Beef

When I was 15, I made a decision. I vowed never to eat another hamburger. This is purely a mental thing. It's hard to explain. It's just something I decided for myself after eating a hamburger at Burger King one day. In the 15 years since that time, I've rarely eaten hamburger meat or any red meat for that matter.

On Christmas Eve, I decided to take a HUGE risk and stop and In-N-Out with my mom in American Fork. At first we were just going to get fries. Upon seeing the ginormous line for the drive through, I decided what the heck, take the plunge. Here is the video as evidence:




I know, very attractive!

I have only had one burger since, at In-N-Out in Orem with my friend Mandy last month. Don't worry people, I am not totally sold on this burger business. Fortunately, In and Out puts so many toppings on and the patty is so thin, I can barely taste the meat.

1 Month Old!

This picture was taken today. He is becoming so much more alert.

Time flies! It's hard to believe our little guy has been with us over a month now. I took Matthew to the doctor on Thursday and we found out he is a big, strong, healthy boy. He weighed in at 11 pounds 11 ounces and measured 23 inches. 90th percentile on both weight and height and 50th percentile for head circumference. We are headed out to Utah on Wednesday, the 23rd, for the holidays and I figure he should be about 12 pounds then. This means I have a 5 week old the size of a 3 month old! It makes for easier packing. I figure I will just wash and pack his 3-6 month clothes since he is actually at the weight and height for that size. I can't believe it. My baby boy is growing way too fast.

Note: Matt had an idea to take a picture of Matthew every day of his life for the first year. Afterward, we will make a movie showing each day and the progression of change. I thought it would be a good idea to do it on the Boppy so that there is an constant in the pictures to measure his growth by. Hence all the pictures of our sweet little guy on the Boppy :)

Matthew on the day of his 1 month check up.

I decided to dress him in 3-6 months clothes the day after his appointment, just to see how they look. The pants are a tad big in the waist and a little long, but other than that he is filling them out quite well. I hope he stays in this size for a while!

Dress Up

Mommy loves to play dress up. Matthew doesn't. He hates having his clothes changed. His little arms are so stiff and he just cries and cries. I had to catch him while he was sleeping to get this little sweater on him.

He LOVES being in the bath, but dreads getting out and having to get dressed.

Daddy bathing baby Matthew.

Mommy drying him off.

Look who came to visit!

Grandpa Shipley called us this morning to let us know he'd be stopping by in the evening to say hello and give us all a big hug. He had to come out to Washington D.C. for business for a few days. We were so excited to see him and have him meet Matthew for the first time. He was actually in town the day I went into labor. My water broke an hour after his plane took off. So, he was back out exactly a month later to meet Matthew. It was so fun to watch him interact with Matthew. He is so good with babies. He lulled Matthew right to sleep and put him down in his crib. Only problem was he woke up an hour later, but gave us enough time to play a game of Settlers :) My dad has VERY strong genes. So many of the Shipley babies look just like their grandpa. I was amazed looking at the picture of the two of them and noticing that Matthew's coloring matches grandpa's.

First Airplane Ride

All ready for my first airplane ride. Dressed up in my "Little Pilot" outfit.
So excited for my first big trip!

We took a quick trip to Boston. It was quite the adventure. The week Matthew was born, Matt offered to take a hearing in Boston so that I could come and bring the baby to visit our friends Alisa and Eric. Matt has earned enough flights with Southwest that I can fly for free with him anywhere he goes. Matt was flying back from Louisville, Kentucky and didn't have enough time to come up to the house and get us and go back to the airport, so my sweet friend, Donna, offered to drive Matthew and I to the airport. Just before leaving, I decided to see if we needed any documents for the baby. I found out that Southwest requires you to bring the baby's birth certificate to prove that he is at least 2 weeks and less than 2 years old and also to prove that you aren't trying to fly away with someone else's child. Well, this was a problem because we had to send the birth certificate back as they had forgotten to put the "IV" after MKS on the certificate. After lots of phone calls and inquiry, Matt found out that we would be okay if we had an immunization record from the pediatrician. Luckily I planned an extra 30 minutes to get to the airport, so Donna drove us by the pediatrician to pick the paper up.

When we arrived at the airport, we found out our flight was delayed 50 minutes. There was a big snow storm in Boston that day and the airplane coming in was late. It seemed as if everyone at the airport was flabbergasted that we were taking a 3 week old on an airplane. We were nervous about it too, but hoping all would go well. After getting through security and waiting for daddy to get out of the bathroom so that we could find a decent place to feed the baby, we got onto the airplane only to find out that our flight was delayed another 90 minutes!!! So much for hanging out with Alisa and Eric that night. I was regretting coming, but after pondering the thought of going back home only to have to turn around to pick Matt back up the following night at the airport, decided to stick it out. Luckily, Matthew fell asleep. When we finally took off I was so worried about making sure Matthew was sucking on his pacifier that I put it in his mouth and kept moving it around to get him to suck. I wasn't sure if he was sleeping if his ears would be okay and didn't want to take any chances. After landing, we waited for the Dollar Rental Car shuttle to take us to get our car. We watched as 3 or 4 shuttles passed from every other rental company before Dollar's shuttle came by. Talk about bad luck! We didn't get to our hotel until almost 11 p.m. Side note: we realized it would be much easier to check the car seat instead of taking it to the gate.

When we checked in, the guy told Matt there would be a crib in our room. We got to the room and there was no crib. They finally brought the crib, but it looked pretty scary - very institutional. I opted to let Matthew sleep in his car seat and then near me in the double bed after he got up the first time. Well, we did get to see Alisa and her big boy, Tyler. Ty is 7 months old and in 18 month clothes! He is such a cutie! It was so fun to see Alisa. We went and had Thai food which I haven't had for so long as Matt is not a fan. Then we went back to her house. Eric was home for lunch and Matt pulled up just after we did with canolis from Mike's Pastry! We had a great visit (despite Matthew's fussiness) and Alisa even let me take a much needed nap. Matt and I went to Boston 2 weeks after Ty was born, so it was fun to be able to bring Matthew out at about the same age.

The trip back, we checked the car seat and made it to our gate to find out we were delayed 50 minutes. I guess you just have to expect lots of delays in the winter. We were grateful to make it home safely and agreed that the next trip would be longer than 1 day, but that it was worth the trip to see the Stoddards and to know what to expect before heading out to Utah for Christmas.

Alisa and me with our boys in front of their gorgeous Christmas tree. These guys will be good friends.
Matt and Alisa taking care of the babies.

Ty showing off his mad jumping skills!