Movin' and Groovin'

This week was a very churchy one. Both Matt and I were busy, busy beavers with our callings and activities, but we figured it was a good use of our time. I did my Primary and Achievement Day thing, and Matt had a bunch of Scout stuff he did. All in all it was a pretty good week.

Wednesday night Matt's scouts had their first Court of Honor. It was so good to see so many of the boys who had never cared about scouts before (or church, for that matter) stand up and receive several hard-earned merit badges.

Excuse me for just a moment, but I am going to play the proud wife for the next few sentences. If you choose to skip down to the next paragraph, I will totally understand. Matt has literally turned the whole Scouting and Young Men's programs around. There are now more boys than ever coming, and not just to scouts, but to church too. I have had more than one grateful parent tell me how appreciative they are for Matt and his dedication and love for their kids. I have to say, I am very proud of him.

OK, enough gloating. The scouts also had their last "camp out" of the year this weekend...in our backyard. It was really more of a end-of-the-year party, with pizza and movies and lots and lots of mud tracked in on my clean carpet.

They spent most of the day Saturday in our garage, where Matt taught them all about power tools and not sticking your hand in them when they are on. To prove their knowledge they each made a box with a note to their moms on the bottom. I can safely say that I know what half the mothers in our ward are getting for Christmas.

This is the oddest mixture of personalities I have ever seen, but somehow it works. Matt has more patience than I do. :)

I also got my craftiness on at the Relief Society Super Saturday. These are the cute little blocks I made. I like them because they are fall and I like fall.

And this, of course, is Bennett. I just love this little face.

These are his latest moves. He has also started babbling stuff like "babababa" and "mamamama"...although we don't think he knows that I am mama, but maybe one day soon. :) (P.S- Sorry about the gross spit-up at the end here. If you know Bennett at all though, you know that it is nearly impossible for him to remain clean for more than five minutes at a time. Aaaahhhh!)

Oh, The Simple Joys

I have the best job in the world. :)

Grandma Pat

Grandma Pat is Matt's, mom's, brother's, wife's, mom. (Try figuring that out!) That means there is really no relation at all to Matt, but the Hargrave family has known and loved her as their grandma for years and years. This weekend Matt and I had the opportunity to have her visit us, and it was so much fun spending time with her!

She loved Bennett, and was determined to see him crawl before she left in two days. She actually did make a little progress with him (unfortunately for us).

Of course, we took her on base. I think I am getting to the point where I could do this with my eyes shut. This time we went to the First Cav museum though, a place even I have never been before, so it was a little different.

Matt and Grandma Pat in front of the Fort Hood sign. (This is where all the interviews took place after the shooting, hence the flowers and signs everywhere.)

Can you see the family resemblance? :)

The First Cav Museum had all these wax people everywhere dressed up as soldiers and Arabs and stuff. To be honest, it creeped me out a little. Wax should never look that human.

Bennett seemed to enjoy it, though.

We also had a big BBQ with her and some of our friends later, and went to the birthday party of our cute nieces in Fredericksburg on Saturday.

Maimie and Pop hadn't seen Grandma Pat in a long time, so we surprised them at the birthday party with her. I love this picture of Maimie seeing her for the first time. If you blow it up you can see her mouth open in disbelief. Haha. We are so sneaky. :)

It was a good reunion.

All the cousins came for the birthday girls. Here they are decorating their own cupcakes. So fun.

Madi and Emma. Madi turned 5 in October, and Emma turns 4 later this month.

All in all it was a great weekend, and we can't wait to get to see Grandma Pat again!

Premature Hair Loss :(

Our little boy inherited his daddy's curly hair (yay!) along with his mom's thin, straight hair (boo!). Because of this strange mixture, Bennett's hair was never really curly or straight. It was kind of fuzzy, like a burn victim's. It looked OK as long as we kept it wet and gelled, but unless I followed him around with a spray bottle, it looked pretty disheveled most of the time. This is not the best picture, because his hair is blond so you can't really see the pure messiness of it all. You will just have to take our word for it.

So on Monday night we got the brilliant idea to give this fuzz ball a little "trim."-- right.

Bennett was fascinated. I was horrified.

As soon as we made the first cut though, we realized what a huge mistake this whole thing was. However blond Bennett's hair was on the top, it was at least ten shades blonder underneath. The result was a near resemblance of baldness.

Again, it looks a little better than this in real life, but not much. Poor little bald-boy! Matt keeps reminding me that hair grows back. (Good thing, too.)

These are the curls we chopped. I cried a lot (of course) and saved them all.

But on a happier note, one of my birthday presents came a little early! This is the gorgeous Eddie Bower highchair I have been coveting for the last several months but could never justify buying. Matt decided I had waited long enough, and now Bennett gets to eat in an upright position instead of laying in his swing during mealtimes.

We are all very happy.

Yep, He's Ours...

Both Matt and I were, how shall we say, rambunctious children. Therefore, it is no surprise that we are getting our payback now as parents.

Saturday I was dusting the house and had Bennett on the floor within eyesight...I thought. I don't know how he did this, but within a three second period he successfully ripped a door stop out of the wall, dismantled the plastic from the metal, and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. It was rather incredible. So if there is any doubt about who this little hoodlum belongs to, let it be forever banished. Yes, he is ours.

A New Appreciation

Thursday afternoon we had little scare here with the Fort Hood shootings, where 12 people were killed, and upwards of 30 were wounded. Thankfully, Matt was down the street from the building where it all happened. And while he was close enough to hear the shots and was in lock-down for over seven hours afterwords, he was involved in no other way besides the fact that his medics were some of the first-responders to the wounded.

We would just like to send out a great big "thank you" to everybody who called, texted, and Facebooked us to make sure we were OK. It makes us feel very blessed and loved that there are so many, many people out there who care about our little family.

This incident also made Matt and I appreciate each other a little more, so on Friday we decided it was time for a little one-on-one time. We left Bennett with some friends and went to this way cool Put-Put Palace, where you can ride unlimited go-carts, bumper boats, play arcade games, and mini-golf, for only ten dollars a person. It was sweet! We spent so much time in the arcade and golfing, though, that we didn't have time for the go-carts or boats. That's OK, it gives us a reason to go back.

You can't pay nothing and expect to get everything. This was the most ghetto put-put course I have ever been too, complete with some of the biggest rats I have ever seen. (Did you know rats can climb trees?!!) I know, it sounds horrifying, but we were laughing so hard we didn't care.

Matt in "the cave." I'm almost positive this is where all the rats lived. Needless to say, we putted through this hole pretty dang fast.

Matt's hole-in-two. My hole-in-thirteen. I have no patience for this game.

The twisty pen we won with our 85 arcade tickets. Matt, always the gentleman, let me have it. What a nice guy. :)

OK, I may not be good at golf, but I dominated in the motorcycle arcade game! I got first place and won us a free game. Not to brag or anything...

It was a fun night, ending with a romantic dinner in the Whataburger parkinglot. You know, it doesn't really matter what we do, as long as we are together. :)

A Case of the Sniffles

In last week's blog we mentioned Bennett was getting a little bit of a chest cold. Well, at the beginning of this week that little cold escalated into an honest-to-goodness case of the sniffles, and it was pretty pathetic. I do have to say though, Bennett has gone a good seven months without much of any sickness, and the common cold is much better than some other illnesses floating around out there right now. We are considering ourselves lucky.

Here's what most of the first part of our week looked like.

When he wasn't sleeping all Bennett wanted to do was cuddle (which was fun for us, if not for him.) He would still try to smile and laugh, which was probably the most pathetic part of the whole thing since he had no energy or voice. Poor boy.

When we took Bennett to the doctor they loaded us up with drugs. We didn't even use half of them, but since we get them for free I don't really care. It was still kind of nice to have them though, just in case.

By about Thursday Bennett was feeling much better. So much better, in fact, he decided it was time to start moving...a lot. He has become quite the wiggly, active boy.

This is how he looks most of the time now. He insists that he be on his tummy or hands and knees at all times, and absolutely refuses to lay on his back--including during diaper changes, which makes things interesting.

I don't think I'm ready for this. I really enjoy immobility.

Obviously he is very proud of all his latest accomplishments though, and we are proud of him, too.

We have started doing other "big boy" things too, like sitting in the front of shopping carts and taking real baths. He is growing up so fast! It makes me so happy and excited, but kind of sad, too. (I cried in the parking lot of the grocery store the first time he sat in the cart the right way. Matt thinks I am insane.)

And, last of all, I guess I should introduce you to Jace. He is the little boy I am watching Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next few months while his mom is at work. I have to say, he is definitely toughening Bennett up. Since he has been here Bennett has been kicked, poked, stepped on, hit, and flat out tackled. This is not because Jace is mean, it's just because he is courious and not very coordinated.

The good thing is that Bennett has never really complained about these attackes. He thinks Jace is super funny and actually gets excited everytime they both tumble (hard) onto the floor. I am chalking it up to life experience and letting them both get their fill of scrapes and bruses. Little boys are funny creatures.