Matthew: Five Years!

Done is better than perfect. Is this the five year post I wanted to put up for Matthew? No. I still want to tweak it/improve it/better capture Matthew at this age. But is it time for this post to be done sitting in my draft folder? One hundred percent. Especially since all of these pictures are circa 2024 and I even confused myself reading through the information I had typed since it dates back almost two years, not this past year. And since the pictures/information are only getting more irrelevant (especially since he's already almost six!), on the interwebs they go. Finally.

Age: 5

Height: 3 ft 6 in

Weight: 38lb, 6.5oz

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Cheetah or Tiger

What is your favorite book? My Lucky Day

What is your favorite song? Go Tell it on the Mountain

What is your favorite sport? Soccer and Football

What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Color

What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Get tickled

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Soccer

Where is your favorite place to go? Lucy's gym

Lucy's gym has rings, and once he got the hang of them there was no looking back

What is your favorite fruit? Apple

What is your favorite vegetable? Carrot and Sweet Potato

What is your favorite cereal? Marshmallow Treasures

What is your favorite treat? Smarties

What is your favorite meal? Spaghetti and Italian Spaghetti

What makes you happy? Doing my marble track and stickers

What makes you sad? When someone hits me

Who are your best friends? Lucy and Rose and all the Griggs family

What do you want to be when you grow up? Artist

What was your favorite part of last year? Playing games on the couch downstairs

What is one thing you want to do this year? Play with my remote control car

At four, the heights of all the boys were within an inch of one another. By five, Connor had started to shoot up and break away from the pack. As of right now, it appears Matthew is going to follow Connor's track and establish himself as one of the "taller" brothers; he is dead even with Connor at five, which is an inch and a half taller than William or Garrett were. 

In another instance of William and Garrett vs Connor and Matthew, both of the older two were full-on reading by five, but Connor--and now Matthew--were not. Matthew is slowly starting to show interest in letters and sounds and figuring out how they go together (and he can write his name and the majority of the alphabet pretty easily), and he can recognize where the words are on a page, but that's about it for him. I have noticed that he still has a tendency to go right to left when we are talking about beginning sounds in words (or when he is reading numbers: 14 becomes 41), so that's definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on as he starts kindergarten. However, also like Connor at five, his math skills are unreal. He can do +1 and -1 of just about any number (probably up to thirty or so), and he can do sums/differences of four or more up to about 20. He is really good at dividing (although with him we just talk about it as "splitting things equally"), and can often figure it out in his head how many muffins each of them should get if we have 12 to split. Even when we play Chutes and Ladders I've noticed that he doesn't always "count" his spaces; he'll just pick up his piece and move it to the next spot (with probably about ninety percent accuracy). 

He continues to play independently really well, and has (finally!) started to get into puzzles (and after like a week of doing the 24 piece wooden puzzles he decided to jump straight to the 100 piece puzzles, so rationally I know it's time to get rid of our "baby" puzzles, but I just can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that yet!). He'll still take naps during the week pretty consistently (mostly because I'm not ready to lose my alone time in the afternoon!), but usually skips them on the weekend and is just fine. Darrell keeps reminding me that we need to get him used to not taking naps before kindergarten, but that's what summer break is for, right? 

Speaking of summer, we tried multiple times over the summer to get him to practice riding his pedal bike (as opposed to his Strider bike that doesn't have pedals). He'd either flat out refuse to pull it out, or get on it, pedal it once or twice, and declare it "too hard". Then randomly in the beginning of September he asked to get out his pedal bike, and later that evening he was zipping up and down the block by himself. This is his personality in a nutshell: when he's in the mood to do something there is no stopping him (literally--when he is in a mood to play games, you'd better carve out your entire morning for endless rounds of UNO, Chutes and Ladders, Guess Who, etc), but there is absolutely zero forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do. 

A few other random Matthew memories: he loves (LOVES) hide and seek and fully grasps the whole being quiet and hiding thing. Sometimes to a fault because we don't always realize he's playing and there have definitely been a few moments of panic when he hasn't answered us when we've called for him. He calls his big toe his "thumb toe", which I love, and after ten weeks in the spring of doing daycare for my niece (who is Matthew's age), he FINALLY started picking up on when to use he vs she. Poor Lucy didn't care for being referred to as a "he" or "him" but she tolerated it well.

First time roller skating!

Mom's little hiking buddy

See rocks, will climb. Always

Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous that I never thought to create a canopy/fort on the bottom bunk when my sister and I shared a bunk bed

First summer as a Little Vikes camper at Leif Ericson Day Camp!

He loves Lucy's gym so much it was his request for his birthday outing this year!

Matthew: Four Years!

Fun fact: In psyching myself up to (finally) get around to writing this post, I thought to myself "well, even if I don't feel like tackling the whole post tonight, at the very least I can type up the answers to his birthday interview questions and get that much of it done". Second fun fact: I don't start the birthday interviews until five, so no such thing exists for Matthew. Which is really killing my motivation for working on this, but I will power through because I've got Garrett's birthday post waiting in the shadows to be completed, and the good news is that one DOES have a birthday interview. Now I just need to remember how I do these non-birthday interview posts because it feels like forever (or you know, a year) since I've had to do one.

I mean, Matthew's practically ready to start working a full-time job, so it's not my fault I assumed he was old enough to have a birthday interview

Height/Weight: I can't possibly figure out how this could have happened, but Darrell and I seriously managed to "copy paste" four entirely different pregnancies and early childhood years (at least as far as physical attributes go). I know separation is coming--Connor isn't even 6.5 yet and he is already taller than Garrett was at 7--but at four the line remains pretty identical. Matthew weighed in at 34 pounds, 10 ounces, which is second only to William (STILL haven't figured out how William is proportionally heavier than he is tall), but because he's the baby, I one hundred percent feel like he's a peanut and it's hard to believe that both Garrett and Connor were lighter (by more than a pound and a half!) at four. Their heights continue to be within an inch of each other, with Matthew's 39.5 inches landing somewhere in the middle (Garrett being shortest at 39 inches and William and Connor both landing roughly around 39.75 inches). 

We may not have "copy pasted" all aspects of their personality, but climbing things with reckless abandon is definitely something they all do. Thanks a lot Darrell

Wearing: Seriously? So glad this is my last year with this question. He wears clothes. They have a size on the tag. The size means nothing (seriously--some of his shirts still say 2T, but others say 4T. And pants are basically the same. Those only get pulled if they are too short--because never have any of my boys ever outgrown the waist--so he has a whole smattering of sizes in his drawer). If I'd let him, he'd wear soft pants--and gym shorts--all day every day, but mean mom makes him wear "real" pants (aka jeans) when we go "out" (library, grocery store, etc). As identical as they have been with heights and weights, I'm glad I got William's temperament first: he pretty readily accepted the clothing "rule" we implemented, and that has made it oh so much easier to be consistent with down the road. Maybe someday I'll let them wear sweat pants all day every day, but I at least want them to have some core memory of understanding that it's important to present ourselves in a way that aligns with how we want others to perceive and respect us. The biggest thing to note here is that he is wearing big boy underwear all day AND all night. A week or so after we potty trained him (right around his third birthday), he woke up with a dry pull up, and I immediately panicked. I assumed he was dehydrated (even though it was the middle of winter) and tried to rack my brain for the last time he had drank a glass of water. Moments later, he said he needed to go potty, and as I listened to him drain--and continue to drain--his bladder, I had the realization that he was, in fact, NOT dehydrated, but that he had managed to hold his pee for the entirety of the night. And it wasn't just a one-time thing--he did it the one time and then proceeded to do it with 99% accuracy for the entirely of the following year. Of course, I had never considered that this would happen, and we had oodles of pull ups in the size he needed (you know I love to stock up on a good sale!), but at some point a few weeks down the road we bit the bullet and gave away our extras because we wanted to affirm his successes in staying dry by allowing him to wear his underwear at night instead of putting him in a pull up just to use them up. Someday I'll have all my boys in underwear at bedtime... But today is not that day.

Is it too cheesy to say he's also always wearing a smile? Yes? Too bad. 

Eating: I love to hate that this section is just as identical as the height/weight section has been for all his brothers. We have four fantastic eaters, and we love every minute of it. Of course, a lot of the credit of that goes to Darrell, who has found a second home in the kitchen (and who is willing to humor me by preparing recipes that I find which require kitchen skills that I am not confident in executing myself). I still don't love menu planning EVERY week, but I fully recognize the privilege I have that menu planning is difficult because I have too many recipes to choose from, not that menu planning is difficult because I have so few meals I can plan that everyone will eat. I honestly can't even think of any Matthew-specific eating habits/preferences to mention; he eats what the rest of us eat, and honestly, most of the time he eats it in quantities that are not adequately reflected in his height/weight. He uses the same size plates as the rest of us, and we don't always remember to give him smaller portions than his brothers (who often ask for seconds, but not always). He's not a huge milk drinker, but what is ironic here is that at fifteen months (yes, I went back and checked old posts) I commented that he transitioned to cow's milk better than his brothers (because I know it was ROUGH for some of them). That early "easy" transition seems to have waned into a mid disinterest, and it's almost a guarantee that he isn't allowed to get down from the table at meals until he's had "three more" drinks of milk, because chances are he hasn't had any up to that point. And honestly? I'll one hundred percent take a kid who is "iffy" on milk but totally up for trying Lobster Ravioli in Tomato Cream Sauce. Call me crazy. 

Of course, no kid is going to say no to cotton candy!

Sleep: For the first time in basically forever, I'm grasping at straws to have a complaint in the "sleep" department (and not just with Matthew--with ALL the boys). He still naps basically every day (with minimal complaint), but is fine going without. I honestly can't think of the last time he was up in the middle of the night, and even if he does stir on the infrequent occasions Connor wakes up he settles back down quickly. I am pretty certain that he does not go to sleep right away after lights out (which is still at 8:00 for him and Connor), but as far as we can tell he doesn't disturb Connor, so we don't fight it. While there is no shortage of stuffed animals and blankets in his bed, he doesn't have any one "must have" animal (like Garrett's taggie and Connor's lambie). The only downside to this is that we no longer have a duplicate animal that we can pull out if the current favorite is missing since it changes pretty regularly; however, the advantage to this is that if the current favorite is missing we can usually entice him with a previous favorite (bonus points if it recently spent time in Garrett's or Connor's beds).

I assure you we did not put him to bed with his animals situated like this, but as long as he stays confined to his bed and doesn't bother Connor I don't really care all that much--especially since his restlessness at night is pretty much one hundred percent related to the fact that he still naps, and I really really don't want to give those up yet

New Stuff: So remember how at the beginning of this post I assumed I'd have a birthday interview to include, forgetting that Matthew is only four? Well, I had another lapse in memory: As I was rereading his brother's four-year posts, all of them mentioned that they had started Sunday School the previous year. And I swear, I sat here and tried to figure out how the birthday situation had worked out such that Matthew had started Sunday School a year earlier than his brothers, because it didn't seem reasonable that he JUST started Sunday School four (well, now five) months ago in September. But no, he did one hundred percent start Sunday School this past fall, which also means that he did Vacation Bible School for the first time this past summer, AND solo swim lessons for the first time last spring (which, #fourthchildproblems, we have all of zero pictures of, but he did really really well). And as you can see from the pictures below, he transitioned into Vacation Bible School and Sunday School like he's been doing them his whole life.

The Vacation Bible School songs were a little unfamiliar and he only had a few days to learn them, but he had zero fear going up there and nailed the majority of the actions

Christmas Carols are Matthew's love language (although he sings along with the radio plenty too--no shortage of singing from this kid). Every bedtime song for basically the past year has been a Christmas Carol (usually Go Tell It On the Mountain and Joy to the World), and I'm not kidding when I say he was one of the loudest singers at the Sunday School Christmas program (sometimes it was more of a shout than a "sing", but I'll take what I get). He doesn't always get the lyrics right--Hark the Herald is Park the Herald--but he one hundred percent commits to what he's going to say and sings it loud and proud

Last year I commented that I hadn't recorded any of Matthew's cute sayings, and while that's still basically true, I did write down that he calls sneezes "bless yous" (as in "I didn't have any bless yous yesterday) and I'm in no hurry to correct him. Truthfully, I think the biggest reason I don't have more Matthew-isms recorded is that they tend to be pretty short-lived; with three older brothers he is regularly being corrected if he says something wrong (or does something wrong or plays with something wrong... Connor especially LOVES to find ways to correct Matthew, to the point that even if Connor has zero clue whether the "fact" Matthew stated is true or not, he'll immediately start arguing against it just to have a reason why Matthew could be wrong). 

One thing that NONE of Matthew's brothers could correct him on? His March Madness picks last year. The kid ridiculously managed to pick the correct National Champion (with ZERO input from anyone on his bracket selections), which not only put him way at the top of our family pool, but also in the 99th percentile of ALL brackets on ESPN. Go figure

To their credit, all my boys can be quite helpful at times, but Matthew definitely ups the ante, especially if he is in the right mood. I'll admit that part of the reason for this is I have given him a longer leash for doing "cleaning" activities at home (aka filling the bathroom sink and "washing" stuff), because having all his brothers at school has been a bit of a rough adjustment and sometimes I need a break from being a playmate (which--I suppose being the only boy home during the day is probably a new thing that merits noting!). Another reason for this--and honestly, this one is also directly linked to his being the only boy at home--is that I find myself being much more inclined to run even "quick" errands with just Matthew (forgot one thing at the grocery store? Matthew and I will get it in the morning, whereas I sometimes tried to squeeze those errands in after the boys were in bed). And I'm sure this will be even more true once he can buckle and unbuckle his car seat (right now he has the unbuckling mastered, but he still struggles getting the crotch clip secured when he gets into his car seat). But, as long as there is the promise of something "fun" (going to a gym or park or even a special snack in the car), he generally tolerates the errand running, even if it's multiple stores on the same day. Needless to say, he gets lots of practice being helpful, which is probably part of the reason why we see him step more naturally into helpful roles around the house than his brothers do (although when asked, his brothers do a good job as well... at least most of the time). 

Have all my boys asked to help with dishes? Yes. Do we say yes to Matthew more often than we did his brothers? Also yes. Such is life.

It ALWAYS creates waaaaaay more work for us when he gets in a "mood" to clean the bathroom, and the mirror always ends up more smudged and streaked than when he started, but tell me you would say "no" to that adorable child. 

Taking trash to the dumpster at the lake!

While some of his "skills" seem behind where his brothers were at four (reading, writing, counting, etc), I feel like he's probably still ahead of the curve on them and candidly, his fine motor skills are pretty darn impressive (and apparently I'm not supposed to compare my children to one another anyway, so forget what I said and we'll pretend he's right on perfect Matthew time for mastering all his skills). As I mentioned earlier, he doesn't play independently the best because he is so used to always having brothers around, but it has improved bit by bit as the school year has progressed (and as I've given myself more permission to neglect my "to do" list and sit and color or play a game with him).

Scissors? No problem for this kiddo. 

Gluing? Totally fine (does he sometimes get too much? Sure. But who doesn't?) He's also not afraid to add a little personal flair to whatever art project we are doing--he's definitely not a rule/example follower like William was!

Tracing? Mastered. But herein, I believe, lies some of the difference with his brothers: William--and to a lesser extent Garrett and Connor--relied on tracing/activity books for entertainment while he was in his toddler years. Matthew, on the other hand, has older brothers who are ALWAYS playing some sort of active game, and who wouldn't want to play couch football instead of marking up a tracing book? 

While Matthew certainly has had areas of adjustment with all of his brothers in school, I'd be lying if I didn't admit the same was true for me. And what I have found I struggle with the most is exposing Matthew to opportunities during the school day that his brothers don't get a chance to experience. Of course, this has happened as each boy has gone off to school--and the school aged kiddo always has FOMO about whatever "fun" activity Mom did with brother(s) during the school day--but I've always held the party line of "you get experiences in school that your brothers at home don't get, so it all balances out". For whatever reason, though, I have a harder time doing this with Matthew. And I think part of the issue is he's older than any of his brothers were when they were the "only" at home, so it feels like I can get out and do more than I felt comfortable doing with multiples, and then I feel guilt over his brothers not getting the same experiences. But different isn't always bad (or good), and we're slowly figuring out our rhythm. 

One activity I don't mind doing solo with Matthew is anything at the library--and he definitely gets into the activities more when his older brothers aren't around asking "is it time to go yet?"

I don't love taking him hiking without his brothers--not just because I get bummed that they are missing out, but because Matthew's tolerance for hiking on foot is markedly diminished when he doesn't have his brothers to keep up with

Exhibit A--from the same hike about ten minutes later

Exhibit B--although in his defense, this hike was with this brothers, and it was part of a three-hike day that we did, so I don't begrudge him asking to be carried 

Exhibit C--not because I'm carrying him, but because it's cute and also because it's proof that when I don't take the carrier and keep the hike to a mile at most he can handle it even without his brothers 

So this post is totally getting out of hand, and I think a large part of it is the whole "being the baby" thing and the fact that I have waaaaay more solo pictures of him than I did the other boys at four. But there's still a handful of legitimately new things that need to get mentioned, so let's get to it.

First time holding a python--check (and he seriously walked right up to it with zero fear)

First time under anesthesia--check. And he was definitely won over the nurses and surgery staff on the floor that morning; he was so cooperative and brave and everyone was so impressed with his behavior, Mom and Dad included (he's had an umbilical cyst on his belly button basically since he was born but it was getting bigger, so our pediatrician decided it was time for it to go)

I can't believe I'm saying this, but first time camping--check (seriously. I DUG through old photos convinced that this couldn't possibly be his first camping trip, but alas, I have no proof of any camping trips between August 2019 and August 2023. Which is so funny, because COVID was one hundred percent a motivator to get us back into hiking more regularly, but at the same time, prioritizing a yearly camping trip fell to the wayside)

First time solo sledding--check. And while this is just laid back front yard sledding, the first time we went to an actual sledding hill, not only was he fearless going down by himself, but he also trekked back up the hill with his sled by himself to take another turn

When I was pregnant with Matthew I made a unicorn cake for my niece's birthday, so you bet I excitedly said yes when Matthew asked for a rainbow unicorn cake for his birthday. We love you sweet boy!

Matthew: Three Years!

 

Well hello there handsome boy!

Height/Weight: Well, thanks to his big brothers, we know that as the boys get older they separate themselves a little bit in height, but for now, they are still tracking nearly identical. Based on our ruler at home we thought Matthew was going to maintain being the tallest, but per their "official" health records, William was three-tenths of an inch taller. But let's be honest--whether it's 3 feet 0.8 inches, 3 feet 0.5 inches, or an even 3 feet, it's basically all the same. William continues to weigh the most (31lbs 6oz at three), Garrett is our peanut through and through (29lbs 2oz at three), and Matthew lands nicely in the middle at 30lbs 3oz (which is just over half a pound more than Connor was). Ironically, I think this is the first time that it has occurred to me that Garrett--who was my biggest baby at 9lbs 10oz--consistently tracks as my lightest child, whereas William--who was my smallest baby at 8lbs 7oz--consistently tracks as my heaviest child. How funny is that?!?

My "small" boy looking oh-so-big at the bowling alley

Wearing: I want to curse former me for making this a "thing" to track. He wears clothes, and if I'm being totally honest, I can't even qualify it further by saying "he wears clothes that fit" because half the time we're sitting in a church service and I'm like "Oh man, those pants are like two inches too short. Whoops". And then I promptly forget to pull them out of his drawers so he ends up wearing them again a few weeks later. Also, this category has become increasingly insignificant because ALLLL the boys have been basically exactly the same size, so there's been no "William was still wearing 2T pants at three but Matthew has already needed 4T pants because he's so tall" situations. Nothing like that in the least. He'll probably trend slightly more like Connor though where I pull the 3T pants out sooner than later because (unfortunately) there's still plenty of winter left and with William (and even Garrett) I had more of the "ehh, they'll be fine if the pants are a little short for the last few weeks of cold weather". The big news in this category, though, is that he is wearing big boy undies! We were looking at the calendar a week or so before his birthday and (shockingly) there was really NO good time to potty train him between mid-January and the end of February, so we just bit the bullet and said we were doing it January 21st because that was the best of the worst options. And honestly, he had a few accidents those first few days, but he'd use the potty without issue if we reminded him, and within three days he was taking himself to the bathroom (to the point where he went poop without us realizing it until he hollered from the bathroom that he needed to be wiped). So, despite being in size five diapers for the majority of the year before his birthday (and few size six that were handed down to us from his cousin Lucy), he started his 3rd birthday in underwear.

And of course, when you live in South Dakota, you spend like half the year wearing lots and lots of layers of clothes just so you can play outside

Eating: This category is also one that could very easily be nixed because of how incredibly similar the boys have been, and fortunately, that is a very good thing. He eats just about anything (the boys even all tried sushi a few weeks ago and tolerated it pretty well!), goes through occasional phases of certain foods not being his "favorite", and has times where he wants to get down from the table prematurely because his brothers have all finished and started playing before he was done, but for the most part it's pretty smooth sailing with food in this house. There have been a few times where he has come to the table and proclaimed that he doesn't like what we're having (especially if it is something new), which is something I don't think his brothers started until they were a little bit older, but even in those instances he will still end up eating a least some of whatever he didn't think he was going to like. 

Double thumbs up for pomegranate arils! 

Who can resist a s'more?

Sleep: Well, this is definitely the category that has had the most variance between the boys. Looking back through the other boys at three, I would say his sleeping habits are probably better than his brothers were at this age. He transitioned pretty smoothly to the bottom bunk in Connor's room in mid-December (funny story--we found out in August that my cousin was pregnant with her first and due in February and we were like "Oh, you should take our crib! We'll be done with it by then!" and then all of the sudden December rolled around and I was definitely not feeling ready to make the transition, because, well #mybaby--watching Darrell and the boys take the crib apart was also a little rough), he sleeps very consistently through the night (and if he does wake up it's usually a pretty quick settle back down), and he basically doesn't get out of bed in the morning until we go in there (which means on the weekends sometimes he--and Connor--let us sleep until seven!). And the best part of his mornings is that he wakes up in an incredibly silly mood and loves to "hide" under his blanket while we pretend that we can't find him and he just giggles like crazy. Like his brothers, he still naps pretty well, although he definitely puts up a bit of a fight leading up to his naps. I'll take it though!

This kid had a knack for not sleeping in his crib the "right" way

And apparently that was something that wasn't bed-specific because he continued to do it in his big boy bed!

New Stuff: I feel like this year is one of the most fun and most all over the place updates to do. He is talking SOOO much and full of SOOO much personality that even things we've done tons of times feel new because he just responds to them so differently (and most of the time so enjoyably!). While he still has his moods of wanting to be carried and "babied" at times, most of the time he is incredibly (and demandingly) independent. Granted, he is also very aware of his abilities, and so when he stubbornly wants to do something "by myself" it's usually something he is fully capable of doing independently--but only when given enough time. And with three big brothers, time is not always a luxury we have. So that's been an ongoing struggle.

"By myself" proof. Don't you dare try to help him when he's like this. And--much like his brothers--he feels that soft pants are far superior to "real" pants, and as such will change multiple times a day just to be in soft pants as.much.as.possible. And as long as he doesn't dirty more than one pair of soft pants and one pair of real pants--and as long as he changes himself--I've decided this isn't a battle worth fighting

And speaking of big brothers, as I'm looking through their posts at three, I'm noticing a lot of comments about the cute phrases they were using and things they were saying. And honestly, with Matthew? I've got nothing. Not for lack of effort on his part, mind you--the kid is ALWAYS talking, ALWAYS trying to be silly, and when he runs out of things of his own to say, he ALWAYS copies his brother's most goofy and silly phrases. I just have none of them written down because there's honestly something new everyday that he's saying that is just a riot. And I don't know, maybe we just feel that way because he's the baby and the knowledge of that heightens the enjoyment of everything he says/does, but he's seriously such a goofball and says the silliest things (at least they are silly when they aren't whiny and tantrum-y) that it's hard to chalk it ALL up to his being the baby.

Okay, so maybe he DOES get away with a few things because he's the baby... I'm pretty sure I never would have left his older brothers unsupervised with a science kit and food coloring nearby. It's a darn good thing he's such a cute goofy cheeseball

One of the biggest developments we've noticed over the past year is his number awareness (and I'm sure having a math-obsessed biggest brother has contributed to that at least a little). He can count forward to and backwards from ten without issue, and even one-to-one counts up to twelve without issue (counting one number per item in a group and not just reciting the numbers from rote memory). What impresses us most, though, is his ability to visually look at a small group of objects and identify how many are in the group. Sometimes we aren't sure if he's just getting lucky, but he's correctly identified groups of four on more than one occasion (and sometimes without prompting--we were driving one time and he looked out the window and said "four cranes" and sure enough, there were four cranes visible out his window), so there definitely seems to be some inherent ability/desire to look and count similar objects in a group. 

He's also very adept at identifying different first response vehicles (and sometimes I think he can actually differentiate the sirens? Hard to say), and loves to point out the different colors of them and their lights (although this is true of basically all large trucks/vehicles; garbage day in our neighborhood with all the different colored garbage trucks is always guaranteed to be exciting!)

And since I could sit here for hours and still not cover everything that there is to be said about Matthew (or my Math-a-Goose, as he is often affectionately called), I'll let my photo dump cover some of the other big "new" things from this past year as well as some of general traits and characteristics that make Matthew my Matthew!

Really started cruising on his Strider bike this summer and let me tell you he's going to be chomping at the bit to keep up with big brothers this summer!

Probably not his first mohawk, but cute nonetheless!

If I'm not mistaken, though, this is his first fish that he caught at my parent's lake cabin

First time riding a "real" train and he adored every minute of it!

This little fishy loves water...

Whether it's playing in the waves at the beach

Or cruising through class at swim lessons

Or taking a pontoon ride at the lake! (And he loves being in the lake plenty too, but with four boys who are pretty active swimmers we don't really get a lot of "in the lake" pictures because both of us are usually pretty busy managing the boys in the water)

This kid loves playgrounds (and just being outside in general) and is...

pretty darn...

FEARLESS

He's also a champ on family hikes...

But because his brothers are older we're trying to work up to longer hikes and sometimes his poor little body just can't hang 

I almost didn't post this because it makes me sad, but I'm pretty sure this was the last time I'll ever wear him in this carrier (especially on my front--we occasionally used it backpack style for hikes last year, but even those days are probably short lived). This was in December, about six weeks before his third birthday, and even though he's had another cold since then he had minimal desire to be "up" and definitely no tolerance for going in the Ergo

But I suppose as long as he's being my little cuddly buddy--even if it isn't in the baby carrier--I can't complain too much

Happy Third Birthday Sweet Boy!!