Merry Christmas

WOW it saddens me that Christmas has passed but brings such a smile to my face in recalling what an amazing weekend we had.  Someone told us that twenty years ago they don't remember the presents they received but the memories that they made with family and friends.  We made some incredible memories beginning with taking Reece to his first Lions game on Christmas Eve then onto a wonderful morning and day with family on Christmas.  Several of our family are out of town including Kristen in France so we were able to Skype with them so they were right with us in all the excitement.

Let me not forget to mention the Matthews' were completely spoiled by Santa this year!!

Looks like Santa came!!

This is just what I wanted

Next stop - Church, then Nana and Papa's for more presents and dinner!!

 Time to hit the slopes

 Brady knows just what to do

Even Kristen and Manu joined in on the fun in France 

 Uncle Scott deep frying our turkey dinner.  Santa was so excited he blew over:)

Time for a little football

And of course one of our many new Lego packs 

WHEW maybe exhale but only for a second!!

Our North Pole Party

It couldn't come soon enough, today was our North Pole Party.  A great friend called one day and said "Lindsay you have to do this", she found this party on another blog (KelleHampton.com).  So our project began.  What an amazing evening it turned out to be.  It truly captured the Christmas spirit from the eyes of a child.  The pictures capture it best!

These are a few pictures before the kids arrived for the party.

As the sun went down the North Pole transformed....

Then the moment Reece had been waiting for ALL DAY, his friends arrived!

Santa wrote us a special note letting us know he lost some things last year in Reece's neighborhood so we went on a hunt looking for all the important things he needs to deliver presents this year, PHEW just in the nick of time!  ( Santa even sent an Elf to help us look for his belonging, especially those glasses.  The Elf then took a big box back to the North Pole with her.)  

There was only one thing left to do - prepare our reindeer food so Santa's reindeer know how to find our house!

It truly was a magical night, as captured by Reece's face when the Elf headed back to the North Pole

Getting in the spirit of things...

Tomorrow is Reece's Christmas party at school so I decided to make Santa hats I found on Pinterest.

Little did I know how easy they would be to make.  I did have to use a store bought miniature brownie because Reece has a severe peanut allergy in his room, so his teacher always needs to have box labels.  However I did make homemade buttercream frosting simply using a 16 ounce bag of powder sugar, 1 stick of crisco, 1 tablespoon of vanilla, and probably 4 tablespoons of milk.  

Then I cut the tops off the strawberries and placed them onto of the frosted brownie.

To finish them off I added a dollop of frosting for Santa's top of his hat (Thanks Gregg for the suggestion)

Our finished product...

I can't wait to for the kids to enjoy them tomorrow!

Time is FLYING by!!

I know we say this all the time but it is so hard to believe that it is December already.  It feels like last week that we were building Reece up for meeting his Kindergarten teacher.  Today he got his first report card.  Of course being his parents, we think he is doing amazing with his academic growth but to have the teacher grade him on his progress was a bit nerve-racking.  His teacher warned the class that it is okay for children to score 1 and 2, as they are just learning and will need improvement still. Well, Reece assured us yesterday as soon as he got in the car he will be getting 3's and 4's!  (The grades are on a scale of 1 - 4 with 4 being the highest).  Well as usually Reece was right!!!  Reece's report card shows he is doing awesome.

We can only hope this continues for the next 16 years + of school.  

It is today I recall something my parents always told me when it came to our report cards " sure grades are important but if you put forth your best effort, the grades are secondary!"  This is what excites us the most about Reece- his effort and excitement to learn new things everyday.

As Reece told us "looks like I will be getting everything I asked Johnny for Christmas!"

Football Sunday

Sunday now only means one thing in the Matthews house - football!  Well actually any day of the week now means football.  Not only does Reece have every teams record memorized, he insists on playing it any time of day he is home!!

So in honor of the Lions playing the Vikings today we had some football food.  We started off with a hot Caprese dip.  It was simply to make.  I used Roma tomatoes, basil, and fresh mozzarella cheese.  It was baked on 375 degrees for 15 minutes then put on broil for 2 mins just to brown up the top.  We served it with Triscuits.

After the dip Gregg grilled wings.  They were awesome!

The best part of our Sunday football so far has been the Lions pulling out a win!  As Reece said " I told you they were going to win.  All they needed to do was have a fumble!"

 ( On the one yard line)

So I guess this is my new reality at least until February, not that Gregg or I are complaining :)

Getting into the spirit of things...

Wow were has the year gone!?!  It is hard to believe we are already into December and preparing for Christmas.  It has been a while since we posted about Reece but he has been very busy.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We spent a lot of time talking about how thankful and grateful we are for the things in our life.  Reece says he is thankful for his friends and family:)  Having never been a kid who was real mushy he has no problem sharing his emotions and love now!  We love every minute of it!
Just this past week we headed downtown to Milford to welcome Santa.  I wish I was able to capture the look on Reece's face when Santa stepped out of the fire truck, pure amazement!  That was as close as he wanted to get "Maybe I talk to Santa another day, okay!?!"  Not much has changed there.

We have also been busy getting the holiday decorations out and assembled.  Reece seems to really be enjoying it all so much more this year and wants to help with ALL of it.  He asks once a day when we are going to get our Christmas tree, so that is next on our list!

Favorite project so far

A few weeks ago the girls got together for a Friday night Pinterest party. We were making ornament wreaths.  This project was a bit time consuming but after some cocktails and appetizers our creativity came out.

We started with a metal hanger and shaped it into a circle. ( Next time I would be sure to spend a little more time at making the circle this proved to be rather important in the final product.  We then glued all the ornament tops to the ornaments, using a hot glue gun.  From there we began to put the ornaments onto the hanger. We had to obviously unhook the hanger so both ends were open. The ornaments used were different sizes, as well as textures.  After a few attempts at loading them onto the wire we decided it would look best to alternate the shapes, colors, and textures.  Once the wreath was full we closed up the circle. Each of us hung our wreaths to let the ornaments settle into place.  At that point we used the hot glue gun to fill in any holes.

 All our hard work =

A little something new

So after much consideration we have decided to make a few updates to our blog.  As much as we love highlighting all of Reeces' adventures, we wanted to somehow also include our adventures as a family. This is obviously a work in progress, as I definitely lack the patience and time to really spend in figuring this whole blogging thing out.  But while I do I certainly can post and upload pictures.
One of my new favorite hobbies is Pinterest.  I must be rubbing off on the entire family because all three of us are now completing Pinterest projects (I'll be honest most have required a lot of pressure on my part but once I get them convinced it is a fun activity to complete as a family!)

Today we have been working on Reindeer footprints.  Overall is has been a pretty easy project and will be a great keepsake for the holidays!  I used a small canvas but really someone could use any size.  The supplies were minimal ( a blank canvas, brown, black, red and blue paint, and a few paint brushes)

I then painted Reece's foot, while he giggled like crazy because "it tickles so bad".  Gregg stood him up, then he stepped right on the canvas, applying a little pressure.  WOW we got a great print!

I then repeated the same process for the other reindeer.

After letting the footprints completely dry Reece painted on the red noses, while I did the antlers, and eyes.

Our finished product.....

Trying....

So I have to admit, I have been completely negligent on posting new stuff. I have had such great intentions of adding recipes, and pintrest projects the girls and I have done.  Yet it has been a whirl and just trying to figure out which side I am going to take a breath on.  In the meantime I have a child growing up faster than I can even blink.  Two months ago Reece was hysterically crying grabbing onto to my leg not to leave at kindergarten drop off.  Starting Tuesday, Reece and his best buddy were dropped off in the school circle.  I am not sure if Kelly, Aiden's mom, or myself was more surprised.  The boys walked in like they owned the school.  It is little moments like this which make me realize I need to step back sometimes and enjoy.  For the first five years of Reece's life I was focused on his milestones.  Now they pass me by so quickly because all I can focus on is getting through my classes, my tests, and papers.  I said to Gregg, I feel like I wanted something so bad and now that I am working to achieve it I question if it really what I want at all!?!  Of course I realize this is temporary.

Tonight I was able to put all the college stuff aside and go to Reece's first soccer game.  He could not have been more excited.  He is playing in a six week introduction league with other K thru 1st graders.  The indoor arena is filled with parents and kids just trying to find their way in the game of soccer.  Not much to my surprise Reece went after it.  He is definitely not the biggest kid on the time or the fastest yet he hustled after every ball.  When he was allowed a water break, and came over to us red faced, huffing and puffing struggling to get a sentence in therefore he just nodded his head and gave us two thumbs up, then raced back on the field.  In this moment I am able to forget about my papers and finals.  This is what it is all about!!  I am incredible thankful for being Reece's mom and having such a supportive husband!

 ( As you can here from the video, it is tough not to say much from the sidelines.  The coaches have asked several times to not coach from the sideline.  Despite my voice in the videos believe it or not Gregg struggled with this.  He said he can put himself back to being on the field and looking over seeing his Mom  !  It's tough to just be a spectator , honestly not sure if we can work on this.  We are Reece's biggest fans!!!)