Matthew is 4!

My little boy is 4!

I don't know exactly what it is, but I have the HARDEST time with Matthew growing up. It kinda makes me sad anytime I think about it, but it has been especially hard every August 19th for the past few years. (The night before his birthday). I always hold him extra close, sing him extra songs, and lay with him in his bed a while even after he has fallen asleep. I knew that motherhood would be hard sometimes, but one of the very hardest things for me is how completely gut wrenching it is to know that my babies won't stay little forever. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE watching them grow and I know how much I still have to look forward to, but man! Heaven knows it can be hard to experience them needing you a little less as they grow.

Luckily for me, Matthew seems to just get more fun and even more hilarious with every passing day. It is a good thing he's such a happy and fun kid, because the boy wakes up EARLY! Like, so early that if he sleeps in until 7 (which is very, very, very rare) I totally freak out and go check on him. He has been my alarm clock since the day he was born and it's a good thing that he's at least an excellent morning person because it's hard to get mad at his smiling face as he races into our room each morning, ready to greet the day.

Matthew is smart. He is an amazing reader and has such a love for books. Since children's books are my very favorite, reading with my kids has always been a favorite activity of mine... And Matthew is the kid that would let me read to him all day if possible. He loves to go to the library and pick out new books, though he'll happily read all his books at home too - even though he basically has them all memorized. :-)

Some things Matthew loves include: Play Doh, dinosaurs, pirate stuff, coloring, camping, chocolate, playing in the sand, the rain, Legos, helping me make cookies, Primary, wrestling with Michael, the park, holidays, the iPad, the pool, and playing with his siblings.

Some things Matthew does NOT love include: being left out, being kicked out of the cart or double stroller thanks to him being the oldest, bugs, most healthy foods, (sigh) when he thinks someone is laughing at him, and any sort of teasing. (We're working on getting him to take some good-natured teasing a little better, haha.)

Matthew is really into games. His favorites include Diggity Dog, The Squirrel Game, and Memory. His favorite movie is Finding Nemo, and his favorite shows are Super Why, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Jake and The Neverland Pirates.

When I say that Matthew has a heart of gold, I mean it. Yes, he has his moments, ;-) but in general he radiates kindness and shows very high levels of empathy. If I cry (or pretend to cry) he will immediately burst into tears. He is so sweet and innocent and tries hard to make others happy. He loves people for the way they are, and he will go out of his way to include anyone and everyone. We are so proud of the boy that he is.

We kept his birthday pretty simple. We actually took the kids to the Phoenix Children's Museum the weekend before his birthday as a way to kick off the celebrations. Matthew absolutely loved it. (As did Kate!)

On the night before his birthday we filled his room with balloons so that he'd have a fun surprise when he woke up. He definitely appreciated it - he was so cute as he ran into our room on his birthday shrieking, "There's a balloon party in my room!!!!"

He then asked, "Is downstairs decorated too!?!?" Haha, I was glad that I HAD done some simple decorations the night before!

We let him immediately open the one thing he has been asking for for his birthday for a couple months - a Jake spyglass. He was thrilled with it.

As luck would have it, Michael actually got to work from home this day so he took advantage and took Matthew out for both breakfast and lunch. Breakfast was yummy donuts:

And lunch was nuggets and fries from "Old McDonalds," but really just fries. Hey, it was his birthday. ;-)

He opened a couple more presents and then was off to preschool. He LOVES preschool and was excited to go, bring everyone dinosaur cookies, and show off his new spyglass for Show and Tell.

After dinner (pizza) he opened the rest of his presents and we had the cheesecake he'd requested as his birthday cake.

Love you Matthew! Thanks for four years of fun!

Preschool

I can't believe I have a preschooler!!! Because Matthew is a late August birthday, he is going to either be one of the very oldest in his class or one of the very youngest. While I am sort of leaning towards him being the oldest (which means he won't be starting kindergarten for two more years) I still put him in preschool this year because I think it is the perfect time for him to do it. And he LOVES it. His teacher, Miss Debbie, is a gem and so sweet with the kids. She does it out of her home and Matthew loves to tell me every day what he did at "Miss Debbie's house!" :-) I love this boy and that he has such a love for learning. I absolutely love to teach him things myself, but I am glad that he's also getting an opportunity to learn in a new setting and with friends his age.

Family Visits!

We got to see my sister and her family! Here in Phoenix!! They stopped by on their way to CA (and then UT) and I was so so excited about it. They moved to Arkansas about 8 months ago and I'd been super worried about never getting to see their family anymore. So when I found out they were gonna spend a night with us I was thrilled!

Spencer flew out of Phoenix for a quick work trip that evening but we hung out for a while and then Michael took him to the airport and their 3 oldest and Matthew to a D-backs game. They played the Giants (their old home team when they lived in CA) so it was pretty perfect. They even trained Matthew to say, "Go Giants!" much to my amusement and Michael's horror. :-)

Kate and Sadie were too cute running around together, (wish I'd gotten a pic of the girls together) and Joshua got lots of attention and love. Plus, Emma made us a big batch of cookies that were eaten in about 10 seconds.

Next we'll have to figure out how/when to go see them in Arkansas!

Sickies

Like I mentioned in my previous post, we all got pretty sick for a while after our big trip. I noticed Matthew started to act a little funny in Vegas and had a really bad croup-y sounding cough for a night or two while at my Grandma's house. Even though the cough got better pretty quickly, he just seemed SO tired and not quite himself. I figured he was tired from the trip but even after we returned home it seemed to get worse instead of better. He was napping almost every day (he quit naps almost a year ago) and still went to bed relatively early. His appetite was way down as well - he barely ate even his favorite foods.  He was also a lot crankier than normal. I actually highly suspected mono, though I couldn't be sure. He didn't really have any symptoms that concerned me enough to take him to the doctor. (They can't do anything for mono.) However, one day after his nap he was extra cranky and was crying and just seemed miserable. And then we noticed his lymph nodes were RIDICULOUSLY swollen. I called the doctor and was able to get him in within a couple hours. Thank heavens, because it was a Friday! It is the worst to need a doctor during the weekend. Ha. His mood had improved by the time we got there but the doctor agreed that his lymph nodes were basically out of control. He diagnosed him with lymphadenitis, (infected lymph nodes) gave us antibiotics, and sent us on our way.

I wasn't entirely convinced that he was correctly diagnosed, but I was glad to have antibiotics that could cure a variety of illnesses. Matthew finally improved but the next week the RASH appeared. At first it was only on his cheeks. I was confused, but most people just seemed to think it was heat rash or something.

And then the rash got worse and started slowly moving down his body. Agh! I won't post all the pictures I have (mostly because I think they'd embarrass Matthew in the future) but trust me, it was BAD! It seriously looked like he had the measles. (I was really glad for the peace of mind of knowing my kids are vaccinated. Ha.) Me and Michael kinda freaked out and immediately started googling everything it could be.

It was mostly likely Fifth Disease. The rash appears several days after the child is better, starts at the cheeks, and then moves down the body. By the time the rash appears, the child is feeling pretty much totally better and is actually no longer contagious. Matthew was so NOT bothered by his rash - he was actually bragging about his "spots!" Hahaha. When it was almost gone he DID itch a bit, but other than that, the rash was probably the easiest part of the illness. We still kept him home from church though and away from friends because we didn't want others to freak out about his appearance... and they might have. I don't blame them... if I saw a kid looking like that (and didn't know what it was) I would run far, far away! ;-)

I still think he might've also had mono, but whatever. I'm just happy that he's healthy again. Once he got better though, Kate and Joshua both got colds. Kate actually seemed really lethargic as well for about a week, though she never got the rash. And then I got strep for the first time ever. Not fun! We're all healthy now, and I'm just hoping it stays that way for a bit. :-)

Summer Trip

We went on a long trip for the first half of July that I still haven't gotten around to writing about! (Mostly because almost as soon as we got home, we all got super sick one after another and MAN that sure wasn't fun! But that's a different post.) Anyway, several months ago Michael decided he wanted to compete in his first jiu jitsu tournament in Vegas this summer. We decided that the whole family should go so we could see our family there. Michael then proposed that he use a good chunk of his time off work and we go to LA first to make sure we got in a beach vacation/Grandma and Papa time this summer as well. We could then go from there to Vegas. I was, of course, super excited about that idea. Finally July came and off we went!

Don't let this picture fool you too much. Overall, Joshua was a champ for most of the trip... but when he was mad, (mostly when he was sick of the car) boy could that kid scream! Ha.

By the way, putting a DVD player in our van was the smartest move ever. I have zero problem with just putting on movies the whole time during road trips because it keeps Matthew and Kate totally content. They were so good!

We got to LA at night (we'd left after Michael had worked until about 2pm) and the kids wanted to stay up and play with Grandma and Papa but we eventually got them down with promises of going to the beach the next day.

THE BEACH! Seriously heaven for this Arizona family. We were in LA a full week and I still didn't feel like I got enough beach time. If you live somewhere with tolerable weather in the summer, don't take it for granted. (I do NOT take for granted our beautiful winters!) Matthew was my little beach bum this year. Last summer he was beyond terrified to even put his toes in the water, but this year he did it without any problems. However, his very favorite thing was digging holes and just playing in the sand. It made my California roots so happy to see him enjoying the beach so much. Kate had fun when she wasn't throwing a fit (she decided to enter the terrible two's full-blown during this trip, eek) but was slightly more scared of the water. Whatever, she'll come around eventually. :-) Joshua was pretty much too young to enjoy the beach much, though it WAS nice to be able to take him outside again. As a newborn, I would put him in the Baby Bjorn and take the kids to the park and Joshua would sleep SO well that way... I had really missed being able to get that kid some fresh air.

 

We ended up being in CA for the Fourth of July, which I was excited about because I got to take my family to do a few of my old Fourth of July traditions. First we went to the annual Fourth of July breakfast put on by the Manhattan Beach Ward. Not only was the food actually DELICIOUS, (and there was tons of it) but they also had lots of entertainment for the kids. Kate participated in the three-legged race with Grandma (Grandma is a great sport!) and Matthew did the potato sack race. (So funny.) PLUS my friend Krista (who I grew up with) was also there visiting her family so it was super great to be able to catch up with her.

We then went to a friend's pool, BBQ'd some yummy burgers, and then we were off to the fireworks! We went early to get a good spot and to just hang out for a bit and have snacks and play games.

Goin on a lion hunt!  :-)

When the fireworks started, Matthew loved every second. He basically burst out into applause after every firework. Kate was beyond terrified. The second the lights went out, she completely flipped her lid, ran to Papa, and cried on his lap the.whole.time. Sheesh. Poor Papa. ;-) Maybe next year Kate will actually see a firework or two? Ha. Joshua did fine. Too young to care (or be scared) I guess. 

On Sunday we took the older two kids to the LA temple to show them where our family started. (Joshua stayed with Grandma and Papa.) The Visitors Center there is super cool but we didn't stay there long because the kids were being a little less than reverent. :-)

Our last few days there were spent at the beach, (duh!) including the Roundhouse on the end of the Manhattan Beach pier so the kids could check out the aquarium, the park, (too hot for that in Phoenix) and just hanging out.

Anderson Park. I grew up going here, though they've redone it recently and it is now way cooler than it was when I was a kid. Haha.

Outside of the Roundhouse Aquarium

I love this pic of Joshua and my dad. He looks like such a funny goober! (Joshua, not my dad.) ;-)

It was hard to go but we were excited for Vegas and to see more family. We stayed with my Winder grandparents and they are such great hosts. We visited my aunt Kami and she let us swim in her pool. It was also great to see Gary and Michelle as well as my Hales grandparents. I am so fortunate that all of my grandparents are still alive. I wish I had gotten more pictures of my kids with them, though I love this one of Joshua and my grandma-

Matthew actually started acting really sick and lethargic while we were in Vegas and it continued for a few weeks AFTER we got home. Yeah, not good. But he was a huge trooper and was still pretty happy most of the time since he was surrounded by so many fun people and activities.

And then! Finally - the whole reason we'd gone on this whole trip in the first place - Michael's jiu jitsu tournament! It was at the Sans Expo. A huge downside of having the tournament at the end of our trip was that Michael had to be a certain weight in order to compete and he wasn't able to eat the way most people prefer to eat on vacation. ;-) He had to lose about 10 pounds before his match and KEEP IT OFF so as not to be disqualified. Luckily he came in a pound or two under so there were no problems there. I left Kate with my Grandma because I knew it would be long and that she wouldn't be interested anyway, but Joshua and Matthew came. Grandma Kathy and Don also came and she helped out a lot with watching Matthew. Michael would have his first match and then if he won that one, he'd roll again for the title. Well, it was SO MUCH harder to watch that I thought. I think my heart was pounding out of my chest the whole five minutes of the first match! Michael and his competitor were pretty evenly matched and a couple of times it looked like Michael might lose. But he pulled though and WON! Woohoo! His second match was actually a little easier for him and therefore, easier to watch as well. ;-) He won that too and took Gold for his division. I was so proud!

Our last day in Vegas was spent mostly with Grandma Kathy. We visited the Bellagio Garden and got to see it decked out in one of the coolest themes I've ever seen there - Under The Sea! There were treasure chests (which Matthew loved) and mermaids (which Kate loved) and it was just really well done.

We also went to lunch and spent some time at Kathy's house. It was fun to get to be with her in Vegas, since most of the time we see her, it's in Phoenix.

And that was our trip! So much fun!!!