All About Matthew!

Two years ago (Oct. 3), my little monkey Matthew came screaming into the world. When I say screaming, I'm referring to speed! He arrived after 2 hours of labor and 14 minutes at the hospital! He has been a ball of energy and excitement since! I am so thankful this little angel joined us! This post is filled with pictures celebrating what a special (& mischievous) little man he is. I had a ton of fun looking at the past two years of Matthew and it was hard "narrowing" it down to the 50 billion pictures I included in this post!! Enjoy!
T Jay and Summer meeting Matthew for the first time. Their biggest concern, his umbilical cord!

Grandma and grand baby # 10 (I believe)! Now she has 12 and two more coming!!
Grammy and Grand baby # 6! (Now she has 10 and one more coming!)
His birth announcement picture.
Story time is getting more crowded.
First Halloween!

T Jay showing Matthew the ropes of boyhood. Little did we know that he would need no encouragement in all things adventure!
My three little duckies all in a row! T Jay and Summer taking over Matthew's crib.
Me and my baby.
No such thing as personal space for Matthew!
Characteristic smile from our happy guy.

Adrenaline junkie getting an early start. It has just gotten worse. Matthew's 1st Birthday!
Just a hint...
Typical camera ham.
My sweet baby boy ready to be two!

A piece of our life...

Jess and I went on a date last night! It was awesome! After all these years he is still the hottest guy on the planet. We haven't gone out, just the two of us since June! Sad I know, but we usually do family dates. We've even decided that we are going to go out at least once a month from now on. I can't wait!! We went to Benihana for dinner. It was really good, and pretty fun to watch the chef slice and dice food right before us. I didn't get to see much of the chef actually since I couldn't take my eyes off of my incredible hunk of a man. I was half expecting a piece of rice or something to hit me in the eye, but I made it through with out incident! We hit Cold Stone afterwards and I got the largest size to stash away for the week. Mmmm, I love mint, brownie and hot fudge! But of course not nearly as much as I love my super studly hunkalicious guy.

While we were driving, we started talking about a book on CD that compared Dunkin Dounuts to Krispy Kreme donuts. This led to me talking about how my Dad used to make donuts for us when we were kids. He had this big bowl full of frosting and would put the doughnuts on a stick and pour the glaze over them and then we would watch as the excess glaze dripped back into the bowl. It seemed like forever before they would dry enough that we could dive into the yummy goodness. To this day I prefer warm doughnuts. But what I really prefer is my crazily cute husband's kisses. You can bet I am always tempted by the "hot" sign that Krispy Kreme posts through out the day! I'm not sure who all reads this so I will refrain from making the connection to the "hot" sign sentence. That would have been way too easy.

My point in telling you this is that it led us to talk about what our kids were going to remember about their childhood. We decided that it probably wasn't going to be the trip to Disney World, although fun and memorable, it would be the little things that defined their silly childhood. And their memories of the hottest mom on the planet who couldn't get enough of the coolest dad ever. Since I use this blog as somewhat of a family journal, I wanted to write about some of the things that our kids love right now.
First, welcome to our breakfast table. Each morning as the children are doled out their morning gummy vitamines, they chant, "Do the silly! Do the Silly!" The silly is where Jess leads them on a dialogue. Here is how it goes:
Jess speaking for vitamin bear: "Oh, I think I'll go into this nice cave over here."
Cue kids to put the vitamin in their mouths.
Gummy vitamin bear: "wow my back itches, maybe these back scratchers will scratch my back."
Cue kids to start chewing.
Vitamin: "Oh, my back feels much better. Oh look a slide. That looks fun! Weeee!"
Cue Swallowing.
Vitamin: "Man, I hope it doesn't rain on me. Oh look clouds, no wait ahhh, eggs!!"
And that would be something that T Jay insists on every day. It gets hard to squeeze in on the mornings that we are running late, but there are abbreviated versions. See, I married a clown, but the kids love it. At least he is a super sexy clown.

*Note from Jess - Kelli typed this up and asked me to proofread it. I noticed that she left out a few of her thoughts that I'm sure she would have wanted to share with you, so I just added them for her. We'll see how long it takes her to notice!!

A Minute to dwell

I was thinking about my kids this morning. I am so lucky to get to spend my time shaping these little people. It's a HUGE job, but they just make me so darn happy! A little cheesy I know, but every time I see Matthew hopping his way somewhere or watch Summer meticulously draw something and when T Jay tells me about something he tried that was new it makes me beam. I'm so thankful that God trusted me to take care of them. Sometimes I can't hug and kiss them enough!
After T Jay got out of school, we played at the nearby park. I overheard T Jay ask some other boys, who were a little older, if he could play with them. They declined his offer, telling him that they weren't playing anything. I was so proud of him for doing that because he can be very timid and shy, especially with new people. As we were walking home, he was telling me about this encounter and I was telling him that I was so proud of him for making the effort and that kids don't always play with each other and that it was okay- that maybe next time he could play with them. He turned to me and said, "Did that make you feel good inside when you heard me say that?" Cue melting heart. This is a question that I had just asked him because his teacher displayed some of his work. It is so amazing to watch them as they learn and grow. I can't imagine any other way to spend my time. I feel sorry for Jess sometimes because, being the lucky family bread winner, he misses out on a lot of the cute things that they do and say. I console myself by telling him as much as I can remember and with the knowledge that he is also missing a good portion of the dirty diapers, ref-ing and maintenance that also goes on around here! Their cuteness is like little random Mom gifts!
I like to really focus on these thoughts because it helps me remember why we have so many children and how much I really enjoy "showing them the ropes" in life when I am not quite so pleased with their choices. (I know, wait until I'm not pleased with the choices of their older selves- argh!) I feel bad when I forget how great they are, so I just wanted to dwell on it for a bit...

Summer Dancerella

Summer Dancerella from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.
Here are two videos of Summer practicing ballet along with her Bella Dancerella DVD. We haven't gotten around to enrolling her in dance classes here yet, partially because she used to spend the bulk of her dance class time examining herself in her cute little leotard in the very large mirrors! Matthew was having a great time doing "ballet", too!


Untitled from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.

A little Catching Up...

I haven't posted hardly any pictures of the crazies that go on here in a few months due to my extreme first trimester tiredness, so I thought I'd share a few random moments. I guess the more kids you have, the more tired you are when you are pregnant. It's just a theory but I am done testing it so I guess it will have to stay a theory!

This hoop skirt goes under Summer's Cinderella dress up dress. Matthew likes to wear it around the house. I guess he feels pretty, oh so pretty!
Summer started with "fixing" Jess' hair and then moved on to Matthew's. Doesn't he look fit for, well, nothing I guess. But they had tons of fun!
This is what happens when Matthew is left in his chair too long and he is done eating!
"I'm ready to work at the ranch, Daddy!"
Summer "fixed" her hair after school this day. She was very proud of her work and walked around like our house was a catwalk for the rest of the day!

Weekend Fun

My friend Molly and her family came to visit us this weekend from Washington D.C.! We had a great time visiting! The kids loved playing together. T Jay loved having an in house friend for two days. We spent the morning at the beach and then did mini golf in the afternoon. T. Jay and Kai loved hanging out!
Left to Right: T Jay, Kai, Matthew, Summer, Jackson and Kasen.
T Jay and Kai riding the go-carts. Kasen and Summer raced next!
Playing cowboys & cowgirls!
Matthew wanted in on the action! Our friends headed to Orlando for a week of Disney world! We had so much fun hanging out and playing with our friends!

What's special about this picture?!

Summer drew this picture at school. Can you tell what's special about it? You may have to click on it to make it larger so you can find it. I'll give you a hint: 3-20-09.