Matson Update

Time for another update!
Things are going great in the Matson household. Braelyn is learning something new everyday. Tyler is working hard to provide for our family. I am "baking" my little bun in the oven-nothing new. We have had 2 of our 3 sets of neighbors over the last week and it has been so great getting to know them. I hope that we can make some lifetime friends with them and be there for each other whenever any of us is having a bad day. I have already gotten to the point that I am excited to see or hear from them and I love sharing goodies with all of them.

Braelyn:
We were finally able to take Braelyn for her 2 year check up-a couple months late... She is 29 pounds and 35 inches tall. We have been trying to do school at home since she is too young to go to preschool. She can already count from 1 to 11 so we have been starting on the alphabet. We work on one letter a week, as well as sing the ABC's, and I am already seeing her learn. Two weeks ago we started with the letter A. I printed off coloring and tracing pages for her to work on. She knows what sound the letter A makes and when I ask her "What starts with the letter A" or "What food do we eat that starts with the letter A" she can answer apple or animal. I am so proud of her and how smart she is growing to be. This week we worked on the letter B. She knows that her name starts with the letter B as well as banana and book. I love seeing her improve each and every day. Her new saying is "Oh my goodness heavens!" It makes us smile every time I hear it. Grandma Mickelsen took us to Wendy's and when we were walking inside she said, "Oh my goodness heavens! It needs to stop windying!" We both got a kick out of her wishing the wind would quit blowing. She talks so much and surprisingly speaks really clear for her age. Her favorite things are bikes, her baby, and her princesses. She is so good with her baby so it is very promising for when baby brother comes, as long as she doesn't try to be the mommy... Braelyn keeps telling me that her baby brother is awesome and she loves him so much. I hope this continues when he is finally here! Fingers crossed.

Tyler:
Tyler is working his "brains" out in his words. He has a great job with a great boss, but they are trying to wrap up summer and fall pesticide so they can do Christmas lights so it has been really busy. He tried to donate plasma to get money to buy a cyclocross bike, but his veins were too small I guess. They said they couldn't get a good vein and that he would have to come back in 2 to 3 months to try again.

Koloni:
I haven't been doing much other than staying home cleaning and taking care of Braelyn. I work at Larry's Spring Chicken Inn in Morgan once a week to help out while they are short-staffed. It's hard work while pregnant because it has been fairly busy most days I've worked, but it is worth the extra savings and pocket change that I get. I loved listening to General Conference last weekend! It was great to hear the inspired words of the Prophet, apostles, and general authorities. I especially loved Elder Bednar's talk on tithing and Elder Holland's talk on hanging on and not giving up. We have struggled with tithing in the past, but have been working really hard on being full tithe payers and Elder Bednar's talk really emphasized that what we are doing is right and we will be blessed for our contributions and efforts. What Elder Holland's talk gave me confidence and hope. We all go through trials and struggles, but there will ALWAYS be a light at the end of the tunnel. It also encouraged me in the fact that if a great apostle of God can struggle with depression and made it through to become one of the greatest speakers and examples in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then I can struggle and stumble with little things and still make it through. Never give up. Never ever let Satan convince you that maybe you are better off digging a deep hole and jumping into it. Like I said in the beginning, I enjoyed taking goodies to our neighbors and just baking in general. In the last week, I have made Banana Crumb Muffins, Snickerdoodles, Lion House Rolls, Breadsticks, Cinnamon Rolls, and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies. I think it is mostly a pregnancy thing, because I have CRAVED baked goods.

Baby Matson:
Boy Matson is getting big. A few of my other friends are doing these cute little Q&As about their pregnancies, so I am going to steal a few of their questions. I hope you guys don't mind!
How far along? 26 weeks today
Maternity clothes? Definitely yes to maternity pants. Sometimes I can still wear regular pants as long as I do the hair elastic trick with the button hole. Shirts it depends on the shirt. I can still wear my stretchy and lose shirts.
Stretch Marks? Not that I have seen yet. I hope not!
Sleep? I struggle. I will sleep well at first then I wake up in the middle of the night to pee-baby boy likes to lay on my bladder already-and then my brain won't shut off to go back to sleep. So needless to say I am feeling pretty exhausted
Food Cravings? Baked goods and soup-lots of soup (tonight was cheesy chicken chowder). And ROOT BEER! And these yummy Cascade Ice Sparking Juices. MMM making myself hungry!
Belly Button in or out? It's kind of half and half... the top part is starting to poke out a little, but usually only after meals or at the end of the night, but the bottom is still very inny.


I will get around to posting all my recipes this week sometime and hopefully I can get some pictures to go along with them :) Thanks for reading! Here are a few pictures from the week:

26 Weeks with baby number 2!

My grown-up girl!

Good bye kisses- Last kisses for 2 years. We sent this handsome man to Guatamala MTC

Good Bye UNCLE NICK! WE MISS YOU!

Baby Boy

We had our anatomy scan ultrasound on Thursday and it went really well. Because my sweet little niece has a heart defect and some other things, the tech took extra time checking my baby's heart and brain. His heart looks beautiful and everything looks great with his brain. There were also no signs of cleft lip. It is such a relief to know that he is healthy as far as we can possibly tell. Braelyn loved seeing her baby brother on the TV. She kept saying he was "so cute" and "so sweet." She will pull my shirt and say "open him" then will listen to him do somersaults or swimming. Hopefully this love will continue once baby brother is actually here. I have officially hit 21 weeks, so a little more than half way there. I feel like I am in my third trimester though. I have no energy or motivation to do anything. I just want to nap. I am getting uncomfortable, so I have a hard time getting to sleep and staying asleep. Hopefully that will change soon, or it is going to be a long 4 1/2 months. We took Braelyn to the Dinosaur Park on Saturday. It was her reward for doing such a good job with potty training, plus on Friday she went poop in the potty. Then yesterday she told me she needed to go poop in the potty, so we are making progress on that front!

We celebrated our 4th anniversary last night. Nothing fun, just dinner at a pizza buffet and a movie at home. We even had Braelyn with us all night until we put her to bed. We are having a date night with Aaron and Kinnley this weekend when they are up, so hopefully that one can be a child-free night. Other than that nothing is really going on with us. We're kind of boring :-P Have a great day! Oh by the way, we caught our mischievous little mouse, and we haven't seen any more since, so hopefully we are done with them.

Dinosaur Park 

Triceratops

RAWR!

Nick, Marilyn, and Dale at the SLC Temple

Long Time No Type

So it has been awhile...a long while. So here is the update. Braelyn is 2 years old now, and we are 20 weeks pregnant with number 2. We are having a boy! Tyler is so excited. We have an appointment tomorrow, so he is keeping his fingers crossed that our little man doesn't magically turn into a little lady. Things are definitely changing in our lives. Tyler was accepted into the University of Colorado-Boulder, but due to not finding a job in Colorado, we decided to stay around here for the next year and a half ish and try again later. In the meantime, he is going to try and finish up his bachelors degree at Weber State. He is working for a couple great friends of ours at Turf Pro Lawn Care/Night Lights Christmas Lights and Snow Removal. It is a great full time job that is giving him experience that will help us in the future and allows for frequent pay increases. We just moved to an apartment in Sunset, and other than the little mouse we can't seem to get rid of, we love it.
Braelyn keeps us busy. We have been potty training this last week, and she has done AWESOME! The only drawback is pooping in the toilet-she hasn't seemed to get the concept. Other than that we rarely have an accident. She even made it through a trip to St. George and back with only 1 accident. (we couldn't get to a stopping place soon enough after she woke up from a nap but she was in a pull-up so it didn't get all over the car.) She is a smart little stinker. She can count to 11. She speaks in multiple sentences and can even remember places and things after only being there or driving by there once. Today my grandma took us to a pizza place that she had only been to once before. Aunt Mamy's friend Krysta works there, and as soon as we walk in it was "Where's Krysta? Where's my Krysta?" She loves her baby brother and gives him loves and kisses all the time. This weekend we got a little glimpse of what she will be like when baby brother is here. We spent some time with Aaron and McKinnley and baby Claire for Claire's baby blessing. Braelyn wanted to feed Claire and hold her and was really sweet with her. We kept having to remind Braelyn to "be soft." It's a good thing babies are resilient...
It was really good to see Aaron and Kinnley. I was able to sit in the hot tub (just my legs) and visit with Kinnley for probably close to an hour. It is good to be getting to know her better and being able to relate more. I wish we lived closer so we could spend more time together.
This week will be a busy one. We have our regular doctor's appointment and our Maternal Fetal Medicine appointment where we will get to see out baby's heart and everything. Then later Nick is going through the temple for the first time because he is leaving on a mission to Guatemala the first of October. Since he is leaving, we had family pictures this last weekend for the Matson family. They haven't been updated since Aaron a McKinnley's wedding-if that counts, and before that it was right after Aaron got home from his mission. I think the pictures will turn out really cute. I can't wait to get the disk!
I am going to try to be better about blogging, but I'm not making any promises...Just harass me on Facebook if it has been too long since I last updated the blog, okay? Pictures-in no particular order-

 Water Weenie- 1 year old

Loved my cell phone-still does, but know she knows how to call people

Braelyn loves her cousins

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 Opening her Little People Farm

WOOHOO! Christmas 2012

Muck Lucks Christmas 2012

Playing in the snow

15 Weeks with baby 2

Pomoted to big sis!

Playing with a friend at the Park

It's a BOY!

Beautiful Girl- Matson Family Pictures 2013

Duck Pond-the white ones were mean

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

After playing in the dirt

Playing in the dirt

Water Weenie 2013

Water Weenie 2013

Mater Truck on the way home from St. George

Riding her bike

One Year Old!

 I can't believe my little Braelyn is a year old! She is 20 and 1/2 inches tall and 20 lbs. I love her and her cute little personality. She is very smart. She blows kisses, waves hi and bye, and runs all over the place. If you ask her where her nose is, she will point to it and squish it up like a pig. She will also point to her mouth, ears, and belly button. If you ask her where her belly button is, she will lift up her shirt and bend over to try and find it. She will fold her arms and do a lot of signs too. She signs please, food, more, all done, up, down, outside, and sometimes she will sign thank you. Her vocabulary is expanding as well. Some of the words she knows are pop, (She loves to pop bubbles) daddy, ma ma, keys, please, shoes, Papa, Nana, whee, dat, (that) and she babbles a lot of things that almost sound legitimate. She walks around the house holding a phone or remote or pretty much anything of the sort to her ear and acts as though she is talking on the phone.  She also loves books. Her favorite one is her bedtime book that is a touch and feel book. She will grab it and bring it to me all day long. He favorite foods include chicken, macaroni and cheese, crackers, string cheese, fruit of any kind, mashed potatoes, milk, apple juice, and pudding. She doesn't really care for vegetables, so I'm trying to figure out ways to get her to eat those more. She loves dogs and starts to say oof oof everytime she sees one. All in all we are doing very well. She is getting so big and we are loving every minute of it. We are having fun and making memories day by day. 

Cheese!

Getting so big!

4 Month Update

So now that Braelyn is 4 months old, I thought that I would give an update on how she is doing. At her doctor's appointment on Friday, she weighed 12 pounds 11 ounces and was 24 inches long. her 3 month clothes are fitting great except for the fact that her jackets are a bit short on her torso because it is so long. She is starting to get the baby chubb and it makes me sad because it means she is growing up.

As my previous post says, Braelyn is now rolling over. Only from her back to her tummy though. She rolls to her belly and a couple minutes later she crys because she is stuck... It is so much fun to see her interact with Tyler and me. She is always happy and giggles for us. It is also fun to listen to her jabber to herself. She grabs toys now, and she loves her toy keys.

I've tried giving her rice cereal a couple times, but she isn't so sure what she thinks of it. The last couple of days, however, she has been watching me eat and opening her mouth with mine and acting as though she is chewing. It's really cute and funny to watch.

Her favorite game right now is swinging with daddy. She giggles everytime. She also likes to "bouncy bouncy bouncy" on the bed. Tyler puts a hand on either side of her and bounces the bed a little bit. It's pretty silly. She has been spending more time with daddy since I have gone back to work. I think she enjoys it, but she really misses her mommy. Tyler tries to keep her awake so I can see her when I get home. She gets a huge smile on her face, no matter how tired she is when I get to see her. It makes my whole evening.

I can't believe how fast the time has gone. She is so precious and such a blessing in our lives. We love her and can't imagine our lives without our little Braelyn Rose.

We were at Grandma Mickelsen's house for Adri and Kelsee's combined baby shower. This was a super cute picture with Braelyn, Bekah, and Trinity.

I rolled over Mom! Here was a picture of her right after she rolled. Yay!
Braelyn holding her bottle. She would not let me take it away to burp her ;)

The first time eating baby cereal. She didn't know what to think of it...

Daddy and Braelyn. I thought this was such a cute picture of the two of them playing together.

Braelyn (3 months 11 days) and Cousin Caydence (3 weeks 2 days)

Hi Mom! What is that thing you are holding above me? Don't I just look SOOO cute with my curly hair? I love you mom!

Rolling Over!

Braelyn has become a rolling queen. Starting yesterday, she has been rolling every chance she can get. She still only rolls from her back to her belly, but hey! I'll take it! I am so proud of her. She is getting so big. We have hit the 4 month mark. At her appointment, she was 12 pounds, 11 ounces and 24 inches long. She wasn't too happy to get her shots, but she did really well. Tyler is still working hard at Enve and we actually just found out that he was awarded a ton of financial aid for Spring and Summer semester. We were really excited because now we can afford for him to go to school! He plays with Braelyn every chance he gets and they are so cute together! I just started my job at Deseret Book in the Layton Hills mall and I absolutely LOVE it! I look forward to going to work every single day! It is so rewarding and I love working for the church!

Braelyn Rolling Over



Tyler Playing with Braelyn

Updates on the Matsons!

It's that time again! Time to update everyone on the Matsons. Everything is going well with us. We are working hard and trying to keep everything going in the right direction. Tyler just finished the cycling season. Last weekend he rode in a relay race called Salt to Saint (Salt Lake to Saint George). He rode the first leg of the relay which included some really big climbs. He actually dropped a PROFESSIONAL MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDER!! It was really awesome to hear about. His whole team worked really hard and they actually won the relay overall. They completed over 420 miles in 20 hours and 1 minute. Tyler was so tired, he actually fell asleep in the middle of eating a piece of bread. Yesterday Tyler had his last race of the season. He took 9th in the Harvest Moon Criterium Race. It was so much fun to watch him race!

Last weekend, I went to lunch with my Mickelsen family for my grandma's birthday. Then we went and bought peaches and on Saturday, I bottled peaches and went to a baby shower for Kelsee and Adri. Adri had her baby this week...a week sooner than expected. She is a little cutie! Yesterday, Tyler took Braelyn with him in the morning and let me go to the Celebrating Sisterhood Party and Seagull Book and Tape. Then I went and watched him race along with Kaytie, Toby, TJ, Chase and a bunch of other cycling friends. Tomorrow I have a job interview for Deseret Book. I'm really excited and hope that I can get the job!

Braelyn has become my little chatterbox! She loves to talk and sing and squeal. She is so much fun. She is getting really big and growing so much. I love playing with her everyday and I never get anything done anymore. But I won't take back the time I spend with her to clean. I can always clean when she is napping or asleep at night. But I can never get the time back if I don't play so I'll cherish it while I can!