new bike

Mathias got this bike for his birthday and unfortunately it has been super crummy weather since. Today was finally nice enough that he could ride it. He rode it all the way around the condo complex and around the park... a couple times. He did really well. I love that when he concentrates he sticks his tongue out, I think Dev does the same thing!

Haircut

I finally got my hair cut! We are doing family/maternity pics soon so I had to hurry and do something with my hair. It has been another long 9 months (not sure why I wait so long) since I have had it done and it was in desperate need of a change. I told the lady that I don't really care what she did as long as I can pull it up. She cut off about 8 inches and added some layers and long, side-swept bangs. I love it and it is so easy to do, which is an awesome bonus.

34 weeks

Yeah 34 weeks. Only 6 weeks left!! I went to the doctor's today. Everything is looking awesome. Her heart beat sounds good. I am measuring right on this time. I was so glad to hear this since last time I went in, 4 weeks ago, he said I was measuring 2 weeks ahead. I have also not gained anything since my last appointment. He said that it is common for the weight gain to slow down or stop and that some even lose some weight in the end. So far I have only gained 10 pounds. She is in the head-down position but that can obviously still change, however let's cross our fingers that she stays this way. I go back in two weeks, then I think it is every week after that. We are getting so close but I still can hardly believe that it is all happening.

Mathias' Birthday Party!

Holy cow my baby is 4!!

(sorry I didn't get a picture of the girls here)

We decided to have his birthday party the weekend after his birthday since his birthday falls so close to Valentine's Day. This year we decided to take the kids to Kangaroo Zoo, which is a big warehouse full of blow-up jump houses and slides. The kids had a blast running around and going on all the slides.

Then after they were worn out we headed back over to our place for pizza, cake and ice cream, and presents. I usually try to make a really fun cake but I used the excuse of being 8 months preggo to make a really simple one this year. Mathias still loved it. As long as it had to do with monster trucks it was all right by him.

Here he is opening all his presents and playing with them. As usual he got pretty spoiled. Thanks to everyone that came!!

Grizzlies Hockey Game

We took Mathias to his first-ever hockey game last night. At first he didn't want to go at all, but that was probably because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed after his nap. Once we got him there, he was pumped! He didn't take too much interest in the game, but at four years old you really can't expect him to sit still and focus on one thing for two and a half hours. He helped me cheer on the few fights that broke out, but I still haven't figured out if encouraging the fisticuffs was a proper parenting move. As long as we can make sure he understands it's okay for professionals to do it, why not?

It was definitely a fun night to get out. We love to spend time together, and what better way to do that than to do it watching hockey?!

Snuggles

I love that Mathias has always been such a snuggler and that he still is. When he wakes up in the morning he comes straight into our room to snuggle us in bed for a bit before starting the day. He also will snuggle you for a bit when he gets up from his naps, like today. He will even come ask for snuggles randomly throughout the day as well. I sure hope our little girl is a snuggler too!

Sprawled out

For as long as I can remember Mathias has always sprawled out in bed. For this reason we hardly ever had him sleep with us, even as a baby because then none of us got any sleep. I walked in to wake him up from a super long nap and this is how I found him. I just had to take a picture. I sure do love this little guy!

33 weeks

Well here we are at 33 weeks. Things are still going pretty good. I am feeling huge and getting to the point of done being pregnant but I really cannot complain to much. I can't believe that there are only about 7 weeks left. It kinda seems to be flying by, which I have mixed feelings about. I cannot wait to meet her and see her but at the same time we are so not ready for her to be here yet.

Mathias turns 4!!

I know that I say this on every birthday but I cannot believe that my baby is growing up so fast! I can hardly believe that he is 4 already.

When I was growing up my mom would always decorate our rooms for our birthdays so I decided to do that for Mathias this year. However, he is kind of a light sleeper when he wants to be. He woke up to me putting up streamers on the outside of his room, so decorating the inside was out of the question. He did not know what to think when he woke up and came out through the streamers.

So instead I blew up a bunch of balloons and left them in the living room. He had so much fun playing with them all day.

He was a little disappointed that I had already made the cake and frosted it but when I told him that I had some blue (his favorite color) sprinkles that he could put on, he got so excited.

We did not do much on his actual birthday (the party is next weekend since this weekend is Valentines day). Mema came over and we had some cake and opened up a few presents. He got a huge rubber snake and some candy from Mema and a marble track from us.

He was so excited about the marble track that he only took about one bite of cake before wanting to open it. When we finally let him open it he was really excited to help Devin put it together. He thought it was pretty cool toy and the cat likes it too. She chases the marbles everywhere.



I wanted to write down a few things about Mathias at this age so I can remember them.

He loves preschool! He is so excited when it is a school day. He tells me all the time that he likes his teacher and that he loves learning. I hope this continues! He is such a smart kid and the teacher told me he is at the top of his class and she is also impressed with how polite he is. Glad to know we are doing something right! ;)

He loves to sing!! His favorite songs right now are 'Real Gone' Performed by Sheryl Crow from the Cars soundtrack, 'I Gotta Feeling' by Black Eyed Peas and 'All I Want To Do...' by Sugarland. He also lately loves to act like a rock star and dance on his bed while singing. I love it.

He still loves jeeps, monster trucks, motorcycles and so forth. Right now he is kinda obsessed with hitches. He keeps telling Dev that we need to build a big blue monster truck with a hitch so we can pull things.

He is a ladies man. The only way we got him to go into sharing time for primary for the first time was that we promised him that he could sit by the girls. Half way through he turned around to Dev and told him he wanted to sit by all the girls not just one. He also tells me about some girlfriends that he has at school. Man are we already in trouble!

He loves books. He is constantly asking for us to read to him and he is attempting to read to himself. So far it is only his favorite books that he basically has memorized but I figure it's a start. Sometimes when we tell him that time out is over (which is in his room with all of his books) he will tell us that he is not ready to come out because he is not done reading his book.

Also we got his stats from his 4-year well check up. They are...

He is about 43 pounds, and that is at the 91st percentile for weight.

He is also about 43 inches, and that is at the 94th percentile for height.

So yes, he is still pretty big for his age.

Sickie

Poor Mathias does not do well in the winters ever since he was born. It all started when he was just three weeks old and got bronchialitis (which is just a step below RSV) and we had to do breathing treatments. For the next couple of years we have had to do breathing treatments (Albuteral, which is a steroid, and Pulmicort, which is a preventative) all winter long and into the spring because anytime he would get a cold it would go straight to his lungs. A lot of this is asthma-related. We were told that he will most likely grow out of this. We thought that this was the year where he was starting to grow out of it because we have not had to deal with it all.... until January. We had made it almost a whole year without having to go to the doctor's, which for us is a miracle. We went a total of five times between January up to his 4-year well visit.


1. The first time we went was because he was complaining about his ear hurting. That is the one thing we have been lucky about. This kid has had EVERYTHING except an ear infection. Turns out he had a very little one that did not even require meds and we were told to just wait it out and if it gets worse, then we will do antibiotics.
2. The next time we went in was for a cough that was not going away. We were told to just start doing breathing treatments round the clock again. Luckily that helped for a bit.
3. We ended up going in again for a cold and some labored breathing and a really high fever . Usually we can take care of his labored breathing with the breathing treatments but it didn't seem to be going away. Also he had a fever of over 104 for a whole day. We would give him Tylenol or Motrin and it would go down for a few hours then shoot right back up. It turns out he had a bit of pneumonia in his left lung and a pretty good ear infection in one ear and a mild one in the other. He had also lost just over a pound in just over a week. He was not eating very much. Poor thing. We got some antibiotics that we had to give to him twice a day along with doing breathing treatments every 4 hours round the clock.
4. Our doctor had us come back just two days later to check on the pneumonia. She wanted to be extra cautious of it because of his asthma problems. She said that his lung was making some noises to where it sounded like his lung might have collapsed a bit due to the pneumonia and that it was pretty common. She told us to have him try and blow up balloons and at his next appointment, which was the next week, we would check it again.
5. This appointment was his 4-year well checkup and to also check out his lungs. It turned out everything was fine (thank heavens!) and we have not had any problems so far since (knock on wood).

(poor thing slept a lot for the first couple of days of being super sickie)

This was not a very fun month for us . Mathias and I just kept passing the sickies back and forth, although I think he got the worst of it. Also having to pay 5 co-pays for him alone in one month was not fun.

Like father, like son!

Dev got the brilliant idea to make a house and a garage big enough that his micro rc could fit in it. Mathias LOVED this idea. He was even able to park the car in the garage a few times without wrecking anything. Once the house was wrecked it was all about making log ramps and trying to drive up them. The boys sure do have a lot of fun with this little rc car!

"helping"

On Sunday, Brian came over to help Dev work on my car. They replaced one of the belts and also the thermostat. When Mathias heard that they were gonna be working on the car he could not gather all his tools fast enough. He was so stinking excited. I love that he loves to get out there with Dev and "help" work on the vehicles. Hopefully this means that he will learn everything he needs to know at a young age so that he can work on his cars when he needs to. I love in the picture with him and Dev laying down checking out the underneath of the car that Mathias has Dev's gloves on. Too cute.

This picture just makes me smile. When Dev was draining the antifreeze, Mathias said, "Look dad, the car is going potty." How funny is that?

While the guys cleaned everything up, Mathias decided to go and grab his jeep and play in the snow. This jeep has seriously been through so much, I can't believe it is still around!

31 weeks

I had my doctor's appointment last week and all is looking good still. I was measuring a bit big at 32 weeks though. He said that it is nothing to worry about unless I start measuring really big. Hopefully she isn't huge! I have been feeling huge and I guess that just confirmed it for me. I have still only gained about 9 pounds total though. I have been feeling a bit better. The only complaints this week are heartburn and a sore back and sometimes not being able to fall asleep for a while, you know - the typical third trimester stuff. I am so excited that we are down to a single digit week countdown!