Matheson Family Christmas Letter, 2011

Holy cannoli! Can anyone believe it’s almost 2012? I feel like I’m in that montage in old-school movies where the digits on the clock keep flipping faster and faster. 2011 has been the most whirlwind year in the 4-year Matheson saga to date. January found us up to our elbows in apartments to manage, 8^th & 9^th graders to teach, theses to write, and babies soon to arrive, and it hasn’t slowed down since. Dear little Luke made his entrance March 25^th, four days after Scott turned in his first full draft of the thesis beast and three weeks after my students’ state writing exams (not equivalent feats, mind you, but both red-letter days in our house). All three events turned out swimmingly: After weeks of grueling revision, Scott passed his thesis defense with flying colors and graduated with his master’s degree in Geography in June; 96% of my students passed their exams; and Luke is basically the best baby born in the history of mankind. Scott did an excellent job of Mr. Mom duties for a month while I finished out the school year post-maternity leave, and Luke did an excellent job of learning how to both smile and poop (probably not unrelated). Shortly thereafter we packed up and got out of Dodge, landing in St. Louis, Missouri right at the beginning of the second-worst heat wave in the state’s recorded history. We've spent the last few months getting to know the city and plotting little side trips to nearby sites like Nauvoo and Kansas City. In fact, Luke has turned into a regular travel bum lately; since moving we’ve been lucky enough to fly to Colorado for a family reunion, to Utah for Uncle Matthew & Aunt Michelle’s wedding, and to Texas for lil’ Cousin Maisie’s blessing. Luke will add Louisiana (and a handful of states in between) to his travelogue for Christmas this year—our fingers are crossed that he’s as good in the car as he is in the air.

Happy kiddo, even on the plane.

Scott has started his real-life grownup job here in St. Louis making maps for the government. Scott says he really loves what he does—it’s a desk job working at the computer all day, but it’s interesting work that he enjoys, his coworkers are great, and he can use three paid hours to exercise every week at the little gym they have on-site. Work keeps him busy enough to be sure, but his church calling as the branch mission leader really has him hopping. He spends several hours a week shuttling the four elders assigned to our branch for some of their visits and appointments, corralling the elders’ quorum to come along, tracking new members and investigators that visit the branch and helping lost sheep get back to church, hosting meetings and attending meetings and reporting on those meetings at other meetings, and teaching the Gospel Principles class on Sundays. Whew! Despite juggling so many other demands, Scott still makes time to be an awesome dad. He’s Luke’s go-to guy for baths, can get him to eat even the grossest baby food, makes him laugh until he squeaks with neck tickles, and somehow never fails to be on hand to change the very nastiest diaper of the day.

Very best buddies!

I am loving life as a stay-at-home- and go-on-walks-mom. It’s definitely been a change of scenery going from teaching middle school full-time to just being buddies with Luke, but he’s somehow just as much fun—and work—as 180 teenagers (and just as smelly). I’ve finally started making real headway into my never-ending list of projects I want to try, from making lamps for the kitchen & office, to reupholstering the dining room chairs, to organizing and labeling all the closets & storage stuff (still a work in progress, but we’re down to the last two boxes!), to the latest week’s triumph of bulk cooking—7 quarts of baby food, 24 cups of granola, 9 dozen mini-muffins, and 35 breakfast burritos later and our freezer is fit to burst. [Scott gets the Best Husband of the Year (/Decade/Century) Award for continually coming to my rescue to dig me out of the mountains of dishes left in my wake.] There’s always something to fix (splintering kitchen chairs, expired car registration, 3 hungry Mathesons at 6:00 PM) and never enough of Luke’s naptimes to fix it, so I haven’t found time to be bored yet. The weekends up the ante for us a little bit since I get to teach the 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old Primary kids at church: Scott and I have worked out a Sunday system where Luke gets passed back and forth between Mom and Dad every 45 minutes or so from about 8 AM until 2 PM, depending on what meetings are scheduled and which of us is teaching when. We haven’t found a good solution yet for the 3^rd Sunday each month, when I’m supposed to do Sharing Time at the same time that Scott teaches Gospel Principles . . . if anyone has figured out the trick to being in two places at once, feel free to let us know in the comments.

See that gleam in his eye? It means he's about to cause a huge mess.

Luke is a darling little monster, as always. He’s developing brilliantly and doing all the things good babies do, like grabbing the mail out of our hands and eating it and looking startled when he farts in the bath. He doesn’t have any teeth at press time, but we’ve gotten so attached to his gummy little grin that it’s hard to think of him any other way. He’s on the verge of more mobility than ever, but he’s not quite there yet—he rolls like a pill bug and can scoot backwards on his tummy, but shifting out of reverse still eludes him (much to his dismay). Consequently, his wiggles are reaching terminal velocity. He’s at the stage where he’ll lunge out of your arms to grab at passing light switches, mirrors, plants, strangers’ hair, you name it. It will be both a relief and a nightmare once he can really get around on his own. In the meantime, he’s been practicing for his gig as a studio audience member with the most ridiculous fake little laugh ("Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha, ha. Ha."), as well as perfecting his owl sounds in any echo-y room. His first recognizable “word” was “WOW” (or, more specifically, “Wowowowowowow”); he still just laughs at me when I try to get him to say “mama.” (It’s been long enough now that I’m starting to wonder if he really does think it’s funny, or if it’s just his personal little prank he likes to pull on me—“You think I’m going to say that? How droll.”) We just can’t get enough of him and his funny sounds and squishy cheeks.

Wait, which cheeks did you think we were talking about?

We love you all and miss you like crazy! Come see us anytime you find yourself in the area (or any of the nether regions of the South-slash-Midwest). Merry Christmas! And happy New Year, President's Day, Valentine's Day, Shrove Tuesday, and any other holiday and/or festive event until we see you next.

Love,

Cathryn, Scott, and Luke

Fourth of July

Even though we had been in Missouri for less than a week and Scott had to be at work the next day, we decided to take a break from unpacking on the Fourth of July and go check out the sights & sounds downtown.

One thing we've loved the most about St. Louis so far has been the parks. The city (and the little cities in the suburbs where we live) work hard to keep the parks clean and safe and beautiful. There are zillions of little parks all over the place and also some pretty amazing big ones. Our first taste was the Jefferson Expansion Memorial park, also known as the home of the Gateway Arch.

Tree-lined paths...the shade sure was a nice break from the heat.

"Okay, Dad, let's go! I'm ready to see all the things!"

"Hmm. On second thought, I think I'll just take a nap."

We feel pretty cool to live in a city with a metro system. We've visited several big cities that have them, but St. Louis is the first place where we can ride like locals. It's not a very big system, but there's something about zipping around in underground trains that just makes Trax in Utah seem like chump change. We're lucky that we've got two stops within a 20-minute walk from our house--it makes getting downtown for big events super easy.

The arch viewed from the metro station

Hard to see, but that's the Mississippi seen from the
Metro. It was my first time seeing the river since we
got here!

Luke is a metro-riding champ. Makes it even more fun
that his fare is free :)

This is our closest metro stop. There are these weirdly
beautiful light sculptures hanging on both sides of
the platform that Luke loves to watch. 

St. Louis puts on quite the show for the Fourth. "Fair St. Louis" means 4 days of concerts, air shows, food, carnival rides, and fireworks, all under the arch. (Well, not totally under the arch--we kept hoping that the stunt pilots at the air show would fly through the arch, but despite getting close, none of them ever did.) The biggest show of all was the fireworks on the night of the Fourth.

We were a little apprehensive about taking Luke to see his first fireworks, but he LOVED them! He stared and stared and smiled his head off once they were done.

The one time in his life when there's something more
interesting to ogle than the camera. 

This face KILLS me! He looks scared, but he wasn't
fussing at all.

"Ooh! So pretty!"

The show was pretty impressive--certainly the longest one I've ever seen. Even though it finished really late, we decided to wait around for a while afterward in the hopes that the crowd would die down. I guess it did, but there were approximately 1.1 zillion people all trying to ride the metro, so it was crazy crowded anyway. We did get to cut to the front of the line, though, because strollers have to use the handicapped entrance. :-) Luke had quite the hissy fit on the ride home, but it had been a long, hot day and it was super late so I can't say I blame him. We were glad to be home that night, but also glad we got to see such a spectacle!

Just chillin' with dad after the show

Hooray for St. Louis!

Flashback: Moving to St. Louis

The very first adventure we had concerning St. Louis was just getting there. My parents are incredibly awesome and offered to drive our car out, so we lucky ducks got to fly instead of driving 1400 miles with a 3-month-old. Luke was pretty excited about his first flight:

The seat is so big and he is so tiny! (We held him,
of course.)

Besides watching all the people around him, Luke was pretty entertained for a while
with his squeaky puppy bib (it really squeaks if you squeeze it).

He was a little angel on both flights (we connected through Dallas, I think). We didn't pay for a seat for him, but we magically got a row to ourselves both times anyway: On one flight there were only 5 seats in a row, so we just picked seats on the 2-person side of the aisle; on the other flight, we booked the aisle and the window in the hopes that the middle seat would be the last one chosen by someone flying alone. Totally worked!

Daddy showing Luke the runway as we land 

Luke was a trooper about us unpacking, too. He was just barely getting old enough that he could entertain himself for a few minutes (he had just discovered his feet the week before), which made our work so much easier. I caught him talking to himself and the rabbit for a few minutes one day:

It's hard work laying around while everyone else unpacks, though.

Moving so far away from our friends and family (and the only state I've ever lived, in my case) has certainly been hard at times, but we are so spoiled to be in an awesome branch with lots of other BYU expatriates. More than a dozen people showed up to help us move all of our stuff in (which represents probably a third of the branch's active male membership!). Two days after we moved in, we were invited to an informal get-together hosted by a bunch of the ex-Utah folk. Everyone was (and has been since!) so kind & welcoming.

It took a good 3 weeks, but we finally got everything unpacked & all settled in. Just in case you're super curious, here's a choppy video tour of our new place.