Make a Messterpiece

This past weekend, we tried a new place that I found called Make a Messterpiece. It was a place that I figured Matthew and I would love because it was all about doing art projects. Grant is not quite as into making art projects as us, but he did end up having a great time. We were there for over two hours. Grant is a more analytical person and I am a more creative thinker, so, for right now, Matthew is taking after me with the creative part. If you have ever seen some of the things he has drawn, painted, or built you would agree.

We started off in a small play area while we figured out which art project to do first.

It's fun that Daddy gets to climb in all these small places now, since I can't. Hopefully, I will be able to help soon though.

Daddy assisting Matthew with the glue while he puts some foam letters on the paper.

He may have had some help with spelling his name, but he told us what every letter he put on the page was.


This was so cool. Different colored bubbles came down, and you made a really neat looking art project.

Here is his completed bubble art project.

Watercolors are usually something he does at least twice a week. Here he is making a house.

In one room, you got to bang on drums that had colored paint in them, so you had to wear quite an outfit to avoid getting paint all over you.

He even has boots on, which you can't see in the picture. We were amazed that he let all these things be put on him, and he left them there.

Watching him do this had to be one of the funniest things we have ever seen.

They play music while you are in this little room drumming.

I thought he would really pound, but he was very gentle. We figure that, by next year, he will really know what to do. I love at the end of the video if you watch you can see him mouthing "no more, to let us know he was done.

Here he is doing the bubble art project.

Sleepy Matthew

The other night we were eating a late dinner and Matthew was sitting at the table and his eyes kept opening and closing, so we could tell he was pretty tired. I asked him if he wanted to go lay down so Grant opened the gate to let him in the living room. As you can see he made it about 3 feet from the gate and just crashed. He was out like a light, it was hysterical. Luckily, I asked otherwise he would have been face first into his pasta.

At least he managed not to fall on any toys.

Baby Girl's Room

Here are the pictures of our new little one's room. Matthew and the cats love it. Its purple and ivory in case you couldn't tell from the pictures. At the doctor today they weighed her and said she is about 6 pounds 11 ounces which still keeps her in the 35th percentile. She has grown though since three weeks ago, about a pound and a half so they will not be inducing. (I was not excited about that, although I'm obviously extremely happy she is doing well). So now we just have to wait and see when she'll decide to arrive, hopefully sooner than later. (As a side note I wondered how they estimate a baby's weight when they can't put them on a scale so I asked. They measure the circumference of her head, her leg bone, and her belly and apparently can come up with a weight based on that) Matthew liked helping with the decals around the base of the room.

Grammy did the stripes. All the guys I said I wanted stripes to wanted to do straight stripes and measure everything out. I wondered if any of them had ever even seen a zebra.

Potty Training Update

We actually had a pretty successful week in potty training. He notified someone at least 4 or 5 times that he had to go when he still had his diaper on. Matthew also woke up a few mornings and told me right away that he had to go potty. Lastly, the biggest success was twice he went potty when we were out some where. The most shocking one was at Toys R Us. He was asked if he had to go when he was playing at the train table and he actually admitted he did and we went right away. This is a huge success in my eyes. We have also introduced underwear instead of always being naked. He likes it sometimes, while other times not so much. Overall, we're pretty proud of him and are excited to be seeing some progress.

Mr. Fix It

This weekend Papa came over to help us with some clogged sinks and Matthew wanted to get right in there to help/hinder the work. He has watched Handy Manny so much I guess he thinks he can fix anything too. He really enjoyed playing with the tools and handing them to Papa when they were needed.

They each have their own monkey wrench to use.

Baby Belly Fun

This weekend I wanted to take some belly shots with Matthew. I'm being optimistic that soon we'll have the baby so no more belly. Grant says my thinking is going to cause her to end up being late. I'm personally hoping for this week so everyone keep your fingers crossed.

He actually was quite cooperative while doing this.

Catching Up

Here are some bits and pieces of things we've done, accomplished, and are looking forward to.

This is just Matthew being his silly self. He constantly cracks us up.

-He loves doing art projects as well as playing with play doh.
-He's still obsessed with Toy Story but now also really likes Alvin and the Chipmunks 1 & 2 as well as Underdog. (He noticed on his own that the voice of Underdog was Dave from the chipmunks movies as well as Earl from My Name is Earl).
-We went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 in the show and he recited the majority of the movie as well as danced the choreographed part at the end.
-While doing play doh he pointed out to me that an upside down "m" is a "w." I was really impressed.
-He knows all his letters to say and by sight recognition, and he can count to 20. He is still a little hard to understand at times but he knows them all.
-He has become crazy about Legos, and not just the Duplo but the big kid ones as well. He enjoys watching Daddy & Mommy spend hours building them then he destroys them within minutes.

Down to almost 3 weeks and counting.

-We are seeing doctors twice a week now because they think that the baby might be a little small. So they are monitoring her just to make sure she is getting all her nutrients and enough oxygen. If they don't think she is they will induce me early, we go a week from Tuesday for another ultrasound. Its nothing serious it just means she would be better out then in. Last week she had the highest score she could get on the APGAR so everything is looking good. It seems hard to believe that after having Matthew at 8.5 pounds we would have a small baby at 5.5 pounds. She'll probably end up being a big girl and late.
-Papa, Grammy, & Daddy painted her room and it is all set. (pictures will come later). She has a girlie safari theme.
-We have gotten all the baby paraphernalia out of the attic and crawl. Now we are a bit overwhelmed by all the baby stuff, and the amount of laundry I have to do.
-Matthew understand we've having a baby and he talks about her, I just don't know if he realizes she will be here to stay. We're working on trying to get him to understand that.
-We have a name but you'll have to wait until she arrives to hear that

Summer Fun II

This is part two of our summer of fun. We've been trying to pack a lot of fun things in on days when its not unbearably hot as well as before the baby comes.

Pirates Cove again. This time he tried a train where you move your arms to get it going. Luckily, they have people pushing them as well if you can't quite move it yourself.

Pirate Matthew

Riding a pony at the Kane County Fair.

Driving a fire truck.

Participating in the super heros/villains outing at our park district. This was part of an obstacle course. I couldn't believe he did the obstacle course, he is getting to be very outgoing.

Comcast was taking pictures at the Superheros/Villains outing.

Matthew & Daddy riding a train at the National Night Out.

Matthew being silly at the National Night Out. It was unbearably hot this night and everyone was just dripping in sweat. It was a fight to the shower/bath when we got home.

This was at the Ice Cream Social at the Bloomingdale Library.

Matthew got into this game he got to take a mallet and send a frog flying. He actually got on in the bucket.

Messy Mondays

This summer Matthew and I took a class called Messy Mondays. Each week he got to create a new art project using paint, and other materials. The title of the class was very appropriate.

At the end of each class to help the teacher clean up she would spray shaving cream on the tables and the kids got to smear it all around. (Its a teacher thing, shaving cream gets paint off a table).

As you can imagine he enjoyed this part of class.

1st project-Summer Fruit-he can name all the fruit in the picture.

2nd project-Happy 4th of July -He got to use glitter on this and make fireworks by rolling a car through paint then onto the paper.

3rd project-binoculars

Also his 3rd project was Into the Jungle.

4th project-Bugs-On this one we used his foot and hand prints to make the butterfly and his fingerprints to make the other bugs.

This caterpillar was also part of the Bugs week.

5th project-The beach. He got to use glue and put real sand at the bottom of his project.

6th project-The farm-On this one the dirt is actually chocolate pudding that apparently hardens when left out to dry.

Cougars Game

This past weekend we went to a Cougars game. Matthew sat through pretty much the entire game and he had a great time. He watched some baseball and fireworks, then at the end he got to run the bases. There is some video of him doing that, he had a blast.

Papa & Matthew

Matthew liked this dog. He brought water to the umpires and caught Frisbees in between innings.

He sat through almost the entire game.

The boy can't get enough popcorn.

That's a lot of popcorn.

Grammy, Matthew, & Auntie Barbie

Mommy, Matthew, & Daddy

Yeah fireworks!

Running the bases after the game.

Potty Time

With only a little over 3 weeks left until our little girl comes its crunch time for potty training. Our house has become a pants optional location for Matthew. I've found that when he wears nothing on the bottom he will tell me when he has to go otherwise he doesn't really. Next week I'm going to try putting just underwear on him and see how that goes. He is up to going around 5 times on the potty a day which is great. The problem is when we go out he doesn't want to tell me. I think we may use some Lego guy motivation soon. We are very proud of him though and the progress he has made. The video above is a song he made up that he sings after each time he uses the bathroom.