Not Stopping!

So we got a lot of stuff going on, as Haley told everybody in our last blog. I guess it is my job to put some pictures in. Needless to say we have really not had a slow week or weekend since Christmas. She being the Primary President and me the Scoutmaster. It keeps us on our toes. Here is a little bit of what we have been doing.

Since we started this whole pregnancy thing again we have not shopped much and have drastically cut into our food storage. So with this tax return we decided to catch up. (This is only half of it) Haley did really well though, I think she only had 2 panic attacks during the whole process! (by the way IBC Root Beer is ESSENTIAL for surviving a zombie apocalypse)

So Wayne and I decided we needed to build a little wagon to carry our guns around for our SASS shoots. Bennett, of course would not be left out! No shoes, one sock but we got our stick and pencil we are good to go! Best helper ever!

Just try and tell me this just isn't too cute. Bennett came running to me with all his tools, in a little bit of a panic and told me "Daddy I need help, (referring to putting his tool belt on) "I have to work like Daddy" Sometimes I just like to sit back and watch him. Talk about melt your heart.

After one of our awesome SASS shoots, we stopped at our favorite Catfish Grill and of course we asked for a regular size chicken fried steak ( I may have goaded Wayne into getting the "regular" size ) needless to say it was a little bit bigger than anticipated!!!

So some of you may know that I have had cyst on my face ever since I was a teenager. I have had steroid injections, extreme dosages of all kinds of antibiotics, narcotics, etc...trying to eliminate this nasty little thing. It finally came down to just cutting it out of my face. Well that happened almost 10yrs ago. It left me with a really cool scar! Unfortunately, during this last rotation to Iraq I had another cyst pop up. So I was able to get in with a great plastic surgeon down at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio and she did her best to take it all out.

A few things on that. I have never been "under" in my life. I have always been awake and just dealt with the pain. A lot of people were like, "Oh don't worry, you'll just go to sleep and wake up and it will be great!" No it wasn't! I have cuts and bruises all over my body that I know were not there prior to my operation. The only thing the Doc told me was, we had one heck of a "rodeo". Not sure what that meant but my mom informed me that the reason I was probably strapped down to the table was I might have been very combative. Go figure! Me? No, I'm the most calm person I know. Not a violent bone in my body! (hahaha) Anyway here is the before picture.

This is after the Surgeon played connect the dots on my face. I was a little nervous, I mean someone is fixing to perform chop fuoy on your face! Not an everyday activity.

This is after the fight, I mean after the surgery. They said they had to give me A LOT of drugs to calm me down. But I must put in my dear sweet pregnant wife was there with me through all of it. (This is the dear sweet wife talking: I sat in a waiting room for 13 hours with a lot of really sad/jumpy people who were all waiting on family members to get out of surgery. I watched every trashy talk show known to man. I read half of "The Help." I ate one time in 7 hours (that is amazing for me right now). It was really really long, but it was worth it. Mattie did great. OK, back to Matt.) We had good family who watched our little boy at the last minute, and all the love and support we needed. I know others have had way more intense surgeries but this was pretty big for me. Thanks to everybody!

Week two! I'm doing so good!

Six hours of church is a lot of church. Primary President. Here we go.

This week was busy. Every week lately is busy. We have both been running running running with work stuff, scout stuff, primary stuff, Bennett stuff, Dr. stuff, house stuff, etc. that I feel like Matt and I are strangers passing in the night...but not even that, since I go to bed around 8:30pm with Bennett and Matt stays up until a decent grown-up hour, and then I sleep in until 7:30am with Bennett, and Matt wakes up at 5:30am to get to the gym. The time we do have together though we enjoy, and this week we got to spend some of it down in San Antonio.

Those of you who know Matt have probably noticed a scar on his right cheek. Despite what he tells people (knife fights in dark alleyways) he actually got this from a cyst that was removed as a teenager. Now, as an adult, he has developed another cyst in the exact same spot on his left cheek. Cysts aren't really dangerous, but they hurt a lot, so Matt looked into getting this new one removed as well.

Thanks to his medical hook-ups, he managed to get in with one of the best plastic surgeons at the Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, which is awesome. This surgeon thinks she can not only take out this new cyst without leaving a scar, but she is going to go into the old one and try to clean it up as well. We will see how it goes this Thursday. Cross your fingers. However, there was a lot of in-processing with this minor surgery, so this last Thursday and Friday we spent in San Antonio getting Matt all set up and visiting with family.

The highlight of this trip was visiting Wayne at work at Rackspace. When we went I didn't really know what to expect, but it turns out Wayne helps run a very large company that has some AWESOME work ethics. I mean, we walked in and were instantly in awe of all the cool stuff there was...like the slide you took to the bottom floor instead of the stairs. Or the giant screen TVs on almost every wall, equipped with video gaming devices. Or the people riding around on scooters instead of walking, or the couches one guy was asleep on, or the trees growing inside the building, or the lack of walls everywhere, even with the CEO office. Everything was just open and out there. I kept waiting for the cotton candy and the men on stilts, but I guess we missed that day. I mean, it was seriously awesome how laid back everything was, but how efficient everything still ran. And even with all this going on, Bennett's favorite thing was the "up-calators" (escalators). Well, those and the huge slide, but that goes without saying. It was really cool.

We also got to visit with Bekah and Nathan and Mary and Joe, and we had a lot of fun turning a doctor visit into a vacation. We are excited to go back next week, when we have plans to hit Costco and stock up on a two-year supply of toilet paper. (Seriously, we buy enough for two years. I can't remember the last time I bought toilet paper...)

And speaking of toilet paper...yesterday I put Bennett down for a nap with his "big boy" underwear on. We do this occasionally, and so far have had no accidents. He has a very strong bladder. About half an hour after I laid him down, I saw a little flash of a two-year-old down the hall, and went to see (rather angrily) why he wasn't still in bed. Imagine my shock and surprise when I turned the corner and heard a little tinkling sound. There, standing over the toilet, was my little boy, relieving himself without assistance, like he had been doing it all his life. I mean, he goes potty all the time, but usually he tells me first and then I help him "prep". This time he just did it on his own, and when he saw me he said, "I can do this all by myself, Mom. Please back up, I need prime-a-see (privacy)." It was super exciting and totally weird at the same time. So all we need to do now is teach him how to drive, and our jobs as parents are done. Easy.

Other than that we have just been taking it one day at a time with everything. I am starting to get pregnant-looking, Matt is building a replica covered wagon in our garage, and Bennett is recognizing almost all of the letters of the alphabet. One day I will put pictures on here, but today I am considering myself really on the ball for even writing this. So until next time...

Trying Again

You know those charts illustrating evolution you would see in Science class growing up? Like where it starts with a little amoeba in some water, and then it grows into a weird crawly thing, and then into a bug, to a small animal, to a monkey, to a human? Well, I feel like I have experienced that first hand during this pregnancy. And I have finally made it out of weird crawly stage and back into a human being.

As Bennett would say, "Hooray Mommy!" (I have no idea why he uses this word, because nobody actually says this word in real life. But he picked it up from somewhere.)

So what has been going on?

-Lots of laying in the floor and throwing up. But like I said, that is all behind us now. Mostly. I still throw up at least once a day, but it's just sort of a part of my routine now. I'll take it!

- Bennett is potty trained. How did I do it? I waited until he was almost three, put some underwear on him, and told him to use the potty. Done. Actually, there was more to it than that, but mostly he just figured it out on his own, which was good because I have been MIA as a mom lately. Poor guy.

- Matt's new job is going really well. I think he is the Brigade Medical Something Something Officer. It's really important and he is in with all the big wigs now, which has its ups and downs. Mostly ups though, so we are happy. He is awesome at what he does and I am lucky to be his "Officer Wife." We get to go to lots of fancy parties and use the words "Sir" and "Maam" a lot.

- I am Primary President. Yes. After four years in primary, they have finally promoted me to the top. It's not bad so far, since I feel like I could do primary in my sleep (which I think I do do on some Sundays) but it is definitely keeping me busier. I also just spoke in church a few Sundays ago, and then got asked to do a musical number in a few more Sundays, with a lot of other church-related meetings and responsibilities along the way. I tell you what, church keeps us going around here. On a related happy note, I am no longer over Cub Scouts (HOORAY again!) so at least I can ditch the sixty-something men in knee-high socks and short shorts at Round Table each month. Whew!

- This baby in me is a gymnast. He/She moves and rolls and kicks and I love it. Matt can feel it move too, and we lay in bed at night and just watch the performance. I think it's a girl. Matt thinks it's a boy. I guess we'll know in about three weeks for sure, but you won't because we aren't telling. :)

- Our good, good friends the Askerlunds just moved to Afghanistan (Erik) and Utah (Joelle and Brielle). We are sad sad sad here. But we are lucky to have lots of other friends to keep us busy. That is definitely one of the down sides of military life. Thank goodness for cell phones and Facebook though. We'll see them again.

- There's more. A lot more. But honestly I can't think of anything else that is pertinent enough to go on here right now. So that's about where we are. I am going to try to take this blog back now that I am back to myself again. We'll see how it goes. Wish us luck!!