What do you bring to a white elephant gift exchange?

That!

The month in review

Doesn't that title just grab your interest and make you want to read this post? I bet you're on the edge of your seats. Well, I won't let you down!

THE PRICE IS RIGHT

I fulfilled one my lifetime goals (I set reasonable goals for myself) by attending a taping of The Price is Right. I went with my Grandma, my sis, and my friend Sheri who I found out while we were there is my third cousin! Her grandma and my grandma were cousins and grew up picking potatoes together. Crazy mormons are all related, I guess. The day required hours and hours of waiting in lines, but we met a lot of nice people. One elderly couple we waited in line with entertained us with some stand-up comedy that they perform on cruise ships (the wife asks him to nibble on her ear like he used to. He jumps out of bed. She says "where are you going?" Husband replies "To get my teeth!"). We got in the show, and although we didn't get to come on down, we yelled ourselves hoarse saying "One dollar, one dollar!" Overall it was totally exhausting, but I guess that's the "price" you have to pay for fame and fortune! Hee hee...

Grandma hung out with us for a few days. The kids loved having her around, especially Ben. He likes to eat and she likes to feed people. It's a match made in heaven!
What else did we do this month? I'm glad you asked.

THANKSGIVING

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We invited Nellie over and had our own meal. Man oh man, what a great holiday. As my friend Carly said "Good food and being grateful, how much better could a day get?" And it really can get better when my friend Jill, who also has celiac disease, did a pie swap with me. I had four gluten free pies. It was like a little turkey day miracle. And then it got better when Sam wanted to help, so I gave him the ingredients for the cheeseball and he made it! It was the first time that he helped in a way that actually diminished my workload instead of the other way around.

I have so much to be grateful for, so I wrote a poem about it:

Turkey day helps me count all my blessings.

And you also say "please pass the dressing."

I love all my family

I love all my friends

And I promise with you I'm not messing.

The sugar rush begins

Happy Halloween from the Barneys!

We went to our ward Halloween Hoopla and had loads and loads of fun (almost as much fun as we had candy in our buckets afterward!) Here's Tinkerbell, Usain Bolt the Olympic 100 M dash gold medalist, and a chicken.

This video shows Ben in action as a chicken. Too bad he could only keep the costume on for 15 minutes before he started sweating to death. He made one cute little chicken, though, for as long as it lasted.

The other pics are our recent trips to Disneyland. Amy and I celebrated our birthday there. Birthdays are so cool with a twin. And especially when it's Amy. We had a birthday sleepover the night before. She kept doing nice things for me during the day saying it was in honor of my birthday. Then I had fun making my own birthday cake because, really, it was for Amy. That's what I call a lesson in service! Here's baby Kate with her matching Moms at Disneyland.

Chris has gotten used to me hounding him to take pictures. He has the longer arm and he's gotten pretty good at it, don't you think? Here's us on our date night at Disneyland on tea cups (thank you Sheri for watching the kids!).

3,000 Miles and a book full of pictures later...

Yeah. We totally drove all the way to Seattle (and all over WA) and back as a family and we're actually alive to tell the tale. And you know what, I'm glad we did it! We had a really good time together. It seems like the traveling part of the trips comprise a lot of my memories of vacationing with the whole family as a child, (wrestling in the back of the blue van/ watching out for our pet iguana as it wandered the van when we moved from CA to CO). Traveling is different now than when I was a kid. Maybe Sam will remember the hour upon hour he watched Scooby Doo, or how it was even cooler in Portuguese once they tired of the English version. Scooby still starts his words with r's, even in Portuguese.

Other possible experiences that indelibly etched upon thier young minds:

Seeing a tree you could drive through if you didn't have a fully loaded mini-van with a storage thing on top. Pulling over to see a "life size" creation of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. We'd seen a special about this place on a Huell Howser show (that guy is the coolest), and couldn't miss a chance to be somewhere Huell had once been. He even talked and waved to us! Camping in the redwoods where we enjoyed skipping rocks and all sleeping soundly in one tent (wonder of wonder, miracles of miracles).We got to see Seattle and ride the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Here's Chris with the kids and an oh-so picturesque Rainbow settling just over the Space Needle. Beautiful, isn't it? Here's me Reading Harry Potter in the car on the ferry while Sam sleeps off the last remnants of the food poisoning that we all got, but he was the last to get it and the last to recover. But a quiet moment in the car is almost as nice as a rainbow and the space needle sometimes.

The real reason for the drive was Chris' sister Becky's wedding. The groom's (Jon's) Dad lives on Bainbridge Island and has a gorgeous backyard where they held the ceremony. Lucy got to be the flower girl and made it most of the way down the aisle before becoming completely terrified and running to me crying. Ben liked playing with the petals, so it all worked out, and I think they got a few good pics of her before she saw the crowd, so all is well.

The bride and groom glowed and we loved being with Becky and the rest of the Barney family whom we definitely don't see often enough. Here's Chris and his brothers (Dean, Jason, and Aaron) with their sis Becky.

The women: Bridesmaid I don't know, Theresa, Becky, and Erica holding Eva.

Becky graced us with her singing/keyboard talents (she is SO amazing!) and her friends from other bands from the Seattle area rocked the reception. They were so good, they even got Grandpa busting a move! Now I know where Chris gets his moves!


Daddy-daughter dancing is the BEST!
Cute cousin Eva found Ben and remember him from their visit this summer. She gave him a little kiss and he stood ever so still. I think it means they'll be friends forever.

Forgive the shoddy camera work. She can really sing.

After the wedding, we spent a few days touring Seattle, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helens. Those mountains sure make you understand what it means to be the dust of the earth. They tower over everything. They are some amazing creations!

Grandma Doris and Ben playing dress-up in Ye Olde Curiousity Shoppe. Sam finding butterflies at the Pacific Science Center.

Mount St. Helens lost over 1,000 feet in height when it erupted. The whole area looks desolate compared to the lush forests everywhere else (it's still greener than SoCal!).

Mount Rainier vs. Sam -- who would you bet on?

The Grove of the Patriarchs.

We also spent some time with Grandpa Chris and Grandma Doris, who let the kids ride one of their miniature horses. They LOVED it!
That's it! We are back and glad to be back. I don't think we'll be traveling out of state for quite awhile. Come to sunny so-cal and visit us instead!

Mourning the end of an era

Up to this point my life as a mother hasn't been controlled much by anything but me. I got used to doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. We had a good schedule of things we were involved in and doing, but nothing we HAD to do, usually. Now school has started and it's all changing. I am officially controlled by the man now. I have to take my child to school every day or they'll throw me in "JL" (that's Jail in Sam's dialect of English). At least I tell Sam he has to go every day or we'll both get in trouble -- I didn't tell him I'd go to jail, promise.

I have to say that three kids at home at once did get a little overwhelming near the end of this summer, though, making me ready for school to start. You can only sing and dance for so long before you just want them to go and clean up their room just because you told them to do it. Can you tell I was ready for a change? But I will miss a few things like:

Lounging around in our pj's all day.

Camping in the backyard -- not caring about bedtimes or routines.
Lounging in the tent.
Boating with the girls.

Making cookies outside so we could recklessy sprinkle the dough with flour (and taking a bath on the grass with the hose afterwards).

Summer ended when I told Sam "Finish your homework first"." And then I realized I'm probably going to say those exact words a lot more for a long time. I can't believe Sam's in school. Gone are the carefree days of summer and here comes structure and schedules. Gone is my baby boy! But he's ready and I'm ready. It's not all bad, but it'll take some getting used to.

He could hardly sleep the night before he was so excited. He woke up early, brought out his carefully planned clothes, dressed, then asked me every few seconds when it was time to go. During breakfast he told me he felt like a teenager. Once the time finally came, he donned his backpack and jumped into my view saying "I'm Kindergarten Boy!"

That's his teacher Mrs. Stephens in the background. She's great!When I picked him up, he looked like they'd been performing China torture on him. He moped over to me and when I asked how it went, he said "Not good!" Day 2 and 3 have gone a little better, I think.

Our day is different without Sam. Lucy and I like doing girly things now like dress-ups and painting our toe nails. Ben jumps right in. He has lovely pink toes right now and he loves it. I don't know if things have changed for the better for sweet little Benny boy. Change is good, though, right?

To make my family jealous

I got to see my brother today even though he's still on his mission. We have been good his whole mission while he's serving an hour away from where we live and haven't tracked him down once. The mission pres granted us a lunch date before he left and today was the lucky day. He flies home on Wednesday.

I was nervous, and he later said he was nervous, about what the outcome of our little date might be, but it ended up being a great time. Everybody wants to see the newly home elders, but I hated to be the one to remind him the real world is coming. I told him it's good, though. I don't think he believed me.

We met in a bit of a sketchy neighborhood at a cool Mexican food joint. His companion gained five pounds worth of burrito during the meal (he's a bean pole, so he could use it). We talked about his mission and how things might be when he gets back. I think he's in for a bit of a shock based on how he reacted to a couple of Chris' slightly off comments, but he's going to do just fine. Just don't make him watch any movies for awhile. He's not ready for that. And he doesn't want to hear Weezer right away, either.

We love Bubba and can't wait to have him back! He has definitely served with honor and is coming home a different, wiser, more mature man (but still as skinny as before, to his chagrin). Hopefully we'll rise up to his level a little bit as he rubs off on us.

MJ's memorial is tomorrow, so LA is covered with murals like this one down the street from where we ate. Bubba was worried he was breaking the rule of looking like a tourist. I thought it was more of a historical picture. It marks the end of an era in so many ways.

What we did on the 4th

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. My friend pointed out today that it has all the fun of the best holidays without the fuss of gifts (like Christmas) or insane amounts of food prep (like Thanksgiving). Ours was nice. We started with a refreshing pancake breakfast. The flier sent out at church said "Come enjoy a refreshing pancake breakfast." I can't eat pancakes, but it looked like everyone else was very refreshed by it.

I told Sam we celebrate the 4th in honor of those who fought for our freedom and who continue to do that. He said "like Uncle Danny?" who is in Iraq fighting right now. I think it meant more for the kids knowing someone they could relate the meaning of the day to.

That afternoon we swam at Nellie's with the cousins. Sam got stung by a bee as he was about to cannon-ball into the pool about 15 minutes into the festivities. A few popsicles later he still wanted to go home, so we did. We barbecued and ate outside. The kids werekind of jumpy about bugs after Sam's incident, but they forgot all about it once I started filling water balloons for our water balloon toss. It's funny how I spent so long filling balloons and never had more than 10 filled at one time. Ben especially loved grabbing them, giggling, then chucking them on the grass. Chris snuck up on the roof with a hose and sprayed us as we worked so diligently filling and tying (all the kids helped, of course). So then the 10 I had filled were launched at him. We got him pretty good. That counted for the water balloon toss, I think.

Later we had a huge communal bath (it's nice having kids and cousins 7 and under--they don't care yet). Then we enjoyed our first batch of homemade ice cream for the year. We were all totally spent even though we really wanted to watch fireworks. Cousins left, hoping to catch some fireworks on the ride home. We got lucky. As we were putting the kids to bed, we heard the booms of the nearby show. I peeked out the window and there it was! We could see half of the show pretty clearly. Sam was exhausted! He lay in bed and watched for a few minutes before I heard him lightly snoring. Lucy kept saying "Oooh, that's a pitty (pretty) one!" and telling me which ones were her favorite colors. She got tired and jumped in bed, too. Chris wandered off, so I watched the end of the show as my kids fell asleep. It was a perfect way to end the day.

Check out Ben's Blog

I just accidentally posted the blog meant for here on Ben's blog, so follow the link to see it. I'm too lazy to recreate it.....

The Force always Prevails!

Sam turned five (AAHH!! He's growing up) and chose a Star Wars theme for his first "friends" party (we've always just done family parties). He had been a Jedi for Halloween because he reveres his friend Brayden who let him borrow the costume, but he hadn't seen the movies. I guess a light saber is enough reason to want to have a Star Wars party, right? I tried to talk him into other party ideas, but Star Wars he wanted and Star Wars he got. He asked me as I was explaining some of the activities I had planned what Star Wars' younger brother's name was. Hmmmm.....I decided I'd better let him watch some of the movie, at least, so he would get the games. All of the activities were training to become a Patowan. I learned a lot of vocab as I did my homework to do this right. It's not like anyone knew what was going on, but it's the principal of it, you know? And I had a lot of fun with the details. Here's the sign that greeted them.

That's supposed to be Yoda in case you can't tell--I'm quite artistically challenged and almost had to draw a grid like in middle-school art class to get this right. Then there were the games. We did Pin the X-Wing Starfighter on the Death Star (blindfolded using only the power of the force), Yoda-Vader (red-saber, green saber), and of course an obstacle course involving a meteor shower (one mom throwing rice), ducking under a lava flow (cellophane), and avoiding the dark side (Chris and Lucy with a light saber). If they completed their training, they got a classy homemade light saber (pool noodles and dowels make for a very safe and inexpensive version of the original). Then, thanks to a friend in the ward andy my bro-in-law, there was a disturbance in the force and Darth arrived to take on the newly trained warriors. Only one kid cried when he showed up. Yeah, it was totally intense. When they got over their fear, they went a little postal on him, but luckily only one kid had a real plastic light saber. The rest were pretty soft. Jason was a good sport. The best line happened when he came out and invited each kid to fight him individually using their new moves (I ripped this off from Disneyland's Jedi Training show). He called his son Luke, Sam's cousin, up and said what he'd been trying to find the opportunity to say since he was born "Luke, I am your father!"

Yoda's green, I know, but I was going to do Darth and it was too hard (see the three Darths in the middle? It looks like a nun with a mouth guard). All of these ideas were online--what did mothers do before the internet?

A birthday tribute--Sam is so grown up. He loves preschool, his new friends there, and looks forward to getting homework in kindergarten (we'll see how long I can milk that one!). He likes fixing things, working on puzzles with Dad, and learning new things. He thinks he could drive if I let him try (thanks Grandpa!). He told me that one day he's going to marry Lucy and they'll have Ben as a baby and I said, "Yep--I can't wait!" I keep thinking I don't want him to grow up, but I love every step of the way. Happy birthday Sam! We love you so much!