Wrestling

Now that I have figured out that pictures aren't too difficult to post, I have a few more that I thought you all might like to see. So if you have ever wondered what goes on in the Southwick house a good amount of the time, this is it:

New House

Here are some pictures of the new house we are building. It is a lot of hard work, but Stan has been doing a great job on it, along with the help of some good friends and family. Thanks everyone! Okay, so in case you couldn't tell, this is just the hole in the ground, not the house.
Framing.

Putting on trusses.

Getting ready to shingle. View from back of house.

Front of house.

Stan working hard.

More Pictures...

I posted the other pictures as a trial run, and to my amazement it worked! So here we go with some more. Bennett sound asleep.

Using kitchen utensils as swords. They will use just about anything as swords and guns (and missiles and rocket launchers and light sabers and sling shots, etc.)

Carson's first day of school.

Our boys with our neighbors, Logan and Caden.

Travis fell asleep at the table.

More wrestling with Uncle Eric. Congratulations to Eric!! He walked on to the BYU basketball team!!

Pictures!!!

I finally got the pictures from our camera onto our computer. I said it would take a week---it has been over two months. So I will attempt to post several of them on here right now. We'll see how it goes... Wrestling with Uncle Eric. Yes, all four boys are in this picture.

Wrestling with Daddy. A favorite pasttime at our house.

Construction

The other day there were several construction trucks working on the roads around our house. Grant had gone outside for a little while and when he came back in, he said,"Wow, there are a lot of destruction trucks around our house. I can't believe all of the destruction trucks!" About an hour later, Grant's friend rode his bike to our house and when he came inside, he said, "I had a hard time getting her because there's a huge instruction site out there!"

I thought I would also share Grant's commentary on the Olympics:

Grant, while watching China do sychronized diving, "How can they be so good? They don't have that much water in Chinese!"

Grant, while watching China do gymnastics, "What! Why did he fall? They have really good balance in China cause they do a lot of Karate over there!"

Breakfast, Nosebleeds, and Car Troubles

I made a list of things I wanted to write about this time, so hopefully I won't leave anything out. The other day Bennett woke up early and was still tired and grouchy so I got him to go back to sleep by me. Grant came in a little while later and I told him he could go ahead and get himself some cereal (it makes him feel grown up to get to do that), so I wouldn't wake up Bennett. A little while later, Grant came and told me to come have breakfast. I went out to the kitchen and Grant, Carson and Travis had made toast for everyone! They were so proud!!

We didn't have bloody noses in our family very often when I was growing up, but Stan got them quite a bit and our boys get them a lot too, usually at least once a week we have a bloody nose at our house for no reason. So two days ago Carson got a bloody nose and it was taking a long time to stop bleeding. I asked him if something had happened to his nose or if it had just started bleeding by itself. He said, crying, "Grant hurt my feelings so bad that I got a bloody nose!" So I guess at the Southwick house, bloody noses are caused by hurt feelings!

Later on the day of Carson's bloody nose, he was playing outside with the two little neighbor boys, Logan and Caden. I had been out to check on them a few times and was just about to go out again when there was a knock on our door. It was Logan and Caden's dad and he told me that the three boys had climbed into the back of Stan's truck, which was full of Stan's big tools, to play. Carson had climbed into the cab of the truck through the window and knocked the gear shift into neutral so the truck rolled down our driveway and into the middle of the street where it stopped. Our neighbor had come outside because he heard his boys screaming at Carson to stop it. We are so grateful that the boys were all in the truck and that nobody was around it and that no cars were coming down the street!

Today, Carson and Travis were playing outside in the front, just riding their bikes...or so I thought. Stan carpools to work, and usually they take his car, and Stan had taken the day off of work to work on our house so one of the other guys had come to take Stan's car and left his own car in front of our house. You'd think that a parked car wouldn't be too big of a problem (I should have known better based on the last story I just told), but I went outside to find Carson and Travis jumping on top of the car parked in front of our house. Upon further investigation (and it didn't take a lot of investigation), I discovered a huge dent in the top of the car. Come to find out, it wasn't just any co-worker's car, it was Stan's boss' car! It looked like if we could push up on the ceiling of the inside of the car we might be able to push the dent out, but the car was locked up tight. Stan said it would be okay if I tried to open it, so I got out a wire hanger and tried to unlock it. (You know I have so much experience breaking into cars.) Two neighbors came by and tried to help, and then a guy who works for the city stopped by and got it open after I had been trying for 45 minutes. It's amazing how many people will help you break into a car that's not even yours!! Luckily I was able to push the dent out and it's hardly noticeable now--thank goodness!!

Good news...I finally got a cord for our camera so as soon as I get it out of the package (which might take another week the way things are packaged nowadays) I should be able to get some pictures on here. No promises though since loading the pictures might take about half an hour, and apparently I can't leave my children unattended for more than 5 seconds or we might have a catastrophe on our hands! (trust me, I have checked on them at least ten times while I have been writing this.) I never dreamed that as a mother I would be breaking into my husband's boss' car, pushing dents out of cars, cleaning up really bloody messes, or explaining to my neighbor why my five year old was driving our truck with his two little boys inside. But while these adventures are difficult to deal with at times, I am so grateful for our precious little boys, and I am so happy that in spite of everything they are all healthy and happy!!

Fun Times

I think of things all day every day that I want to write on here, but I don't get to it. Then when I do sit down to do it, I forget. My sister asked me why I didn't put anymore pictures on our blog, so I guess I will let all of you know that I really have been taking pictures, (I'm the one in my family who never brings a camera, I just count on everyone else to take pictures) we are just missing the cord that goes from our camera to our computer so I haven't put any pictures on our computer for almost a year. Also, our computer is so ancient that it doesn't have a place to put the memory card into. So my problem is trying to remember to actually bring my camera into the store with me to find the right cord that goes from it to the computer. (Of course, they can't make them all the same.) Usually when I go the store I'm lucky to get myself, my purse, my list, and any boys I happen to have with me into the store all at the same time, but I really am working on the camera thing--so more pictures to come soon!

Tonight after the boys got ready for bed and we said prayers, Travis said, "Time to read 'squishbows' now." What a fun reminder from our 3 year old, even if he can't say 'scriptures' right!

Not Kidding!

See, I wasn't kidding about not keeping this up to date! I didn't even tell anyone we had a blog because I was embarassed. I think I will tell people now and maybe they will inspire me to do better.

We haven't been doing much this summer. I guess we have been building a house. I should say Stan is building a house--I'm not much help with four little boys. Right now Grant, Carson, and Travis are outside on the trampoline with a hose. Those two things (trampoline and hose) provide excellent entertainment for a good long while!

Carson just finished T-Ball and he had a good time. It was fun watching them play. Carson (and most of the other players) really enjoyed playing in the dirt on the field and seeing how high they could throw their mitts into the air while the game was going on. Carson also thought it was fun to smack every player from the other team that came running by with his mitt and yelling, "Gotcha!" We had to explain to him that he wasn't supposed to tag them unless he had the ball, so by the last game he finally got it and didn't hit anyone.

I have been really busy opening and closing the door. Seriously, I think I open and close our sliding glass door about 50 times a day because Travis and Bennett can't open it by themselves and Carson sometimes has a hard time opening it from the outside, and they can't just stay inside or outside, they have to go in and out all day long. I also open and close the front door a lot to let various friends from the neighborhood in and out. I can't really let the kids do that because if Travis or Bennett actually get out the front door, there's no telling where they might end up. Travis is getting a little better about staying close. A while ago we had to switch our doorknob to our garage door around so you have to use the key to get out because Travis would get out and use a mop handle to hit the button to our big garage door to open it and then run away. I spent 20 minutes one day walking around the neighborhood looking for him, and then he finally came wandering back and I have no idea where he went.

I should probably end this now. I can hear the boys outside yelling, and there's no telling what might happen...flooded basement from the hose in the window well...little boys covered in mud...hose in the house... You get the picture! Good-bye for now!

First Time

Well, my wonderful sisters, Julie and Jenny have inspired me to start a blog. We will see how this goes since I have never blogged before. I have to warn everyone though that I am not very good at updating, emailing, writing letters, etc., so there might not be anything new on here very often. Gotta go for now, Bennett needs some attention---more to come soon!