January 2014

 Well, January is long over, but here is what we were up to.

This girl started Sunbeams...and it was really hard to get a normal picture of her. 

 This girl is still a dollface, and looks so much like her siblings.  She has survived no less than 500 attacks from her brother and sister and puts up with a lot of kissing and crushing hugging.

Ben had an Instacare shift up in Logan, so we took the opportunity to head up there with him for the weekend and visit our old stomping grounds and good friends.  While Ben worked Saturday, the kids and I headed to the Pepperidge Farm factory store, the Gossner Cheese Factory, Chik-fil-a for lunch, and went to the $3 theater to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  I was dang proud of myself for doing all of those things with all three kids by myself.  I must've loaded and unloaded kids about fifty times with all our outings and dropping off and picking up Ben from the Instacare.

On Sunday, the Humpherys let us join them at church and then we hung out at their house afterward and had a delicious dinner together.  These kiddos picked up right where they left off.  It helped that Sadie is such an outgoing and cute girl!  She made everyone feel at home.

First friends

These girlies were both kind of shy around each other.  Still super cute though.

These girlies liked holding hands with each other on the blanket.

It's so fun to have friends that line up perfectly age-wise!  After Ben's shift on Sunday, we picked him up and headed back to the hotel for a short night of sleep before heading down to work in Provo the next morning.  A fun, fast weekend away.


And in other news,

Ben grew a beard for "Beard-uary" at work. 

The Mads got to try the big stand up toy, and she now thinks she is one of the big kids.

I get to kiss and squeeze this girl all day long!

She fell asleep on me, and that doesn't happen too much anymore.

We succumbed to the beckoning of the van, and we're pretty dang excited about it. Seriously, I love it.  Ben is happy with the van we got, but it's "still a van" in his words. It is one functional vehicle.  Like a panther, prowling through the night.

E being weird with Maddi.

Sammi learned to write her name!  (Those darn S's like to try to get all crazy on her.)

Sammi got an Elsa nightgown and has already gotten our money's worth.  She wears it most of the day, every day while belting "Let It Go" and being beautiful.

And what have I been up to?  I spend most of my days either feeding children or cleaning up after them or taking them to or picking them up from school.  Ben has been working a lot at night and hasn't been home for dinner much, so I've had to get creative with what I make for dinner.  I hate to cook when he is gone, so we have a lot of breakfast-related things or leftovers, or chicken nuggets from the fridge.  Life is busy but good, hard but rewarding, lonely and full all at the same time.