Handy Mathias

Mathias was so excited to open his new work bench and was so excited to help daddy put it together. These two make a great team!

When it was all put together he was too excited to hurry and change into his jammies that he had to play with it mid change.

Since it has been open, Mathias and his tools have worked on many things. He helped Dev put some shelves together, he sawed up some styrofoam and has tried to fix some of his toys. He knows what most of the tools are called and what they are used for. I can see many nights in the future with these two working on something together, most likely the jeep. Boys are just so much fun! It is going to be so weird having a little girl in the house. It is just kinda hard to imagine since I am surrounded by so many boy things.

Temple Square

(I have linked most of these tradition posts to the ones from last year because I just love to look back and see how much he has grown in the last year.)

We went up to walk around the beautiful Temple Square and look at all the amazing lights. Even though it is freezing cold I look forward to it every year.

This year we made the trip with the whole Brower clan. It was also a little different this year with Mathias. He is understanding more and asking more questions and this was also the first year going up with out a stroller. My baby is growing up way too fast! It was great to be able to be surrounded by family in such an amazing place. Hopefully it can become a tradition to get the whole family and go every year together. Afterward we all headed to the DeGooyer house for some hot chocolate and to hang out for a while. What a fun night.

Christmas Afternoon

After we open presents at our house, we go to Dev's parent's house to open a few gifts with extended family and have a yummy brunch. Sadly, these are the only pictures I have from their house. Of course Mathias didn't want to look at the camera (as usual) and Audrey didn't want to get in the picture at all.

So these are the best that we got of all the grand-kids together.

When we got back from the Brower's it was time to play with a few of the toys . Mathias was in pure heaven. We had such a great day spending time with our families and watching Mathias just light up and play with all of his new things.

Christmas Morning

This is what things looked like before Mathias got a hold of them.

We stayed up till almost midnight the night before so we had to wake Mathias up at 8:45. He snuggled daddy for awhile while I made us some hot chocolate.

He was so excited to see that Santa ate all of the cookies that he made and left out for him.

We started off with stockings. It was so funny to watch Mathias. One of the first things he pulled out was colored bath tablets and he was so excited to have them. He also got some cars and candy and some ties. Dev and I had decided that we were not getting presents for each other this year and only doing stockings. Dev got some travel mugs for hot chocolate, a hat and a tie (Mathias has a matching one). Everything else was all about Mathias.

So these two that are wrapped in blue are what he specifically asked Santa for. When he went to see Santa and sat on his lap, Mathias told him that he wanted a blue motorcycle. This was kinda funny and random. Blue is his all time favorite color but he is not super into motorcycles. I think he thought about this because the ornament he picked out this year was a blue motorcycle so that is what he has been focused on. He was so excited that Santa brought him TWO blue motorcycles. A small one that he can just push around and a bigger one that does wheelies and lights up and makes noise and goes across the floor. He told me later that it was so nice of Santa to bring him two motorcycles.

It was just so much fun to watch him open presents this year. He would seriously have a huge grin and great reaction with everyone of them.

I love his face in these pictures especially the wow one where he is pointing at the tools on the box. This kid loves to try and fix everything and help daddy with his tools whenever possible so I figured this would be a hit.

He was so funny opening presents this year. He would tear into a present and then mid tear he would put it down and want to take a toy out of a box that was already unwrapped. Dev and I would look at each other and exclaim, "SQUIRREL!" If you have not seen the Disney movie "Up" you really need to, then the squirrel comment would make sense.

Mathias with his haul. I tried so hard to not just get cars this year and introduce him to other things. Hopefully he will be interested in the games and puzzles. It looks like he got a ton but most of the boxes are just huge. There is no doubt that he is spoiled though. I figured I would take advantage of being able to do that while he is still an only child. It will be so weird next year to have another little one around. All in all it was a good Christmas.

Christmas Eve Jammies

We also have the very common tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve and that present is always new jammies. I found the perfect ones for Mathias. They had a jeep on the shirt and say off road. I don't know who was more excited about them, him or me. Dev and I got some new PJ bottoms as well.

Christmas Eve

This year we went over to the DeGooyer's house for a very yummy turkey dinner for Christmas Eve with the whole Brower family.

After dinner Kelly had made some cookie dough and the plan was to have the kids make candy cane cookies. Audrey and Mathias didn't really care to make cookies though. They just wanted to play with it like it was play dough. They played with it for a good hour or so. Mathias also thought that the powdered sugar was fun to play in.

The older kids and adults played games for awhile.

The DeGooyers got Mathias the cutest Christmas book for little ones. It is called "A Pirates Night Before Christmas." We always read a Christmas book on Christmas Eve and this is a fun one to add to our little collection. It was a super fun night hanging out and relaxing with the fam!

Cookies for Santa

Last year we started the tradition of making cookies with Mathias for Santa. Mathias was so excited to do it this year. He helped put all the ingredients together, mixed them and even tried to help scoop out the dough. He also wanted to put the cookies on the plate for Santa all by himself. He would tell everyone that we made cookies for Santa . I love this age and that he is getting into the whole thing more this year. It has been so much fun!

A visit to Santa

We have made it a tradition to visit Santa every year. I thought that Mathias was pretty well prepared. Every time we asked him what he was gonna tell Santa what he wanted he repeated the same thing. When it came his turn to sit on Santa's lap he all of the sudden got very shy. He just kinda sat there like um, ok, and when Santa asked him what he wanted he very quietly whispered " a blue motorcycle." It was very cute to watch and at least we didn't have to force him to sit on Santa's lap or be in the picture with him. Doesn't he just look so big this year!

Ornaments '09

When I was growing up we had a tradition of everybody getting a new Christmas Tree ornament each year. It could be something that went along with something that happened to you that year or just something that you like or collect. I love having this tradition because when we (the kids) moved out we had ornaments to put on our tree. It is also fun to pull them out every year and reminisce. Here are the ornaments that we got this year.

This year we let Mathias pick his out. We gave him a few options that we thought he would like, for example they had some Handy Manny ones (he loves that show), some match box cars ones, and some other ones from Disney movies but he just had to have this blue Harley motorcycle. This ornament ended up playing a bigger part this Christmas. More to come on that later.

I chose the mom-to-be ornament for obvious reasons.

Dev chose a Craftsman hammer. I think this was a pretty obvious choice from him as well. The last couple of years he has been collecting scenes from the movie Christmas Story but he already had one from the scene that they were selling this year.

failed attempt

Every year we ride the trax up to Temple Square to look at the beautiful lights and then we go out to eat with my mom. Things did not work out so well this year. Mom and Mathias and I were gonna meet Dev in Sandy (since he was already in that area for work) and go from there. As usually happens with mom we were running way behind. By the time we got to Sandy it was 6:30 and half way through the trax ride Mathias let us know that he was starving. So we decided to go eat first. By the time that we got done eating it was too late to see the lights. Mathias loved riding the trax though and picking out Christmas lights along the way so he didn't really care. We will have to try again next week. Here are a few random pictures from our trax ride.

Happy Birthday Dustin!!

Happy 24th Birthday to my amazing brother. You have been through so much and are an amazing person. We LOVE you so much Bud!
Happy Birthday!!

Classic Skating

Our niece Holland had her birthday party at Classic Skating and the whole family got to go. This was the first time that Mathias has been on roller skates but I thought that he would do pretty well since he did pretty good when we went ice skating last year. Boy was I wrong. He did not even want to try to skate on them. I think he made half a lap and just gave up. Luckily the girls brought their razor scooters and Mathias had a blast making laps on them.

Christmas Cards

I have started the tradition of making Christmas cards the year Mathias was born. I don't really do the whole scrapbooking thing so this is basically my once-a-year attempt. Sometimes I wonder why I do it, it seems more work than it's worth. But in the end I enjoy knowing that it is unique. We also get our family pictures taken every year to put in them. Things were a little tight this year so we did not get professional pictures done but instead had my mom take a few for us. They aren't the best but they get the job done.

Gingerbread House.

We have made this a tradition the last couple of years with Mathias. It is so fun and I love to see how much Mathias will participate year by year. This year he did have fun helping put it together and decorating it but he would have been just fine picking out all the blue and purple candies for him, green ones for me and red ones for dad. It was kinda funny, I swear he spent more time doing that more than anything else.

24 week belly

Here we are at twenty-four weeks. I am feeling huge already. It should be interesting to see how much more my stomach will stretch. I swear I was this big at eight months last time around. On the plus side, though, I have only gained five pounds so far. However those five pounds where gained in one months' time. It should be interesting to see what the next couple of months will bring.

24 week ultrasound

We got to have another ultrasound at 24 weeks. This one was to check her heart since she was not so cooperative during our 20 week one. I love that it looks like she is waving at us towards the middle and end of the video.




Here are a few pictures we got from this visit as well.

Christmas Decorations '09

I love decorating for the holidays. It just makes the house seem a bit more cozy. Here are our Christmas decorations for this year.

23 weeks

Yippee, we are six months along! Can I just say that I love being pregnant through the holidays. You don't have to worry about eating too much and gaining weight... it's all baby, right? And since the holidays seem to fly by so fast, so does the pregnancy!

Let it snow!

It finally snowed, and Mathias couldn't be happier! He was so excited to get ready and go out and play in it. If Mathias is annoyed with you he will "roll" his eyes at you. He just basically looks straight up. As you can see he was done with me taking pictures and wanted to go play.

We decided to go play in it after he got up from his nap. He took quite a long nap so by the time he got up it was dark outside. Oh well, it was still fun. I love that he takes his jeep with him EVERYWHERE! We have had a hard time finding him gloves that will fit him this year and just ended up with some knit mittens from last year. Needless to say those did not work so well, so as soon as dad came home we went to the store again in search for some gloves. Mathias just loves the snow and tells me that it should never melt. Man alive he reminds me so much of my brother! Dustin is the exact same way.

Santa baby

I have the cutest little Santa ever. This holiday season has been so much fun. Mathias just understands so much more this year and is so excited about the holidays. I just love this little guy so much!!

Decorating the tree

Mathias was so excited to help dad put up the Christmas tree and then to help decorate it. He tried to open up the tree box with his tools but they didn't work out so well and dad ended up opening it for him. He then helped dad to make sure that the tree was screwed in to the stand and that it was straight. I started getting out all his decorations and he was so excited to put them on. Most of them however ended up on the same branch very low to the ground so Dev had to help him put some up higher. I didn't get any good pics of Mathias because he would absolutely refuse to look at me, as usual. I love that in the end the tree got two thumbs up from him.

Thanksgiving and 21 weeks

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Browers. Scott and Melanie just added a huge beautiful kitchen to their house this year so we ate there. The food was delicious, seriously probably the best Thanksgiving dinner we have ever had. After dinner we watched movies and played puzzles. It was so much fun and nice to relax with everyone. Sadly these are the only pictures I got. I am also 21 weeks this week. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!

20 week ultrasound video

This was our 20 week ultrasound. It is very long. But there are some cool shots. Baby girl was not being very cooperative and was trying to sleep so about half way through you can tell that the ultrasound tech was pushing at my stomach to get her to move. About 9 minutes into it she had me lay on my side to see if that would help. That didn't help much. We were not able to get a good look at her heart so we got to go back 4 weeks later for another ultrasound. I am not sure why the sound doesn't work on hear when we hear the heartbeat.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

20 weeks

I decided that I wanted to take a picture every week or at least every month to see the progress of the growing belly. This is something that I completely forgot to do the first time around and I regret it. I have very few pictures of my belly the first time around except for the awesome ones my friend Emily did for us just three weeks before Mathias was born. I decided to wait to start them till now though because I always just look fat for at least the first 4 months and not pregnant and because I was heavier this time around to begin with. I think that I am actually starting to look pregnant now, so the pictures begin.

20 week belly

Mathias decided that he wanted in on the fun as well. Look how tall this kid is!

20 week ultrasound

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday. I was so excited to get another sneak peek at our little lady. I was also excited that Dev and Mathias were there to see her as well. I am not sure how much Mathias actually understood but he kept saying that he knew it was his baby girl in mommy's tummy. He also thought that her heart sounded pretty cool, I don't think he really understands what a heart is though. I was glad to check and make sure that she is growing well and that everything is going alright. It amazes me what they can tell and see and check at these things.

Here is her little profile with her arm in front of her face.

Yup she is definitely a girl!

Another profile shot.

Another gender shot.

Her little foot.

It turns out that we scheduled the ultrasound during her nap time so she was not very cooperative. She was sleeping on her stomach with her head down. The ultrasound tech kept poking and pushing my stomach to try and wake her up and get her to move a bit but it turns out that she is already stubborn. She did eventually turn to her left side. We finally got to see her profile but the tech was unable to get a good look at her heart. So when I go in for my next doctor's appointment I get to have another ultrasound. I don't mind that at all! I like getting to see our little one. We did get a video of the whole thing as well but the nurse did not finalize the disk so that we can add to it at the next ultrasound.

trick or treat

We went up to Salt Lake again this year to my Aunt Lori's house. It is so much fun to hang out with my cousins and second cousins. We had a very yummy dinner before heading out to trick or treat. As usual, we had way more adults than kids. It was so much fun. Mathias got the hang of it right away. Last year he was more into blowing out all the candles in the pumpkins on people's doorsteps . This year he loved looking at all the decorations but loved looking at all his candy even more. I just gotta say, I think he is the cutest fireman ever!

We tried getting a picture of the boys again this year and it is still just as challenging as it was last year, but here are a few.