matt and i didn't buy chet any christmas gifts.

not one.

and do i feel bad?

of course. i mean, who doesn't buy their first child any gifts for his first christmas?

we didn't plan on depriving our little buddy of gifts. it just happened.

and chet didn't care.

he got plenty of gifts from other people. and he wasn't very interested in opening any of those. so i am sure he would have been just as unenthused about any gifts that we bought for him.

so, call us bad parents if you'd like. but i am going to tell myself that we are extra good parents because we taught chet the true meaning of christmas this year! (kind of!)

here are a few snapshots from the past week:

these are the 3 youngest cousins in the leavitt family.

chet is right smack in the middle of them. haden is 5 weeks older then chet and rachel is 5 weeks younger.

we sat them in a circle with a cookie in the middle. the dads thought it would be entertaining! but it didn't turn out to be the brawl they were hoping for. each kid just took a turn slobbering on the cookie before passing it on. eww.

we had a special nativity program this year with a girl joseph.

christmas morning.

matt was not impressed about posing for this cheesy photo.

or this one.

i don't take baths.

i think baths are gross.

like...really gross.

i can't remember the last time i took a bath, and i hope that i will never have to take another.

and because of this i have been holding out on putting chet in a real bath.

he is 9 months old and, up until this week, we had always shoved him in his little fold-up baby bath. but, due to lack of space in our car, we chose to leave his bath behind when we drove up to calgary.

so the other night chet took his first real bath. in a tub. and he loved it.

dang!

i was sort of hoping that chet would fit in his baby bath until he was old enough to stand, then he could skip the bathtub stage and go straight to the shower. but i have come to terms with the fact that isn't going to happen!

matt and i have been taking FULL advantage of having grandparents to babysit chet. it has been awesome. date nights are the best!

2 sleeps until christmas.

we made it to calgary.

we are thrilled to be spending so much time with friends and family. and i am finally getting into the christmas spirit. i can already tell that the next 2 weeks are going to be very merry :)

hours before we left rexburg we went to the dedication of the BYU-idaho center. it was really special. my favorite part was hearing elder bednar speak. i was lucky enough to be a student at byui for the last couple semesters that elder bednar was president. so i have a tender place in my heart for him. and he has a special love for the students at that school.

oh ya, and that building is enormous!

5 sleeps until christmas!

i bought some fabric from porters today - some christmas fabric.

the girl that cut the fabric said to me, "hey, this is cute fabric."

and i said, "ya, i like it. it's definitely christmasy, but it's not obnoxious."

the girl was silent.

it was then that i noticed her tacky christmas apron, her reindeer antler headband, and flashing christmas light necklace.

dang it pam!

now for a funny matt story...

the other day we were at the store, and matt bought himself a loofah.

the end!

we went to our ward christmas party on monday night.

and we made this tippy little gingerbread house.

we have heard so many great things about the christmas lights on temple square, but have never had the chance to go.

this year we really wanted to make the trip to salt lake to check them out, but matt has been awfully busy with school so it didn't seem like it would happen. but this week matt worked extra hard to get ahead on his homework so that we would be able to sneak away for a day.

what a nice husband i have!

we left saturday afternoon. the roads were perfect and we had no trouble finding a hotel. once we checked in to our hotel we shoved some food into chet, scooted tank around the hotel parking lot, and then sprinted the 8 blocks from our hotel to temple square. we made it just in time for the last showing of Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. it was awesome...as always.

after the movie, we spent the rest of the night walking around temple square and admiring the lights.

we loved them.

the grounds were so busy. it was kind of tricky to get around...especially with a stroller! but it makes sense that it was busy - it's gorgeous.

it seemed like almost everyone was there on a date. it was too cute.

two minutes before we took this picture we saw a boy propose to his girlfriend right on that patch of grass that we are standing on. he got down on one knee and everything!

she said yes :)

i'm sure if you were a real photographer, with a fancy camera, you could capture just how pretty the lights are. but i'm not a photographer. and, although my camera is cute, it's not fancy. but i tried!

on sunday we checked out the visitors centers and went on a tour of the conference center. it was fun to be that building when it it wasn't conference weekend and it isn't jam packed with 21,000 people - a very different feel.

the old guy that toured us around was full of interesting facts about the conference center. it's quite the building.

this picture is from the roof top.

(notice how there is no snow? and how the grass is green? makes me sick...)

some more good news:

on friday, President Eyring, Elder Bednar, and Elder Nelson are coming to rexburg to dedicate the BYU-Idaho Center. the BYU-Idaho Center is the newest building on campus and it is BIG...

"The 435,000-square-foot building primarily consists of two gigantic rooms. In one is a 15,000-seat auditorium that looks a great deal like inside of the Conference Center in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The auditorium will be primarily used for BYU-Idaho devotionals, special events and tri-annual commencement exercises.

The second room is a massive gymnasium. The two story gym contains 10 basketball courts (each short by about 8 feet of a full court) and a rubberized indoor track circling above the courts. If the area was needed for an event it can potentially seat an additional 5,700 people."

(here are some pictures of it under construction.)

we got our tickets for the dedication last night, and i can hardly wait!

one week until calgary.

two weeks until christmas.

my mom has been bugging me for not posting a picture of chet's tooth. so, despite the fact that there isn't a whole lot of tooth to photograph, i tried my best to get a picture for her.

but all i got were pictures like this:

and this:

chet wasn't really in the mood to smile. he's sick. matt gave chet and i his cold. rude, huh?

last night we went out to get ice cream for family night. the whole family - tank included. well, that was the plan...

you see, tank has gotten really good (or so we thought) at trotting himself out to the car. before chet came along, we probably would have carried tank to the car so that he wouldn't get hit, run away, or something else equally sad. but, now that chet is part of our family, tank has slid down our list of priorities.

and last night, poor tank got left behind.

matt and i both thought tank had hopped in each other's door. and we headed off for ice cream...without tank. and the worst part is that we didn't even notice we had forgotten him until we were almost home. then matt says, "now that i think about it, i did have a hard time backing out..."

we were so nervous we would see a flattened tank as we pulled up to our parking spot. but, luckily, the thing that had made it hard for matt to back up was just a small glacier that had fallen off the bottom of our car...not tank.

tank was sitting at our apartment door. shivering.

we were actually quite impressed that tank found his way back to our door. turns out there is a little bit of a brain in that peanut head of his. yay!

it's here! it's here!

chet's first tooth has arrived.

i absolutely looove his gummy smile, but i am so excited to see what it will look like with some teeth.

is it bad that i am already dreading that awfully awkward time when his front teeth fall out?! they haven't even grown in yet, but i am already sad that they will have to fall out!

OTHER EXCITING NEWS:

- we got a new camera!

- 13 sleeps until we head home for the holidays!

- we are going to the flames game on new years eve!

- we watched the third twilight movie!

yesterday was the first day eclipse was available on redbox, and we managed to get our hands on a copy. maybe we are bigger twilight fans then i thought!

you know what i like about twilight? i like that i don't get scared by it. i know that werewolves and vampires don't exist. creepy, disturbed people exist...but not vampires. so i can be sure that i will not run into a vampire while i'm out walking tank. and that, is a good feeling!

ok...you know that charmin commercial where the bear has toilet paper pieces stuck on his behind? but the charmin toilet paper doesn't get stuck?

matt and i honestly don't understand how charmin thinks this is a good marketing scheme.

maybe if we were bears we might appreciate the fact that their toilet paper doesn't get stuck on a bears behind. but we aren't bears. and neither is any one else watching that commercial.

we can honestly say we have never ever had this problem:

it's december.

so we pulled out our little box of christmas decorations and, all of a sudden, it is beginning to look a lot like christmas!

i'd take a picture to show you our homely stick tree, but we lost our camera.

some lucky wiener in arizona has it.

if only that wiener knew how much i miss it, maybe they would try to get it back to me.

i have called every single place we went to since that camera went missing, but no one has turned it in. GRRRR.

i guess i know what i am getting for christmas this year...

chet has a tender little heart. the funniest things scare him:

- man sneezes.

- matt's drill.

- my sewing machine.

- people wrestling.

- our kitchen-aid mixer.

his kitchen-aid fear breaks my heart. it really puts a damper on our baking parties when chet is sobbing uncontrollably.

something that chet has absolutely no fear of is tank.

quite the opposite.

chet thinks tank is so neat to look at. and he is even neater to touch. chet loves to get a kung-fu grip on tanks fuzzy tail. tank has learned to keep his distance. but it won't be long until chet will be crawling, and then tank will have no where to hide.

perhaps we should shave tank.

or wax him.

it was the coldest thanksgiving arizona has had in 25 years but, compared to the record low temperatures in calgary and the piles of snow in idaho, it was heaven. it wasn't nice enough to go swimming, but we never needed a jacket. it was just right.

thanksgiving was fun.

we went on a nice stroll:

(FYI - matt parred the devil hole in the background of this picture.)

we fed ducks:

and climbed palm trees:

the old people napped:

and the little people played:

and then we ate turkey. of course.

i did a bit of black friday shopping but i wasn't a super shopper...like my parents. they were on the road at 1:30am. i had hardly gone to bed by then!

black friday is nuts. much nuttier then boxing day.

i have never really enjoyed boxing day shopping because i hate shopping when it's busy. (but i also don't like being the only one in the store because then it's awkward leaving.)

i don't like shopping with people because then i feel rushed. (but i also don't like shopping alone because i always want some one there to give their approval of my purchase.)

yes, all those things go through my head. at once. my head is a busy little place :)

chet got to hang with his grandma and grandpa shaughnessy:

and with his great-grandpa rivard:

we are so happy that chet is getting to know his great-grandpa. he has given him the nickname "little dude".

that name reminds me of chet's neighbor when he was in the hospital. his name was hendrix little-mustache.

heads up - this next part is more serious.

i just got home from going to see cassie (a girl i get to visit teach). she got in a car wreck last week and everything on her left side is broken. EVERYTHING. pelvis, ribs, collar bone, cheek, eye socket, skull. she is a mess. but thanks to her lovely personality (and plenty of drugs) her spirits are very high. it was incredible to see her positive attitude. i can learn a lot from that girl. she is sincerely just happy that she is alive and that her husband and little girl walked away unharmed.

the roads on the way home from arizona were just awful. from the southern border of utah, all the way to rexburg, there was ice and snow. i wish i had of counted how many cars we saw in the ditch, upside down, and smashed to pieces. it was ridiculous.

after seeing cassie, i feel like scum that i got frustrated when we didn't set speed records on our trip back. we are so blessed to have just made is home safely. i know cassie and her family couldn't have done anything to prevent that wreck but... all you people that i love, remember to drive safe this winter. turns out we aren't invincible.

and feel free to include cassie in your prayers.

happy (american) thanksgiving everyone.

we went to a phoenix suns game tonight. we had such a fun time. it was quite the game.

chet got his first jersey.

and hung out with some cheerleaders.

what a stud!

the game went into DOUBLE overtime. it was unreal. the suns were ahead by a butt-load in the first half, but some how ended up losing. the crowd was wild. so we tried our best to protect chet's little ears.

watching the game reminded me how much i miss playing on a basketball team. and it made me excited to see what sports chet will like to play. he looks dang cute in a basketball jersey, so perhaps i should encourage him to go in that direction!

we made it. all the way to arizona.

the drive wasn't bad. we beat the google maps estimate of how long it would take. it said 15 hours. we did it in 14.5, including all our gas stops and meals.

take that google!

apparently we were exceeding the speed limit a wee bit. but don't worry - no tickets.

and NO SNOW!

it was nice to be driving on a highway other then the one between rexburg and calgary. i feel like i have gone up and down that stretch of highway a billion times and i'm getting kind of tired of that same old scenery.

one of the highlights of this drive was that we got to drive over the colorado river, at the edge of the grand canyon. it was short lived, but so amazing. i had only ever seen the grand canyon from a plane before, and it doesn't look nearly as impressive from up there. now that we have had a taste of it, we would love to see more.

another interesting sight was in utah. there was a point where we could see 3 temples and 1 prison...all at the same time. utah is something else.

the absolute best part of the drive, though, was singing our hearts out for hours on end. so fun :)

and the worst part was the 3 hour stretch of highway where there was not one bloody bathroom. when one was reeeally needed. my word!

first of all, i just thought i'd announce that this is my 100th post. wow-ee.

it's also chet's 8 month birthday today.

he is growing up sooo so fast. it seems like he was just a wee little thing.

you know how parents ALWAYS think their kids are cute? and sometimes you have to lie and pretend like you agree with them, even though you really don't?

well, while flipping through old pictures of chet, matt and i came across something awful...

haha! NOOO! we have (and always will) think chet is a doll, but this concerns us!

so i always do a quick skim over our bills when they arrive. but turns out i haven't been doing a good enough job with our cell bill. the other day i noticed that matt and i have more then 6000 roll-over minutes that we have accumulated over the past 6 months.

6000?

really?!

yes. really.

this means either we chose a plan that was way too big for our needs, or we are really big nerds who don't talk to anyone but each other. unfortunately, it's probably more the latter.

i called our cell company today to change our plan and the lady that was helping me laughed when she saw our ridiculous amount of un-used minutes. dang it!

we start our journey to arizona in 5 sleeps. we are driving down this time. hopefully that doesn't turn out to be a bad idea. it will be a pretty long drive - 15 hours. that is how long google maps says it takes. or, if we are feeling spunky, it says we can walk it in 12 days.

hmm.

we are thrilled to be able to get away for a week. away from school and snow. and we are excited to take advantage of having some extra hands to fuss over chet (my parents will be there too). matt is going to golf, i'm going to shop, and we are all going to a suns/bulls basketball game. i can't wait.

we just finished watching loose change 9/11. it's one of those documentaries that tries to prove that 9/11 was a conspiracy. very interesting. i think matt and i have watched too many seasons of 24 and prison break because it doesn't seem all that far-fetched to think that the government is corrupt. but lets hope not.

we got that documentary off of netflix. matt signed us up for a free one month trial. it has been awesome. i'll be sad when our month runs out. if we end up paying for it, it won't be as fun. if you haven't already taken advantage of your free trial, you should.

thanks to netflix we are hooked on arrested development. we are already on season 2.

the other day we got chet all bundled for a walk, but he didn't quite make it to walk. it was precious.

tank got bundled too.

larry, this picture is for you! chet is now sporting the second shirt you made him.

(chet is the 30th member of the leavitt side of our family, hence the number 30.)

dear amber,

i used to think you were crazy for mixing

m&m's in your popcorn. but matt and i

tried it the other night and we loved it.

i promise to never doubt you again.

dear craigos,

why did you change your name to

'pizza pie cafe'?

i don't like that,

and i don't plan on ever calling you that.

you will always be craigos to me.

dear rexburg,

have you ever considered putting together

a roadkill cleanup program?

the furry speed bump by our complex that,

last week, looked more like the kitten

it once was, grosses me out.

it's just an idea.

dear chet,

you're cute

even though you scream like a girl.

click HERE for an obnoxious video of chet's girly scream.