The Saga of the Sick

We consider ourselves a relatively healthy family, but when we get sick, boy we do it with style. There are no pictures from this week, and trust me, you wouldn't want to see them if there were.

Tuesday night Bennett started getting, well, goopy. I know, it sounds gross. That's because it was gross. His eyes were gooey and his nose was constantly running and his little cry was hoarse from all the coughing he did. Being the excellent doctors we are, however, we diagnosed him with allergies and gave him some medications. It didn't seem to be working though, as was evident from the looooong, sleepless night that followed. So Wednesday morning we took him to a real doctor, who diagnosed him with double ear infections, a sinus infection, and the beginning stages of pink-eye. I think he was off on the pink-eye thing, but he has the PhD. Of course, this same doctor (who is not Bennett's regular pediatrician) insisted that Bennett's skin color, which is olive like Matt's, is due to overeating carrots. Bennett hates carrots. Anyway, Bennett got an antibiotic and has been on the very slow road to recovery since then.

But wait, there's more!

When we got home from the Doctor with Bennett, I started feeling a little feverish myself. By that night I was full-blown flu, but without the stomach part, THANK GOODNESS!!! I was really looking forward for Matt, who was battling allergies of his own, to come home and take over the house and his sickly family. But he called from work to tell me he had been selected for guard duty that night and wouldn't be home until 7:00...the next morning. Too tired and sick to care about every warning and horror story I have ever hear, I put Bennett in bed with me and we both slept a restless 13 hours.

Matt came home Thursday morning, having gotten about six hours of sleep in the last two days, and did a wonderful job of giving out drugs and hugs. (Hugs are an important part of my recovery process. I am a little bit of a wimp when I get sick.) By Thursday afternoon though, Matt was laying on the couch with us, NyQuil bottles and various pills scattered around the house in a spectacular display of patheticness. Even the strongest of our family could not withstand the sickness. The rest of the day was a blur to us all.

Friday was better. Matt recovered and put me and Bennett to bed while he cooked, cleaned, and went grocery shopping. By that night we were all sitting around the table, eating spaghetti like a normal family.

Today is Saturday, and I am still in fragile condition. I hardly ever get sick, but when I do it lasts and lasts. It's a good thing I guess. It is kind of nice to get to sit and type this long dramatic story. And, we finally got to stay home one weekend! Bennett is almost back to his normal self--he isn't goopy any more. And Matt is out banging on something in the car, which is a good sign. Looks like we are all going to be OK.

Thank goodness for medicine.

Where is the CPS?

I have often heard parents say "I just turned my back for a minute, and..." This statement always sounded like an excuse for un-watchfulness to me...until now. At the risk of sounding like a neglectful mother, I swear, will leave the room for literally 30 seconds, or sometimes I am still in the room but focused on something besides the active little boy for a minute, and disaster strikes.

Exhibit A: The Video Shelf. I was seriously three feet away, folding laundry when this happened. How he could destroy an entire shelf of VHS's in the time it took me to move that short distance is beyond me. He was rather proud of himself for breaking the land-speed record.

Exhibit B: Sidewalk Chalk. When the little boy I watch three times a week comes over, we occasionally go outside to play. I put Bennett down for a literally one minute to help Jace pull a toy out of the outside box, and Bennett made his move. You can still kind of see the residue of a piece of chalk he partially ate, still evident on his innocent face.

Exhibit C: The Toilet. Obviously there is no picture of this one. When you turn around to find your son gnawing on the seat of the toilet, it's not really the time to take photos.

Luckily, nothing too tragic has happened as of yet. Just a lot of little (and sometimes big) messes to clean up. So from now on, whenever I hear the saying "...for just a minute..." I think I am in no place to judge too harshly.

The Weekenders

Oh my goodness sakes, we have not been very good bloggers lately. The reason for this lack of personal updates is that we are just never home to do it! We have been gone almost every weekend since Christmas, and while it has been very fun, it has been quite hard to keep up with everything that has happened...and with the laundry.

Two weekends ago, we traveled to Oklahoma (a much longer trip than we expected. Do you know how long it takes just to get out of Texas?!) to visit Grandma Pat and the gang. It was really good to see them all again. We spent most of our time just chatting, but with such fun people it was never boring. We also officially booked our cruise for July 11th, 2010 and then we celebrated with a nervous breakdown over the cost of it all. :)

Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the camera on this weekend, so there are no pictures. I did take a little video of Bennett after we got home, though. He is playing with his new fantastic toy that Grandma Pat got him for Christmas. Honestly, he will be a genius by the age of one if he really listens to this thing. It teaches animals, Spanish, opposites, colors, music, letters, rhyming, numbers, reading vocabulary, phone etiquette...I'll tell you what, college was a waste of money. I should have just bought myself one of these things.



This last weekend we spent in Pleasanton, Texas at our handsome nephew Barrett's eighth birthday party and baptism. I remembered to bring the camera this time.

Two-year-old Walker and Bennett playing. They were pretty cute together.

The birthday boy with his super cool, Marvel Super Hero birthday cake. What a stud.

I love birthdays! I especially love cake...and spit. (P.S- the annoying falsetto singing in the background would be Uncle Matt.)

Bennett loves cake, too.

Barrett, all ready to be dunked. I haven't really been to a baptism as an adult before, and it was very sweet to actually think about what Barrett was doing. Matt gave a talk on the Holy Ghost afterward (a surprise to me) and did an excellent job. Lots of happy tears.

All arrayed in spotless white

We will try to get on the ball here with this whole blog thing from now on. However, we will be out of town yet again this weekend, so we will see when it happens. In the mean time, just know we are very happy here!

We Are Really Doing This!

We are going on a Caribbean cruse! We have been talking about doing this as kind of a last hurrah before Matt's deployment next fall, but we have now taken the steps necessary to actually go! I am so happy!

We will cruse out of Florida in July, all three of us, and have adventures among the islands of the tropics. Matt's Grandma Pat has been kind enough to offer to come along to watch Bennett for us while Matt and I do "grown up things," like going scuba diving and zip-lining on the world's longest zip line (yes, I am dang excited). Yay for family vacations! Obviously, we will be leaving the country, which means we will all need passports. And this, my friends, is Bennett's first official passport photo.

Cutest little World-traveler ever :)

And this picture has nothing to do with anything, but I had to throw it in here anyway. I got Matt and Bennett matching ties for Christmas. Aaaaawwwww!

Mattie's Blog

As you all know, I had gotten a little behind on this blogging thing. But, always the wonderful husband and my best friend, Matt volunteered to step in and give me a hand this week. All of the following pictures were downloaded and personally hand-picked by him. I am simply going to add the little captions underneath. (Honestly, I haven't seen what he has chosen until now, so we will be surprised together.)

Of course. Apparently he has arranged these in order of importance. This is the wild pig that our Bishop shot and Matt helped him gut on their first hunting trip together. The bishop has oh-so-generously decided to share the meat with Matt and I so we can have home-killed pig meat. Yum.

My handsome hubby, bringing home the bacon...literally.

This picture is actually from Thanksgiving, but it's so dang cute I guess Matt had to put it in. Maimie and Pop got Bennett this itsy-bitsy cowboy hat, complete with leather hatband handmade by Pop. We couldn't pass up the photo-op. :)

And now we have begun the "Happy New Year" photos. Last year at this time we were living in Maimie and Pop's cabin and we all went to Fredericksburg, TX for a big stake party. We decided to continue the tradition this year and drove to meet them there. We also got to see Jake and Janell and their cute girls, Becky and little Suzy, Dani and James and Paul (who came all the way from Hawaii), Jesse and Laura, and a whole slew of fantastic people.

Unfortunately, Bennett was quite the little stinker on real New Years, so we all just went straight to bed when we got home from the party. But the next night we celebrated with style. Here I am getting my sparkler power on.

And here's Bennett with his Aunt Sarah and his Maimie (who is on the phone with his Aunt Bekah in Idaho). This was his first sparkler experience and he couldn't decide if it was cool or terrifying. In the end he appeased both emotions by switching between smiling and spurts of crying.

Matt and Wayne had a Wizarding Duel with their roman candles. Entertaining...and dorky.

OK, this picture actually belongs at the top of the post with the New Year party, but that is not my responsibility today (thank you, Matt). This was, without doubt, the biggest stinkin' barbeque pit either of us had ever seen. We actually drove past it on the highway on the way to Fredericksburg and had to pull an illegal u-turn to get a picture of it. I imagine this is every cow's worst nightmare.

This picture is for Aunt Bea. Thank you again for the cute bib, Bekah...it is definitely true! And tell Nathan Bennett smells divine and his skin is silky smooth. :)

When we got home from Idaho we had about a 36-hour break before repacking and heading to San Antonio for New Years. I spent the time doing 8 loads of laundry. Matt put up crown molding. We need to learn to relax.

Oh...the pictures just got smaller...OK. Well, this is Bennett mastering the stairs at Maimie and Pop's house. He had never really encountered stairs that go up before (my mom and dad's stairs go down into the basement) and he took to them like a mountain goat. A little scary for mom, but he did a great job with them.

Matt playing the guitar and Bennett trying to attack it. The guitar is Bennett's new favorite thing. He even "dances". (Obviously Bennett cannot dance yet. He can move is body and get really excited. We call it dancing.)

Wow, these are out of order. This is the swing Bennett got for Pre-Christmas from his Maimie and Pop. We hung it in the garage so he can "hang out" (haha, get it?) with Matt when he is in there doing his projects. Pretty cute.

Oh! Now we are in Rexburg on Christmas morning. This is Bennett and his favorite Aunt Bekah reading a book.

And now we are back at our house with Maimie and Pop. (are we getting whiplash yet?) The antlers light up when you touch them. Love it!

And we end on a terrible picture of both me and Bennett, but this is a super cute hooded towel from Maimie and Pop that they had Bennett's name embroidered onto. So fluffy and warm, we both love it.

Wow, what a rush! Sorry if the timeframes here made little to no sense. Matt is still a blogger in training, but I sure love the guy!

Only a Promise

I do realize I am behind on this thing, but I promise that I will get on the ball here very soon. We have had so many fun things happen to us lately I just didn't know where to start, and as a result, I simply started nowhere.

Anyway, I am sorry, but there will be nothing posted today. You can sleep soundly tonight however, knowing that I am working on it...eventually.