I've been awful at trying to keep my blog updated. So I guess this post will be all about our summer. This summer we went to two weddings, one in Arizona and one in Texas.

Mark served his mission in Arizona. The youngest daughter of one of the families he taught was getting married and everything worked out for us to be able to go. Originally we didn't think we'd be able to go because of finances and the long distance, but it worked out.

Arizona is a 19 hour drive (and it was cheaper to drive than to fly.) We rented a car because we didn't want to risk a repeat of our last trip to Arizona. (When we went 5 years ago the vehicle broke down in New Mexico and we were delayed 2 days waiting for repairs. It was an experience I'd rather not repeat.)

picking up the car from the rental location

Mark's mission companion was there too and they had a lot of fun catching up.


We discovered Matt does NOT like Mexican food

Lately his favorite "food" is ketchup.

We went to Ross and I found I LOVE that store! I can hardly wait until one opens up near where we live. Matt didn't get much of a nap so he was falling asleep in the shopping cart.


It was a 19 hour drive there and 18 hours back. We took 2 days for the drive so that we weren't trying to drive while we were super tired. Matt was very good on the trip and only cried when he was hungry or really tired (or if we tried to change his diaper on a changing table.)

We stayed home for 10 days and then headed to Texas for another wedding. Again, we rented a car but the drive was only 10 hours. Matt was really good for the trip. Jason (Mark's brother) and Emily got married. It was an outdoor wedding and was awesome aside from it being so hot. Thankfully the reception was in an air conditioned location.


While we were in Texas we visited my brother and sister-in-law and their family, who live like 20 minutes away from where the wedding was. I did some shopping (Texas has Ross too!) and we spent time with family for a couple days and then came back home.

Whew. That was a pretty busy couple of months. It was fun to see people and visit Mark's mission but I am so glad to be home and ready for no more long distance traveling for a long time.

Back in April we went to Lynette's with most of the family for their new baby's blessing and I happened to see this in all the chaos:

Aww, how cute. Mom and Dad fell asleep holding hands. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of it.

April and May were kind of crazy months for us. Mark's left foot started hurting really bad around the arch area in mid-April to the point where he couldn't walk without severe pain and limping. He decided to go to a podiatrist (foot specialist) and we were able to get him checked out a couple days after the pain started.

He was diagnosed with plantar fascitis. Basically the main tendon in his foot tore part way and that's why he was having so much pain. He didn't do anything to cause it - it's just the way his muscles and tendons line up and how tight they are. His tendons are pretty tight so there's always a chance it could happen again. Although he has stretches to do now that will reduce the chances of it happening again. So to fix his foot pain the doctor said it needed time to rest and heal. Mark wore a boot for 3 weeks:

and was able to take time off work to recover. He is now without the boot and back at work, but he still has to be careful with his foot and make sure to do the stretches. He also has to ALWAYS wear shoes unless he's showering or sleeping so his foot is supported as much as possible.

In other news, Mark graduates with an associate's degree in Computer Networking Systems. YAY! He's also looking for a job in the IT or computer networking field so if anyone has any leads or knows about anyone hiring please let me know. He's currently working in a warehouse and wants to start getting IT experience as soon as possible. Mark has also been accepted into the bachelor degree program so he's going to be starting classes next week to get a bachelor's degree in "Information Systems and Cybersecurity." We're pretty excited about it. It's been a long time coming.

Matt is almost 16 months old and is all over the place. He climbs now but is still working on getting down. He loves to "help" daddy play his video games:

He also likes to do things by himself or at least try to do them by himself:

He goes into nursery at 18 months old and I'm ready for him to be in nursery. I think overall he'll enjoy it although he may take a while to get used to all the other kids. I think we'll try to ease him into nursery by going for part of the time for the first few weeks or something so that he can get used to how it works and what to expect.

Update on Monday:
Matt had his 15 month old well visit today at the doctor and he is 22 pounds, 11 ounces and 30 1/4 inches tall. He sure is getting big!

Hair cut

So from past pictures anyone can see that Matt has a whole lot of hair. The top is more or less straight and the back is curly. I saw his hair last night:



and I decided it was time for a REAL hair cut -- not just a trim. Up until this point he's really only had trims. The last (and only) time we took him to a professional hair cutting place he freaked out the whole time. So to save him the trauma (and to save money) I cut his hair myself.


Before:




After:

He got hair on his face and hands in this pic, so he wasn't very happy.


I think he looks a lot older with the shorter hair, but I really like it. It is a lot easier to manage for now. It will be interesting to see if he continues to have straight hair on the top of his head and curly hair in the back or if it all goes curly.

I thought he was going to be crying during the entire hair cut since that's what he did at the hair cutting place and especially since I was planning to use the buzzer. I figured the loud noise would freak him out but it didn't bother him too bad once he got used to it. He was too busy trying to watch me cut his hair.

Around the beginning of March my maternal grandma passed away. She was the last of my grandparents to pass so me and Matt (Mark couldn't come because of school and work) went with the rest of the family back to Victor, ID for the funeral. Up until then I had not been to Idaho since we moved back in 1999. So it's been a good 13 years since I saw any family from Idaho.

This winter in Missouri had next to no snow so it was kind of fun to see all the snow in Idaho. When we were going through the mountain pass from Wyoming to Idaho I took some pictures of how high the snow was compared to the signs on the side of the road.

We pulled off the road at the Wyoming/Idaho border and I got this picture. This was in a stopping area though, so the snow had been plowed. That's still a lot of snow though.



Even though these pictures are of the same sign, they were taken at different times. I didn't know this before, but the orange stick things are attached to metal poles that mark the side of the road. They have to put the orange on them for winter otherwise the snow covers up the metal poles.

And of course there HAS to be a picture of the mountains.

We were gone for about almost a week. I'm glad we went and got to be there for the funeral and to see everyone. (Everyone in my family was able to come except Anita, who is currently serving a mission in Nevada.) But I was glad to come home when we did. Missouri feels like home now.


In other news, Matt is officially a toddler now...I guess. Is walking what turns them into a toddler? Either way, he can walk now and he sure is loving it.

He started walking about a week ago (on Monday, March 19) he walked across the living room all by himself. Up until that point he'd take a step or two and then hold onto something. That time he didn't hold on to anything. By Thursday he was kicking a ball around and chasing it.

He's almost 14 months old and it doesn't seem like he should be that old. He loves jabbering, looking at books, "playing" video games (holding a controller and pushing buttons while Mark is playing a game) and walking. He still crawls but he's starting to get more comfortable walking. He also thinks it's funny when I roar at him. If he's walking when I do that he'll usually lose his balance.

Mark is currently in his last quarter of school before he gets his Associate's degree in computer networking. His school does quarters instead of semesters. Also his school is year round with a week or two break between quarters. Mark is planning to keep going to school to get his Bachelor's degree. We're both pretty excited for him to be getting his degree. It's been a long time coming and hopefully soon he'll be able to get a job in the field.

We have had a very unusually warm winter. We got our 2nd SNOW for the winter yesterday and most of it is already melted. That mentioned we had several days in January where we could go outside in jacket weather.

Since it was so nice on January 30 I took Matt to swing. He loves to swing...just like his mommy :)


He has 6 teeth now. He had 4 of his top teeth come in within the same week. They aren't completely in yet, but they're close.

Matt turned 1 in the first week of February. We had some of Mark's family come over to celebrate and Matt was kind of unsure what to do with all the people around. We recorded his birthday celebration with the cake and such. Before the end of the birthday song he was putting his head down on his high chair and after we blew out the candle and people started clapping he started crying. Mark had to get him out of his high chair to calm him down and finally convince him to try some cake. Once he tried the cake he really liked it. (I tried posting the video but it took forever to upload and then it wouldn't allow me to view it...maybe I'll try fighting with it another time to see if I can get it posted)

We decided to celebrate his birthday again with just the 3 of us on his actual birthday so I could get some pictures of him actually being happy instead of scared.

Matt has been growing so fast it's hard to keep up.

He was a puppy for halloween and wasn't too impressed with the costume.


We went to a ward halloween party (which was the day the pictures were taken) and then I took him trick or treating halloween night. He didn't seem to be too sure about why we were trick or treating. There were a lot of people who thought he was a lion or a bear. Oh well, I didn't really mind. He was cute whatever people thought he was.

Matt started crawling backwards around the beginning of November but hadn't figured out how to crawl forwards. We went to Darla's for her youngest daughter's naming ceremony. The three babies were adorable together, so of course I had to get pictures


While with the other babies it seems Matt learned how to crawl forward. He crawled forward on Sunday, November 13 and by Tuesday the 15th he was using furniture and such to pull himself up so he could stand. Now that he can crawl forward he's really hard to keep up with. We've had to bust out our baby gates and baby proof as fast as we can before he gets into stuff. Now that he can move where he wants to go he likes to chase Lily. Lily likes to lie down on the carpet a few feet away from Matt and when he crawls over to her and starts "petting" her (his petting isn't very gentle, we're still working on that with him) she'll get up and move a few more feet and lie down again and then look at me and meow when Matt follows her. You'd think she'd realize she needs to go somewhere he can't reach her...




Matt also likes to "help" me look at the newspaper by grabbing the pages while I'm looking at them and scattering them on the floor. Then he likes to play with them, of course. Lily decided to hide under one of them and it actually worked! Matt didn't find her.

A couple months ago I decided to make some rice crispy treats. Apparently the marshmallows I had were REALLY old because they browned instead of melted. I learned from the experience to never try to melt old marshmallows (seriously, these marshmallows were probably a year and a half old.) They never did melt down. they just got browner and browner until I decided it was hopeless...too bad I didn't have the stuff to make s'mores out of them.


I thought it was funny so I had to take a picture.

Me and Matt went to Oklahoma (Mark didn't come because of his work and school schedule) a few weeks ago for my nephew's baptism and we were finally able to get all the grandkids together to get a picture!

All 17 grand kids with mom and dad and some other adults trying to keep their children in place for the picture. Notice the three babies in the middle -- that's the baby group from December 2010-May 2011. The baby girl on the left side was 4 months old, Matt is in the middle and was 7 months old, and the baby girl on the right was 9 months old in the pic. The cousins had tons of fun together although Matt wasn't quite sure what to think about so many kids running around.

While we were in Oklahoma Matt got his first hair cut. The mohawk he was born with was a lot longer than the rest of his hair so it was starting to look funny.
Before:

After:



I think it looks so much better now. I think he looks a lot older now that it's been cut. It's amazing how much difference a hair cut can make.

Lately Matt has discovered his tongue and LOVES to blow raspberries and stick his tongue out.



In the past week or so he's started saying dada and mama, although at this point I think he's just making sounds, but it sure seems like he knows what he's saying sometimes. The other day I went into his room to get him up from a nap and as soon as he saw me come in he shouted "MOM!"

He's growing so much now and definitely is not having trouble gaining weight any more (yay!) While we were in Oklahoma he got to watch his cousin (the 9 month old baby) crawling around and he seems to have picked up a few things from her. He has started scooting backwards instead of forward, and it's pretty slow, but he's moving. He hasn't figured out how to get his knees under him yet but it doesn't look like it's be too much longer at least at the rate he's going now. He's sitting up by himself and is pretty good about keeping his balance.