goodbye calgary.

we are spending this christmas break in arizona.

it has been a totally different christmas then we are used to, but it has still been very merry.

the best part is just having all sorts of time to spend together as a family.

our last few months in calgary have been wonderful, but they have felt pretty busy.

you may have assumed that i have felt busy by my awfully awful blogging.

but that chapter of life ended on thursday.

we have left calgary and will be back in rexburg tomorrow, where matt will begin his third last semester.

i plan on re-capping a few things that i have missed since my last post.

but for now i will just tell you what has happened most recently:

right after our last day of work we said a whole bunch of teary goodbyes,

dropped chet off with my parents, and started driving to idaho.

we weren't in idaho for very long, just long enough to toss our things into our

apartment and catch a flight to arizona.

chet had already flown down with my parents and was waiting for us at the airport.

i had never spent a whole day away from chet before that,

so 2 whole days seemed like FOREVER.

but being able to spare chet from that long, boring drive was such a blessing.

plus there wasn't a stitch of room for chet anywhere in (or on) our car.

so we didn't have much choice.

chet on the plane.

getting ready to pick us up.

chet was more excited to see matt than he was to see me when we met him at the airport.

but i knew it would be that way and i had tried to prepare my little heart before hand..

chet it such a daddy's boy these days.

it is so cute to watch those two together, but i can't help but be a little jealous!

anywho..

on christmas eve we went up to the mesa temple to check out the christmas lights.

they were beautiful.
pictures don't do them justice, but i tried.

another fun arizona thing we did was go to a suns game.my parents treated us.

it was a pretty lame game and the concession guy totally scammed us..

but we still loved going.

other then that, my mom and i have been doing lots of shopping.

matt and my dad have golfed almost every day.

and chet is going on lots of golf cart rides.

so everyone is happy.

happy new years everyone.

for the past few weeks chet's favorite word has been NO. and it has been so frustrating.
but a couple days ago we finally convinced him that YES is a really great word too.
and life has gotten just a little bit nicer as a result. 

chet's vocabulary is growing everyday. he copies just about everything we say to him.
it is so funny. we can't get over how quickly he is changing these days. 

this is a list of chet's best words for now:

no. yes. tank. mom. dad. hi. bye. baby.

cheese. please. water. banana. blankey.

uh oh. sheep. shoe. woof woof. mine.
Jesus. two. three. weee! woohoo! ow.


not too shabby, huh?
we are trying to teach him how to say his name. but it is a pretty tricky word.


some other new facts about chet are:

- he loves to read books, especially with his grandma leavitt.

- thanks to me, chet loves to make toys kiss each other.

he could be playing with toy cars and he will still make then kiss. mmmwah!

- he likes to 'sing' and dance when music is on.

- matt really wants chet to sit and watch a movie with him but, unfortunately,

chet just isn't there yet. those boys have started many movies together

but chet never lasts more then a few minutes. that doesn't stop matt from

watching the entire movie though. matt has watched babe, horton hears a who,

and monsters inc. all by himself!

- chet also hasn't realized how awesome coloring is. i'm not very sad about the

fact that chet doesn't appreciate the TV yet, but it breaks my heart that he

doesn't like to color. when ever i give him a crayon he just tries to eat it...

and then throws it on the floor.

- he is still the best sleeper EVER.

- we bribe him with french fries more then we should.

- he just started making this super goofy smile when we ask him to smile.

we are hoping he will eventually outgrow it, but for now we think it's precious :)

 sweet pj's, huh?
we think they make him look like an old man.

i have been just terrible at taking pictures lately. but i haven't posted pictures of halloween
yet, so i might as well throw those up on here.
chet was still too young for halloween this year, but we took him out for a little bit anyways.
he followed a few of his leavitt cousins around, but didn't last very long.

this is chet trick or treating at his very first house ever:

and this was about 10 minutes later:

he didn't collect a lot of candy on his own, but his cousins were more then willing to
give him all the lolipops that they didn't want.


in case you were wondering, matt and i are doing good too!

we can't believe how fast our time her in calgary is going by. we are looking forward to
getting back to rexburg, but we sure are going to miss our family when we leave.
have i mentioned that we have the sweetest and most supportive family ever?
cause we do. we aren't sure why we are so blessed, but we are sooo grateful.
thank you!

we were having lunch at the mall this afternoon when chet took his worst fall yet.

and i feel like a rotten mom because it was kind of my fault.

you see, i hate public highchairs.

i wouldn't be caught dead in one of those things. obviously, because i wouldn't fit. but also because i find them rather icky.

even if i wipe them to death, i still fell like chet is getting contaminated with something nasty when he sits in one.

so, at lunch today, i decided that chet would be just fine sitting in a normal chair.

but he refused to sit.

so he stood.

and then he fell.

we honestly hadn't been sitting for 10 seconds and chet hit the floor. and a few other things on the way down.

there was so much blood.

i swear it was coming from like 50 different places on chet's head.

i am so grateful that matt was there because i didn't handle the situation very well:

pam "i don't know what to do"

matt "get me some wipes".

pam "i don't know what to do".

matt "just pass me some wipes".

pam "i don't know what to do".

matt "pam, wipes!"

pam "ok".

chet survived.

we took him right over to see my sister, who is a nurse, and turns out all he needed was a popsicle.

but i hope he never gets hurt again :(

chet and i were in the checkout line at the grocery store yesterday, and chet kept pointing and talking to the person in line behind us. i tried not to look back at first but then i was interested to see what chet found so fascinating. so i turned around.
and, sure enough, it was an old guy with a patch over one eye.
sometimes chet is way too much like his dad!


here is a list of chet's newest/neatest tricks:


he has figured out how to use a straw.
he said his first sentence (if two words counts as a sentence..). he said, 'NO TANK'.
chet loves to yell at tank when he is barking.
his newest word is 'baby'.
he understands when we give him simple instructions. (give that to dad, put that in the garbage, etc).
he has discovered how much fun it is to pick his nose.. and eat it. so gross!
we finally taught him how to blow out a candle. our goal was to have taught him that for his first birthday, so he was about 7 months late. but better late then never :)
he is turning into a pretty good climber.
he likes to run. and he thinks he is super speedy!


chet has had a few little hair cuts throughout his life, but a couple weeks ago he got his first big one. he sobbed through the whole thing.
so did i.

that hair cut made him look so much older. it kills me. why does he have to grow up so fast?

before chet came along, we knew that we would obviously love him. but we had no idea how much. he is so much sweeter, and funnier, and lovable then we ever could have hoped.
we LOVE him.


we even love him despite the fact that he is an absolute stinker when it comes to posing for pictures these days..

is matt wearing tights in this picture?
indeed, he is.
and he thought they were 'very comfortable'!
we went to a halloween party this weekend as peter pan and tinkerbell. and, considering what we had to work with, i think we looked quite snazzy.

{my mom bought chet a frog costume, so that is what he is wearing. incase you were trying to figure out which peter pan character he is supposed to be..}

peter pan and tinkerbell was the first costume idea i suggested to matt. and, surprisingly, he accepted it. i was fully expecting it to get veto-ed. kind of like when matt found my ongoing baby names list last week.. and veto-ed almost all of the names.
that was depressing.


i feel like i have been teasing matt a lot in this post. so here is a good story to show how wonderful really is:
for the last 2 weeks, matt has been training this new guy to take over his job when we head back to rexburg. matt says he is an nice man. but he knows nothing about computers. and when i say nothing, i mean NOTHING! matt's job (like most) revolves around computers, so this is definitely not ideal.

i have always known matt is a patient guy, but lately i am extra impressed with his patience. and i absolutely love the stories he brings home about his new work buddy!

example no. 1:
it is work buddy's first day of work. matt turns on his computer. the desktop shows up on the screen. work buddy says, "sooo... what is this screen for?" haha oh dear.

example no. 2:

matt has spent the last 2 weeks trying to help this man understand the difference between a right click and a left click. this is a very difficult concept to grasp! and don't even get him started on double clicking. yesterday the man asked, 'sooo... when do you use a double right click?'. umm never. 

i sure am lucky to have such a patient husband. and a husband who watched season one of glee with me. that show is funny.

fall is here.

and the rest of our family photos are here too!

i planned on picking out a just a couple of our favorites, but i didn't do a very good job. so here are a whole bunch of pictures..

we started at a cute ice cream shop in the inglewood area.

then we headed to a scrap-yard that had piles and piles of palates. 

i could stare at these pictures of chet all day. i think he is so so SOOO handsome.

i think matt is very handsome too. which is good, since he is my husband and all.

matt and i had a tough time posing for these individual shots.

my respect for the girls on america's next top model increased a ton! i do alright when i have to smile on command. but not-smiling on command is hard. and i can't even imagine being told to look angry, or sad, or sexy!

i really hope that we continue making the effort to get family photos each year because they are such a treat to look back on. thanks for taking them, liz.

5 weeks without blogging?
oh my.


you may have noticed that this blog has fallen quite low on my list of priorities these days. i am sad that i have gotten so behind because i find it really hard to get back into the blog groove when i have so much to catch up on. life has just felt kinda busy with matt and i both working again. but don't you fret.. these jobs are both temporary. and, come january, i will be back in rexburg and will have all the time in the world to blog again!


here is my best attempt to catch up on a few things..


there have been 2 celebrations in our family since my last post - matt turned 26 and chet is now 18 months.

matt has been falling in love with golf over the past couple years. but this year his love has really blossomed so it seemed very fitting to celebrate with a golf themed party. almost all of his gifts were golf-y. including the set of clubs he gave himself! happy birthday to the best husband i have ever had.

we booked flights to arizona for Christmas. matt plans on spending much of our time down there on a golf course. and i just plan on enjoying the lack of snow. hopefully. i would really appreciate it if everyone can keep their fingers crossed that i will get to experience my first not-white Christmas.

we didn't do anything to celebrate chet's half birthday. well, we did go out to a movie... without chet. so i'm not sure that counts. we went to see the lion king in 3D with my parents. i'm not usually a fan of animated movies (which is reeeally bad now that i am a mom!) but it brought back so many good memories. and those 3D glasses are hilarious.

anyways, back to mr chet.
he is seriously the cutest little guy. we love him to bits.
we got family photos a few weeks ago and he totally stole the show.

this sunday was chet's first day in nursery. i can't believe he is old enough to be in there. i was a little bit sad dropping him off in there but it was sooo nice to sit through the last 2 hours of church in silence. i think matt and i had forgotten that you can actually enjoy church over the past couple months!

here is chet's first ever nursery masterpiece:

is it silly that this picture makes me super happy when i look at it? cause it does!


we just took chet to the doctor and i am happy to report that he is a totally healthy, 26 pound, 32.5 inch tall kid. that puts him in the 50th percentile for both weight and height. they didn't measure his head, but we can tell it is still rather large based on the way it looks next to other heads. that's alright though, it just means there is more of it to kiss.


chet is learning to be silly, to pretend, to show love, and to copy others.
he enjoys licking peanut butter off a spoon.
if it were up to him he would eat scrambled eggs every meal of every day.
his favorite toy is a pink stroller.
he still resembles an owl.
he likes to keep things tidy. if he finds a crumb on the floor he takes it to the trash.
he still hates baths. seriously, what kid doesn't like baths?!

he stomps his feet when he is mad.

we haven't figured out if he is right or left handed yet.

he makes us crazy at meal time when he looks us straight in the eye and drops his food on the floor while we are saying 'chet. do NOT drop that on the floor'.

he likes bike rides.

he likes climbing.

yesterday his grandpa leavitt caught him talking to a goose statue in the garden.

his smile is super goofy.
he has 12 teeth.

every night when we lay him in his bed he says 'bye!'. even after we turn off the lights and shut the door he keeps saying 'bye...bye...bye' for several minutes. it makes us laugh.

everyone tells us that chet is such a 'sweet boy'. and they are right, he really is. his heart is very tender. we picture him being a really good friend when he's older. and that is exactly the type of boy we hoped for. we consider ourselves very lucky to have been blessed to have him in our family.

about 6 months ago, when we were working on organizing our jobs here in calgary, i was totally convinced that going back to work would be a piece of cake for me. i got so frustrated when any one tried to tell me that it would be tough. but... they were right.
i love love love my job and my co-workers, and i get a lot of satisfaction out of working. i hope that i get to continue working in the future. but perhaps part time work would be better. this full time stuff doesn't give me enough chetty time. i knew i would miss him, but not like this. i often get teary eyed after i leave him in the morning. and i like to try and push back bedtime so that we get to spend a few extra minutes with him. matt also finds it harder to leave him all day, now that chet doesn't spend all day at home with me. but thankfully chet has been a super good sport about it all, and we have amazing people watching him while we are away. so that takes a ton of stress off us and we are sooo grateful for that.
{thanks babysitters!!}

matt is enjoying his internship. this is his first office job, so it was a bit of an adjustment for him. but he likes coming home from work clean, rather then in the dirty-sweaty mess that his past jobs turned him in to. and he is enjoying the little perks that come with working for a huge company: golf tournaments, going out for lots of lunches, and a supply room! haha.. matt will be embarrassed that i am posting this, but it was too cute not to document.

he came home from one of his first days at work to tell me about this great room at his office that is filled with every kind of pen, paper, post-it note, whiteout, envelope (and so on) that you can imagine. i kept a straight face while pretending to act super impressed by this room he spoke of:

pam: does it have highlighters?

matt: tons of them.

pam: that's awesome. and binders?

matt: ooooh yaaa.

pam: how about one of those giant paper cutters?

matt: yep.

i eventually had to break it to him that it was just a supply room, and that every office needs one of those. but he still thinks it is pretty great that he can pick out a fancy new pen when ever he needs it. and it's free!

ever heard of insanity? it is this 60 day workout program that is...well.... INSANE! matt and i both hate it - we honestly dread it all day - but we committed to completing the whole program. somehow we manage to make ourselves do it. and it actually is pretty fun to have something like this to do as a couple. we are now 4 weeks in and and are looking incredible! haha. not really, but we are definitely feeling much more in shape. wish us luck that we can make it through.


while i am on the topic of exercise, my sister and i did a 5km run together 2 weeks ago. i am really proud of april - that was her first run and she did so great. i am already looking forward to our next sister run. 
{i call april my little big-sister. see why?}

we went up to the calgary temple site a couple nights ago. there is still a whole lot of work to do on it, but it was fun to check it out. i just wish that it was on the south side of the city, instead of the icky north side :)

well, that's all for now. i will try to be better at blogging over the next couple months. but, no promises.