chet has recently learned that tank likes to eat his snacks too.

i have a feeling that this dog is going to get even chubbier over the next few years.

we have a video monitor in chet's room.

do i recommend a video monitor?

umm.. it has pros and cons.

CON. night vision is kind of creepy, especially when chet's eyes are open.

PRO. it has saved us many middle-of-the-night trips to chet's room over the past year - we can just look on the monitor and know that, even though he's fussing, he is just fine.

CON. it makes our room kind of bright at night. it's basically like having a TV on in our room all night long. the nights that we can't use it are the best.

PRO. now that chet is starting to play on his own, i am really enjoying having a camera on him. it is so cute to watch him when he doesn't think we are around. i can't wait until he starts talking and having an imagination. it will be so funny!

{i was super creepy today and watched him for a really long time.}

CON. i have had many nightmares about waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a kidnaper in the monitor. in night vision.

eww, that would be so creepy!

this boy makes us smile.

we made the journey into idaho falls for dinner with friends last night.

matt hiccuped the whole way.

and when we get back in the car after dinner.. the hiccups started again.

ugh.

matt gets hiccups a ton. and for long periods of time.

i know it's not his fault, but it drives me nuts!

i always try to scare the hiccups out of him, but it never works.

so i googled hiccups in hopes of finding some magic remedy, but instead i found a story of a man that had hiccups for THREE solid years.

oh. my. word. if matts hiccups get to that point, we are in big trouble.

despite how rude the ducks were last time we went to feed them, we decided to visit them again today. and they were much better behaved.

the goose that bit matt was now eating out of his hand.

our favorite duck is maurice.

we named him.

i think he has some platypus is in genes.

he just doesn't look like the other ducks.

i'm not sure how to explain this next picture.

chet's uncle mitch gave him a giant dreamcatcher thingy for his birthday.

with real horse hair and everything.

umm.. thanks mitch.

(just remember that two can play this game, and you have 4 kids!)

we went to church without chet this sunday.

matt's parents accidentally left their sunday clothes in calgary. so they didn't go to church with us. and when they offered to keep chet with them, we gladly accepted!

i had forgotten how peaceful church can be - how much easier it is without a kid.

we were there on time.

we stayed all 3 hours.

we actually listened to the teachers.

we got to hold hands.

we didn't have to hold the hymn book awkwardly high so it was out of chet's reach.

there was no pacing the hallways, picking snacks up off the floor, outbursts, crying, diaper changes, diaper bags, mixing bottles in sunday school..

weird!

i honestly do love taking chet to church. i like the way he listens when hymns are being sung and how handsome he looks dressed in his sunday best. and i am excited to teach him to have a love for, and a testimony of, the gospel.

but.. i would be lying if i said it wasn't reeeally nice to ditch him for one week!

we had a fun weekend with matt's parents.

chet loves his grandpa.

and his grandma.

this is the cake we made for chet's party.

no.

it's not.

i wish that was the cake we made.

that was the cake we planned on making.

i found it on a blog. and the blog said it was easy.

but the blog is a liar.

ours looked like this.

and somehow it managed to get uglier with time.

we served it to our guests looking like this..

yup.

it was embarrassing.

but despite how homely it looked, it tasted dee-lish.

and it makes for a funny memory.

we will try again for chet's next party.

and the next.

and one can only hope that we improve over the years.

chet didn't actually eat any of that cake.

on his real birthday we fed him a cupcake.

just so we could say we did.

and so we could take the classic 'first birthday cake' pictures.

anyways, we are so pleased with how well chet's party turned out.

matt's parents were INCREDIBLE. there is no way we could have pulled it off without them.

larry ran a billion errands for us.

and maralyn stole all the kids at the party and played with them the whole time.

i'm quite confident when i say that i have the best in-laws.

and our friends were great too. we are so happy that they were all able to make it.

chet was one popular little leprechaun.

i went shopping for baby girl things yesterday :)

haha not for me. no way!

for my sister. she just popped out baby number five.

and this time it was a girl. miss london hughes.

i'm so sad i can't snuggle her, but i sure had a good time shopping for her.

matt and i can do some damage when we shop for chet at zara.

but, other then that, i don't feel like we spend too much on his wardrobe.

if we had a girl it would be much more tempting.

anyways, congrats ben and april.

i decided to put together a video of chet's first year.

it was one of those things that sounded like a really good idea at first, but the further i got into it the less enthused i was about working on it.

but i pushed through, and it is ready for your viewing pleasure.

before you can watch it though, you have to read my list of disclaimers for it!

1. the pictures go fast. i started using slow, sentimental songs but it would have taken way too long for me to get through all the pictures and video clips i wanted. so i switched to a more upbeat song. just make sure you go into the video knowing it's quick. and i suggest watching it on full screen.

2. i found this new, faster song while creeping around on facebook. i stole the idea from a friend of a friend. and i'm kind of embarrassed, so i'm putting a plug in for her website HERE to make up for it!

3. and finally, i apologize to my nieces and nephews for the bad words. i didn't realize they were there until i was so far into this project that i refused to change the song again. i tried to find an edited version, but i couldn't. matt and i even recorded 'beeeep' sounds and put them over the song. it was hilarious, but only drew more attention to the word. oops.

so without further ado, i would like to direct your attention to the link below for our feature presentation..

chet's first year.

matt's parents are coming to visit this weekend. we are so excited.

and they will be here to celebrate chet's birthday, which makes it extra special.

we just finished the birthday invites. they aren't anything special, but they make us laugh :)

some may frown upon the fact that we made our one-year-old smoke a pipe on his birthday invitation..

but those people have no sense of humor.

yesterday was a sad sad day in the leavitt household.

we got our last chunk of money from my paid maternity leave.

dang.

i knew this day would come, but i didn't want it to!

it has truly been a blessing for us this past year.

you know what this means though? it means that we are closing in our one year mark of being parents.

when did we get so old?

(this is 10 years ago. we weren't dating. we weren't even really friends. matt was too cool for me back then. or so i thought... looking at this picture makes me think that i might have been the cool one.)

it poured rain last night.

i think i have been listening to too much taylor swift because i kept thinking that matt and i needed to go kiss in the rain. i'm pretty sure taylor refers to that in every other song.

instead i just walked the dog in the rain. alone.

which is also very romantic.

we're back.

i was sad to leave the sun, but i'm happy to be back with my matt.

and so is chet. he was thrilled when he saw matt at the airport. it was too cute.

i was pretty nervous to fly alone with chet. not for me, but for all the people around me.

you just never know when he will decide to turn into a monster.

he was so good though.

his cuteness even made us some friends on the plane. and then these friends bought us expensive airplane snacks. and offered matt a company to do an internship with.

thanks chet!

an arizona park..

a rexburg park..

these ducks were ridiculously aggressive - i was literally running from them.

the dirty duck below bit matt.

guess what was sitting next to my bed last night?

a scorpion.

as a girl who grew up in canada, i have very little bug experience.

i think ants are gross. ladybugs are really gross. and spiders make me completely unreasonable.

so a scorpion? in my bedroom?

that is just too much for my little heart.

i didn't notice the scorpion until i was already in the bedroom.

so rather then turning and running out of the room, i jumped on the bed.

and screamed for my dad while standing in the middle of the bed.

unfortunately, my dad was fast asleep on the other side of the house. and i have never had the best yelling voice (my basketball coach used to make me practice yelling. ooh i hated it).

so my dad didn't hear.

and that meant i needed to get off of the bed.

it took a few failed attempts before i actually got myself to toss my body onto the scorpion floor. but once i did, i moved faster then ever before.

i made it to my parents door in about 2 seconds.

it was 1:00am. they were fast asleep...

i threw open the door, turned on every light switch, jumped in the middle of their bed, and started frantically explaining the scorpion problem.

my dad looked at me like i was crazy and then, without a word, rolled out of bed and went to kill the beast.

problem solved, right?

umm. no!

what if he laid eggs in my bed? or traveled in a pack?

after a good ten minutes of talking through my fears, my mom convinced me to get in bed.

and then after another ten minutes of discussing whether or not i should leave the bedroom light on, the hall light on, or my door open, i was mature enough to go bed with no lights on and no doors open.

it's like 2:00am now. and i call matt.

matt: hello?

pam: matt there was a scorpion in my room.

matt: oh.

pam: it was right by the closet. and it was big. bigger then the other ones. my dad said it was over 2 inches long. he killed it for me but i still can't sleep. i'm feeling creepy - like there are scorpions nesting in my hair.

matt: huh.

matt was too sleepy to do much comforting. but he promised to say a prayer that no more scorpions were in my room. oh, the things he does for me!

i eventually fell asleep. and woke up.. alive.

and i am still happy to be here in arizona.

i arrived to my very own paparazzi.

celebrated my moms birthday. 50. woah.

we played at the park in our pjs.

and went to the pool. but this is as far as i got in.

chet was much braver.

it is 9pm right now.

the current weather in calgary -2F / -19C

the current weather in rexburg is 36F / 2C

and the current weather in mesa is 79F / 25C

i am definitely heading in the right direction :)

i don't know what it is about these two, but i just think they are so cute together!

and since chet is so good at listening to jane's concerns..

he might just have a chance.

jane is about 2 months older then chet, but much smaller. as you can see! so i'm thinking chet is doing just fine when it comes to growing on schedule.

i have been looking back at pictures of chet (FYI. we have taken a ridiculous amount of pictures) and it is amazing how far he has come.

we are lucky to have such a healthy boy.

he just got tooth number 2 yesterday.

and has already figured out how to text. yep. text.

for some reason chet loves cell phones. but not toy phones. our real phones.

i have given up on trying to take mine away most of the time. i figure i would be happy to get a new one if he broke mine, so i've got nothing to lose.

but maybe i should start locking it because he sent matt a text today. and he has been to known to call people on occasion.

THIS is fun to listen to.

matt has been rejected from the testing center a couple of times for not being clean shaven.

it's kind of annoying. but he signed the honor code, so you can't really complain..

now he always carries a razor in his backpack :)