Picture This

Since Matthew is oddly still asleep, I thought I might post a few of his cute pictures before I cook dinner.

I love his dimples.

Hanging out with Mark.

Like Father, like Son.

Matthew's new favorite pasttime: watching the cars drive by.

My happy smiling baby.

Matthew decided he wanted to practice sitting up (when he was supposed to be falling asleep).

We are Dynamite!

I'm sure you are all dying to know, but we saw neither David Archuleta nor Steve Young on Sunday. Just Orrin Hatch again. I think he might be in our ward, but his records are in D.C. I do have exciting news. I am now the assistant coach for an 8 year-old girls' soccer team, the Dynamite. Since I am not quite in enough shape to play soccer, I figured I might try coaching. We had our first game on Saturday. We have a large team of 12 girls considering they only play 6 on the field at a time. The girls are just learning to play, so they are entertaining to watch. For example, our girls scored two goals compared to the other team's one goal, but we didn't win. Why, you might ask? Unfortunately, one of our girls forgot which direction she was going and scored on the wrong goal. Haha. She didn't just barely kick it in, either. She juked a couple of the defenders and booted it in the top corner of the net. It was a rather impressive goal, but for the wrong team. The girls have the cutest cheer. I told it to Mark, and he has gotten it stuck in his head. I'll have to get a video of them sometime.

It's never too early to learn to play.

Though, his main interest is in tasting the ball.

The Amazing Standing Baby

Growing Up

My boy is getting so big. Where has the time gone? Why, I could have sworn it was just yesterday that he was smiling at me for the first time. And now he's all grown up. He started his first day of school on Monday. His last first day of school. Why, I can remember when he graduated from BYU. I was so proud of him. And now he's about to finish his master's degree. Luckily, I have a few more years before my baby starts school.

Mark's last first day of school.

Family Time

The last few weeks have been full of family time. Because of Mathew's baby blessing, both my parents and Mark's parents were in town. On top of that, all of my siblings came out for the baby blessings, and to see Benjamin again. Part of me wishes that we could have flown out to Kentucky last weekend to get together with all his siblings, but the sensible part of me is glad we didn't have to fly with the baby.

Matthew loves his Grandmas.

And his Grandmas love him.

I like how they are both staring at her.

Matthew loves Grandpa Pingel, too.

Aunt Jaclyn with her nephews.

Jaclyn loves the baby. Benjamin seems indifferent.

With Uncle Jacob

Two peas in a grumpy pod.

Mommy with a naked baby right before he spit up all over my face.

I think he looks like Mark.

What a nice old man

One thing I like about my ward is all the nice older couples. We live in a ward where everyone is newly wed or nearly dead, as the saying goes. We have one young women in our ward and maybe 10 primary children. Near the end of sacrament meeting, Matthew was in a good mood. He was standing up and looking around, and the older couple behind us commented on how cute he is and asked his name and age. It always makes me happy when people comment about how cute my baby is, because he definitely is (see the pictures below). Well, I come to find out that this nice old genteleman was Orrin Hatch, the U.S. Senator for Utah! First Elder Perry, now Senator Hatch. Mark and I are speculating on who we will meet next week. My fingers are crossed for David Archuleta. Mark is pulling for Steve Young.

Oh Blessed Day

Sunday was a day full of blessings, literally. In the morning, we attended my nephew's baby blessing at his ward, and then had just enough time to run home, feed Matthew, and rush off to our own sacrament meeting to bless Matthew. The blessing went really well; Mark did an amazing job. I like seeing him exercise his priesthood authority. Random enough, Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was presiding at the meeting. He's actually a member of my ward - one of the perks of living in downtown Salt Lake. My family was in awe because he came up and chatted with them before the meeting. He even came up and said hello to Matthew. All in all, it was a great day.