We do use our camera sometimes

Just a bunch of random pictures from a lot of different times, put in no order whatsoever, and captioned briefly. Because that's how we're rolling tonight.

 

Bennett and Zoey playing an intense game of Candy Land over New Year's. 

 

Bennett wanted to have a picture of his block tower we made together.

 

All of the "men" at Barrett's priesthood ordination a few weeks ago.

 

Mr. Patton on his way to Nursery. 

(What you are not seeing in this picture is me in the background, having a celebration.)

 

Matt's Lexus. May it have many adventures with its new owner.

 

Bennett in our hotel room we stayed in overnight  when we went to pick up our fifth wheel. The kid woke up at like, 5:30 in the morning, so we gave him the ipad, strapped on some headphones, and went back to sleep. He was so happy...and tired...

 

The notorious fifth wheel!

 

 Here's a few pictures of the inside, but these were taken awhile ago and we've done a lot since then. We're just sort of trying to make it feel like a home, instead of a trailer. The "front door" is to the right. The double doors leading to the back are going to the master bedroom (which isn't full of boxes anymore, like it was in this picture), and the living area is to the left.

 

This is the main living area. I'm standing in the hallway near the bathroom taking this picture. The boys' room is behind me.

 The bathroom we all get to share. There's a teeny tiny bathtub/shower around the corner.

Bennett's bed. He is so. Dang. Excited to sleep in here. Every time we are working on anything in the trailer, is is just laying on this bed so happy.

 

Patton's bed. We turned the bunk bed above his into a makeshift closet so the boys will have more room to keep their toys and stuff in the real closet.

 

 Matt and I went to the Oklahoma City Temple with the youth yesterday to do baptisms for the dead. It was my first time being an adult instead of a youth at this type of thing. It was different to be on the other end of things, but still such a sweet experience. Matt is an excellent Young Men's president and the kids adore him.

 

Bennett wearing...? He's just being Bennett.

 This is how the boys frequently travel. They make me so stinkin' happy.

 

After Christmas, Bennett had a lot of questions about Santa Claus, and just how exactly he did what he did. So one day Matt took him up on the roof to inspect our chimney. And of course, Patton wouldn't be left on the ground when there was so much excitement going on up above. Bennett is now satisfied with the science behind the magic.

  

Patton is my little helper, and I love it. He is already great at wiping down my table and chairs, and throwing away garbage. His favorite things to do are vacuum and sweep (both of which actually slow me down quite a bit)  but his skills will improve as he gets taller. Besides, I'll never be the one to discourage cleaning, no matter how anti-productive it may be.

 

One day Bennett was in the tub, and Patton felt left out...

 This is a throw-back to when we were all sick and Patton was so joyus about the whole ordeal. This is literally how he looked for four days straight if I wasn't holding him. It was a loooooooong four days.

 One morning I came out of my room to find this note from Bennett on a "bed" he made for our family to sleep on in the living room (pictured below). He doesn't know how to do Patton's name yet, but I am proud of him for writing things on his own.

 

The family bed Bennett made us. Looks comfortable :)

 These are little statues in our park that are dedicated to the branches of the military. Bennett thought it was cool that he was the same size as them, and I snuck a picture of him trying to imitate their salutes. The cutest part was that Patton stood right next to him and did a little salute, too, but I didn't get my camera out fast enough. It will be weird to live in a community in a few weeks that doesn't revolve around the military.

 

Here's our trailer again.This is looking down the hall towards the bathroom and the boy's room.

 Matt got me this nifty little spice holder since we don't have a ton of storage space in our new "home"

Oh! A tummy picture! (Matt uploads these and I just caption them). I feel weird having this on here. Well...here it is. I think this was at 19 weeks when I took this. And ignore my messy bathroom and finger-printed mirror. I have kids...

And one last picture of the kitchen in the trailer. I told you these were out of order. But that's about all of it now. So there you go. A quick, incoherent tour of our new home. We'll post more when it's actually put together.

So yay! Some pictures for you to look at instead of my long-winded blog entries. Because believe it or not, we do have cameras. And sometimes we use them.

Until next week! 

The Family That's Sick Together...

We are sick. Sick, sick, sick.

Actually, we are all mostly better now, but that has pretty much been the theme of this week. Last weekend we were in Texas to, A-pick up our fifth wheel (which we now have parked in our driveway and are woking on packing. More on that later), B-pick up the meat we had processed from Matt's deer hunt a few months ago, C-go to church with Matt's nephew, Barrett, who turned twelve and received the priesthood, D-see family and friends we will not be seeing for a long time, since we are moving in a few weeks.

We did it all in two days. It was a busy trip.

Patton wasn't feeling well when we left, and by the time we came home we were ALL on our deathbeds, coughing up lungs and feverish. So Tuesday we declared it Family ER Visit Day, and we all spent a rousing morning sitting in a waiting room and being diagnosed with various cases of colds, strep throat, and the flu. The remainder of the week was spent drinking liquids in front of the TV. Seriously...the entire week. We don't get sick very often around here, but when we do, we do it in style. I am pretty sure we watched about a million movies.

By Friday morning we were all up again, although slowly, and Matt even went back to work. The boys and I ventured out to a puppet show at the library, but by the time it was over we all came home and crashed in our beds again. And that about sums up our week.

On a side note, I find it fascinating that sickness will bring out a person's true personality. Here is what I learned about our family the last couple of days.

Matt is amazing. He was probably the most sick out of all of us, but since I think he saw that I was doing little to improve our living situation this week (ie: eating food. Living in a basic state of cleanliness. Dressing on a regular basis) he frequently dragged himself from the floor to help me wherever he could. It was definitely a team effort this week, but I think Matt was the most valuable player.

I am a dying star when I get sick: I just sort of go into myself until I either recover or self-destruct. Thankfully, I usually recover. Which is good, because I am not very nice or patient when I am sick. I need to improve this about myself.

Bennett is my polar opposite. He is by far our easiest sick person. He is the chipper little voice coming from the couch, announcing in happy, conversational tones that, "I am about to throw up, but don't worry! I have my red bowl! I will be OK! Oh, and Mom, my head is very hot. Maybe I have a fever! But we have medicine! I can take care of my body!" Very optimistic (and a little annoying, when the rest of us feel like death would be a welcome alternative compared to what we are going though.)

Patton is by far our grumpiest sick person. By faaaaar. If he is being held he's fine, but if we dare to put him down, we ALL suffer. And since he was the first to get sick, and the last to get better, our patience is wearing thin with his little attitude. Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for the guy...I just sort of feel worse for the rest of us right now. He needs to get better. 

Baby Three deserves a mention here, as it is healthy and strong. All of my coughing fits even motivated it to attempt a few wiggles here and there, which I can feel now. We also got to see the baby Wednesday at an appointment, and although we tried so hard to tell, it was being pretty uncooperative and we still have to idea of a gender. March 4th is our big ultrasound, so hopefully we'll know then. And since we weren't about to leave the kids with a babysitter during the week of the plague, they both got to see Baby Three as well. Bennett totally gets it and is super excited to be a big brother again. Patton liked the toys in the doctor's office.

Tomorrow I will get Matt to upload pictures on here from our trip, but right now I am going to go to bed. Because it's 9:06. Waaaay too late for me to be up.

Here's to good health!