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!