He had a great time for Halloween.  We went to 2 halloween parties and he even kept his costume on!  He didn’t want to wear the mouse ears.  He was mickey mouse.  This is actually something both my brother and I dressed up as at his age (well…I was minnie).  I couldn’t resist with his cute little button nose and chubby everything.

It is hard to believe that he is already 18 months (well almost 19 months) .

He is getting CHALLENGING.  That is a nice word to use right? We have officially entered into the mild tempertantrumstage, complete with arching of the back, holding his breath, wailing and collapsing to the ground.  NOT FUN and even less fun when out, or perhaps in the middle of the parking lot for the swimming pool.  To be honest though as much as these moments are frustrating and tiring, I am finding everything he does so amazing.  His pure fascination with little things is grounding.

We have recently had to move him out of his crib as he was taking it upon himself to remove himself from the crib when he saw fit.  Unfortunately it mostly involved loud thumps and crying in the middle of the night. Needless to say NOT SAFE. So one night right before bedtime, Alex took apart his crib and we put his mattress on the ground.  It has not been going well.  I think he has really taken comfort in having the barriers around him.  He is quite an active sleeper and we found him in a different place every night no matter where we put him in.  He was also always leaning up against one of the crib sides and usually had his feet up in the air resting against one of the bars. So I imagine that having nothing around him is quite unsettling.  So after many nights of us sitting beside him we had to go with the crying it out solution surprisingly we found it only took about 1 min to stop crying and go to sleep.   Although it seems to be getting worse as the days pass.  One night  was particularly bad and we heard a ” Mommeeee DOWN, daddeeee down” coming from his room.  We gave in and went into his room and found him in his change table so needless to say he has nothing but a mattress, a garbage can and the baby monitor in his room now.   QUITE SCARY.

The new tooth is on the same side as his other side tooth, so now he has all four front teeth, and two extra on his right side.  That’s my genetics causing the weird dental issues.

These are a few pictures from our camping trip up to NOrth Bend with Erik and Jodi.

Matthew making his first smore!!

enjoying his first smore!

THis is from Father’s day

At the water park at Rocky Point

One Year Prenatal Reunion

Matthew making a mess in his room

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walking cautiously

climbing onto everything possible!

at a drop in jungle gym crawling through a tunnel

at his birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa Harford sitting on Great Grandma Marge’s lap.

the second photo is of him at the aquarium on his actual birthday

His great grandma and great aunty nancy

trying to find something else to eat!

eating birthday cake!

компютри втора употреба

Grandma Tetreau and Matthew at the aquarium!

watching mommy’s baseball game!

mommy and Matthew inside a fish tank!

trying on  a fish costume at the aquarium!

More pics to come but I need a tranquilizer to calm myself down before dealing with this stupid program to upload more photos……It has taken me 1 1/2 hours already just to get these ones….gripe…gripe…wine…wine….wait maybe I will have a glass of wine…is 4 pm too early?????

Matthew is almost 13 months now. He keeps us VERY busy thus the lack of blogging! I am going to try and share some pictures later but I have to resize them all before I put them on here and that takes alot of time. So Mr matthew is up to alot lately. He is crawling SO fast and we can’t leave him for a minute because we find him in the most peculiar places. He loves to crawl under things like the table and chairs. The other day he TRIED to get under his LITTLE leap frog table which is really tiny. He totally got stuck and we needed to bail him out. When he can’t do something he wants to he screams. Which was kind of cute at first but now it is getting a tad bit irritating!! He does walk but prefers to crawl. When he does get walking he is SO excited and proud of himself. He loves to eat and will pretty much eat anything you put in front of him thus the chubby cheeks and chubby thighs! He is starting to thin out now that he is SO active

He gives kisses and squishes his lips together and scrunches his nose up and gives me kisses! It is so sweet!

We have had a big change lately. I have started back to work lately. It is only two days a week and every fourth friday. So not bad at all! He is so happy with my mom and gets spoiled all day long! My mom and him play the game grandma spider. My mom will say in a deep voice grandma spider is coming, and matthew shrieks with excitement and bounces up and down….he get smothered in kisses and just loves the whole game.

He loves dancing and bounces to the music, sways his arms back and forth or in circles. He also “raises the roof” when we say it.

He climbs up and down the stairs although we are still trying to get him to go down properly instead of trying to go down forward.

Overall we are madly in love with him and he has changed out lives so much. I have never been so proud of something before. He is such a good baby…I guess I have to say toddler now!

Matthew turned one on April 18th and we had 3!!!! parties. We had at my mom’s house with my family and family friends. He got SPOILED!!!!! Lots of gifts!!! Lots of cake!!! Lots of tickles!!!! He loved the cake and ate quite a large piece…we were kind of worried he would get sick but he didn’t. We had a second party for him at Alex’s mom’s house with his side of the family. Again he got SPOILED!!!! He again LOVED the cake! He made quite a mess with it all over the kitchen floor, little chocolate pieces EVERYWHERE! The third party was at NIcole’s house and it was a party for her son Connor and Matthew for our baby group. It was fun and Nicole made some YUMMY food! ANother cake for my son! By this point I am sure you are not wondering why my son is on the chubby side although he does eat alot of fruit, veggies, meat etc. He only got sweets those three times!

Speaking of foo

Matthew’s first tooth poked through as well. It is the top left front tooth. It is very sharp and he has been playing with it with his tongue!

He is just starting to walk along the couch and his toys. He is showing an independent streak and when I am holding his hands for walking sometimes he bats one of my hands away and only wants to hold on with one so that he can touch things ON HIS OWN! He is very steady on his feet but instead of walking straight he goes all over looking for something to climb on or kick. His Daddy has taught him how to climb stairs and now we spend ALOT of time going up and down! On the way down though he just puts his one foot forward and drops down. So we will have to teach him to crawl backwards down the stairs!

Here are some pictures of him

Now that he is 10 months the time is growing closer and closer to when I am going back to work. I am going back part time which will be 2 days a week. We are lucky enough that my mom will be watching Matthew on those two days. I am trying not to think about going back too much. Two days will go by so quickly.

Matthew has been so cute with mimicking us lately. He is trying to say the things we are. He tried to say shoes the other day. He is also shrugging his shoulders.

That is it for now!

This is a video from today.