The Week of Elise + Camden

 We were so grateful Ali and Elise came to spend a few days with us!!

They made the drive with just one stop, which has me ALMOST feeling like we're basically neighbors. We always wanted to be neighbors and it's not in our cards, so I'm grateful we've at least got a one-stop-drive going for us.

We ended up both coming down with the same thing and feeling sick all week though, so it was survival together with these two babies. It's hilarious to me that Camden is months older than Elise because they feel like the exact same stage now. Just walking around, getting into things, "sharing" with each other, crying when the "sharing" didn't get reversed, poking each other (Elise...), fussing too much about each other (Camden....) haha, they are just so funny to watch.

Ali made us protein balls and butternut squash soup and cleaned my kitchen floor and played with my boys. She's just the best. And it felt like such a shame to have early bedtimes all week because of being sick, but I'm grateful we got to at least be miserable together :)

On Thursday they drove home and she and Elise did great on the 7-hour drive. That same day we had all the insulation removed from our house (it was poorly done originally and our house gets SO cold and/or hot) as well as some other workers to redo our fireplace so we can put in a unit that works. Those things combined will help us have a much cozier home in our future! Camden actually still took a nap even while they removed insulation all day, but the next day we had an electrician here the full day and we had a full day of awake time for him. We knew we'd need lights eventually in all our rooms rather than just lamps, and since it will be so much easier to install while the insulation is removed, we had that done the next day. So long days of people in your home and awake babies are not always the shortest feeling days but I'm super grateful for the work that's getting done!

Friday we did a bowling mystery shop which is the first time we've taken the boys bowling in ages. It was fun until it wasn't, but the did really like it while we were there! We've gotta work on transitions out of fun things though...

Then Saturday we made a trip to the nursery for raspberries and grapes. The boys love playing in the rocks there and Michael is in his happy place there too.

Ali watched Camden with Elise while Michael and I went to brunch on our 9th Anniversary Wednesday! Nine years. For some reason I feel old enough that we should have double digits under our belt at this point, so I'm glad that's coming next year :)

It was a good week but always so sad to say goodbye to my sister. Double sad now that it means saying goodbye to sweet Elise too. Nobody gives open mouth cheek kisses like that cute girl.

Before!
After comes in like....three weeks haha.

Birthday Parties & Visitors Coming!

Westin and Bennett love school, Camden loves his dad, Mom loves when the house manages to be somewhat tidy lately because all the way tidy feels out of reach these days, and Dad loves buying plants. Spring is almost here and he's ready to plant away!

Saturday we had a Mystery Shop marathon -- it's been a while. We went out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and Michael did reports all day :) The boys loved going out to breakfast and getting their own french toast (Westin) and waffle (Bennett). They are such eaters these days.

On Saturday the boys went to Clark's birthday party, which they loved. On Saturday night we had the biggest treat -- Ali and Matthias and Elise arrived! And Sunday Matthias had to fly back home for work, but it was so nice of him to help drive them out to us so we could have a fun week together. 

Baby hugs! Elise and Camden are so funny together.

Coloring boys at the Birthday party. They said most were done after 10 minutes or so and Bennett colored for an hour haha.

He takes coloring very seriously.

We caught up on some random things around the house while they were at the party.
Camden doesn't give Michael an inch of space when he's home,
and he was super into the drill.

Needs lots of books before bed these days :)

Westin loves this book about feelings from Grandma Miner.

Sweet Naylor family.

One of Bennett's favorite buddies stopped by for a day, sweet Evie.

Camden loves walking to school instead of the stroller when dad is home.

He totally pulls off the pajamas and sneakers look.

I loved this picture Sally sent of Ed giving Covid vaccines.
It feels so hopeful to have so many vaccines being distributed.

Cousin Day!

Playing catch up...

Highlight of the week was Saturday when the cousins came up to play!

I wish I remembered more -- every time I catch up I feel so grateful for the blog, because it obviously captures things that I would have other wise forgotten.... surprisingly quickly.

Love these boys.

Camden's been loving chasing the older brothers for a hug lately,
and it's just the cutest.

Fastest popcorn eaters in the west.
Michael and I wouldn't make anything different but dedicated popcorn eaters.

Sometimes he wakes up from his naps so GRUMPY and those are the times I'm really grateful for a few minutes of Baby Einstein to reset that whiny cutie.

Showing me the "Cars! Vroom Vroom!"

Just melting over this one's sweet cuddling cuteness.
School makes him happy and tired.

Michael is taking his grape-growing to the next level.

Cousins came! Here's some Limbo action.

Popsicles, bike rides, lunch outside, playing with a crazy dog, soccer, lots of chasing each other and something about space ships. Kids are so happy with cousins.

 

Easter & Conference

Conference and Easter go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter. In fact, we had plenty of both those combinations this weekend.

These boys are so much fun. They loved Easter, loved playing conference bingo, I loved that the primary presidency brought over laminated conference bingo cards and skittles and did my entertaining job for me, and they were so excited for dying and finding and eating eggs. We filled our day so full we didn't even get to our Resurrection rolls that we had planned on, so I promised Westin we'd do them Monday. He has reminded me many many times since then to not forget :) He loves traditions.

We had an insulation check on our house which has spiraled into a huge project with our fireplace and lighting in our house. We now need a fireplace tech, electrician, and stonework guy to all coordinate a project together and be here close to each other so our house isn't torn up for too long, and then we will get some insulation work done after that so keep the south side of our house from being so... insulation-less. One thing after another comes up when it's -- "Well if we're doing this, we should do this first. If we're doing that, we should replace that first." It's overwhelming but I think we've nailed down the scope of it and figured out where to go from here, and it's going to be a really good thing to take care of.

This is a catch up post and I don't remember enough other things about the week to add -- which is totally reinforcing to me why I keep up on this little blog space of ours.

 

I've got way too many pictures that look like this lately,
but I can't not snap one every time Bennett takes a little nap with me on the couch.
I think it's the sweetest thing.

Finally changed out our super faded and years & years old duvet cover,
and we have some unnecessary pillows on our bed for the first time.
Feels very grown-up-ish. Michael was worried I was going to get hundreds,
but we're going to stick with this amount. He doesn't understand unnecessary pillows :)

Always demanding shoes.

Conference cuddles while the littlest one is sleeping.

If it looks like Camden is trying to drink out of the watering can like a dog...

...that's because that's exactly what he was doing.

Michael was looking very dad-like so I took his picture.

Some football practice

Camden likes being in on the fun for a bit, but then...

He makes a break for it to walk down the sidewalk of our street.
He isn't too worried about having a follower, but luckily he hasn't taken off without one of us voluntarily making the trip with him yet.

Cutes Easter card from our neighbors who have been in Florida for a few weeks.
The boys are missing them!

Signed books for my boys' baskets. This was a happy moment for me.

I remember a few years ago when I wanted a book like this for their baskets and couldn't find one anywhere. It was so fun to put one in from their mom.

Some shots of Westin at school from his SeeSaw app.

They loved dying eggs this year!

Neighborhood egg hunt!

Westin found the grand prize egg and was in shock with that $5 bill.

We forgot masks but Michael was running home to get them right here, so we had them soon after this!
Such a fun cul-de-sac egg hunt with our neighbors.