New Year's Day

On New Year's Day, we drove down to my Aunt Christine's house to spend the day with her family. I realized I hadn't been there in ages, so much has changed. They added a light on 114th South to turn into her neighborhood. She also had made the cutest decorating changes, the biggest being new furniture in her front room. We had a pretty chill time playing train game, watching football and eating lunch. Matthew had fun playing soccer with my cousins. I'm told that my brother Jacob even taught him to play ping pong. A wonderful start to the new year.

Serene, Mark and Matthew

Benjamin, Jacob, Makenna, Serene, Mark and Matthew

Mark and Matthew

Aunt Christine and Lexi

Aunt Christine, Lexi and Matthew

Makenna and Benjamin

Benjamin, Jess and Matthew

Kaelyn

Mom and Aunt Christine

Uncle Trent and Lexi

Mark, Matthew and I

 

Happy Holidays

We really enjoyed spending time with family this holiday season. Benjamin and Jess stayed at our house Christmas night and the night after because of a snowstorm. My parents arrived in town late Christmas Eve, and stayed at my grandparents' house until a few days after Christmas, when they switched to our house. The day after Christmas we braved the storm to visit the Air Force Museum and receive a personal tour from my Grandpa Pingel, who is a volunteer there.

The next few days were full of lots of train game and playing with Matthew. Jacob and Serene came up the weekend after Christmas and stayed through New Year's Day. Mark and I spent a low key New Year's Eve with my parents. After putting Matthew to bed, we watched Men in Black III, which was entertaining, though I will never watch it again. Dad left on January 2nd, and my mom hung around a few days longer to get her absolute fill of Matthew before having to go back to work. On Thursday night, my father-in-law came to visit and spent the night. He was in town for his cousin's funeral, and so got to come up and play a little basketball with Matthew.

On Friday, my mom took Matthew and I to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, Utah. The aquarium is pretty small - it looks like they converted an old Toys R Us into an aquarium. But Matthew enjoyed running around seeing all the fish. Since our visit, he has constantly been pointing out fish in his books and making his fish sound (I need to post a video of all his animal sounds.)

With Grandpa Pingel at the Museum

Matthew the pilot

Benjamin and Jess

Playing ball with Grandpa Robison

 

Grandpa Robison

At the Aquarium

Matthew and I

The Penguins with Grandma Pingel

 

Playing at the mall

Merry Christmas

Matthew had an enjoyable time at Christmas this year. He quickly grasped the concept of opening presents (which he struggled with on his birthday) and had a blast opening everything. We let him open his ornament on Christmas Eve - which was probably the most exciting thing that happened all day. It was just the three of us on Christmas Eve, and we were all rather bored. It really doesn't feel like Christmas unless family is around. We read Matthew the nativity story and acted it out with a popsicle stick nativity he had gotten in Nursery. Apparently, Matthew was not very impressed with his nativity figures, because afterwards he went and threw them all away.

We opened up presents Christmas morning and then used our new wafflemaker and blender to make breakfast. After that we started on lunch. I had planned a much easier meal so that I wouldn't be rushed. Unfortunately, I got distracted by playing train game with my parents that I started lunch late. Oh well. It turned out really well. We had my parents, my brother Benjamin and his wife Jess, and my grandparents over for dinner. The meal ended up being extremely filling, and to top it with pie we were stuffed for the rest of the day.

In the evening, we couldn't play train game because Matthew was still awake - he doesn't like when we play board games without him. Instead we played a game of charades - boys vs. girls. It turned out to be a blast. The boys submitted the words for the girls and vice versa. The poor boys. While they had submitted easy words, Jess had submitted words like Torah, Alpaca wool, and pomade. Suffice it to say, by the second round, everyone's words were much harder.

Matthew with his lion ornament

Notice the bottom half of the tree is devoid of ornaments

 

Matthew's Christmas suit

 

 

Come Fly with Me

The weekend before Christmas, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Mark's brother Stephen and his family. They live in Columbus, so we don't see them very often. Although, that could possibly change. Stephen is looking at maybe doing his residency here in Utah. Fingers crossed. We had a nice visit with Stephen, Sara and Sara's mom at our house. Then we went up to Hill Air Force Museum. The kids were pretty excited to see the planes.

Matthew, Amy and Garrett

With Matthew and Garrett

With Matthew and Christopher

It's a Girl!

On my birthday, I had my ultrasound, and we found out we are having a baby girl! We're excited. I am, at least. I think Mark will be more so when it actually happens. He's not so much into anticipation of events as I am. I already started buying some girl clothes - I just couldn't help myself. I've also started formulating how I want to change Matthew's airplane bedroom for the baby girl. I think I have my furniture arrangement in mind. And I'll keep the airplane theme, but change the colors of the room from mostly blue to more of a red, white and blue. We'll see what happens. Not that the baby will actually care. But enjoy trying my hand at decorating. Oh, and I just included some random pictures from December in my post.

Matthew (with pink eye) writing a letter to Santa

The reading chair, apparently.

Hiding behind the toilet

How big is Matthew?

 

 

Random Story: On day in November, I was cooking a potatoes gratin recipe for dinner. 55 minutes into it's hour cook time, we hear a loud crash from the oven. Our casserole dish exploded in the oven! The sides completely shattered, but the bottom was still in gigantic shards. Not only did it make a gigantic mess - we were also hungry. Luckily, Mark was able to salvage a bit of the top layer of potatoes that was free of glass so we had something to eat. Craziness. I've never heard of that happening. 

 

 

Our ruined casserole dish

Thanksgiving

I hosted my very first Thanksgiving dinner this year. Normally, that might stress me out a bit, but since our only guests were Mark's siblings, Anna and Michael, the pressure wasn't too high. Thankfully, my meal was a success. Mark did the turkey - but it turned out really moist and tender with hardly any effort. I even made the Robison family rolls which was Mark's grandmother (or maybe great-grandmother's) recipe. I guess I'm truly a Robison now. :-)

The other exciting event of the weekend was that we watched Benjamin's cat Duchess for the weekend while he and Jess went to Idaho. They dropped her off Tuesday night, and she wasn't very happy. Matthew accidentally backed her in a corner, which set her off hissing. Luckily in all Matthew's fascination with animals, he's still very cautious. He wouldn't try to touch her or pick her up. He would come and stand about 2 feet away and point at her while constantly repeating "Kitty Cat!"

She warmed up when she got to explore the house overnight, but I accidentally ticked her off Wednesday morning, so she hid in my bedroom closet all day. Finally when Matthew went to bed, Mark was able to coax her out. On Thursday, we decided to just shut her up in our room all day with all her toys and food and litter box. She mostly just napped all day. I released her after Matthew went to bed. Mark and his siblings had gone to Wal-Mart for the Black Friday deals on movies, so I was watching a movie by myself, and Duchess jumped up and sat on my lap for an hour. She started in a sitting position, but by the end she was sprawled all over me. I guess she did like me.

Friday morning, Duchess even came downstairs to watch as we set up the Christmas tree. By Saturday, she could stand to be in the same room as Matthew, but on opposite sides. By Sunday, she even played with Matthew a little. Matthew had a ribbon that was maybe 3 feet long, and he would flutter one end and she would chase the other end. When Benjamin came to get her, she even let Matthew pet her. I really want a cat someday, so having Duchess gave me hope that it would be possible to have a cat that would put up with Matthew.

Happy Thanksgiving

Anna, Michael and Matthew

 

Dunking Matthew

 

Matthew and Duchess

 

 

 

Halloween

We had a pretty chill Halloween. I already posted the pictures of our pumpkin patch adventure with Jacob and Serene. We carved the "Y" pumpkin for my grandparents and carved to pumpkins for ourselves. I was worried Matthew would think the pumpkins were balls and shove them down our concrete stairs, but luckily he pretty much left them alone. For Halloween, we dressed Matthew up as a pilot, mostly because we already had a bomber jacket for him. I have big plans for next year, though. Mark and I bought a bunch of candy, figuring that living in a neighborhood with lots of kids we would need it. On the contrary, we barely had anyone stop by. All the kids would go down the other side of the street - my direct neighbors both had their houses decked out - but few came down our side. Oh well, more candy for us. The coolest kid I saw was this little boy - maybe 2 or 3 - in a motorized wheelchair. His wheelchair was covered in cardboard to make him Thomas the Train. It was pretty awesome.