Thanksgiving, Christmas and Everything Inbetween

So, our Thanksgiving was super awesome! My best friend Dana came down and her and Joey stayed from tuesday all the way until Sunday. We had quite a feast, and the Tofurky was actually not bad! It looked like some sort of loaf...kind of like the sausage-looking packages that ground beef can come in, only smaller. We made an apple pie, completely from scratch. I made the crust and it was soooo flaky and wonderful and delicious!!! She did my hair cool ways, we made vegan gingerbread cookies, and just basically had tons of fun!

Here's the pie. Didn't think to take a picture until it was half gone. :-P

Here's one of the hairstyles Dana put on me. 80's anyone?

And here we are with our respective gingerbread people.

And here are all the cookies we baked and frosted!

Joey, Dana and I all helped frost these. Dana's are the cute artistic ones, mine are the mediocre ones, and Joey's are the crazy ones. Interesting how those seem to reflect our personalities exactly...

And here's the tree! This picture was actually taken in pitch darkness. I love the flash on my camera!

Here's Aunt Dana with Matt! She loves him so much. But then again, who doesn't? Oh, yeah. Our neighbors. (just kidding!)

mmm...we're eating ourselves...

We're Charlie's Angels! Except Joey. He's a visiting member from Charlie's Gayngels.

And lastly, here we are on the day she left.
That was very sad, and I hope sometime soon I can take a trip up there! I'd probably have to leave Matt at home with Sean though, and that's what makes it hard. Anyway, Matt's crawling around getting into trouble, so I'll post later! Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was awesome!

Still Walking!

Yep, he is still walking and getting better every day! He can walk across the room now, although he only does a few times a day. The point is, those first steps weren't a fluke! He is ready and willing to walk as soon as possible!
Yesterday we had a ton of fun! Since he is learning to walk, he is finally getting good use out of the toy my mom got him last time she was down. It's a car that transforms into a push-along thing for kids like Matt who are just gaining confidence to walk.
He told me he wanted to go outside by pathetically standing by the door and gazing out:

So we went outside, saw some tress, took some pictures and generally had a great time. Mostly, he played with his push-along toy. In fact, I have very cute video of him, BUT IT DOESN'T WANT ME TO UPLOAD IT GRRR!!! And I am tired, so I will try again tomorrow. Anyway, here are some cute other pictures.

Here's him having fun with the tree just outside our apartment:

Peekaboo!

And another tree near our apartment. He really liked the bark on this one. Woof woof!

And here's him playing with our neighbor's cat. He calls him "Ni Ni!" , I guess baby talk for Nino, our big queeny cat. He calls every cat Ni Ni. Very cute. Anyway, this is all I have time to post today, have to get up extra early tomorrow. But I don't care because I get wed, thurs, fri, and sat off in a row this week yay! And Dana is arriving tuesday morning! She wants to get a Tofurky for Thanksgiving but although I am sure it tastes fine, I looked it up and it already has stuffing in it! EWWW I hate stuffing so much! Oh well, guess I will be scooping that out! Anyway, I'll keep everyone updated on, you know, everything!

MATTHEW TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS!!!

Okay, so the title says all, and he LOVES walking!!! Well, ok, maybe just the newness and the attention of it all, but still! He's not scared!!! He was cruising along the couch, looked over in a particular way, and I said to Sean (really) "Hey, I think he's about to take his first steps!" Matt looked over, let go of the couch, and WALKED!! And of course we made a huge fuss and he loved it, so we put him standing in front of me and told him to come here and he walked, AGAIN! And again! Over and over! And Jana came over with her girls and they all saw too! He was just showing off! So we did get video, and here it is!!!

Really, there's nothing like a video camera to make a kid forget whatever he just learned. It took many, many recordings to FINALLY get him to walk for the camera. I don't want to discourage him when he crawls but when he gets down when I want him to walk it's like, "noooo Matthew!!!!!" But, no worries, he did!!!! Hope you like it!

Again, The Zoo

Sean and I DID end up going to the zoo on Friday, and it was really fun! That morning Matthew slid into the sink and I got some cute pictures:

Ooooooooooooo....

THINGS I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE!!! AHHH!!!!

We saw a lot of animals, but I know you guys are probably not as thrilled with the blurry panda bear pictures as we are, so I am trying to keep the pictures strictly family here. We had a lot of junk food, walked a lot, went on the Skyfari, and really had a blast. So without further ado, here are pictures of our family day out :-).

Sean and Matt at the beginning of our day. Aren't they cute?

Matthew loved the fish. I think he wants to be one...

See? He's trying to get in!

Here is a classic Blank Matt look.

Sorry, had to get one animal pic in. This is a polar bear, floating weightlessly. Cool, huh?

Here's Matt being cute...

And here he is on the Skyfari ride. He loved it! He's not scared of heights yet, I hope he never is, because it rocks not being scared of heights. Sean is, he didn't have as much fun.

Congrads Matt! Now you're a middle-aged overweight farmer!!!

Matt is as ferocious as any lion!!

Daddy and Matthew and blue birds!

Which are actually Macaws. And now I know why they are called Macaws. Because their favorite thing is to scream MACAWWWWWW!!!!!!!!! as loud as possible in your ear as you walk by.

Anyway, on other news, MATTHEW SAYS MAMA NOW!!!! YAY!!! And he is becoming such a sweetheart! He goes up to Mai or Nino and gives them kisses now, and he comes to us when he wants affection and kisses when he never used to do that. And I don't know if it's wishful thinking or not, but sometimes when we ask him if he wants something or wants to do something, he says "ya!". He also claps for himself when he does something right (like put his toys away, drink from a cup well or hands me something when I ask). He waves hello and goodbye reliably, and gives high 5's! He is learning to stack blocks and is babbling CONSTANTLY. I was worried there for a while!
Yesterday I gave the apartment a really good cleaning, and vacuumed and steam cleaned super well. Matthew HATES the noise. He screams at the top of his lungs. He is better when I hold him, but still scared. Luckily he went down for a nap and he let me finish. It looks AWESOME in here now! Sean is finishing up the laundry and we can actually pretend we have a nice place for a few days. Yay! Anyway, I am pretty tired and want to relax and veg out for a while before bed. Hope you enjoyed the post! Don't forget to vote on my pointless poll!

The Long Long-Awaited Post

So Joey and I went to the zoo last saturday and it was super fun. Matthew petted some animals at the petting zoo, we saw some pandas (and a Lesser panda too). I'm REALLY trying to keep the pictures to a minimum, especially since Sean and I may go to the zoo tomorrow (if Sean is feeling okay). Here are some highlights of the trip:


Here's Joey at the beginning of the day.

Here's a koala...sleeping...so they say...

Here's Matt, looking peppy as ever. Something happened to his eye, have no idea what, but it cleared up by the end of the day. Guess we'll never know...

Panda!!

Ha ha you're caged and I'm free SUCKER!!!!!

Here's a hippo lazing around, waiting, sometimes watching.

Something tells me this animal's parents might have been victims of inter-racial discrimination.

Here's Matt, ready to pounce on the goat at the petting zoo.

Here's him behind bars. Getting used to it early--preparation is a good trait, right?

Here's a Komodo Dragon. Poor thing. Really thinks it's a dragon.

This is an elephant playing. Tossing around a barrel like it's a cardboard toy.

Here's Matt doing what he does best--sleep! Except for last night. He did not do that very well.
Anyway, moving on from the zoo theme...well, no, these WERE taken in my apartment so we aren't moving away from that. Moving away from my diplomatic trip to another zoo, are some other pictures of random stuff.

Here's Sean and Matt with the oneshare.com stock of Dreamworks!! My son is a shareholder now! It was his early birthday gift from his Great-Aunt Karen.

And here's him opening and tasting it. Does success taste good, Matt?

Here's Mai after her grooming. I took her to work today.

Like her outfit? I really am not one for girly-girly but she sure is. It fits her well :-P

Anyway, nothing much else going on. I have a lot of things to do and a lot of guests during the holidays, and I'm really stressing out about it. I know I shouldn't be, but it's going to be so hectic and I'm going to be so broke! But Matthew will love all the attention, and hopefully I'll be able to relax with the people I love a LITTLE bit. Anyway, going to go now. I can't believe Matt slept through this entire post, but I don't want to push my luck!
I have the next two days off, so more posts are coming! Have a good day everyone!

Inter----------ruption

Sorry I've been so long before posting. This post has been in draft mode for a while because every time I sit down to finish and post it, Matthew wakes up. In fact, he just woke up. Amazing. So I'll post this right now and the "big" post will come tonight. It's worth waiting for! Okay maybe not, but it IS big!
Hey...I think he fell back asleep...
No. No he's awake. Darn. Okay, will post soon, I promise!

Possibly Zoo??

Ooo I may be going to the zoo tomorrow with Matthew and Joey! Joey's never been, and I have a free guest pass plus my membership. Yay!!! That's going to be super fun. Changing Matthew in a public bathroom, not so fun. Oh well.
I'll make sure to charge the camera tonight and take lots of pictures! Last time we didn't have a memory card in there so we only were able to take 16 pictures. Don't worry, I'll limit them :-P. At least the ones I post on here.
Anyway, I do have more information to post, including pictures of Matthew opening up his super cool early birthday gift from his great-aunt Karen. (Thank you!). But I will post those tonight or maybe tomorrow night. Now I am going to relax a bit before Matt wakes up.

Halloween

So last night was Halloween and I took Matthew trick-or-treating. It was fun, somewhat, but would have been more fun had we started BEFORE his bedtime (7:00). It's a self-imposed bedtime, so from that point on, if he is not in his crib, he is a very touchy baby. He is, shall we say, a little devil. He was VERY cute and loved being out and seeing all the spooky sights. We went to Menifee Lakes to trick or treat because they are a really nice community who always is in the "spirit" (no pun intended). There were a lot of kids and people sitting out and haunted garages. He liked picking his own candy but would scream at the top of his lungs when I took it away. He puked in his pumpkin candy-carrying case. He chewed open a box of milk duds (choking hazard, anyone?). He lost a shoe while I was carrying him, making me backtrack two blocks in high heels before I decided I didn't care anymore and it was just a baby shoe anyway. He screamed when Jana's boyfriend Dan tried to hold him. Screamed in the stroller. Toward the end he screamed because he wasn't in the stroller. I just kept thinking about how awesome it'll be NEXT Halloween when he actually realizes how super cool and awesome getting free candy is and he'll want to stay up. And he will walk. Ah...how nice. Oh, and I WILL NEVER EVER DRESS UP FOR TRICK OR TREATING AGAIN UNLESS MY COSTUME INVOLVES SNEAKERS. Ever. Don't I feel stupid.
Anyway, here's some pictures. Couldn't take them while trick or treating, had my hands full.

Here's him pretending like he wasn't going to touch those wires. What wires?

Here's Jana and her girls, and the devil...er...Matthew.

Here's Matt, again with his perpetual blank look

Jana and Matt. You can tell she's a trick or treating mom veteran. She didn't dress up.

Here's me in my stupid costume. IF I dress up I'm going to be something way cooler than a stupid maid.
So as soon as I put him in the carseat to go home he fell asleep. No fussing when we got home and changed, and went right to sleep in his crib. Oh yeah, next year, we'll go BEFORE his bedtime. Because he really was having fun, he was just too tired. We did stay out really late. I think it was 8:15 before we got home! Really, really late. Don't know how I managed to keep my eyes open.
Anyway, hope everyone else had a happy Halloween!
Oh and I lost 15 dollars two days ago and I put it in plain view so I would remember it and now it's gone and I am becoming very obsessed. I have been looking for it non stop. Very irritating. I don't really know why it bothers me so much but it really, really does.
Okay, bye!