Camping!

There was a Ward Campout last weekend and Michael took Matthew, making it Matthew's first ever camping trip!  He was looking forward to it ALL week, telling me every day that he was excited for camping and roasting marshmallows with dad.  ;-) (The marshmallow part was about all he knew about camping, haha!) Me and Kate didn't go because, well, if you know Kate at all, she is not a sure-I'll-sleep-wherever type of kid. As a matter of fact, she has a hard enough time falling asleep in her own crib when she is DEAD tired. So, figuring that my ward would probably not appreciate being kept up all night by Little Miss, I stayed home with her.  :-)  One day, when she's a better sleeper, we'll go too.  

Anyway, Michael packed up all the camping gear into his car on Thursday night and I packed up a suitcase for Matthew on Friday.  Then I loaded up the kids and took them to Michael's work around 4 p.m.  I had decided to meet Michael at his work with Matthew because he couldn't take off a ton of time and this way he wouldn't have to waste time fighting traffic and they could get to the campsite sooner. I dropped off a very excited Matthew and his suitcase to Michael and after loading up Matthew's car seat into Michael's car, the boys were off! I had plans for a fun girls night with Kate (milkshakes and pedicures of course!) but unfortunately she hadn't napped at all that day (sigh) so we had to call it an early night. We did, however, enjoy some Chick-fil-A for dinner.  ;-)

The boys got back around lunchtime on Saturday and they were both beyond tired but had had a great time.  Matthew totally ate it up and thought the whole thing was practically magical. Haha. The only snag they had was when Matthew misunderstood Michael when Michael told him that there were no bugs inside the tent - only outside - and thought that there were bugs INSIDE the tent. Michael told him 1000 times that there were no bugs inside but Matthew couldn't seem to shake the idea of there being bugs inside.  Haha. Oh that boy. It took Matthew quite a while to fall asleep in the tent.  ;-)

First of many Father/Son campouts = success! Well, other than that I forgot to pack Matthew a sweatshirt, (big time fail!) which is why he is wearing his PJ top as a sweatshirt in the morning.

Matthew's 3rd Birthday

My baby boy is 3!!!  I was really hoping that I wouldn't think that this birthday was sad, but duh - of course it was.  Every time I think about him getting bigger and bigger I just imagine this cute little chunky baby face and my heart hurts.

Don't get me wrong though - the age he's at right now is actually my very favorite age so far. He is beyond hilarious and SO much fun to be around.  The tantrums still occasionally happen, but they've become a lot more rare.  He's the perfect little buddy to have around and if I could freeze him forever as a three year old, I just might.  ;-)

A few things about Matthew at this age that I want to remember -

Matthew has a ton of energy.  He is not the type to be okay with being in the house all day. This is tricky in the summer, but luckily we can usually get out early in the morning and go for a walk or I'll fill up the little pool in our backyard and let him run around back there for a while.  And without fail, every night after dinner he'll ask Michael to wrestle.... or skip the asking part and just attempt to tackle him.  :-)  He still likes his chill time though - his favorite ways to chill are by watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Super Why, or Caillou.  He is also a big fan of reading books, which is my absolute favorite thing to do with him.  We love to go pick out library books together or just read the many books we have at home.  He has almost all of his books completely memorized.  He'll also often request that Grandma read him a book over FaceTime.

Speaking of reading, I found out shortly after his 2nd birthday that he was an amazing sight reader. At the time he was barely even talking, but he knew so many words by sight already! When he finally starting speaking better I shifted our focus from reading to speaking since speaking opened up a whole new world for him, but he still occasionally lets me teach him some new sight words.

Matthew is finally getting potty trained.  :-)  For the longest time he wasn't ready, but we are finally getting there.  Hooray!

Every morning I am woken up either by Michael's alarm clock or by the pitter-patter of Matthew's feet running down the hall.  He'll peek into our room and slowly walk in.  Most days he'll crawl up onto the bed using the chest at the foot of our bed and lay down between us.  At least he is nice about waking me up.  :-)  (And no, he will never go back to sleep). He is a pretty early riser, even when he doesn't nap.  (Ugh.)  He still naps most days though. (Yay).

Some things Matthew really hates include: haircuts, being sent to time out, bugs, thinking he's being left out, when anyone other than me puts him to bed, and vegetables.  

Matthew loves coloring with markers, dinosaurs, swimming, sugar, Play Doh, nursery, animals, the park, jumping on beds, helping me make cookies, and going on "adventures." 

Matthew definitely picks on Kate sometimes, and I'm pretty sure that occasionally he wishes he was an only child, (ha!) but he loves her so much.  He is really good at including her and paying attention to what she is doing and how she is feeling.  I am really glad that they have each other.

I love to listen to Matthew sing.  He is rarely on key but I guess that's one of the beauties of being a toddler - even your off-key singing is cute.  :-)  He "dances" by running around the living room.  He'll often ask me to hold him and dance with him when music is on, and we both love that.  I basically just jump around with him and he thinks that it's the most fun thing in the world.  I'd have to agree.  

Matthew absolutely adores his dad.  The second he hears Michael start opening the door at dinnertime, he squeals, "Dad's home!" and sprints to greet him.  He loves their man dates, which usually involve going to the local gas station, QT, for a donut and/or candy bar. I am so glad that they have such a good relationship.

Matthew is awesome.  He is sweet and funny and we love every day with him.

For his birthday this year, we once again kept it pretty simple. (One of these days I'll throw him a big friend party).  We actually did a lot of celebrating the day before because on his actual birthday Michael had a training all day at work and couldn't leave at all even on his lunch break.  So the day before, we met Michael for lunch at Peter Piper Pizza.  It's one of Matthew's favorite places in the whole world because after he stuffs his face full of pizza, he then gets to go play games.  Kathy was here too and got to join in the fun.

On his actual birthday he woke up to streamers in his doorway (which he thought were the coolest) and requested Cheerios for breakfast.  (Haha, whatever).  :-)  He then opened his presents and played with them all morning until I took him to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  After naps we played some more until Michael got home, and then we went out for pizza again. (Matthew really really loves pizza). After dinner we came home so he could eat his cake.  He'd seen a picture of a Lego cake and requested that for his birthday.  Luckily it was pretty easy!

Love this little dude so much.  And I'm excited for another fun year!

Big Summer Trip 2014

Towards the end of July we went on a huge road trip!  The main reason was that my little brother got married!  Now all the Hales kids are married!  I was excited to go to the wedding and to see my whole family, but man, I was NOT looking forward to the looooong car rides with the kids and having all four of us in one room many of the nights during the trip.  (My kids are NOT the type to do well with that.... especially Kate).  But we were excited for all the fun ahead and to get out of the dang Arizona heat.

The first day we drove all the way to Pine Valley, UT.  It was a super long drive and that definitely wasn't fun..... as the kids often looked like this while driving -

but we made it around dinner time and my grandparents (who have a cabin there) made us a yummy meal and took us for a drive to see some animals.  (Which Matthew LOVED).  The next morning we hung out for a bit and went to a Pioneer Day breakfast celebration by the Pine Valley church.  So fun to be in Utah on Pioneer Day - especially a small town!

And then we were off to Provo!  This drive was shorter and went by pretty quick.  It was still nice to get there though - especially because we met my parents there and stayed in the same hotel as them that night.  My kids were thrilled to see them and enjoyed hanging out with them that afternoon/ evening.  We got ice cream at the BYU Creamery and checked into the hotel.  Then we all went to dinner at Brick Oven (where me and Michael had our first date almost 10 years ago!) and then my parents watched the kids while me and Michael snuck away to the mall to walk around and reminisce about our Provo dating days.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and then visited BYU.  Oh how I miss BYU!  We went to the bookstore and walked around campus for a bit.  Michael even took Matthew into a classroom and Matthew felt pretty cool.  :-)

Then we headed to Idaho Falls!  Matthew got to ride with my parents and he loved every second. When we got there we met up with Cheri and Spencer and their kids (and Adam!) and the kids went swimming with Papa.  We also walked around right outside of the hotel and loved every second of the beautiful weather.  (And the view of the Idaho Falls temple!)

And then it was time for the wedding dinner!  (Which was at the hotel we stayed at).  Michael (my brother) and Laura and their family were there and it was so nice to see them, as they live in Florida and we hardly ever get to see them.  :-(  There was also lots of extended family there, which was of course wonderful.  The wedding dinner was awesome and went smoothly, other than my kids being stinkers and basically only eating ice cream for dinner.  Yikes.

And then the next day was the wedding!  I'd just barely gotten my temple recommend renewed two weeks before the wedding and hadn't been to the temple during those two weeks, and it turns out the Stake President forgot to activate it!  Ahhh!  Of course this happens as I'm trying to get into my brother's wedding! As I sat in the lobby of the temple waiting super impatiently with Michael, I was totally freaking out.  I thought I was going to miss the wedding!!!  Seriously a horrible feeling. Luckily they were able to get a hold of the right people on the phone and they let me in.  Whew.  My grandpa performed the sealing and then we went outside for pictures.

That evening was the reception, which was at someone's home.  It was actually a great place for kids, as there was tons of space to run around, a small play area, and a trampoline.  While there, we got a picture of all the grandkids.... it would be pretty perfect if it weren't for my kids crying.  Sigh.

The next day we drove our longest drive yet - Idaho Falls to Las Vegas!  It was pretty horrible as we got stuck in the absolute WORST traffic over NOTHING in Mesquite (so close yet so far!) and our AC was having issues and the kids were just DONE.  Ugh.  It felt amazing to finally get to Vegas. We stayed with Michael's mom for one night and then went to my grandma's house the next day. Here we said goodbye to Michael and he drove the van home without us on Monday night because he really had to get back to work.  Me and the kids hung out at my grandma's house the rest of that day. Yay for trampolines!  :-)

And then the next day (Tuesday) my parents got into town and took me and the kiddos in their car to LA.  Woohoo!  We would spend the week there and then Michael would drive down on Friday night, stay for the wedding Open House on Saturday, and drive us all home Sunday.  As soon as we got there I took Matthew down to the beach.  I thought he'd think it was the greatest thing ever. To my horror, he thought it was scary!  Ha!

On Wednesday we spent the day at the beach and both kids were totally freaked out by the ocean.  I guess my desert babies are not used to waves and cold water.  ;-)  Despite my best efforts to get them to love the ocean they mostly just wanted to play in the sand.

On Thursday we drove down to Newport Beach and had pizza for lunch, went on a boat ride to see celebrity houses, (cool!) and rode a ferris wheel.  Kate rode with me and was giggling the whole time. Matthew rode with my mom and didn't flip out, but was pretty nervous and he told her several times during the ride that he was, "All done."  :-)

On Friday morning me and my mom took the kids into her work at the dental office for a few minutes.  I was hoping they'd think the dentist chair was awesome.  No such luck.  No idea how I'm going to get these kids to see a dentist in the future.

And then we went back to the beach!  The kids did slightly better but were still pretty terrified of the ocean.  Sheesh.

That night we celebrated my dad's birthday with Cheri and Spencer and their kids, who got there earlier that day.  (Adam and Steph also got there that day but were at a Dodger game that night). Matthew and Kate loved having so many playmates around.  And then Michael got there late that night.  Woohoo!

We all went to the beach one last time on Saturday.  I am happy to report that my kids FINALLY did amazing and decided that the ocean was actually quite fun.  Yay!!!  Thanks to Grandma and Papa for helping get them to that point!  I also went boogie boarding for the first time since... high school? I've still got it.  ;-)

That night was the Open House which was at a nearby Marriot.  It was perfect!  It was great seeing so many people from my old home ward/stake and the food was seriously beyond delicious.  

The next day we headed back home to Gilbert!  The trip was a blast but it was nice to be home again and done with traveling for a bit. 

Although I'm seriously missing that good weather.

Congrats Adam and Stephanie!  And welcome to the family Steph!