Interview with Matthew

Since this is a journal for our family I wanted to catch a glimpse of Matthew at this snip-it in time. I asked him some questions just to find out more about him. Here are his answers (these are totally unassisted by me to make them purely honest. Some of them don't make much sense, but hey I don't quite know how Matthew's mind works either.)

1. Fav. Food: Cheese Noodles (Macaroni and Cheese), he also loves lasagna, and any kind of meat.
2. Fav. Candy: Tootsie Rolls
3. Fav. Activity: Listen to Taylor Swift (he has picked this up at Kid's in the Park. One of the leaders lets him listen to her i-pod every day. He only listens to one song of Taylor Swift's (Fearless) and he has the whole thing memorized. They had a talent day at kids in the Park and he sang this particular song word for word karaoke style for his talent. From what I hear he did pretty well, too.)
4. Fav. friend: Derrick from school.
5. Fav. Teacher: Kid's in the Park teacher
6. Fav. Game: Chutes and Ladders
7. Fav. Color: Yellow--always has been and will probably always be his favorite color.
8. Fav. number: 7
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? A canoe driver. Anyone have any job openings;) I suppose it's a pretty specialized field...
10. Fav place to go? Albertson's (who knew grocery shopping could be fun? I guess when you are tormenting Mom it's a pretty fun place to go. There's lots of stuff to get into and a couple of sliding doors to play with.)
11. Fav. Drink: Sprite
12. Fav. Toy: Splash Rocket
13. What makes you happy? Capri Sun (I wish something that simple is what made me happy!)
14. What do you get in trouble for most? Not obeying
15. Fav. Subject: Math
16. Favorite Movie: The Wiggles
17. Fav. Animal: Horse (even though he is afraid of getting near one. He is scared to death of any living animal except fish. I can't figure out why either.)
18. Fav. Book: Lady Bug's Birthday (this book is one he HAS to have with him in order to sleep at night. There has been many nights where we have been woken up at 3 am by screams from Matthew because his book is lost--fallen off his bed or buried in the covers somewhere.)
19. If you could go and do anything that you wanted today what would you choose? To go swimming.


There were only two things he wanted for his birthday. A radio with a CD player and the Taylor Swift CD Fearless. Since we are having his birthday party with family at Chuck-E-Cheeses on Saturday, we are having him wait to open his presents then. All day yesterday he kept telling me we needed to go to Walmart to get the CD. He also informed me we needed to go to Radio Shack to get his radio to since Radio Shack is his radio store. He came up with that association of Radio Shack being a radio store on his own, too. We had to face a few melt downs because he couldn't understand why he didn't get his presents on his birthday. I guess he will be that much more excited to get them Saturday. I took him to Walmart and had him point out the CD he wanted to make sure I had the right one. I had to pry it out of his hands three different times because he wanted it right then. I can't wait to see his face on Saturday when he opens it!! He's a pretty funny boy.

Matthew's 8th Birthday

I can't believe Matthew has been with us for 8 years. Time has gone by so fast!! He has taught me a lot in 8 years. I can't imagine life without him. I am thankful he is part of our family. Happy 8th Birthday big guy!

Daddy's Helper or Hinderer

Matthew's 8th birthday is coming up on Thursday. He is an impossible kid to shop for!! The only things he really likes right now are light switches and doorknobs. Seeing as there is no child's toy that caters to these fascinating items, Aaron decided to try and make something for him. He is trying to make a light switch board with four light bulbs and five light switches on it. Matthew will be able to play with this contraption instead of the wall lights as many times as his little heart desires since playing with the wall light switches a million times a day can get a little annoying. Since this is supposed to be a birthday present Aaron has been working on it after the older kids go to bed. Sarah still isn't on the older kid's bedtime schedule yet so she doesn't usually go to bed until around 8:30pm. Last night she was quite interested and drawn to all the parts Aaron was working on. Finally Aaron made me put her to bed because she was carting off his supplies. That meant Aaron had to stop working to look for them too many times. Here are a few pictures of Aaron's little helper. She is also sporting her new spooky Wolverine hairdo since she pulls out her piggy tails every time she finds them which, unfortunately, is a lot. We are hoping it gets finished in time for his birthday. I will be trying to limit how much Sarah "helps" him in order to get it finished on time.

The Honey Do List Just Shrunk a Little

It is hard for me to let the weekends go by without doing something fun. The unfortunate thing about this is that a lot of stuff around the house gets procrastinated. Anything that doesn't need to be done gets put off. Finally yesterday the honey do list was way too long so Aaron got started. He replaced the brakes in the van, he mowed, weed eated, fixed the sprinklers, fixed the toilet, found and tried to get rid of a huge beehive in our garden and finally my favorite hung some cabinets in my laundry room. We found an outstanding deal on some cabinets and bought them. We finally got around to installing them yesterday. Now my laundry room looks a little more organized--except for the layer of dirty clothes on the floor. I need to touch up the paint in there now, but it was so worth it.

Now if anyone has some helpful advice on how to get rid of a huge beehive in the ground of our backyard, please share. We have tried a whole can of wasp spray, but it didn't even phase them. I don't know if they are honey bees or not (I know they aren't wasps or hornets), but whenever anyone walks by the hive they swarm. Daniel hasn't been stung yet, but I don't want to find out if he, or anyone else, is allergic to them if I don't have to.

Foray in Photography

I was feeling rather guilty because there was no picture of any temple in our home. I went to Seagull Book and Deseret Book to look at their temple pictures. Unfortunately, I had some sticker shock when I looked at the price tag of the pictures I liked. I then thought I would take a try at photographing my own picture of the temple. About a month ago we made a trip to Salt Lake City and I took a few pictures of the temple. I picked one I liked, enlarged it and framed it. This is how it turned out: Now I don't have to feel guilty about not having a picture of the temple in my home anymore. As always Matthew loves any photo op, too.

The Bikers

Josh and Matthew finally have learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels. YAY!! We thought it was time after we couldn't find a bike to fit Matthew without training wheels. Josh is great, but Matthew is still quite cautious. He still needs to practice a lot more. Daniel attempted riding his bike without training wheels, but he only made it about a foot until he cried to get them put back on. Now Aaron and I need to get some bikes so we can go on family bike rides after we find a bike trailer to put the youngest two in. My family did this growing up and it was so much fun. I can't wait to have my own family go on bike rides.

What's Grosser than Gross?

Yesterday we were at Walmart looking at some things. Daniel suddenly said he needed to go to the bathroom. Saturday we made the mistake of telling Daniel to hold it while we were shopping. That was a BIG mistake because he ended up having a #2 accident while at the store. So when he said he needed to go to the bathroom yesterday we took him seriously. I grabbed his hand and took him into the women's restroom. When I walked in I headed for the handicapped stall because it is bigger so both Daniel and I could fit inside. When I opened the stall door the toilet was clogged and there was water all over the floor. The only other open stall was the one next to the handicapped stall, but there was still water all over the floor--YUCK. I am thoroughly grossed out at this point. I already have issues with public restrooms anyway and this didn't help. Walking into the stall Daniel saw the water on the floor and started stomping and splashed overflowed toilet water all over me and himself. When I got him to stop, he immediately pulled his shorts down right into the overflowed toilet water getting them all wet. Well he finished doing what he came to do in the bathroom and when we found Aaron again we had to leave immediately to come home so I could sanitize my whole body and Daniel's too. YUCK!!! I never used public restroom unless it was an emergency until I had kids. They love trying out a new bathroom any time they can. I hope they outgrow this soon because public restrooms are disgusting!!