So here is a quick recap of some of the things that we have been up to in the last couple of weeks.

Here is Mathias on one of the colder days where we stayed inside. I was doing laundry and came back to find him almost completely asleep in the middle of all of his toys. I guess he was playing pretty hard.

On the days that are warm you can always catch us playing at a park..

And when dad is home they will always be out playing jeeps on the rocks and dirt. Mathias has loved doing this every warm day that we have had so far and I love watching them bond over jeeps.

Dev learned that his RC buggy was not made for jumping and broke a link. When it came time to fix it, Mathias grabbed his Handy Manny tool box and told Dev "we have a job to do" (if you watch that cartoon show, that will make sense) and "helped" him fix the buggy.

Dev also tried to teach Mathias the correct way to hold a hockey stick, even though they were using golf clubs. Mathias did it once and went back to hitting them shuffle board style.

They have also started "playing guitars" a bit lately. This is cute to watch but Mathias loses interest in this pretty quickly.
(Dev's note: when he loses interest, he tries to help me push buttons. Definitely not helping my score!)

We had some old hamburger buns and bread so we decided to go and feed the ducks. I only know of a few places where ducks always are and one of them is Salem Pond. So we went to feed the ducks there, but they turned out to be pretty dumb ducks and swam away from the bread. So we just threw it all out there then played on the park and grabbed some lunch. It was a fun little outing.

We have also been potty training!!!!
(more to come on that later)

where in the world is spring

I seriously wish that the weather would make up its mind! We went to the park almost everyday last week and today Mathias woke up from his nap to this, asking to go to the park. Um, I don't think so. I think we both have spring fever. Will spring just hurry up and come please!

Playdate with Daddy

A couple of days ago, Dev had a few hours in between appointments so Mathias and I decided to meet him at a park in Sandy and play for a bit. It was pretty nice out when the wind was not blowing.

There was a baseball field right behind the park where they played a bit of soccer. Mathias rarely wanted to kick it to Dev though , he just kept kicking it to me or tried to kick it up the little hill by the park.

We also brought along the bubbles. Every time we open the closet that the bubbles are kept in, he would ask to play with them. But it was always too cold and I did not want a sticky floor. So I decided to surprise Mathias with them when we got there. When we first brought them out he would chase them, then he decided he wanted to blow them himself. However it was kinda windy so the wind took care of it for him.

(I am not quite smart enough to figure out how to do a collage on photoshop and the one on picasa would not put them in the right order and doubled one of them so that is what you get)
He also thought it was pretty fun to roll down the little hill and to do somersaults. He did this over and over again until he was covered in grass and I was dizzy.

He then found this huge branch to play with. It was kinda funny watching him try to pick it up and control where it went. It was a pretty fun little outing and I am glad Mathias got to spend some extra time with Daddy.

playing catch up

For some reason lately I have not really had the desire to blog. I love to look at everyone's but never really get around to updating ours. So this is going to be a quick (we have not been up to that much) little catch up post of what we have been up to the last couple of weeks.

The boys have been playing jeeps a lot inside lately (these pictures are from three different times). As soon as Dev walks in the door Mathias asks him to get his jeep out. Mathias will get his little jeep out and play or he will lie down to be an obstacle for Dev's RC buggy to go over. He also thinks it is pretty fun to have it go under his legs. This is pretty much heaven for both boys, the only thing that would make it better is if it would get warm out and they could go out crawling on the rocks everyday.

We have been helping my mom move and clean out her place the last couple of weeks. She is moving into a smaller place so we have inherited a bunch of her furniture, including her front loading washer and dryer. Her closet in her new place is not deep enough for them so we traded sets. Mathias loves that he can now watch the clothes being cleaned. This is pretty fascinating for some reason.

We have also added a new piece of furniture into our office so we had to switch things around in there and Mathias decided he wanted to be Helpy Helperton and help Dev with the computer. He thinks he has to "fix" everything these days.

We got Mathias some color changing bath tablets and he absolutely loves them. He requests different colors every time and wants to take baths more frequently now.

It was finally warm enough one day when Devin was home so out they went to play with their jeeps on the rocks. They played out there for an hour or so and I think they would have played all day given the chance, but we had some errands to run.

We have also been playing at the park every chance we get now that the weather is a little better. That is one of the perks to living in a condo, the playground is right behind our building and we can go whenever we want with out having to pack up in the car.

Happy Valentines Day

I seriously have the best husband ever. He has managed to set up a surprise date two years in a row. I thought that we were not going to do anything the weekend of Valentines since everywhere would be so busy, but maybe go out next week. He called me about half way through the day Saturday ( he was gone helping my mom move) and told me to get ready because we were going out tonight. He didn't tell me where we were going though. He surprised me with dinner and then we went to see "Cash on Delivery" at the Hale Center Theatre in Salt Lake. We got season tickets for Christmas to there but Dev told me that we did not get tickets in time last week and that they were all sold out. It was a great show and we both got a good laugh at it.

(sorry the pictures are fuzzy, all I have is my old point and shoot, my lens to our other camera is getting fixed)

He had planned a week in advance to have my mom come and watch Mathias for us. She decided that he was her Valentine's date and took him to Kangaroo Zoo. I have been wanting to take him there for a while but never got around to it. She said that he loved it and never sat still and tried just about everything there. She also said that he was the best Valentine's date ever. They sure do love each other!

They also stopped at some flower shop in American Fork that had buckets of free roses. The guy told Leslie that whatever she didn't take they are taking to retirement homes. How sweet. Mathias had to go through them all to find the perfect one for me and a few for him. He was asleep when we got home but the first thing out of his mouth the next morning was the he got a big flower for me and some little ones for him. He is such a sweet kid (when he wants to be). What a perfect Valentines!

Growing too fast!

I say this every year, but man I can not believe how fast my little guy is growing up. It does not seem that long ago that we had these pictures taken at two weeks old and now he is three!

I thought I would take a look back at his past birthdays. For his first one we had Baby Einsteins. He loved watching those movies at the time. He was not too much into his cake that year, we kinda forced it on him. He was more into the balloons.

It is amazing to me to go back and look through all of these old pictures. I loved the picture of him holding his "2" balloon hence the reason I tried to get him to do it again this year. I also love the one were he is trying to show us that he is two with his fingers while wearing his daddy's shoes and the hat he refused to take off. Yes, he is still very stubborn!

(apparently we like red frosting seeing as how we had it at all of his birthday parties)

I can not believe how much he can change in just one short year. It is a world of difference!
I thought that I would jot down a little list of things that Mathias has learned as well as some accomplishments while he was two. Also, things that he has liked in the last year.

Things he has learned:

• He didn't start talking till just around the time he turned two and now he talks extremely well.
• He is such a literal person and is just starting to get imaginative.
  
• He is very creative and always thinks of different ways to fix things for the way he wants them.
• He learned how to say his ABC's the whole way through
• He can point out all the letters when he sees them and he knows the sound that every letter makes
• He can count to 20 (he usually will leave out one or two numbers in the teens though)
• He knows all of his basic colors (red, orange,yellow, green,blue, black,brown,pink, purple,white)
• He knows all of his basic shapes (square, rectangle, triangle, circle, oval, star)
• He has learned to recognize a couple of different instruments (thanks Little Einsteins)
• He loves to sing and can actually carry a tune. Along with that he memorizes songs pretty quickly.
• He can unlock the door to our house and to our car with a key all by himself. He loves this.
• He moved to his big boy bed and changed rooms
  
• Has gone from a sippy to a normal cup
• Of course there are more, I just can't think of them right now
  

Things he has loved in the last year:

• Little Einsteins, Handy Manny and Monster trucks Cartoons
• Cars and Bugs Life movies
• Any kind of vehicles
• bugs
• books
• music
• playing outside
• coloring
• playing jeeps with daddy
• baby's
• wagon rides
• flashlights
• playing with friends
• snow
• money (pennies that we put in his piggy bank)

Also, we went to his 3 year well visit check up today. He is growing really well and is very bright, according to the Doc. I can not remember off of the top of my head how much he weighed or how tall he is but he was in the 95% for weight and the 85% for height. I for sure thought that those numbers would be switched because he is not chubby at all and everyone comments on how tall he is. They also checked his blood pressure and did a BMI chart ( because there are a lot of over weight kids that then turn into over weight teens these days) and he was in the 90% for that but when the doc came in and took one look at him he said not to worry because he is not chubby AT ALL and that he is just big boned, built like a Samoan. I thought it was weird that he compared him to a Samoan but he is just a thick, solid kid. We have been told that from the start basically. He will not need shots till he goes into kindergarten. I can not believe that we are already thinking about that. Time just flies by way too fast!! Something else we both thought was VERY odd was that the doctor gave Mathias a polished rock then gave us the business card of the place that makes them and told us to go there for more rocks. Apparently doctors are now for sale if you want to peddle your crap. Trying to sell your beanie babies? Have your family practitioner tell all his patients about them. Having a Scentsy party? Have your doc hand out fliers for you. Hey, if it's good enough for my doctor, it's good enough for me, right? Pfff. Lame. Even the doctor's shadow (the BYU wanna-be that follows the doc around for a day) rolled his eyes when the pediatrician pulled out his collection of rocks.

Look who is three!

So one of my favorite pictures from his birthday last year was of him holding his number "2" balloon so I decided to try and get a shot like that again this year. I have no idea how photographers deal with stubborn kids. Trying to get him to "pose" was near impossible!

When we first started taking pictures, he decided he wanted to play hide and seek with the balloon. I thought that this was cute and fun so I went along with it and got a few fun shots that show his cute personality a little.

Here are a few more outtakes that I thought were kinda fun.

I kept telling him to smile for me and he would either say "OK" or "OK, whatever you say" but still would not smile. It was so frustrating. I then wondered if he even knew what I wanted or meant when I said that, so I showed him a huge cheesy grin and that is exactly what I got in return! I just love this not-so-little guy so much and am having such a hard time believing that he is already three!

Birthday party with the Fam.

We had our families over on Sunday for some birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate Mathias' 3rd birthday.

(Yes I am nuts and made this cake twice)
This cake was actually not that hard to make. The hardest part was getting the frosting to turn red and frosting all of the pieces. I am still kinda proud of the way that it turned out so here are pictures of it from every angle (more for my scrapbook purposes).

We sang Happy Birthday then pigged out on cake and ice cream and just sat around catching up and talking to everyone while the kids ran around and played. It was a fun, relaxing time with our families.

Mathias got a few more gifts that he just absolutely loves. He got a head lamp "like daddy's", a Handy Manny toolbox and tools with which he "fixes" everything, a dinosaur that walks and roars, some summer clothes, an art easel, a movie, and magnetic rocks. He is just a little spoiled. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated his birthday with us! We love you guys!

Birthday party with the friends

This year Mathias has really been into the cartoon "Little Einsteins." If you have not seen it you are missing out, it is really cute. Since this is the show Mathias has been obsessed with, we decided to throw a Little Einsteins birthday party.

I took a couple lines from the opening song and made them into his birthday invite. I also dressed Mathias up like Leo from the show. We made him green glasses, did his hair like Leo's, and found a shirt that looks kinda like Leo's (Leo's is black with an orange stripe, I figured Mathias' grey one would work). We took Mathias' Little Einsteins toys over to use for decoration and bought the Little Einstein plates and napkins. I also made the 'thank you' cards with a line that they always say at the closing of every show. I think it turned out pretty cute.

When I gave Mathias a few options for his birthday party and he picked Little Einsteins, I immediately went to the internet for ideas for his birthday cake. I found a whole page of people's different ways of doing a rocket cake. I found one that I thought would be pretty easy, and decided to do it. When I told Mathias we were gonna do a rocket cake he got so excited. He told everyone he saw that that is what he was gonna have for his birthday, it was all he could talk about for weeks. I am glad that he liked it, it made all the work so worth it!

When everyone got there we had some pizza for lunch. We then let the kids run that off for a little while before we had cake and ice cream. I love having a club house that is big enough for all of this!

After some play time it was time to sing Happy Birthday and eat some cake. Mathias loves cake and apparently he can not eat it fast enough with a fork so he gives up and just picks it up to eat it. He is such a funny kid.

After we cleaned up the mess from cake and ice cream it was time to open up presents. Mathias has this down pretty good since Christmas was not too long ago. Mathias got every kind of car possible,which is so perfect for him. That is all that he seems to play with these days.

Here are all his little friends that were able to make it to the party. This was the best shot I was able to get, getting a bunch of little kids to look at the camera is no easy task, especially during nap time. From left to right:Dustin, Parker, Hunter, Cambria holding Paislee, Darcy holding onto Mariah, and Mathias. Davy is in the pic all by himself, he did not want to be in the group shot but then decided he wanted his picture taken. Aren't they all so cute!