My New Favorite Store

Oh, I could spend so much money in this store, buying containers for all kinds of stuff! The house is in quite a bit of disarray due to the packing thing going on, but I had to show you my new favorite store. I bought padded china-holder things today to pack up the china, and could have spent more time and money in this store, but I had the boys with me and they are the ultimate motivation to get out of a store quickly. Especially a store with lots of glass canisters. Next time, I'll have to go by myself for some special alone time with all the containers you could possibly imagine!

So Proud!

The Boys

I Laughed So Hard I Cried

Matthew got a Fisher-Price digital camera for Christmas (thanks Paw Paw & Gigi!) and he has been snapping pictures all over the house. When I downloaded his pictures, the software gave us the option of creating a slide show (complete with music) for the pictures. It was absolutely hilarious. Some of the pictures are embarrassing -- the extreme close-ups, the random headless shots and the first-thing-in-the-morning bedhead look. But the music -- it was so cheesy with the random shots - so funny. I had tears running down my face. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to load the slide show on the blog, so you'll just have to trust me.

But, here are few examples of Matthew's photographic work:

"FEET"

"MOOSE"

"TREE"

"MATTHEW ORNAMENT"

"MOOSE: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL"

Matthew loves the camera. He also got many presents he loves: train set, race cars, trucks, pirate chest, as well as many more. He also got a membership with the Young Republicans:

So cute -- he wore this outfit the remainder of the day. You couldn't pay Brandon to wear a tie (due to a succession of traumatic, emotionally scarring tuxedo incidents early in his childhood in his multiple ringbearer duties), but Matthew loves this outfit. Incidentally, I will officially ban Matthew's participation in any political membership that starts with the letter "R" before he takes some history and government classes. Chris and I have set up the "debriefing area" in the basement to counteract any Republican leanings that might come along with the suit.

(I've posted more pictures on Flickr. We had a great Christmas and hope that you all did, too!)

Random Picture of the Day

July, 2005: Matthew is covered in Nutella and eating graham crackers, a habit he learned from his mother. At the time, his mother was studying for her second bar exam and was also equally covered in Nutella.

Editor's Note: His mother was only studying for her second bar exam due to moving to another state after passing her first exam. Since she has passed two bar exams she is very much entitled to an entire jar of Nutella from time to time.

Hazy Shade of Winter

Snow day! School is closed, work is closed, and we have electricity! (Yea! That's more than a lot of people around here -- about 300,000 are without power.) We've been having fun in the snow -- check out the new pictures on Flickr!

Random Pictures

Back when Brandon was three years old, we didn't have a digital camera. We had a plain old 35 mm camera. Brandon was very interested in the camera, so in order to be able to snap our own pictures without toddler interference, we would buy a disposable camera for him when we went on vacation. We would have the film developed, knowing it was Brandon's camera, and fully expecting to have very random shots, like parking lot pavement, blurry somethings, and rather unflattering pictures of us doing random things.

Now it's a few years later, and we have a digital camera and another three year old. Matthew is fascinated with cameras, and wants to see the digital display of the camera after every shot so he can approve the pose/picture. We no longer buy a disposable camera for the kids to play with; I guess we're just mean and don't allow them to take any pictures. However, Matthew discovered how to take the lens cap off of the camera, turn it on and take pictures.

Every so often when I download pictures off our camera, I find that Matthew has snapped a few pictures himself. Generally, his pictures look like this:


This is a picture of jackets hanging in a closet, I think.

This is a picture of the floor of the closet.

This of course, is a level.