Since I seem to have a talent for posting infrequently, all you readers out there get to view a conglomeration of photos and events over the last two months. Where to begin...

Christmas 2008

Christmas this year was with Chris's family, although we got to spend time with both families, which was a real treat!

Matthew's present from Santa Claus, a little bike, has been a great gift! He rides it everywhere, and especially enjoys going down hills at top speeds. Telling him it's time to go in while he's out riding his bike usually ends up in him protesting and I have to carry him in with one arm and his bike with my other arm. At least I know he liked his gift!

The boys both loved sledding and it was so much fun watching Caleb hold on so tight to Matthew when they were going down together. Caleb is such a great big brother!

This is what happens when Mom forgets to put her baby down for a nap!

Matthew started singing songs, which is such a delight!

Caleb lost his first two teeth, both on the same day--January 31. After pulling the first one that morning, he wasn't so sure he wanted me to pull the other. It took a lot of persuasion. We took it out that night before bed. I think it's cute. But don't tell him that...boys aren't cute. I also think the teeny tiny teeth marks he makes in his apples now that his teeth are gone are really cute. Caleb's favorite food is apples, and he's not letting his missing teeth slow him down one bit.

Other news from the family includes all of our injuries as well. Earlier last month Matthew climbed on top of a chair and tipped it over backwards. After limping for 9 days I finally took him in to get his foot x-rayed, as I was concerned it might be broken! Good news, no fracture. The doctor told me to wait three or four more days and if he was still limping, they would x-ray is leg. Luckily, two days later he started walking normally again. He must have really hurt his foot to have been limping that long!

Last Tuesday Chris went in for surgery. He had a deviated septum, which the doctor straightened (he has had this surgery before--apparently his cartilege has "memory" and it grew back--let's hope it forgets this next time around). They also cleaned out the windows to his sinuses, as they were small and made it hard for him to breathe. While they were in there they also removed a cyst. We are waiting for the biopsy on that. The frustrating thing about this surgery is nothing is absolute. His septum could grow back. The cyst might grow back as the hole where it was heals. This surgery may make his sinus headaches go away. Argh! I'm just hoping for the best in each of these scenarios.

The other not-so-fun thing was that while Chris was going in for surgery Caleb was playing at a friend's house, and swung right into his bunk bed. It chipped and loosened one of his baby teeth. He needed to go to the dentist, and I couldn't take him because I was in with Chris. Luckily my sister lives nearby and she helped out. Needless to say the day was extremely exhausting for me, both physically and emotionally. I turned the lights out at 8 o'clock that night and went to bed.

Chris seems to be doing better every day, and I think he will head back to work on Tuesday.

Chris's basketball season was 19-1, so he had great success! Now that the season is over, you'd think I'd see him more frequently, but it's on to softball. We stay busy, that's for sure.

All the goings on...

A quick little update on the past month...

This is Caleb on his first bike jump ever.

My house all decorated for Christmas...

A clip from Caleb's kindergarten Christmas program. Way cute!

We've enjoyed our mild weather down here. It's cold in the mornings, but we still reach around 60 most afternoons. It's beautiful! Here's Caleb and Matt playing in one of our huge leaf piles.

Merry Christmas!

Our Spooky Halloween

This year for our cotumes we went scary, because Caleb said he wanted to be a skeleton. I made the boys' costumes this year and I had so much fun making them, especially since I thought they turned out so well. Trick or Treating was fun, but I'm not so sure Matthew quite got the concept. At some houses he would stick both his hands in the candy bucket and grab what he could to put in his own. But then at other houses he'd take his own candy out of his bucket and put it in the candy giver's bucket. It was pretty cute. Matthew also happened to kick a cactus and get a few thorns in his big toe and then five minutes later he grabbed someone else's barrell cactus and got a few thorns in his finger!

Here's our pictures:

Matthew as a Mummy

Caleb as a skeleton

Chris and I as Frankenstein and his bride

(Sorry for poor picture quality!) I also decided to do something fun this year for dinner, so I made a really gross feast.

This is my bloody spider meatloaf

Witch's fingers and slime

Apples and mud (with worms)

Blood Clot Punch

Caleb thought the dinner was a lot of fun and really gross looking, so that made it all the more enjoyable!

I also got to see Caleb march in his first school Halloween parade on Friday.

What a fun weekend!

Washington, D.C.

Chris and I have been going non-stop since school started, so I haven't had time to update! One thing we were able to do is travel to Washington, D.C. for a quick weekend trip. We pretty much saw everything in a day and a half! It was practically free so we couldn't turn it down. Here's a few pics from the trip:

Behind the White House

The Capitol

Vietnam Memorial

World War II Memorial

And, just because they're cute . . . here's a picture of my two boys!

First Day of Kindergarten

Caleb is all grown up! On Thursday he began his first day of Kindergarten. He is such a big boy. He insisted on riding the bus instead of having me drive him on the first day, and when I asked if he wanted me to follow him in the car he said, "Mo-o-o-om, I'll be okay!" Lucky for me the school was offering a Boohoo (or yahoo!) breakfast for parents of Kindergarteners, so I got to drive over to the school anyway and make sure he made it off the bus and into his class. Two days down, 179 to go. This is a picture of Caleb coming off the bus his first day of school.

Pioneer Day

Our Pioneer Day was not spent in Utah this year, but we still made sure we celebrated with a fun vacation. We headed down to sunny California and stayed with Chris's mom for the whole weekend. We had a great time. On Thursday we went to a place called Heritage Park. It was a cute, historical kid-size village with slides and things to climb on, along with a pond filled with ducks. The kids had a great time feeding the ducks.

After we went to the park we went over to Chris's sister Amber's house and went swimming for a couple of hours.

Friday was, I think, my favorite day. We started out by going to a kids discovery museum. This is different than the one in Salt Lake. The one in Salt Lake is based on more imaginative play. This one is all scientific. It was fun!

Here's a picture of Caleb and I laying on a bed of nails. Truthfully, I thought it was pokey and slightly painful. I prefer my mattress at home!

This was Caleb and his uncle John and Grandma in a hurricane-wind-tunnel. The wind gusts were supposedly 78 mph.

There were a lot of other cool things in this museum, like a earthquake shack where we sat down in a booth and they simulated shockwaves from an earthquake, and a place where we could pull our own body weight up by using a different number of pulleys. We also watched a 4-D dinosaur movie. Caleb jumped a couple of times when he thought a dinosaur tail was going to whack his head and when he saw a pterydactyl beak come really close to his eye. There were some fun things here that Matthew could do as well, but it was mostly geared toward older kids.

Later that night we went to the Irvine Spectrum and rode the carousel, where both my kids had a blast--just look at their smiles! We also rode the ferris wheel. And then on the way home we stopped at a cold air balloon ride (filled with helium)--it was free!--and went up 330 feet into the air. It was my first time on a balloon. I thought it was a lot of fun. It was dark when we went, so we decided to go again the next morning and see everything from daylight perspective.
These next two pictures are cool--they are a shadow of the balloon we're in, and the second gives you an idea of how high up we were.

After our balloon ride Saturday morning we went over to a city park where there was a train to ride and a small zoo to visit. By this point Matthew was already tuckered!

Caleb found a fun vine to swing on!

After we packed up some food we headed on out to the beach where we played for a little while and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Caleb had fun jumping the waves with his dad (this was Chris's favorite part), and Matthew had fun playing in the sand. Unfortunately it was too cold for my taste so I stayed out of the water.

Our trip was a busy one, but we had a blast. Sunday morning we all ate blueberry waffles and we went to church before heading back home. I thought the boys cleaned up nice . . .

Matthew's 1st haircut

Yesterday, my baby turned into a little boy with the simple use of scissors. Although I miss his long locks, I think he looks really handsome now!