Best of 2008

1. Jared and Clarissa had the opportunity to be in the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the High School. The practice and performance schedule was hectic, but it was well worth the memories, and we still have all the songs memorized, even Krystal.

2. After a year of being on the market, our house in Texas finally sold. We paid off all our debts except for our current mortgage, including our student loans. We were so excited to finally have some money to buy groceries and decided that our first "meal" in celebration would be the biggest brownie sundae ever!
3. Chris finally got his riding lawn mower, a John Deere. He spent many a Saturday this year giving the kids rides while he mowed our yard.

4. Our vacation to the Pennsylvania was most memorable. From seeing Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, to hiking in the Poconos Mountains, to taking a tour of the Hershey factory, we had a fun-filled week together as a family.

5. We really enjoyed our garden this year. It has been several years since we'd been able to have a garden between living in Texas and living in temporary housing in Virginia. The garden kept us busy from shoveling dirt, to building garden boxes, to planting seeds, to harvesting the food, to eating the food and canning it.

6. Swimming at the Martins. We are so grateful for neighbors who have a pool and share it with us any time of any day. We spent the fourth of July with them, swimming, playing games and watching fireworks.

7. After living in Southwest Virginia for two years and looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains every day, we finally drove to the Blue Ridge Parkway and went hiking. It was beautiful and we enjoyed being together.

8. We enjoyed numerous cookouts at our backyard firepit. Usually coupled with some Archery practice. We decided to start archery after some target practice in the Poconos. Jared and Chris both got bows this year.

9. A quick trip to Washington D.C. turned out to be a great experience. Chris and Jen wanted to go to the D.C. temple so the kids tagged along. We went up a day early to go into downtown D.C. to the Art Museum. We all enjoyed seeing the Rembrandts, Vermeers, and DaVinci.

10. The kids each had exciting things happen this year. Jared received his Wolf badge for Cub Scouts and began learning to play the piano. Clarissa got glasses, began learning the piano, and started taking horsebackriding lessons. Krystal started preschool at home with some of her friends. Amber has learned to talk and continues to surprise us with new words everyday, her latest - Right Now!

11. We always enjoy dressing up for Halloween. This year we did the Peter Pan theme. We missed our Captian Hook for the ward party (He was working in Illinois), but were glad that he was able to make it back home for Halloween night.

12. Our final best memory for 2008 is sledding and ice skating in Illinois. We had such a good time being with Chris while he worked in Illinois. We enjoyed the winter weather, almost as much as we enjoyed coming back to Virginia for some sunshine.

Happy 2nd Birthday Amber!

Our baby is 2! It's really hard to believe that this much time has gone by, but it's been fun. Amber at 4 months old is just sweet and happy.At 18 months old, Amber has become our family clown.

Don't let that sweet face fool you, she's full of spirit!

See! This is one of Amber's favorite funny faces. She gets us all in stiches with this one every time.

Amber wants to be like her big sisters. Not old enough to ride real horses yet, she's succumbed to taking her rocking horse out for a ride.

Can you say bouffant? At 2 years of age, Amber finally has enough hair to match her hair-raising personality. We love you Amber. We love laughing at you, and with you. Here's to a life time of laughs. Thank you for bringing so much joy into our lives.

Merry Christmas!

We are grateful for this time of year to reflect on all the blessings that we have in our lives. We hope that this Christmas Day finds all our families and friends happy and healthy. We are looking forward to the New Year and all the adventures that four busy children bring into our lives. We are grateful for our Savior and His sacrifice for us so that we may live such enjoyable lives together as a family. Here's to a great 2008. Merry Christmas.

Back from hiatus

After a month of being a single Mom while Chris worked in Illinois, the kids and I decided to join him there for the month of December and take advantage of that opportunity to visit our good friend's, the Stewarts. Just after Thanksgiving, we packed up the kids, the dog, and the car and headed North. As soon as we hit the Illinois border on Sunday, Nov. 30th, the girls asked, "Are we at the North Pole?" because we found that it was snowing! So naturally the kids spent the next couple of days sledding, making snowangels, eating snow and getting really cold. Amber in the penguin sled at the Stewart's house.

Jared and Dayn spent hours outside every day they could. They wouldn't come in until after dark, when we finally made them.

On Friday, we warmed up at the hotel hot tub.

We spent our days at the Stewart's house doing our schoolwork, but on the weekends we had fun with Dad. Saturday, Dec. 13th we surprised Jared with ice skating (he had been wanting to go the whole time we had been there). It took everyone a little while to get used to the ice, but it was fun.

Sunday, the 14th we had dinner over at our friend's, the Stonehockers.

It snowed a lot while we were there. Most mornings it took about 20 minutes just to get the suburban de-iced. One morning we couldn't get any of the doors open because they were frozen shut, we had to crawl in from the back. Diesel loved running around in the snow.

On Friday, the 19th, Chris and I watched the Stewart's four kids while they went out for their Anniversary. We had a lot of fun (and messiness) making chocolate covered pretzels.

Sunday, the 21st, church was cancelled because the windchill was -35 degrees. We still got dressed up and took advantage of the fireplace in our hotel room for a Christmas photo shoot.

That evening, the kids put on a production of The Nativity. They did all the casting and costumes themselves. After three weeks of spending every day together, they are all really good friends.

On Monday, the 22nd and with the temperature at -6 degrees, we loaded up the Suburban with all our stuff including all the Christmas presents we bought while we were there and headed back home. Whether it was passing by steel mills in Gary, Indiana - horse pastures and stables in Lexington, Kentucky - or coal refineries in Charleston, West Virginia, we finally made it back home and were able to add three more states to our list of States we've visited.

Now that our hiatus is over, it's time to get back into the swing of things here at home.

Stars and Spots?

Tonight at dinner Krystal was singing a song from Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and in the middle of it she broke into this..." I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands...Dalmation." Then she burst into laughter as she realized her mistake and Clarissa reminded her that it's One Nation, not Dalmation. So cute!

Christmas Tag

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper with stamped gift tags (except for this year).
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real if we're going to be home the whole month of Dec., otherwise, artificial.
3. When do you put up the tree? Whenever I find the time.
4. When do you take the tree down? Same as No. 3
5. Do you like eggnog? Love it! Cold or Hot, have even made it from scratch.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Keyboard - I still have it. What makes it my favorite is that I never asked for it, my parents just seemed to know that I wanted it.
7. Hardest person to buy for? Chris, he never likes anything I pick out. I don't buy for him anymore.
8. Easiest person to buy for? Close friends.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Several, my favorites are the two that my mom has made for me.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Try to mail.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Corduroy pants.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It is a little known secret that I don't like Christmas movies. Actually I detest most of them, the only ones I tolerate are Home Alone and Home Alone II.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually some time in December. Chris and I always do Christmas shopping on my birthday (16th).
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't think so.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Buried cherry chocolate cookies (the only way I'll eat maraschino cherries).
16. Lights on the tree? White lights and rose lights.
17. Favorite Christmas song? "O Holy Night" especially when sung by Celine Dion or my friend Vicki.
18. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? If I'm singing the song I can.
19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel, gold and white with lights.
20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? If grandma sends pj's we open those Christmas Eve, everything else, Christmas morning.
21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The cold weather! Hands down!
22. What theme or color are you using? Most people know I LOVE red. I love to wear red, decorate with red, have the red KitchenAid and everything to match in red. The only time I don't like red, is when decorating for Christmas. For Christmas, it's Burgundy and Gold with a Victorian flair.
23. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Ham and Sweet Potatoes.

I guess the idea of a tag is to tag others, but if you're like me and you feel guilty if you don't have time to respond to a tag, don't, but do if you want to, I'd love to see you're answers.

Winter Wonderland (in November?)

We've been shocked at how early the stores have begun Christmas displays, it's actually very confusing to the younger kids. Every time we walk past that Christmas tree all decked out in basketball sized bulbs, Krystal says,"Is today Christmas Mommy?" My usual response, "Not until after Thanksgiving, then we can start thinking about Christmas." But apparently Mother Nature has a contract with the marketing companies because November 18, we wake up to this! Our house in the snow.

Part of the backyard in the snow.

Eskimo Amber in the snow.

Clarissa, Krystal, and their friend Sariah, frozen, but happy!

Jared's attempt at the biggest snowman our family has ever built. Unfortunately the snow melted pretty quickly so the snowman will have to wait until the next snowfall for the rest of his body.

Caps for Sale

For school on Monday, we read "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina. Cute story, plus it inspired all sorts of fun activities. We pulled out all our caps and hats and the kids tried to see how many they could get on their head at one time. Then we did some math activities for all ages, ranging from sorting the hats in colors, estimating how many there were of each, graphing how many of each to more compicated equations involving money and multiplication.

Isn't she cute?!

Clarissa got glasses! For a while, I've suspected that she needed them. She was straining to read words in a book and couldn't read from across the room when I write on the white board. Turns out, it's a stigmatism. We picked up her glasses on Saturday, she wore them to church and on Monday for school work. She's still getting used to them. She chose a purple pair.

And a pink pair. I find it interesting that she didn't smile much for the pictures, I think she felt like she was hiding behind her glasses. It'll take some time I guess before they are a part of her.

A busy Halloween

Now that I finally got the costumes washed and put away, I can post Halloween pictures. Our Halloween began on Saturday, Oct. 25 with pumpkin carving and painting. Amber did not want to reach in her pumpkin to get out the seeds, but she did enjoy the painting part. The pumpkins came out really cute, but I forgot to take pictures, I was too busy roasting (and eating) the seeds. Saturday evening, Chris and I chaperoned for the youth dance. It was a costume dance, and it just so happened that two of the young women were dressed up as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, so we fit right in as Captian Hook and Wendy.

Here's an action picture of the Peter Pan clan. Sunday after church, Chris flew to Illinois for work, not to be back until Friday. We kept ourselves so busy we barely noticed he was gone until Wednesday when we all dressed up for trunk or treat at the church and didn't have our Captian Hook. It was a pretty hectic evening, so I didn't get any pictures.

Friday, Chris came home and we all dressed up and went to a Halloween party at our friends house and trick or treating in their neighborhood (our neighborhood consists of about 10 houses).

Chris is Captian Hook, I'm Wendy, Jared is Peter Pan, Clarissa is one of the mermaids, Krystal is Tinkerbell, and Amber is Tigerlily. We had a lot of fun making costumes, getting dressed up and got loads of candy!

Last, but not least. Jared played his first game of guitar hero. Our friend was so excited that she finally won a game of guitar hero, she said she'd play against Jared any time.

The rooms of a child's mind

Jared describes the way a child learns as thus: "It's like your mind is full of rooms. Each room holds information about different things. Every time you learn something new, it's like a little person goes around your mind trying to find a room to put it in. Sometimes there isn't a room that it will fit in, so you have to open a new door and put it in a new room."

The other day I was giving Krystal a bath and when I told her it was time to get out, she responded that she wasn't done playing "Water Wally." I had never heard of this game before and asked her about it, except that this time when she said "Water Wally" it sounded more like "Walter Raleigh." Being that we had recently studied Sir Walter Raleigh and the Roanoke colony, I thought she must surely mean Walter Raleigh. However when I said, "Do you mean Walter Raleigh?" she said, "No, Water Wally!" So I was left a little confused, but quickly forgot said incident. Until tonight.

Krystal's friend Janet came over to play. Janet took off new shoes at the door, getting ready to go play and all of a sudden up came the name "Water Wally" again. Clarissa says to me, "Mom, remember that guy we were learning about? These are his eyes (pointing to Janet's shoes). To my amazement, she was pointing to the eyes of WALL-E, the character from the movie (The movie my kids have not yet seen).

So, the detective in me says that upon hearing the name Walter Raleigh, that little person who lives in the mind of my children went searching for a room to put him in and finding that there was no room for Walter Raleigh, the person put Walter in the Water room (to be played with during bath time) and Raleigh in the WALL-E room (to be watched when Mom finally decides to get it from Netflix) and somehow came up with a new character of the mind: Water WALL-E.

It's moments like these that make me laugh and remember why I love being a mom.

You are invited to a Mattson family laundry party!

Saturday is the day when I do most of the laundry. You may have noticed that the last couple Saturdays we've been busy with other things. So, when I finally decided to tackle the mountain of stinking, filthy clothes that was taking over our bathroom - this is what I found. It's times like these when I call in the troops and invite them for a laundry party. Party hats are optional (Clarissa is wearing a fabulous purple laundry hat), but everyone is required to help sort clothes by color. Now, when I say color, I don't just mean lights and darks and in-betweens. We have a red pile, pink pile, orange pile, yellow pile...you get it. Before we sort, we always make a guess about which pile will win (have the most clothes). You'll be shocked and amazed I'm sure to know that it is always the pink pile that wins.:) Not only do I have a whole load of just pinks, this week there were actually two whole loads of pink clothes!

This last picture shows what my bed looked like towards the end of the day. Unfortunately, the clothes don't usually make it all the way to the dressers, but I do have nice neat piles of folded clothes all over my bedroom. At least until Amber decides to start knocking the piles over. Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy this stage of life that it will soon be over. So, when life gives you laundry - have a laundry party!

Jared is 9!

One of the things that Jared loves about our home here in Virginia is our fire pit. So it was no surprise when he wanted to have a cook-out birthday party. The day began with some archery practice, burning paper in the fire, and roasting hot dogs.

After a short hike and once every one was thoroughly cold, they headed back indoors to open presents.

We finished up with a camouflage birthday cake. It was a great party!!

Subways, Rembrandts, and Tulips

A couple weekends ago (October 10th &11th), we headed up to Washington D.C. on a multipurpose road trip. Chris and I went to the temple on Saturday, but on Friday we boarded the Metro and headed into downtown D.C. for some culture. We have been studying the colonization of America and for our history group projects, decided to study the settlement on New Amsterdam and the Dutch culture. This led Jared to a project on the 16th & 17th century Dutch artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer. So we decided to make a trip to the Gallery of Art while we were in D.C.

Here's Jared in front of a Vermeer (we both agreed that we like Vermeers paintings better than Rembrandt's, but the Rembrandts were bigger and there were more of them).

This is actually a seft portrait of Rembrandt (one of many), Jared liked this one the best.

We were also very lucky to see this painting. It is the only Leonardo DaVinci in the United States at this time.

Here's Jared giving his report on the Dutch artists, (notice he's talking about the same Vermeer that he got his picture in front of).

Here's Clarissa giving her report on tulips and their economic history in Holland, very interesting. At the height of the tulip mania, a bulb actually sold for the equivalent of $10,000!

Krystal did her part by dressing in a traditional Dutch dress.