Things I fail at:

- not eating ice cream daily (sometimes twice daily)
- cooking bacon
- bathing my child regularly
- my Bill Cosby impression (according to Kenny. I think it's gold -- "I love the jello pudding...")
- updating this blog

So guess where we are? Syracuse, NY? Nope. SLC, UT? Outta there too. We're currently in sunny Tempe AZ. We survived a hot, hot, hot Phoenix summer, and have been completely indoctrinated -- the other day it was 79 and felt chilly.

We're all moved in and settled in our new apt. It's nice and cool and comfy. Except a cockroach attacked K3 on our porch right after we got here. Kenny told me it was just a beetle 'cause "cockroaches don't fly," but it was a big freaking beetle then.

I've survived my first two months of graduate school. Yay! It's strange to be actually doing things -- like writing ledes and covering implosions and being forced to join twitter (@jenncmatt). It's actually kind of a thrill to have a deadline! I guess I'm in the right place.

Kenny is still jobless. He's being Mr. Mom while I'm away at school. We've pretty much swapped places. He takes care of the baby and does all the cooking and cleaning, while I go to school and then come home and sit back on the lazy boy and watch the game. Kidding! But he does do the shopping. And the good thing is he's really bonded with K3 these past months (see pic to right). But of course, I'm still K3's favorite. Total mama's boy.

K3 is almost 16 months old. Yikes! He's getting so fat I can barely carry him these days. And he's in that hard in-between phase when he thinks he's talking to us but we have no idea what he's actually saying. Whenever he wants something he repeats "gak" about a million times and points in its general direction. But he's not very accurate so we have a hard time knowing what he's looking for. He probably thinks we're idiots.

Here's a pic of him trying to eat yogurt by himself. How cute!


Okay, if you've skipped down to see the good stuff, STOP HERE. BABY VIDEO BELOW!!!

Here's three clips of K3, and they are ADORABLE, if I do say so myself. And I saved the best clip for last, i.e. K3 trying to say "hamburger." Enjoy:



Well, that's all for now. See you after the new year! ;)

Do you remember when I made a New Year's resolution to post on the blog more? And then I didn't post for a few months? No? Really? Me either! Now onto more important things. (Note to Lindsay -- I got your message. Ask and ye shall receive).

Let me first start out by saying that I am not pregnant. I REPEAT, I AM NOT PREGNANT. And thank heavens. It was a (perhaps poorly thought out) April Fool's day joke that went terribly awry. If you read the entire previous post you can clearly see that. But I thought I should clear things up for good because apparently in addition to all of the other people who thought I was really pregnant one of my mom's adult friends heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone who said I was pregnant. I AM NOT PREGNANT! And furthermore, I will never, ever participate in April Fool's Day again.

A lot has happened since last post. Unfortunately it's just not feasible at this point to write about it all. Instead you get the condensed version (which follows):

During the past few months the three of us went on a few trips. 1)Washington State over spring break, 2)My beloved SLC, and 3) Boston,USA. Instead of describing each one in (undoubtedly boring) detail, I'll just post a short list of what I learned from these three vacations. You can infer the rest:

1) If someone tells you "Hey, if you order a pizza from Pizza Time, tell the Pizza Time guy that you're naked and you'll get a free pizza," don't believe them.

2)One picture of Grandma with her great-grandson looks exactly the same as the other twenty taken "just in case someone's eyes are closed/it's blurry/the lighting is bad/seventeen other reasons."

3) Surprisingly few people in Boston actually speak with a Boston accent. And no one seems to eat very much chowder. Very disappointing.

4) The company I had long thought was called "poulsborv" is actually called "Poulsbo RV," much to the amusement of Kenny. I think we call all agree that this is due to a flaw in the design of their sign:



















Yeah, not my fault.

5)Babies don't sleep very well when they're sick and/or teething

6)Babies don't sleep very well after 2 hours in a car after bedtime

7)Babies don't sleep very well on planes

8)Babies don't sleep very well on the floor of an airport after your flight has been delayed, then canceled, and your airline (ahem DELTA) doesn't give you a place to stay overnight, or really, any help whatsoever, and you have to switch gates four times before you finally get on a plane that lands 24 hours after you originally should have. But I'm not bitter.

9) My iphone can get me anywhere in Boston. That doesn't mean it's actually a place I would like to go (Yeah, I'm talking to you ICA). Also, setting your iphone to walking rather than driving directions is useful if you are planning on walking and not driving.

10) If you need to break in a new set of sneakers, I would suggest wearing them on the much hyped "Freedom Trail" in Boston.

11) Speaking of the Freedom Trail, the inside of the Paul Revere house is really great. Oh excuse me, I meant would have been great, I'm sure, if I had brought the $3 to see the inside of it. But the inside of King's Chapel .. . no, wait, forgot the 6 bucks for that one. Now the inside of the Faneuil Hall. . .wait, I spent the money for THAT one on the Freedom Trail pamphlet that contained a glorified Wikipedia entry. I believe Paul Revere is currently rolling in his grave (which I saw!).

That pretty much sums it all up. Want more? Then here's some pictures for you from our trips:

Family pics from Boston:















































Baby in a swing from SLC (I didn't take many pics and this is the best I got):















From Seattle:

















































In other news, I got into all 4 master's programs I applied to (ASU, USC, UofU, BYU ) and decided to go to ASU. Come June we're leaving Syracuse for good (and might I add, good riddance!). Starting August 2009, I'll be a Red Devil! (EDIT: Ken has just informed me that the ASU mascot is actually a Sun Devil. But master's students don't care about these things. We're too busy gaining actual knowledge to concern ourselves with such trivial matters.)



As for K3, he's practically a different baby. He can now crawl and walk around on furniture. He can say and sign the word "light" (well, it's more like "ight" but I'm counting it) and mama and dada. He likes to dance to music. He can clap and feed himself food (he still refuses to eat chicken).He takes two decent, regular naps a day (sometimes), and rarely wakes during the night. Definitely a different baby. I would show you a cute little video montage, but our video camera is MIA. We took some video with our regular camera from Memorial Day yesterday, so here's two of those:




But here's some other pictures to make you happy:

random ones:




















































And some from just yesterday:





























































Well, see you in another three months! Kidding!. . . . .???

Crazy news!

Hey everyone!

Well, this isn't a full normal post but I thought I should write and tell everyone some news. The last few weeks has been crazy but . . . We're expecting!!! I found out a couple of weeks ago. It was a surprise, to be sure, and it's gonna be crazy, but we're really happy. He or she will be due this December!

I'll post more details later. . .(with another long post!)




I thought that I should probably add.................April Fool's Day! It was mean, I know, and I've never done this before but for some reason I couldn't resist. Don't hate me. I apologize especially to Jesse who called me up to congratulate me!

So K3 is eating a lot of solids these days, as you can see in this adorable picture here:
















So for fun we decided to record him eating "chicken" for the first time (it's in quotation marks because baby food chicken may or may not contain any actual chicken, or in fact, edible food in general) We thought it would be cute, and it seemed that way, until things took a terrible turn!



We felt awful. So we recorded him eating applesauce to show that we do actually feed him things that don't make him gag:




Unfortunately, other than being an important milestone, eating solids has other unfortunate consequences. And the MOST unfortunate is. . .well. . .let's just put it this way -- remember his favorite outfit, the Pooh Suit(pictured right)? Well, it's dropped the "h" and is now just the poo suit. You could say, really, that every item of clothing he owns is now a poo suit. Blowouts are a multi-day occurrence around here, and nothing, not even the overpriced $30 overalls I bought him, are safe.

I will be kind and not post pictures (because I have them). I'm sure your imagination will do just fine.

Onto less disgusting news, our little back-scooter is no more -- please welcome our little crawler! Well, almost. Sorry to jump the gun, there, but I'm very excited that K3 seems to have abandoned scooting on his back in favor of almost crawling on his front. And don't think I don't have proof. Kindly turn your attention to this video:


And if that wasn't enough, a cute picture:


















Oh, and we've also started him on baby yoga.

Here he is doing Cat pose:

















Plank pose:

















Downward facing dog:

















And Child's pose:

















He is gonna be one flexible baby.


I'm not sure if you noticed in some of the pictures and videos, but out baby has become quite the porker! He' over 20 lbs these days (pretty amazing considering he was 14 1/2 lbs at the beginning of January). I took a picture of his newly found multiple chin:















And also of his whole new roly-poly body:






















Here is another couple of videos I took of the baby. Here is one from a few weeks ago showing him playing with a ball we got him:

And here he is being easily entertained with a key on a rope.



Well, the Kennys and I are off to Washington in a few days for Spring Break. We're excited for the warmer (if still gloomy) Puyallup weather. K3 will see his grandma and grandpa Matthews, two of his great-grandmas, and his Uncle Dave and Aunt Robyn. I'll make sure and post after we get back and tell you all about it!

Here's me sticking to my New Year's resolution and posting another blog entry. Go me! Just here in sunny Syracuse. Yes you heard me -- sunny! We're in the midst of quite a heat wave. It's supposed to get up to fifty this week. Balmy!

After last week's novel, I've decided that this post needs to consist of mostly pictures. And mostly of pictures of the baby. So first I'll post some pictures from Christmas break. Then some new ones, including one I took 10 minutes ago!

Well, let's get started. First, here are some pictures from Christmas break.

Here's me with a new haircut:










Here's the Kennys:










And this is the day I found out that not three people, but FIVE people read this blog. Shoutout to my good friends Katie and Jesse! We spent a blissful afternoon together:










And I admit I am ashamed of not including Jesse and I's night of make-a-million madness into my Christmas highlights. So to make up for it, I've got a video in the works. For the mean time these photos will have to do as a preview. Oh, and to those who do not know of the game make-a-million: buy it. Buy it now. And play it IMMEDIATELY. Trust me on this one.





























This video's gonna be good.



I took a nap one day and came downstairs to find this:









Apparently K3 was pretty cranky, but when Kenny put him in the box he calmed right down. Whatever works.










Yes, that is K3 eating packing peanuts.


And now here's just some very cute pictures I've taken in the past week or so of K3 -- enjoy!





















































And now. . .vidoes!

K3 has started to do this strange cough/laugh when he gets really excited. It's a strange phase he's gotten into. I captured video of it! It's not edited at all, but here it is (by the way, the glove Kenny is hitting K3 with is very soft):

The other day I bought K3 a balloon at Wegman's and he loved it! For proof, watch this video:



As a special bonus here is the full bathtub video -- I could only use a small clip for the montage.

Be warned -- this post is extremely long. Read at your own risk.

So I've neglected the blog. I'll admit it. And I would be ashamed of it, except what can compete with a vacation, Christmas, presents, ringing in the new year, my birthday, and more presents? The blog can't, that's for sure. But don't worry, one of my New Year's resolutions is to write in the blog more (I may or may not have actually made that resolution, but I CAN promise that I am back from hiatus and, might I add, better than ever)

I'm still deciding whether to blog about my vacation to Salt Lake City and Christmas. I feel tired from just thinking about it. In fact, most of the people who read this blog were there. They know what happened. But in all fairness, I will include three of the highlights. The first being. . . .

Highlight #1. My Christmas Eve party.

This party was a plan I hatched way back when we first moved to Syracuse, when I had no family and a only a cranky baby for company. Both sides of our family would be in Utah for Christmas -- why not! Well, I somehow pulled it all together, and it went off (practically) without a hitch. Everyone had a good time, and we all enjoyed some wonderful Christmas-themed fun.

Here was the itinerary:
1) Lunch
2) A rousing game of pictionary (not for the faint of heart, mind you. Just try drawing melekelikimaka -- ask Katryna how)
3) An epic gingerbread house competition (think Iron Chef meets Martha Stewart meets Candy Land) complete with a crappy recipe for gingerbread house icing (note to self: no tarter sauce = runny icing), people complaining about the icing (hint: Mom), and fervor not seen since Dad played in last year's Halo marathon competition.
4) White elephant. Gifts included: a bag of oranges (hope you're enjoying it, Jeff!) , hand sanitizer, a box of scissors, Halloween candy, and more!

I have lots of video, but really don't want to edit it right now. You'll just have to wait for that. If it ever comes. Which it probably won't.

Highlight #2: The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The saying good things come in small packages was never more true than Christmas 2008. It was then that I met my new best friend, the Iphone. A month later I'm wondering how anyone lives without one, let alone how I ever did. I don't want to cheapen things by trying to describe a love that is indefinable, so let's just suffice it to say that it's AWESOME. If you can get one, I'd recommend it.

Hightlight #3: The Christmas wallet miracle.

I classify this as a Christmas miracle even though the event happened after Christmas, because "after Christmas miracle" just doesn't sound as special. But lets not get caught up on semantics. This miracle played out like most miracles: things seemed to be going great, then tragedy happened, and then. . .the miracle saved the day (and possibly the money in my bank account -- oh, and me having to wait in line at the DMV, among other things.)

So there we were two days after Christmas. We decided to stop at Carl's Jr., because they don't have them in Syracuse and Kenny wanted to get as many trips in as possible. We enjoyed our meal, and were about to leave when someone (not Kenny) hugged me and whispered "Just let it happen." Who else could it be but my good friend, Lindsay Redd (Hogan) and her husband, Andrew. Except Andrew wasn't hugging me, only Lindsay (that would have been awkward). We chatted, remembered old times, and then said our goodbyes and Kenny and I drove to Walmart, five minutes away. I had ordered Kenny a present that arrived after Christmas and we were going to pick it up. Presents. Old friends. Carl's Jr. What could go wrong? Well, I looked in my bag to find my driver's license, and guess what, my driver's license wasn't there, because it was in my wallet and my wallet wasn't there.

So after a few minutes of freaking out (mostly on Kenny's part -- what can I say, he's a worrier), we drove back to Carl's Jr. , because I had it there last, and I thought I must have left it on the table or dropped it outside of the car, or something. We looked where the car had been parked, we looked on the sidewalk, we looked in the restaurant. Nothing. Ken and I of course assumed someone had stolen it. And maybe we thought that the homeless man that was standing inside the Carl's Jr. at the time had something to do with it. I told the Hogans, who were still eating, and they came out and helped us look. And then Andrew went in and asked everyone (including the homeless man) if they knew where it was. Nothing. We looked again. Nothing! The Hogans left, and seeing the homeless man inside staring at us suspiciously, I asked Kenny to go ask him again. Kenny did, and the man told him that he always turns in wallets when he finds them.

So we left, dejected. That wallet contained everything of value -- my credit cards, driver's license, insurance cards, punch card for pita pit. What would happen without it? My wallet seemed doomed, until in a sudden moment of inspiration I remembered that I had set a cup on top of the car before we left, and might have set the wallet there as well and forgotten about it. We drove the exact route we had taken from Carl's Jr. to Walmart and made it to the street Walmart was on without any luck. Enter the miracle. As we were turning in, Kenny looked over at me with wide eyes and said "I think I saw something!" He immediately turned the car around and pulled to the spot where he thought he saw it. I looked out the window. And there it was, buried under a foot of snow on the side of the road, only it's little corner sticking out. Did I mention it was nighttime and very dark outside. I jumped out, grabbed it, started screaming and jumping, and then almost got hit by a car. But I didn't, so I got back in, and we drove home, happier than ever before.

The morals of this story 1) The Hogans are really nice people 2) Don't suspect homeless people of committing crimes just because they are homeless 3) Miracles do happen. Especially around Christmas.

So that was Christmas. Unfortunately, New Year's wasn't nearly as exciting. We decided to avoid the New Year's Eve party route, because we had to be up at 4am to get to the airport for our six o' clock flight (don't worry, lesson learned). We decided to rent a classic movie to watch until midnight, then ring in the new year, then sleep for 3 hours (more like 2 with a cranky baby). We picked "It Happened One Night" with Clarke Gable and some other actress (who I think is famous, but I can't remember her name). Listen, I have nothing against classics. I'm a big fan. But let's just say watching this while trying to stay up until midnight wasn't the best idea. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean. The word bored-out-of-my comes to mind.

So that was New Year's. And now we're all back in horribly frigid Syracuse. It was -7 last week. That's cold.

Oh, and a few weeks ago I turned 23. We had an impromptu party. Nothing special. I got all the presents I didn't get for Christmas (I know, I know, what on earth could I have wanted after an Iphone?). The cake was white with raspberry filling. That's about it.

I saved the saddest news for last. Don't lose hope, it has a happy ending! We took K3 to the doctor few weeks ago for his checkup. It turns out he only gained 1/2 lb in three months since his last check up. In case you don't know, that's not good. He should have gained at least 1/2 lb every two weeks (there's a whole chart with a curve -- but let's not get technical here.) So the doctor and I decided to supplement breast feeding with formula. The doctor said that if he gained weight in a week then there were no serious problems. If he came back and still no weight gain -- not good. The first feeding after the doctor I let him nurse as much as he could and then gave him a bottle with a few ounces of formula. He looked at me weird for about 2 seconds and then gulped it down. No problem switching to the bottle for him. He ate 4 ounces in about 5 minutes. We went back a week later and he hadn't gained a pound. He had gained two pounds! We later found out that we were looking at the wrong side of the bottle and instead of 3 ounces we were giving him almost 6 ounces, thus explaining the two pound gain. So now we just supplement a few ounces every feeding. So, the good news is K3 is now getting all the food he needs (and is already getting pretty dang fat -- double chin, chunky thighs, pot-belly). Bad news: he was starving for three months. But luckily he won't remember it when he's older.

Well, that's it! Congratulations on making it to the end of the post! Your reward includes. . . . . multimedia! And this multimedia includes . . . . . a montage! Nothing special -- just a few longer clips of the baby from the past couple of months. But titles and music are included. As a note, the bath clip was shot two days ago, so its the most recent video of little K3 (and keep a lookout for a special bonus clip at the end!) Enjoy:





Coming in a few days. . . . .Pictures!!

I've got videos galore this time. What follows are some clips of cute things K3 has been doing recently. They are all separate and unedited. So in other words, it's just like a video montage, minus all the work it takes me to put it together. If you still want that montage-like ambiance, just play a little music in the background while you watch. As a suggestion, "What a Wonderful World" induces heartwarming emotions when played in conjunction with anything baby.

Video 1. Tummy time (I would play this video with the "mute" button on - you are forewarned):





Video 2. Laughing (Do not mute this. Full volume would be best):





Video 3. He did this all day long for about 4 or 5 days straight. Apparently, I thought it was hilarious:





Video 4. Just him trying to wake up (P.S. - that's my arm):




Video 5. One night he just wasn't falling asleep so we set him down to play. Twenty minutes later we saw this. The little cutie was still trying to play even thought he was dead tired:




In other news, we got the piano tuned this week. And yes, that's the most exciting thing that's happened recently. Ed the Tuner (as he introduced himself) stopped by for a couple of hours and did his magic. And I have it on good authority (Kenny AND my dad) that is sounds great. So thanks, Ed.

So if you're looking for somebody to have sympathy for, look no further. As the temperature in Syracuse plummets, so does the temperature in our drafty, poorly insulated apartment (our heating bill, on the other hand, is steadily rising). Since the crappy electric heating units serve no purpose except to keep the apartments above us warm and toasty (heat rises, remember) we've resorted to keeping K3 perpetually in his "pooh suit" (as pictured to the right) . In an attempt to bring our apartment back up above freezing, we are going to cover all our windows and our sliding glass door with insulating plastic, further cutting ourselves off from humanity. We will emerge in the Spring, hopeful for a warmer, happier world.

As you may be able to tell at this point, it's been a slow couple of weeks. But Kenny, K3, and I are doing great. I'm happy to report, also, that K3's neck is stronger than ever and he's making good progress with respect to that.

Unfortunately, I haven't taken any pictures these past couple of weeks except the pooh suit ones. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But if you're feeling a bit gypped, just scroll back up to all those videos. Remember those? Remember how wonderful they were? Ah, yes. . . .

Well, hopefully by next post I'll have tons of pictures to share. Until then.