Matt vs. Wild

Every so often we get the chance to do something totally unnecessary, yet totally awesome! This happened to me last semester when I signed up for a wilderness survival class at BYU. We met once a week and learned various skills, like starting fires using sticks, making rope out of bark, setting traps to catch food, and building shelters. For our final we went on a three day survival trek out in the middle of nowhere and had to prove ourselves against the wild.

This is me saying goodbye to my wife and son as I went off into the wilderness, (probably... to die)

The trip started out when we were dropped off in the middle of the night, on the side of a dirt road in the middle of the desert. We were told to follow the road until we reached our camp. We ended up hiking for two or three hours in the dark until we found the camp. Once there our teacher told us to get some sleep, that we would need it for the next day.

I slept under the stars, on the hard ground, and woke up covered in snow. It was one of the worst nights I have ever had. That day was used to pass off our skills for our teacher. It was exhausting and tons of work. Around 5 pm we were told that the time had come to go off on our own. We were hiked through the woods by our TAs and dropped off one at a time. Then I had to spend the next 38 hours alone in the wild.

This was the shelter I was able to build with the hour of sunlight I had left.

The walls didn't reach the floor, so I was freezing all night long. I could also hear coyotes all around me in the dark. My fire also went out in the middle of the night and I couldn't get it going again.

After that sleep I knew I needed to build a serious shelter.

It took most of the day, but my shelter was as solid as a rock by the time I was finished.

My lonely camp.

I burned a hole in my sweatshirt when I was reading scriptures by the fire.

Waiting to be "rescued"

Overall it was a really fun trip and a great class. That being said, I was happy to go home to my little family and sleep in my warm, soft bed once again.

This was my welcome home poster prepared by Nicki and Owen.

Nicki also made me an awesome welcome home feast! Steak, my favorite snack foods, and banana cream pie! Thanks babe.

Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend - we had breakfast with my sisters on Saturday morning, attended our ward's Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon, and dyed eggs on Saturday night. The next morning, Owen found his Easter basket and hunted for eggs in our house. We enjoyed spending the weekend together watching conference and eating tons of Easter candy! It was a great restful weekend right before the last couple weeks of school!

Helping Lexie stir.

Trying to convince Owen that he wanted to find eggs, not play on the playground.

Eggy! (in Owen's words)

Once he found out there was candy in the eggs, he wouldn't let them out of his sight.

Coloring on his egg with a crayon before he dyes it.

Owen loved these eggs (and managed to break about half of them before they were even dyed - he even bit right through the shell of one of them).

Deciding what stickers to use on his eggs.

This was close to the end of our egg dyeing - Owen was getting to be a bit of a punk. :)

Dyeing Easter eggs. Owen LOVED this! Hopefully next year he'll get to do it on his own instead of just watching. Mommy didn't want to deal with scrubbing dye off of him and his high chair. :)



Owen loves to help me put away pots and pans that I've washed, so we hid his Easter basket in the cupboard with the pots and pans, and set one out to entice him to open the door. He was so excited to find his basket!

Opening his Easter box from grandmas.

Bunny glasses! He thinks these are hilarious.

Climbing on to the table to get his basket.

Karen, this video is for you. Owen dances to this card every night on his way to bed. :)

Advent Calendar info

My friend Jenn, who helped me make the advent calendar I posted on here a few weeks ago, is being spotlighted tomorrow (Wednesday) on the craft blog The Idea Room. She has also started selling advent calendars in her Etsy shop if you're interested. They're just like the one that I made - a frame with numbered pockets all around it to hold all the pieces, and a magnetic background scene with the manger and hills, etc. She's also got a lot of other cute patterns and crafts for sale. Go check it out!

Lots of videos

Owen has been learning lots of different ways to move recently - he's learned to jump and turn around, and he loves to dance. Here are several videos of various dancing and jumping sessions... they're pretty hilarious.




This is what Owen's dancing normally looks like... tons of jumping and arm waving. He likes to dance to the music on our Kung Fu Panda DVD - there's a "Dreamworks Jukebox" with songs from the Dreamworks animated movies.



This is when he really gets his arms moving - sometimes he spins them around so fast that his body follows and he falls on the floor.



This is a relatively new trick - spinning around. We have to watch him really closely when he does this, because he has a tendency to get really dizzy and fall into the sharp corners on our tables and TV stand. Silly boy. :)



Learning how to jump. :) This was last week, when he would only get off the ground every 1 out of 4 or so. Now, he gets off the ground almost every time. Jumping is one of his favorite things to do.

Snow

One of my favorite words that Owen says is "snow". Although he can say "s" and make an "s" sound, he replaces the "s" in "snow" with the sound of exhaling through his nose... it's quite hilarious. See if you can catch it in this video.

It's way too quiet in here...

Owen has just arrived at the stage where he has started being really quiet when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't do. Before, I could always hear exactly where he was and what he was doing - pulling all the movies out, emptying the silverware drawer, etc. But this past week he has become really sneaky. The other day, I was doing the dishes and noticed how quiet it was. I walked in the back room to find Owen totally frozen in place, holding the cornstarch that I had been using as baby powder in his hands. Most of it was on the floor, his shoes, and all over his clothes. I cracked up as soon as I saw him, because he was holding totally still - he knew that whatever he had done was wrong, but wasn't about to come tell me... he was still in the process of figuring it out himself. A few days after that, I came out after blow drying my hair to find that he had scooted a kitchen chair over, climbed up on it, and emptied the salt shaker in a big pile. He was in the same frozen position as with the cornstarch... it was so funny.

As stressful as this stage is (I never know what he'll get into... in fact, I don't think I know fully what he's capable of getting in to - he surprises me every day), I love it! I love finding him in the goofiest positions, contemplating what to do next. I love all the surprises. I love all the words that he comes up with to explain to me what he's doing. Basically, I love my life and I love my little buddy. I can't believe he's already so big and talking to me all day long. Every time I look back at pictures of him, I miss the baby he is in each picture, at each stage and every age, but at the same time, I'm loving watching him grow and learn new things and become his own little person.

Here's Owen wearing his favorite hat, with his favorite cup,
wrapped up in his favorite blanket. Love this kid.

Peek-a-boo! (or pee-boo, as Owen says)

Owen + peanut butter and jelly sandwich = true love.

After Matt surprised him with a crib full of balloons.

Wearing mom's apron. He loves finding clothing of ours
(shoes, coats, hats, socks, you name it) and wearing it around the house.

With the duckies that he loves.

Craftiness...

I started making an advent calendar at the beginning of last November... but with my sewing/crafting time taken up by making my bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding, I didn't get around to finishing it until a couple weeks ago. It took a lot of time - I decided to hand-sew around all of my pieces - but I'm really happy with how it turned out. I also got together with some of the girls in my ward to make a quick little 'crayon roll' a couple days ago that I think is pretty darn cute. Both of these ideas came from my friend Jenn, who is the craft inspiration for all the girls that live in my ward.

I covered the frame in batting and fabric. Each number is a pocket to hold one of the pieces. The background is a sheet of metal with fabric ironed on with iron-on adhesive paper.

Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. I think he looks like a jelly bean. You can see the hand-sewing I did on each piece.

My three wise men. The black-haired one kind of looks like Hagrid, which bugs me, but not enough that I want to go back and fix him. :)

One of the wisemen in the pockets. I sewed around the numbers, too.

Angels and the star. Each of the pieces is mounted on felt and has a magnet glued to the back so it sticks to the sheet metal.

Sheep, a shepherd, and a cow. Aren't the animals cute?

Camels. These are my favorites of the animals.

Here's the crayon roll.

...and the inside. Way cute than a cardboard box or a plastic bag, don't you think? Perfect for keeping Owen quiet at church.

My next project will be finishing up the wall hangings that I started for Owen's room a year ago (I know.... so much procrastinating). I'm excited!