Happy Halloween!

Thank goodness for work and ward Halloween parties so that I had a reason to dress up Matthew even though he's too young to Trick or Treat! :-)

Matthew's Blessing Day

Matthew was blessed this past Sunday, Oct. 16 in Las Vegas. It was a busy weekend but ended up being wonderful. Matthew's blessing was absolutely perfect and we are so thankful for all the friends and family that took the time out of their busy schedules to come support us. Matthew has so many awesome family members that I can't wait for him to really get to know.

Doesn't he look so handsome??? His smile melts my heart.

After Vegas me and Matthew were able to drive to LA with my parents and spend a day there. It was so fun and we can't wait to go back at Christmas. My dad was able to get some really awesome pictures of Matthew (of him smiling! yay!) and my mom seemed to have the magic touch. She could always get him smiling so big and at one point when Matthew was having a small temper tantrum :) she gave him a bubble bath in the sink and he calmed right down and looked so content.


Matthew is perfecting both his smile and his pouty face, and is learning how to use them to get what he wants. Uh-oh. I better learn to not be such a softy. I can't believe he is almost two months old!!! Time sure flies.

Our Move To Phoenix and Life Here So Far (based off of the pictures of Matthew on my phone)

So ever since we packed up our apartment in Nashville I haven't been good about taking pictures with my nice camera. I have, however, taken lots of pictures of Matthew with my phone. Even though the quality of these pictures isn't great, they're still pretty cute... and I figured I'd tell the story of the move using them.

We loaded up the moving truck and Michael left for Phoenix with the truck and our car on a Friday around noon. Me and Matthew stayed in the almost empty apartment until Monday. It was a long few days.... all I had was a suitcase, a laptop, a phone, an air mattress, (borrowed from our friends) and Matthew. Thank heavens Matthew kept me entertained! :-) This is what our living room looked like:
Matthew took lots of short naps on my pillow, but I didn't let him sleep there at night when I couldn't keep an eye on him. He loved those pillow naps though.

We enjoyed each other's company, but I'm pretty sure he missed his dad.... (I did too)

During those few days I gave Matthew a bath using this baby bath thing..... I didn't think I'd ever use it so it didn't make it into the moving truck and ended up getting left behind in Nashville. Bummer, because I actually loved it. It held Matthew up (but still partially in the water) so well. I love this picture, because it shows Matthew's classic 'bath hands'- he hates putting his hands in the water even though he loves his baths.


Anyway, Matthew really started to learn to smile during this time, and I still haven't really gotten a good picture of it! Lame. I did, however, get a picture of the very end of a smile when my friend was about to take us to the airport.... you can kinda tell he'd just been smiling right? ;-)

I was super anxious about the plane ride with Matthew, especially because he was being so fussy in the airport! This picture was taken in the airport just before he woke up angry.... haha.

Luckily, the plane ride wasn't too bad. He cried a little but mostly slept. Woohoo!

It was SO nice to get to Phoenix and have a furnished apartment again. Sitting on the floor really gets old after a couple days. Our new apartment is great, other than the ancient kitchen appliances and the fact that we can hear EVERY STEP (no exaggeration) that our upstairs neighbors take. And every step that their dog takes. Ugh. But this apartment has two bathrooms and an actual dining area and a walk-in closet!! Oh how I love my walk-in closet. However, on my second day here our AC went out. Not okay for 100 degree weather! So Matthew wore this for the afternoon until we got the maintenance guy to come fix it.

So yeah, I like Phoenix a lot so far. The weather is great (I'm sure I'll be humming a different tune come next summer... but this winter will be fabulous) and we live in a nice neighborhood with so much good shopping nearby! Seriously, me and Matthew go window shopping every day to a new store. He loves just looking around from his car seat in the cart at all the shelves.


I put a toy on his car seat the other day thinking he might swat at it, but he's too young I guess because he looked at it like it was going to bite him.

I also decorated our apartment for Halloween before I even got our apartment completely unpacked. I love that I can make Matthew all festive too.

And because this is funny- this is the kind of thing that happens whenever Michael and Matthew are left alone together... :)

As for Matthew's sleeping habits, the shirt he's wearing in this next picture is pretty perfect. He's our alarm clock at 11 p.m., 1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m., etc.....

Oh, and we celebrated Michael's 26th birthday.... Matthew's present was finding his voice and having a nice conversation with his dad. Pretty cute.

We're glad to be (almost) settled in and so much closer to family. I'm excited to get to know Phoenix better!