Cowboy Brandon

Whats in a name?

Mike and I knew all along what we would be naming our baby if we have a girl... that was the easy decision. It will be Lucy Bianca Matusek, after Mike's Grandma Lucy Bianca Vona. What wasn't so easy for us to decide on was a boys name. So we sat down on Sunday and went through pages and pages online for names. Of all the thousands of names that we looked at the only name that seemed right was Zachary. The middle name came to us in a similar way. We have chosen a family name for both of our children and wanted to keep that tradition. We pulled out our PAF files to peruse all the family names available to us. Of all the family names that we could have chosen Abram just fit, it was perfect. Abram comes from my great great great Grandfather's name, Abram Rufus Moore, whose grave my family has not been able to locate yet. So here it is, Zachary Abram or Lucy Bianca.... dear baby what is your name? We find out on February 3rd at 12:40, and we can't wait!!!

The blessings of the Temple

Last Friday I was able to go up the Idaho Falls and attend a session at the temple. As I was getting ready that morning Kimball was kind of confused. He saw me dressed up and so he asked me "Mom, are we going to church today?" So I explained to him that I was going to the temple in Idaho Falls. My little boys brains started turning round and round, trying to wrap his mind around this. When ever he sees a picture of a temple, he always talks with us about me and Mike getting married there, we've never really talked about how we can serve in many ways in the temple, how many blessings are available to us there. So after thinking for a few seconds, he asks me "Mom, are you going to the temple to marry someone else?" I was taken back, and I took that opportunity to kneel down by his side and re-assure him that mommy was not going to marry someone new. I told him that I was going to the temple to serve someone who has passed on from this life, who can't receive the blessings of the temple otherwise. I explained that in the temple we learn many things about Heavenly Father's plan for us, and about our part in that plan.

I am grateful to have a temple only 45 minutes away, and that I can go there and take myself out of this world for a few hours. It is such a blessing to be able to serve others, and in so doing receive so much in return. I love the peace it brings into my life, how I can take the spirit of the temple home with me. The perspective that I gain through regular temple service is priceless, life would be even more difficult without this eternal perspective.

5 years and counting!

It was 5 years ago that I married the love of my life! On December 30th 2005, Mike and I were sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple.... These five years spent with him have taught me more than my previous 19 without him. We have gone through thick and thin together, been tried and tested, and we have come out of five years stronger and more in love than ever before! Just some pictures, for nostalgia...


Mike drew this on our white board on our Anniversary, I just love it when he does things like that! We celebrated our anniversary in several ways. After dropping Brandon off with Mor-Mor in the afternoon, Mike and I went to Applebee's for lunch. The appetizer and the drinks were enjoyable, but the main courses were disappointing to say the least. At least it was paid for on a gift card. After lunch we went shopping for dinner, and went to see RED in the cheap theater. It was an entertaining movie, it kept us laughing.
Mike and I made a gourmet dinner together. We had lamb chops with a balsamic reduction sauce, Bleu cheese asparagus, and Bruschetta toast... completing the meal was Martinelli's. To top off the meal, we made a blondie with maple sauce and ice cream, delicioso! Here is the table setup...
The complete meal...
Tiff enjoying the bruschetta....
Mike enjoying the lamb...
Last, is Dessert:)
Thanks Mike, for making me your bride... for coming over to borrow my vacuum, and not giving up on me when I turned down your proposal the first time. I love you with all my heart, I love every memory, even the hard times, I appreciate it all! It shaped our marriage, it defined our relationship, made us draw closer together. Here is to many more years!

Girls just want to have fun!

It is true, Girls do want to have fun, but that is not all we want! For these three, at the girls sleepover at my house, they just wanted their beauty rest! Megan, Kyla and Madison were plum tuckered out. Her is Meggy crashed out on the couch.

And Kyla and Madison sleeping soundly on the floor.


But Melissa and Jenna were still up at 11:30 getting manicures and pedicures...
Brianna was up still (you can see Daymi's foot as well) and they were both wanting to chit-chat and play games with the girls late at night.
We finally got to sleep at 12:30... that is except for Melissa. She left our house at 12:30 to go back to Mor-Mor's house for the night. However she didn't make it there until 2:30... she kinda got lost! As she was passing Wal-mart she decided "What the heck, I'll just go shopping while I'm lost" and so she did. Love you sis, sorry your phone was dead so you couldn't call someone for help:) The boys, Corey, Mike and Brandon crashed our party in the morning, but we made them wait until the very end to eat my homemade waffles.
This is my favorite pic from the girl's party, these three eating breakfast! Madison, Kyla, and Elena, too cute!
It was so fun to have a girls party, I have so many great memories going to girls parties in Idaho Falls with my cousins, at Marla's house, but mostly at Gwynn's house and Grandma's house. Hope you had lots of fun Bri, Jenna, Megan, Kyla, Elena, Abigail, Madison, Melissa, and Daymi!!!!

Tis the season...

We had a busy yet fun Christmas. Melissa and Wes and their four children arrived from Illinois on Friday, Christmas eve. They brought a stow away in their van, my dad! We were grateful that PaPa was able to come out for Christmas, what a blessing (especially for my mom!) We went over Friday afternoon to my mom's house, and got busy cooking. We made gingerbread cookies, spritz cookies, and sugar cookies. My mom had already made a batch of chocolate swirl caramels, and we also whipped up a large batch of BBQ Chex mix. Brandon got into some goodies, we had left the sprinkles on the counter and he had dumped them out and was in the process of eating them. Silly boy.


Later that night, Kimball and Brandon got into their pjs and shared a bowl of icecream with their Papa. The kiddos watched a movie and the adults got in a good board game or two. My mom bought some new games, and Guesstures was one of them, great game.

When we got home from Mor-Mors and Papa's house that night, we set some cookies and milk out for Santa, and we also wrote the yearly Santa letter and left it by the milk and cookies. After the kids were in bed, Mike and I enjoyed eating the cookies and drinking the milk...hehe. The boys woke up and we had Egg Nog french toast, yummo! Following that, we had our annual Matusek Christmas Devotional. The boys were a bit restless during the singing, and scripture reading, but it is important to our family. Then came the boys favorite part, opening presents!


We joined up with extended family at Grandma Moore's house that night for dinner and presents. Here are my mom and dad enjoying the company while we opened gifts.
On Sunday night, the 26th, the whole crew had joined up at Mor-Mor's house to hang out. We had Katrina and Matt's 3 children, Melissa, Wes, and their four kids, me and Mike and our two boys, and of course my mom and dad. Here are the kids listening to Mor-Mor tell silly stories before movie time.
Comfy and cozy, ready to watch Despicable Me...
We joined up again at Mor-Mor's house, but this time the crowd got bigger, with Corey, Daymi and their three kids joining us! All the kids were excited to eat Norwegian Pancakes (now lovingly known as Mor-Mor's special pancakes.)
After the sugar high of breakfast, we gathered in the living room for... you guessed it, more presents:) Here is a good pic of all 12 grandkids (it will be 14 after me and Kayla give birth!)
My mom made a temple board, with the temple that we were sealed in and the date we were sealed and our names. It is beautiful, and I can't wait to hang it on our wall!!!!
I thought this was cute, Kelvin with his Star wars ship, Kaydien with his Halo toy, and Kimball with his transformers... all playing together!! Weston was sharing Kimball's transformers.

It was a wonderful Christmas, how blessed we are to have a big family that we are close to! We are grateful for our Savior, and feel blessed each year to celebrate his Birth. Hope that your Christmas was enjoyable and memorable!

Everthing in between, which is a lot right?

Here is my "I'm to tired to make individual posts for all events" post. So here is the space of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in a nutshell. We decorated the house and trimmed the tree. We have a special ornament for every year since we got married. We go out as a family and pick out an ornament together. This years ornament was a stuffed gingerbread man that we bought in West Yellowstone when we went there with Mike's parents and sister this past summer. There is a cute little shop there that sells Christmas decor year round, what a great store huh?

Kimball and Brandon had so much fun preparing for Christmas this year.
They got very excited at times, ok super excited...
Mike and I took some time out one Saturday night to ourselves (thanks to my mom for taking the boys!!) We made a scrumptious pasta meal together, and set the table for two... with candles, low lights, and romantic music, compliments of Frank Sinatra.
We were able to set up our camera on a box, and take some pics of our family for our annual Christmas card. This is the best pic we got, in my personal opinion.
My niece Abigail turned 2 years old on December 23rd, and we were invited to a little party for her. What a sweet girl she is, and doesn't she look darling all dressed up in her gifts from Mor-Mor and aunt Tiff?
Corey setting up Abigail's baby gear....
And Mike trying to help:)
It is so fun to see Mike with his boys, they are so close, and he loves them so much! These three have so much fun together. I snapped this pic a few days ago, and it is such a great pic, love it!
Next post: Christmas

Thanksgiving 2010

These last couple of weeks have been heaven, and it all started with Thanksgiving. It is such a blessing to spend time with family, even if we just get to speak with them for a few minutes at a large get-together. We are grateful for the friendships that we develop in these family relationships, my sister is one of my best friends. I love love my sister in-laws, Daymi, Mia, Alyssa, Chris, Katrina, and hopefully soon Kayla! My brothers rock, and my brother in-laws are just as awesome. More than that are my parents and grandparents, Mike's parents and grandmother. Each of them has done so much for us, and we are who we are because of them. Speaking of Grandparents, I love any pictures that I can snap of my boys with their great-grandpa, and this is no exception. It is a great pic!

Brandon was just chillin with Great Grandpa Moore at Thanksgiving. I talk all the time about what a crazy boy Brandon is, but with all that energy and mischief comes an equal amount of love and cuddliness. This is one of his favorite things to do, find someone that he loves and chill. His hugs are the best, and his kisses are the sweetest.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we missed Mike's family in Florida immensely though. We had 2 beautiful dinners, one on Thanksgiving day in Idaho Falls with Grandma and Grandpa Moore.

On Friday my mom made another dinner at her house in Pocatello, and it was equally as enjoyable in Pocatello as it was in I.F. The girls had a fun time making ribbon christmas trees, a simple and fun craft. Here are our creations (Daymi made one too, but she and her family had already left Mor-Mor's house.)

Traditions, don't they warm your heart?!? One of my favorite days of the year is Gingerbread day at Grandma Moore's... simple the best! It is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Kimball didn't last long with his gingerbread housed, maybe 10 minutes tops... but he still enjoyed it. Here is his creation, and his handsome little grin!
I wasn't feeling creative at all, kind of nauseous though. So, I quickly threw lots of candy on mine without any thought, so I could warm up some soup and eat. A week or so after we had made the houses, Kimball came up to me and said "Mom, you forgot to put a window and a door on your house." Yes Kimball, I did... you are sweet to notice.
Rebekah's creative juices were sure flowing, and so were Amy's and all my other families as well. The green themed house is Rebekah's, so pretty huh! And Amy's is right next to it on the right. You can't see it, but she wrote her name in licorice candy on the other side of the roof, and it looked way cute. The kids loved looking at the Ginger village of houses.

News (that is not new)

We are pregnant, but that comes as no surprise to anyone because I announced in on FB. We are excited, and are hoping for a girl... but I would not be disappointed with a boy! I already have two, bring it on right? I haven't been sick at all, occasionally nauseous when I don't eat often enough. Although, I was up all night last night sick, but it definitely wasn't morning sickness! I'm thinking it was something I ate.

Even though I was sick, I still enjoyed, thoroughly, the "So You Think You Can Dance" tour. I went last night to Utah with Daymi and my mother, and we met up with Katrina and Brianna for a dinner at Olive Garden. We then headed over to the Maverick center (formerly the E Center) to see the show. It was great to see the dancers live and to see them perform. What wasn't so fun was starting to feel the food poisoning coming on and a crazy headache and cough to go along with it. My favorite dance was with Robert and all-star Allison. The storyline behind the dance was a mother and her son, and she had recently gone through a major illness and surgery. The son helps and strengthens her through it. It was choreographed by a former contestant, Travis Wall, called "Fix You". Here is what I saw last night, it was so beautiful to see live, it was very emotional to watch (or maybe its just because I'm emotionally prego anyways). It made me think of my own sons, how tender and caring they would be if I were ever physically ill. Anyways, I going to go get some more rest, I hope that after a good night of rest, I will be able to get to work tomorrow! I need to find my camera, I think I left it in my moms car. I have some good pictures to post, halloween and all that jazz! By the way, we are VERY excited to see Harry Potter, 14 days and counting! Mike says he doesn't want to go on opening night, can't blame him either. So I guess I should put 15 days and counting!

What are brothers for?

Brothers like to play with you, even if that means pulling your shirt and putting their feet in your face.


Brothers are there to lend support when you are slipping, and they still keep a smile on their face:)


Brothers copy eachother.
They always love each other, no matter what!
And they are the best of friends!