Matthew's Birthday

Poor Matthew has to celebrate his birthday 3 days after Christmas. Luckily, he doesn't mind having a lot of presents in rapid succession. Grammy and Heidi planned a great gift inside of a bunch of boxes, each box being individually wrapped. He was thrilled to be able to unwrap it som many times.


In the end, it turned out to be his favorite book series, the "Captain Underpants" books.


They also got him a Sharks jersey (more to come on that later).


Riding the latest astronaut theme, Julie made Matthew a space shuttle cake. Luckily Matthew agreed that the space ship would look best being horizontal like it was flying, so it didn't have to be an elaborate 3D cake with the shuttle standing up at the launch pad.


For the night of his birthday, we celebrated by going to the Sharks game. He was decked out in his new Sharks jersey, a Sharks Santa hat, and his new sunglasses which happen to have sharks on them (i.e. the glasses aren't officially-licensed).


Grammy and Grampy arranged to have his name put up on the jumbotron during intermission. He loved having his name on the big screen and having "everyone in the shark tank" (really the eight of us in our group) cheering for him.

Christmas

We had a fun two-part Christmas this year. We started off in Seattle with Santa gifts on the 23rd, and then drove down to to Jon's parents in San Jose.

When Santa visited our house, the tree was a bit bare...


...but, both boys got what they wanted. Matthew got a jack hammer, a chain saw, and a weed whacker.


Seth didn't really know what he wanted (or that he even had presents on the way). He got a vacuum which looks like a miniature version of our real vacuum. He loves it.

Santa also brought us a dual screen DVD player for the car (one screen attaches to each of the driver's and passenger's head rests). It made for a much easier time during the 14 hours of driving to San Jose. On our way down, we stopped at some friends' house in Portland and we spent the night in Eugene. We got to spend time with Aunt Mary, drove by our old apartment, and stopped by the law school for old times' sake.

We got to San Jose in time for Christmas Eve dinner. We then had the real Christmas morning. Seth didn't really get into the presents so much, but he loved the paper.


Matthew's favorite present was an astronaut costume which he immediately put on, and has worn the majority of days since then.

Santa Picture

Jon came home from work earlier than usual to go with us to the mall to get the annual Santa picture. It was perfect timing, we walked in and right up to Santa to take the picture. Seth did about as well as expected.
We sort of like the sad-face-Santa picture, maybe because our family's first Santa picture was on of those.
Matthew also had pictures taken with Santa at our ward's Christmas party. We decided not to have Seth endure the torture of a Santa picture at the party.

Visitors

Jon's cousin Nick had to Seattle (Bainbridge Island to be exact) to attend a conference for his work; so his family (Janell, Natalie, and Calvin) decided to come along for a mini-vacation. We were so excited to play host (sort of, they stayed on Bainbridge) for some of the week. We visited the Seattle Children's Museum, Bainbridge's Children's Museum (not much to see), and the Museum of Flight. Matthew especially loved the several ferry rides that we were able to take while they were here. We had so much fun playing and catching up with the Fangers; we wish they lived closer to us. We feel lucky to not only have a great immediate family, but also a great extended family.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Just like the old woman that I'm becoming, I didn't want to do anything too exciting for my birthday. Although I must admit that most of my motivation for wanting to keep it low key was the result of the colds that Jon and I were and are fighting.

Jon gave me one of the greatest birthday gifts ever by working from home for the day. So, he was home to help get us out the door for preschool by 8:00 am and he was home when I came home with two exhausted boys at 12:30pm. He was home to help put ornery boys down for naps. He was home to keep Matthew occupied while I worked on stuff for PTA. He was home to make and clean up dinner. And he was home to put boys to bed. Obviously, I loved having him home. It made for a nearly perfect day; all except for the sore throat, lost voice, and cough.

I'm so grateful for my boys, (the two little ones and the bigger one) who help remind me that my 30 years of life haven't been a total waste!

Swanson's

We were tipped off about a local nursery that houses two reindeer, a camel, and a miniature donkey for the Holidays. Seth and I visited first and insisted that Matthew and Jon come back with us! (It really didn't take much convincing.)
In addition to the camel, donkey, and reindeer, they have a koi pond with the largest and friendliest koi I've ever met.

Seth is reaching out to say "Hello"

Don't forget the huge model train!
Oh, and Santa's sleigh.
Santa parks it here but comes back to visit at designated times that coincidentally correspond with the appearance of a professional photographer.

I think that we've found a new family tradition.

Thanksgiving Crafts

It all started with decorating cookies . . .
And before you know it, we had moved on to squash . . .

. . . a LOT of squash!

It's fun to have a glimpse into the inner workings of Matthew's mind via his squash creations!

Seth's 1st Haircut & Good Brothers

Seth got his first haircut today. According to Jon, it's been long overdue. But, the curls in the back of his hair were so cute. Jon got some pictures yesterday of Seth so show how long his hair was.

(Seth wasn't all too happy about having his head turned to get a profile picture.)

We took Seth to a kids haircut place and he did fairly well. He got to sit in a little car and play with a toy cell phone (which might be illegal in Washington now...though maybe it's just driving and using a cell phone that's illegal...we'll have to find a lawyer to make sure).

The place we went was so busy and had so little parking (University Village for those of you familiar with Seattle) that Jon and Matthew missed the entire cut while they were trying to find a parking place.

Now that he hair is cut, Seth is looking much more like a little boy than a baby. It's hard to believe that he is almost 16 months old.

Speaking of Seth getting older, it's so much fun to see our boys becoming good friends. When Seth was born, Matthew liked him but couldn't do much with him. Now, Seth is able to play with Matthew and they have so much fun together. Seth adores Matthew and always wants to do what Matthew is doing. Matthew is a good big brother and patient with Seth. When Seth gets upset, Matthew frequently says things like, "Don't worry Seth. Big brother Matthew is here," or "Mama will be here soon, let's play with something."

Our boys are also very funny together. They feed off each other's attention. When Jon was taking pre-haircut pictures of Seth, Matthew wanted to get in on a picture with Seth...

...and Matthew wanted to make a silly video with Seth.

Despite all the work that they create for us, we love those two goof balls. We are so blessed to have such great boys in our life.

Disney on Ice

My friend Laura graciously shared two Disney On Ice tickets with me and Matthew this Saturday. It was the first Disney ice show for both of us, so we really didn't know what to expect. The show included characters and songs from the Disney movies Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Tinkerbell. I may have enjoyed the show more than Matthew; I was at least familiar with most stories and songs. Matthew has only seen one out of the four. I guess that makes him Disney deprived.

Obviously Cars was his favorite, but the other three still held his attention. The Cars portion was also the most camera friendly; those skaters move fast!
Oh, there was also a Disney Princess pre-show, but Matthew wasn't so into that.
As you can image there were plenty of overpriced Disney licensed souvenirs. Since we got the tickets for free, we were willing to spring for the ever-popular cotton candy with souvenir hat.

I think the kids had fun!

Why I love having a Zoo pass . . .

Seth and I met some friends at the Zoo while Matthew went to preschool. We weren't able to play for very long, but because we have a pass I never feel pressured to spend hours at the zoo to "get my money's worth."

Both Seth and I love the social penguins. In a zoo full of sleeping animals, you can always count on the penguins to be lively.

Halloween with Grammy and Grampy

We had a great Halloween with Jon's parents visiting. Jon's dad (aka Grampy, aka Grampy Monster) had a technical conference up here in Seattle on the 29th, and Jon's mom (aka Grammy) came along to visit us for several days.

We did a lot of things while they were here. We took them to the Space Needle:


It was both their first time and Matthew's first time to go up. They went to Matthew's Halloween parade at his preschool, they went to our ward's trunk-or-treat, we went to dinner a few times, and had a lot of fun playing around.

Matthew dressed up as a fireman, and Seth was a dalmatian. They were cute together. Seth got to go to Matthew's preschool parade, but he was more interested in eating Matthew's plate of goodies.


Our ward's trunk-or-treat started with games inside the church building. Each organization set up a classroom in the church with some kind of game. Jon helped the young men set up a miniature golf course.


Matthew enjoyed getting candy at the trunk-or-treat portion. However, his favorite prize from the night was this nose/glasses disguise:


After the trunk-or-treat, we went up to Julie's parents to get all the Goodwin cousins together. It was fun to see them all dressed up, but difficult to get a good picture of all five kids.


We squeezed a lot of things into the few days that Jon's parents were here. We had a lot of fun, but we were all worn out by the end:

Fifteen Months, Oh, and Jon's Birthday

Today, Seth did something that Matthew never did; he had a fifteen month check-up. Maybe the days of him being in Matthew's shadow are coming to an end;but probably not.

Both boys were so excited to see the doctor, they couldn't sleep. Then again, maybe it was their runny noses that kept them up. Seth woke up at 1 am and I fed him and spent about 45 minutes putting him back down. Not to be outdone by his brother, Matthew woke up at 3am. I hurried to get him out of the room before he woke Seth up again and then spent the next hour trying to get him to sleep in our bed. (Jon was sleeping on the couch because had more work to do when I went to bed at around 11pm and he didn't want to wake me up when he was ready to go to sleep.) Unfortunately, Seth woke up again a little before 4am. At this point I was forced to wake up Jon. Jon helped Seth get to sleep and after that he let me sleep on the couch while he attempted to cajole Matthew to sleep in our bed. Before too long, Jon had to start getting ready for work, which he did while Matthew rested. When Jon left at 6am (a late morning for him), Matthew had agreed to stay in bed until Jon called him from work. Well, fortunately Matthew didn't wake up to Jon's call that came around 7am, but I did. Thus began the day.

Jon often comments on wives' birthday/anniversary/whatever tributes to their husbands and says claiming he'd hate me if I ever wrote something like those for him. So, I will try not to be too sappy; but I think that the story of last night so aptly illustrates why I'm thankful to have him. He's such a dedicated husband, father, and employee. He continually puts the needs of others ahead of his own. I'm grateful for all he does for me and the boys.

Jon trying to hide from the camera while opening birthday presents.

So, on to Seth. Since he was already sick, Seth probably had one of the roughest doctor's appointments yet. The sun was shining this morning and we only live about half a mile or so from the doctor's office, so I thought it would be a great day for the boys to ride their "bikes" to the appointment. Well, it was a little colder than I thought and Seth didn't seem to enjoy the ride. He screamed when I had to put him down to be weighed and measured. He calmed down a little bit before our doctor came in, but obviously didn't enjoy the poking and prodding. Then came the shot. For the rest of the day he was just a little out of sorts. I'm hoping that he can sleep well tonight and be at least back to a normal-sick as opposed to a I'm-sick-and-I-just-got-a-booster-shot-that-left-my-thigh-sore.

So, here are the stats:

Height: 32.25 in (75%)
Weight: 22 lbs, 13 oz (25%) This includes a pretty soggy diaper.

Here's a few recentish pictures:

For all those of you that are thinking: "Julie, no wonder the boy was cold and unhappy, he's wearing shorts," don't worry, this picture was not taken today.

More pictures of our little Dalmatian and his firefighter brother to come soon!