Happy Halloween!

Coming to you from SO-Cal it's Hannah Montana and her trusty sidekicks Sam the Vam (Pire) and Magic Mickey.

Mark spent the evening sleeping on Nellie's couch.

Here are some individual shots. I love how their poses show their personalities!

House Special #4

We have always conferred with a professional baby-namer when deciding our children's names. This year, her top suggestion was House Special #4 (I think she had just eaten Chinese). She wanted us to name Lucy either Bam-bam or Hertie Gertie. ACTUALLY, she's not so much a professional baby-namer as she is a co-worker of Chris'. But we always enjoy her creative opinion. We went another direction, though.

So what DID we name Barney Boy #3 and Barney kid #4???

Mark Henry! Isn't it lovely? He was born just a day past his due date and weighed in at 7lb 4oz. He's absolutely perfect (I think the jaundiced look gives those first weeks of baby pictures a little bit of a Hollywood "fake bake" look). He's eating, sleeping, and doing all of the other unmentionables babies love doing without any problems! I am eating him up. I always dread the new born phase and once the baby is born, I fall in love and wonder what I was so concerned about! Then again, I've had a lot of help in my mom and husband this week so ask me again next week...I might be a bit more frazzled. But now I am quite enjoying this sweet new spirit. The rest of the family loves him, too. Sam's already given him a dance lesson and Ben enjoys holding him for up to 10 seconds at a time, as long as he's sleeping.

She LOVES this boy! She begs to hold him whenever I'll let her.

The kids (with Grandma's help) made a welcome home sign for us. I loved coming home to see their shining faces and excitement for the new addition.

Chris got put in as bishop about 8 days after the baby was born.

It was quite a surprise for our family when he was extended the call, but we have already seen the Lord's hand in blessings we've received since then. We had a big family gathering for Chris and blessed the baby right after in our home.

Here's the Barney family circle.

Here's the Roundy representatives (Mom, as usual, was keeping busy swinging kids and holding babies).

No you can't sit on my head

Today the kids started school. I didn't eat for days before Sam started kindergarten. I had a moment of nostalgia a few days ago as I watched Lucy showing off her mad monkey bars skills and told her she didn't have to go to kindergarten. She didn't even look at me and nonchalantly replied, "I think I wanna twy it out." She wasn't concerned and I honestly was so ready to be done with summer that I didn't dwell on my concerns too much.

This picture captures how fierce she was feeling in her new duds (and sparkle toe shoes she calls them). She didn't want me to do her hair. She has her own style all figured out. Ben was all about the photo shoot even though preschool doesn't start for a few days.


Sammy woke up good, but he got a little too wound up and he felt like this as we left for his big first day of 2nd grade.


They both have really sweet, wonderful teachers. I feel so blessed to know they're in good hands this year. Lucy found her desk quickly and made friends with a few other little girls at the table. She was a bit miffed that one of the other girls thought she was 4 because she was shorter than her. Otherwise, I think the day went well for her.

School starting felt kinda like Christmas to me! I loved our carefree, fun-seeking summer, but I'm wearing down in this last trimester of pregnancy and being the "cruise director" got a bit tiring in the end there. As I arrived home with Ben and Ben alone, I felt like a new woman! He helped me with my chores, we played outside, and we finally made the treat he's been asking for for months since it was his turn to choose for family home evening. We have a magazine with these "charming little cakes" on the cover. It says something like "easiest baked goods ever!" next to it. Well, Sandra Lee, I beg to differ. Luckily, Ben seemed completely satisfied with the finished product.
Here's the pic from the magazine:
My version of the charming little cake. The kids still gobbled them up.

He definitely missed his siblings. Him and Sam got to be quite the wrestlers by the end of summer. I know it's in a boys nature to be physical but it's just against my nature to sit back and watch the grappling which inevitably turns to someone crying. So I didn't miss it. But when Ben suddenly asked me today "Mom, can I sit on your head?" I really wished Sam were there and I think Ben did too.

By the way -- It's a BOY! We're having a boy and have known awhile, I just haven't posted forever. Yeah for more wrestling matches, right? Actually, yeah for more Lucy-Mommy dates since she has solidified her position as princess of the family and now totally earned that extra attention. 6 weeks to go of pregnancy and then we'll get to meet our newest little nacho libre.

As an attempt to fill in summer gaps, here's a short list of what we'll remember most about this summer:

Searching for the King of the Red-Bum monkeys at the zoo (Grandpa said he was the king of the Red-Bum monkeys and that's something by boys will never forget). We only caught a glimpse, so this sign had to suffice for our proof of the existence of said red-bum monkey.

Swimming at Nellie's and getting spoiled with oodles of popsicles and rootbeer.

Lake Mead with cousins -- we survived a sudden storm with lightning and wind that drove us off the lake once it got calm enough to travel on it. Otherwise -- beautiful weather and water and lots of sunburns to prove it.

Kidnapping Daddy on National Cow Appreciation Day.

And a few sweet moments like this mixed in to remind me that what happens at home matters most.

Halfway

Summer's halfway over. We're actually really enjoying ourselves for the most part. I thought by now I'd be exhausted and done, and, well, I feel that way sometimes but I'm starting to dread getting back to the grind. Why can't I just enjoy the moment, eh?

I'm in my 3rd trimester officially. We're having a BOY in case the word hadn't otherwise reached you. 3 boys in the house. I really can't wait. Lucy has solidified her position as princess of the Barney family without equivocation. I love having an excuse to go out and do girly things "We girls have to stick together, Luc, since we'll be the only ones in the house!" Doesn't that merit a pedicure?

Something that's on my mind often lately and I think will be a reason that I find more joy in the moment happened last week. My good friend Sarah (you can review the posts -- she's been a part of my life since I've lived here) has a 16 month old son who got an e-coli infection which developed into more complicated HUS. After a life flight and surgery he is now hooked up to every tube in every spot possible while he's under every measure of sedation to hopefully right the wrongs the deadly little bacteria caused. If he recovers fully, which they say is possible, it will mean months of hospitalization for the poor little guy.

So what are my big problems? Well sometimes Ben hucks the Wii remote at Sam or Sam walks passed the socks again that I've asked him to pick up for the bobillionth time. I know, how do I manage, right? But sometimes when that stuff has happened this last week or so, I have felt this new layer of understanding that helps me see how blessed I am to have healthy, happy (mostly) kids. It makes me evaluate the things that matter most in a whole different way.And so this horrible experience has had an affect on my heart. Sarah's heart is going through faith bootcamp I'm sure. No one ever asks for that kind of challenge. I'm grateful that I've seen her strength and heard her testify of her trust in the Lord. She knows there's a plan. It doesn't relieve you from the pain of seeing your child suffer or wondering what really could happen, but it brings a measure of peace. The Lord knows each of us and helps each of us through our own challenges, whether they be great or small. He loves us all so much. And so I kindly pick up Sam's socks and give him a hug.

For those who only read my blog to see pics of the kids, I apologize. It won't upload anything right now....so more to come, hopefully sooner than later!

To Reward or Not Reward, and some weddings and mountains

In the midst of developing a rather involved summer reward/chore chart system, I ran across articles comparing rewards to dangling carrots. "You're raising a child not training a puppy," they say and they tell me the only way to really teach correct behavior is to do it through love and logic type learning. But then there's the school of thought that says reward good behavior to encourage good habits. So I'm revamping the reward system and trying to think about whether or not my "carrots" are helping them want to be good intrinsically, or relying solely on extrinsic motivation.


What are your plans for summer with kids home? How are you preparing for all that free time? I think I'm going to end up with some basic chore requirements not directly linked to fun stuff, but required to be completed to participate in fun stuff....and maybe some extra chores that they can earn money for or something like that.

While you're pondering your response, I'll entertain you with pictures from my recent trip to UT and AZ. Our "Spring Wedding Tour," as we (I) called it, included Chris' step-sister Tedi's wedding at the Salt Lake Temple and my cousin Whitney's wedding in the Mesa, AZ temple. We saw almost everyone we're both related to and got to squeeze in some wonderful family time in between events. It really made the top 3 for family trips we've done ever. We planned it with about 3 days notice and I think that worked well for us.

We spent some time as a family on the Salt Lake Temple grounds, where we were married. The kids had only seen it in pictures. They loved the vast conference center and the pictures in the visitor's center. The flowers reminded me of our spring wedding! Our poor CA kids could hardly handle the less-than-60 degree weather (it was actually more like 40 and rainy and windy!). We had our winter coats (hoodies) but I guess they have different winter gear in UT!

Ben and Grandpa Barney at Erica's house celebrating Chris' birthday.

Here's the Barney family at Tedi's wedding.

On our way from UT to AZ we drove through Zion's National Park. Holy gorgeousness!

The kids trooped up a mile long trail to a beautiful vantage point.

The kids (if you couldn't tell by now) are in this "pose for the camera" phase which means different things for Lucy than for Sam and Ben.

THE TOP!

I just realized I have no pics of Whitney's wedding. We went from 45 and freezing our pathetic California tails off in UT to 100 and sweltering in AZ and I think that just sucked all of the rest of what energy we had left out of us. Basically it was swimming, swimming, eating, wedding, swimming. So pretty much as good as it gets.

Something's different....

Is it my new hair-do?
No! This is just Lucy's new hobby. She loves doing hair, and just perfected the side-ponytail. If you ever see me in person with this special up-do, please let Lucy know how good she's getting at doing hair and don't laugh at me too much. Even if I pull it out or try to push it a little further back, she'll grab me and say "let me fix that foh you, Mom."


Here's another hint. It's a before and after picture of sorts.

That's right you clever person, you. I'm going to look like Amy in about 7 months! Oi. We had to time the passing of the maternity clothes just right. I must say though that it's not fun to see the end from the beginning, whatever I might have thought in my scripture pondering. Sometimes it's better to have to wonder how huge I'll get. But Amy looks fab, really. She's due today, by the way, and we're all betting on how long that baby can hold it's horizontal position without pushing straight out the front!

We're really excited/nervous about making the leap from 3 to 4 Barney chilluns. I expect Ben will probably rough the baby up enough before it's even out of my belly that it will be a tough little kid. Lucy's set to "make bottles, change it's diapoh (she doesn't say her r's), and hold it. So mom you bettoh eat lots of food (done) and take some naps (done and done) cuz the baby needs to sleep." I told her it's a peanut (I meant size) and the next morning she said "It's bwown! I can see it." Sam, after absorbing how this will change his life, noted that "now we need to wake up Dad at night if we're scared." Too bad he's the only kid that never wakes up. So October 7th here we come!

I also meant to post about our cool expedition down south to the Mormon Battalion church site. It's right in the Old Town area of San Diego and has recently been redone. We met Chris' bro and family down there and the kids LOVED IT! I enjoyed it too. I totally recommend going and checking it out. It's free, it's an excuse to go to beautiful San Diego, and they really put on a good show for kids of all ages (and adults) to learn what the Mormon Batallion's trek really meant for the church and for California (for more info check out mormon.org/mb). Here's what the kids loved:

The kids panned for gold and couldn't believe they actually found some (fool's gold, that is)! The sweet sister missionary let them pick two little bits from their findings to take home. They talked about how rich they would be if it were really gold.

Ben could have pumped that water spigot all day long. I suppose he'd make a good cowboy.

All of the cousins gathered at the end for this vintage photo. One of the best things about the whole tour is the sister and couple missionaries who run the place. They made sure all the kids were in it, pulling over crates and adjusting heads until we got this -- not bad from what we started with.

That's a Deal Breaker

Although our efforts to explain "tattletale" to the kids produced the phrase "Sam's tittletattling on me!", we are not deterred in teaching them these important concepts! Last night at dinner we spent some time discussing what a "deal breaker" was. I don't know if it totally sunk in but you have to admit if your 4-yr old pulls out a "that's a deal breaker!", then it's funny no matter what. I think her best example (after my stellar example of "if you want to go to a friend's house but then they get sick and throw up -- that's a deal breaker!") was "If your friend pulls out her eyeball!" Yeah, Lucy, that's definitely a deal breaker.

Sam couldn't be bothered with such tiresome linguistic lessons. His very first tooth is loose and thoughts about how best to deal with this new and dangerous upcoming event consume him. We've tried to ease his anxiety by explaining our own experiences loosing teeth-- Dad used some pliers and yanked it out after saying he just wanted to check on it. Mom tied floss around it, tied the floss to a doorknob, then slammed the door. Chris even showed him a youtube video of some kid who pulled his tooth out with a rocket (check it out -- it's a riot). Luckily he hadn't paid attention during dinner or he would have said "That's a deal breaker!" He started basketball recently and I told him a good ball to the face might help. He had already taken a few in practice and I wanted him to feel like at least the act might accomplish something good. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. The first kid, as everyone knows, gets experimented upon mercilessly. Any suggestions on making teeth-loss a fun process? He's relieved that it's finally happening. He's one of the last in his class to loose a tooth.

Ben, well he's busy vacuuming his hair and trying to learn how to be as cool as Sam. He sleeps like a rock and cracks us up with realistic re-enactments of shark attacks and jokes like "Knock knock. I said banana!" He didn't want to go to bed one night. He propped his head on his hands and gave Chris stink eyes. Chris left. 10 minutes later we found him like this.

Chris and I are settled into the new year quite nicely. We have a fresh bag of oranges delivered every couple of days from a goodly neighbor. What more can you ask for, really?

Here's our 2011 in pictures thus far (with a little throwback to 2010 and Courtney's wedding)

I already did a half marathon this year so I'm done with my new year's resolutions early. My good high school friend Jen came down from WA to run with me. I still hold to the truth that running brings people together. I undertrained and still pushed myself, but I didn't hurl and I hit my goal time so all in all it was a good race. I think the best part was recuperating on the beach after.

Sam's the oldest Grandkid at 6. And Courtney's not even started yet. Man, my parents are in for it!

This is the infamous "angry eyes" pose that the Barney men do so well in pictures.
Our best family picture effort.