More Teeth!

This morning Steve was playing with Josh and- what do you know- there are 2 more teeth coming in! Still no top teeth- but he is well on is way to having a great set of chompers on the bottom! He is growing like crazy and crawls everywhere, and the latest is that he is getting even better at pushing things around while walking. Oh boy!

And, just because we like to have pictures with our posts, here is how we bundle Josh up to go get the mail- it beats hauling the stroller out just to walk 1 block! Sorry about the photo quality...

Christmas and Family

First of all- I can't believe Christmas is over! This year has flown by. Wow.

OK. On with the blog. To begin with- this has been the Week of Driving for our family. We started off on Sunday evening, when we drove down to Monroe to go to the Stake Devotional to hear my dad speak. There was some beautiful music and it really got me in the mood for Christmas.

The next day, I (Kristen) hung out with Josh at Lisa's house while Steve came back up to Ephraim (he hitched a ride from my dad who was coming to work in his Ephraim office). Steve finished the cupboards (see previous post) and they came home that evening in a very bad snow storm. We hung out at my parents house and then drove home to Ephraim on Tuesday.

After a quick layover to do laundry and re-pack the diaper bag, we were off again to West Jordan. We got there in time to make Steve's dad's choir concert on Temple Square which was fun.

Steve's family has a tradition of going out to a resturaunt for Christmas Eve dinner, but since we were going to be at my parents for Christmas Eve, and Dave (Steve's brother) is joining the Air Force and moving to Texas in January, we decided to do a lunch so we could at least all spend a little time together at Christmas. In years past, they have always done a nicer resturaunt, but with all the grandkids, we decided to go a different route this year. And it was different indeed! We ended up at Chuck E. Cheese's (where a kid can be a kid...) and it turned out to be really fun. The kids could run around and be noisy and the parents could just chat and didn't have to worry about keeping their kids quiet and seated. Josh got to ride a few of the rides- here are some pics of the day:

They also have one of those photo booths that "sketches" your picture for you. Here is Steve and Sam (our nephew).

Ater lunch we packed up the car again and drove down to Monroe. On the ride there, Steve came down with a bug. It pretty much put Steve out of commission for the night. He just slept and ate crackers and drank 7-Up while I had Clam Chowder (the Mathie family Christmas Eve traditonal meal) and spent time with the fam. Poor Steve.

My dad read the Christmas story out of the bible and some of the grandkids helped act it out with the Fisher Price nativity set my parents have. The best part was when we got to the wise men. My dad was reading the verse, and my mom said to the kids "The wise men were bringing presents. Who were the presents for?" And Allie- Michelle's daughter (3 in a couple weeks) said "For ME?!" loudly with an excited smile on her face. We had to laugh and then we reminded her that the presents were actually for Jesus. Then we opened our Christmas Eve presents- they were pajamas! (big surprise).

Josh just wasn't too in to the festivities. A few hours later I found out why- when he puked all over me. Pretty sure he caught whatever bug Steve had. Poor kid.

But Christmas morning, everyone was feeling fine, so we all congregated around the tree to open presents at about 8:00 am. It wasn't until around 9:15ish that we actually started opening- and by then Josh had fallen asleep again. He woke up about halfway through and we helped him open his first present from Santa- wooden blocks- which he really loves to play with.

We were definitely more excited about him opening presents than he was.

And just as we expected, he liked the boxes and packaging better than the presents, but oh well. All the cousins came by throughout the morning to show off their presents and open presents from Grandpa and Grandma Mathie. Then we all got together at Michael and Marisa's house for Christmas Dinner which was FABULOUS! We played Guitar Hero- but, alas, we didn't take any pictures of that excitement. Sorry.

So today, Dec. 26th, we drove back to Ephraim with a fussy boy who is still getting over a bug and an "almost 100%" Steve. I still have yet to come down with anything (knock on wood). The driving isn't over. We are headed up north tomorrow for a family Christmas party, and then it is back home tomorrow night so I can prepare to teach primary on Sunday.

Whew! What a whirlwind of a holiday! We were so busy, but we tried to keep our minds on the reason for the season- and that is our Savior's birth. All the songs about the birth of Christ really hit me hard this year now that I am a mother. There are so many songs that talk about the incredible potential and mission of such a humble, small baby, and it makes me wonder what Josh will grow up to be. How humbling to be the mother of one of God's children!

Merry Christmas to all!

Finished!

The cupboards in the kitchen are finally all finished! They look better and less streaky in real life, but here are some pictures for you to check out of Steve's handiwork.

For everyone who is eagerly anticipating next semester's comics, here is a little preview. I have 6 more to draw to finish the whole semester, but the ones I have drawn are all ready to go. For some odd reason, a couple of them scanned in crooked, but I'll fix them before I send them on out. Enjoy!

Get Down Tonight!

So the other day Josh was standing in front of this toy and he finally worked out the fact that if he pushes down a certain part, music plays. Well, since music is in his blood, he started dancing. It is kind of hard to see since his pajamas are not snapped up, but just check him out as he shakes his little groove-thang!

And- just because this is a funny picture, here is Josh "helping" me brush my teeth.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

We had a pretty exciting Saturday. My mom called me in the morning to see if we were doing anything special since she happened to have a couple extra tickets to the MoTab Christmas Concert. We immediately called Steve's parents to see if they could watch Josh (since you have to be 8 years old to go to a MoTab concert...) and they could!! So we got all ready and left Ephraim carpooling with my parents.

So, anyone who lives in Utah and Salt Lake Counties will probably remember the snow storm on Saturday. It was lovely. My poor dad had to drive through the snow (thanks dad!) and he kept us safe the whole way. Just after getting on the freeway at Nephi, we saw a truck that had flipped over in the median. My dad stopped and he and Steve ran to see if they could help- since it looked pretty recent. They came back and said the cab of the truck was completely flattened, but everyone in the truck got out just fine and they were on the phone with 911 getting a police officer there. Wow- what a miracle. I'm glad nobody was hurt!

The roads stayed bad all the way to about Lehi. In Payson, there was a stretch of road where at least 15 cars had slid off- some of them crashing in to other cars. The police and firetrucks were there helping people get un-stuck and back on to the road. Pretty scary travelling, but my dad did great driving us in the snow. I kept thinking to myself "Good thing Steve, Josh and I are with them to make their car heavier!" We were the equivalent of putting a sandbag in the back of your truck I guess.

Anyway, after slow moving traffic and a ride on trax to downtown SLC, we didn't have time to go anywhere to eat- not if we wanted good seats (since the tickets are just for sections- not specific seats). Oh- Steve's mom met us at the trax station and picked up Josh... that was super convenient. OK- back to Salt Lake...

We got to our seats and got settled in and I finally looked at the program to see who exactly the guests were going to be. Imagine my surprise when I saw the guy who played Richard Gilmore (the grandpa/dad) on Gilmore Girls, which is like one of my favorite shows! I was so excited to see him in person. Turns out his wife is LDS- he met her many years ago while he was in Utah working on a movie- she was on the crew. Anyway- he did fabulous- he was the one who read the Christmas story out of the bible- and he read a story about the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". Neat. The singer was fantastic as well! His name is Brian Stokes Mitchell (the one on the left) and he has a great stage performance! He sang some incredible songs- you will just have to get the CD when it comes out next year. But for me the highlight of the night was one of the MoTab organists who did a solo- Go Tell it On the Mountain- on the organ. He arranged it himself. It was great. He was playing 2 separate parts with his feet on the foot pedals as well as grooving out on the keyboards. Way to go Richard Elliot!

All in all- a very wonderful night. Except for one thing. When we called Steve's parents to tell them the concert was over and we were on our way to pick Josh up, they told us he had been crying for all but about 15 minutes of the night. That is like at least 4 solid hours of crying!! We felt so bad- darn that stranger anxiety! But he was happy when we picked him up. We stopped at Denny's for dinner at like 11:00 at night and he was all smiles, so I guess he isn't traumatized too badly.

So- thanks Mom and Dad for a great Saturday! Even though we got home at about 2 in the morning- and my parents probably pulled in about 3:30 (and my dad has stake meetings at 6:00 on sundays...) it was well worth the trip!

We didn't start the fire...

So, today while I was home for lunch, just before I was about to leave to take Josh back to the baby sitter's, the fire alarm went off. I’m talking the lights-flashing-horns-blaring fire alarm. I was on the phone with my sister Lisa and Josh was sitting in the living room. When the alarm went off, poor Josh just started screaming, so I hung up the phone without explaining anything and grabbed Josh and headed to the lobby.

I looked up in the girls hall and told them to all go outside (most of them were standing in the hall). One of the girls in our dorm took Josh outside and I went down to the boys hall. They were all standing around looking startled. I told them we had to evacuate and got 2 of them to run up to make sure everyone was out of the girls hall. Some of them were staggering out of their rooms because they had been asleep (as in- they hadn’t even gotten up for the day yet!!! Lazy bones!!!) Anyway- one poor guy was in the shower when it went off, and his roommates yelled in to him that we were supposed to evacuate so he threw on a pair of jeans and a jacket and came outside commando-style!
I called the housing office- no answer- they were out to lunch. I waited a couple minutes, or maybe like 40 seconds, and called the housing office again. They were there this time so I told them what was going on. While I was talking to her, two maintenance guys showed up and told me they would let us know if we could go back inside. While we were waiting, I told the kids that we should be glad it is such a nice day today and not raining or snowing or something. Lucky us! Then I called the babysitter and told her we would be a bit late coming back from lunch. Then I called my poor sister to explain why I just hung up on her! She said she figured it was the fire alarm, but I felt really bad for just hanging up on her- I just panicked when Josh started screaming. So Lisa- if you are reading this- I'm really sorry if I had you worried!

I hadn’t seen any smoke or anything when I was walking around the halls so I figured there was just some glitch. It took about 10 minutes, but the maintenance guys finally came and said we could go back in. They didn’t find anything wrong- but I guess the same thing happened in another dorm earlier today. Anyway- what a lunch break, right? Wow.