Team Robison

Hi

Tonight at dinner, Matthew surprised us by suddenly learning to say "Hi."

Last weekend, we got hit with another huge snow storm. Of course, Layton was hit hardest by the storm. We got 2 feet of snow in 2 days, on top of maybe the foot of snow that still hasn't melted from the Christmas storm. Saturday morning, we decided to take Matthew out to play in the snow. He had a lot of fun trying to help Mark shovel the driveway. He played with the mounds of snow a little, but loved being able to go in the street and see the snow the snowplows had piled up. He kept giggling at the dirty snow chunks from the road in the pile - I guess it looked funny against the super white of the snow. By Saturday afternoon it finally stopped snowing, and it's been sunny ever since. Though, I think it will be a long time before these mounds of snow ever melt.

Getting ready to go outside

The huge icicles on our front step

Musical Puzzle

This post is mostly a thank you to my in-laws. For Christmas, they got Matthew several wooden puzzles, which he loves. One of the puzzles is musical instruments. When you put the piece in - or near, or sometimes if you flip a light switch - the puzzle plays a snippet of "Old McDonald had a Farm." Matthew has started dancing whenever the music plays. In this video, he doesn't dance too much - the camera was a bit distracting - but he starts to sing. Our silly child. So, thank you Grandma and Grandpa Robison for the awesome puzzles.

New Chandelier

One home improvement project we did over the holidays was add a chandelier to our dining room. Our dining room had track lighting installed, which I absolutely hated. Not only did it have a mixture of lights that dimly cast weird bluish and greenish tints, but also it was not centered in the room. Besides not being centered on the china cabinet, it was way too closed to one side and hung above one set of chairs. It drove me crazy. So we used our birthday money (thanks Mom and Dad) and with my Dad's help installed a chandelier. Luckily, we had a stud running exactly where I wanted so we could hang the chandelier centered over the table without moving the table much. One project down, a million more to go.

BEFORE

AFTER

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.