Cleveland Castle (The ice cream park)

When we first got to Le Mars we stayed in a hotel and you all know how difficult it is to be in a hotel with kids so we had to get out as much as possible. In the Le Mars visitors guide I found a list of parks and saw photo's of the Cleveland Castle. It looked really cool so we set out to find it.

Madi had so much fun exploring and climbing all over the fun things. She also really likes to chase after the squirrels. She says that she needs to pet them and I tell her that they have cooties. Such a silly girl!

We visited The Cleveland Castle a few times while we were in the hotel and then after we moved into the house I realized that we were just a few blocks away from the park and we can even see it from our front window. The past week I've been working like a crazy woman to get everything unpacked so everyday when Brett got home from work he would load the girls in the stroller and walk to the park. It's been so nice to let Madi get out and run and play. Kimber really likes going to the park too especially when she is all snugly in the her snugli.

I'm glad that the weather has been so nice so that we could go enjoy the park. I'm sure that once it snows we'll be able to go sledding or ice skating at the park too.

This is just one of the fun things that we like about our new home in Le Mars, Iowa.

Don't scare me like that!

Brett was just about to go out the door to run an errand when we heard a siren going off. We both just stopped and looked at each other because we didn't know what it meant. I just froze for a minute and then I turned around and walked to the TV and turned to a news station. There wasn't anything about bad weather so I thought I had better call someone to find out what the heck. I called this salesman that we had talked to and asked him what the siren meant. He said that every once in awhile they do a test of the siren at 1:00PM. He said that it took him a little while to get used to when he first moved here. I asked him if that's what we would hear if there was a tornado and he said yes. YIKES!!!!!!!!!! I think my heart stopped for a minute when I first heard that siren blowing. The girl that lives behind us told me that there was a siren that would sound if there was a problem but I didn't know they did tests!! Well, it's just good to know what I need to listen for. Now I just need to find out where in the house is the best place to hide if there is a tornado.. YIKES!!!!!!!!!

Duh!!

Since we've been in Le Mars we haven't been to church. It's so bad and I really want us to go but we haven't just because we have been all out of sorts with the move. Anyway, Madi has been begging, crying about going to nursery. We were already planning on going this Sunday anyway so I told her that we were going.
This morning I woke up at 6:30AM so that I could get myself ready and get the girls ready and then get to church on time. The drive to church is about 30 minutes so Brett and I planned out 40 minutes so we would have plenty of time. Well, as things go we didn't leave the house at the time we had planned and were running about 15 minutes late. So we rushed it a little trying to get there before 9:00AM. Then I was telling Brett a story so I didn't pay attention and we didn't take the right exit so we were still about 15 minutes late. Not too bad we could still catch the greater part of sacrament meeting. As we rounded the corner and I could kind of see the parking lot in the back of my mind I thought, "Where are all of the cars? Is it conference?!" Brett drove to the far side of the building and we could see the other side of the parking lot, the empty parking lot. We both said out loud, "IT'S CONFERENCE!!" Sheesh! If only we paid attention to something other than getting the house put together maybe we would have put that together before we drove down there.. We're so silly. It was a nice drive anyway we turned around and came back home and watched the end of the first session. Silly us! I'm glad that I did get to hear President Monson speak he's so great.
Anyway, that's my duh for today hopefully I won't have another one for a while. I guess I should have tried to take a family photo because we all looked pretty cute today. Oh well!

Ice Cream!!

I don't think I have ever mentioned what it is that Brett does now. Well, he works for Blue Bunny Ice Cream. He is a Production Supervisor just like what he did with Pepsi just now he makes ice cream instead of Gatorade. He is really enjoying his new job and learning about making ice cream. While he is at work he can eat ice cream and I think that he sometimes has to take a sample off the line.. I know what a terrible job right... We have tried a few different flavors of ice cream and some of the ice cream sandwiches and we are total fans. We just need to be careful and not eat too much ice cream so we can fit in our clothes.

Cute neighbors

Today as I was unpacking boxes (actually I was taking a break and playing on the computer) I heard a knock at the door. When I arrived at the door I saw a very tiny little old lady. My 93 year old neighbor came over to say hello and bring us cookies.. What a sweetie!! A few hours later when Brett was home from work there was another knock at the door. Another cute neighbor came over to say hello and bring us some cookies.. So cute!! Then while we were outside hanging the bug zapper (a necessity here) Madi saw the neighbor girls out jumping on the trampoline. She kept waving to them and yelling to them over the sound of the lawn mower. I thought that since they were all older girls they wouldn't want to hang out with Madi. Well, they all came over and wanted to have Madi come hang with them. It was really cute! The girls were eight and six years old. Madi had a great time jumping on the trampoline and being tickled by the girls.
Everyone that we have come in contact with have been so nice. I'm very excited to meet more people and learn more about Le Mars it's such a cute place.

Moving sucks rocks!

Ok moving sucks and I just always used to say that things sucked rocks so I had to title this post that.

Thank goodness for the company paid for packing and moving of all of our stuff. Too bad they don't come and put it all away for me when it gets here. Today I had a break down over where to put my mountains of beauty products.. Ahhhhh!!! I have promised Brett that I will buy one product use it up and then buy another one instead of buying one using a little putting it away and buying another one. This wasn't really an issue in our Buckeye house because I had tons of cabinet space. Well, here in this smaller house we have limited cabinet space so I'm going to have to either get clever about where to put things or maybe actually use the stuff that I buy.. How silly!

The day that all of our stuff was delivered I thought that I was going to get the house put away so quickly. I don't know why I'm being so crazy about this it's only been a few days I just want it done already.. I know boo hoo but it sucks..

A tiny break from unpacking with a few Madi quotes!

Hey! We finally got our internet hooked up today. I have so much to write about but not much time. I thought I would take a little second and write down a few of Madi's cute little quotes from the past few weeks. Enjoy!

~~~~~
"Hair in your nose."

Madi, "Daddy, you have hair in your nose!"
Mommy, "So do you Madi."
Madi, "No I don't! I got boogers!"
Daddy, "Yes you do have hair in your nose."
Madi, "I don't have glass slippers in my nose but I have boogers in my nose."

~~~~~
What do you want to eat for dinner?

Daddy, "Madi do you want a sandwich for dinner?"
Madi, "No."
Daddy, "Do you want mashed potatoes?"
Madi, "No that's yucky!"
Daddy (after trying a bunch of other things), "Do you want to eat rabbit?"
Madi, "No I don't want to eat rabbit!"
Mommy, "Do you want to eat a squirrel?"
Daddy, "Yeah do you want to eat a squirrel?"
Madi, "No, it has cooties."

The story behind squirrel's having cooties is this. Whenever we are at the park Madi runs afters the squirrel's trying to pet one. I always tell her that she doesn't want to pet the squirrel's because they have cooties.. I'm so glad that she remembers the things that I tell her.

~~~~~
At breakfast the other morning Madi was being a little rambunctious. Brett was trying to talk her into calming down just a bit. She looked straight at him and said, "You're like a crazy woman." Brett laughed and said, "You should know."
She keeps us laughing!

House hunting...

Ok so the other day I mentioned that I had put a deposit down on a house to rent. Well, I changed my mind on that house (which was gigantic!) and went with a smaller cute house that I'm way comfortable with. The first house is a really old Victorian house with millions of stairs. I was just fearful of my little sure foot (Madi) falling down all of the time.
So, we are able to move into the house tomorrow. The movers aren't going to arrive until next Wednesday so until then we will be in an empty house with an airbed and the kids pack n play. It will be kind of like camping.. At least we wont be paying $80 a day for a hotel anymore. Thank goodness the company picked up the tab on the first six day we were in the hotel because can you imagine.. OUCH!!!
I left the address in our room so if you want it let me know and I'll send it to you. Well, since we will be without computer for a week I'll get you all up to speed when we are back up and running.. Until then don't give up on our blog I hope to have something fun to write about really soon including the stuff we did while visiting family in Utah.. Stay tuned!

Sleeping beauties

We are still holding up at the Holiday Inn Express here in Le Mars. We have put a deposit down on a house that we are going to rent and should be in by Monday. I'll keep you all posted on how the move and everything goes.

Check out our little sleepy heads. They have done so well this past week being stuck in a hotel. All I can say is thank goodness for box fans that make a lot of noise for sleeping. OH and thank goodness for pleasant weather so we could go to the park to run around. I'll post something about the parks next time, they are really so much fun.

We're Here!!

Well, we made it! We arrived in Le Mars, Iowa yesterday around 7:00PM. Right now we are staying in a hotel until we can get into our new place. So far it seems like a real fun place to live. Later today we are going to go to the ice cream museum which should be fun. Anyway! I'll post some photo's just as soon as we get our computer and all of our stuff. Wish us luck on finding a house really quick!!!
On another note... We still have our Arizona cell phones numbers.

Happy Birthday Kimberly!

Today is Brett's baby sister Kimberly's birthday. She would have been 27 years old. She will forever be a sweet baby girl. I know that Brett's parents will have the chance in heaven to raise Kimberly from a baby and she will be healthy and strong. She is loved dearly and missed completly. We love you Kimberly and can't wait to meet you again one day.

Moving, allergies and teething

So far our trip to Utah on our way to Iowa has been a lot of fun. We have been able to do some fun things with our families. We have been having a few issues with sleep. The first few nights we didn't get much sleep so Brett slept in the den with Madi and I slept in the spare bedroom with Kimber. It really seemed to work out except we weren't able to sleep because the girls kept on waking up. Madi was waking up because she couldn't find her silky and she freaks out. We think that Kimber is teething so she was waking up screaming every hour. It was a lot of fun! (notice the sarcasm)

Then on Saturday we noticed that Madi had a really goopy eye. It didn't look like pink eye so we weren't too concerned. Then Kimber started having a goopy eye. Both of the girls were stuffed up so we started giving them both eye drops and benadryl. Then last night Brett said that he wasn't feeling very well. His hands and feet were all clammy. He said that he was freezing and that he needed to sleep under all of the blankets. He never ever sleeps under the blankets because he is always too hot so I knew right away he wasn't feeling very well. Thankfully Brett feels better today so we figured that it was an allergy thing. The girls eyes were starting to look a little better but I wanted to get them in to see the doctor before we headed into the unknown.

We were able to go see the same doctor that delivered Madi and that our sister in law Megan works for. He ended up giving the girls a prescription for eye drops and said that they looked good other than that. I guess there are a lot of these allergy cases this time of year. It's really no fun having sick kids any time but it's really a big huge bummer when you are traveling. I just hope that they are a lot better by the time we head out on Wednesday. On the other hand it was a lot of fun to see Megan at work and to see Dr. Anderson again so I guess the girls with their allergies wasn't all that bad.

"I want to go home."

This move has been harder on me than any other. I think it's because Madi is old enough to kind of understand what's going on and it's hard to take her away from her cute friends.

Just before we drove away from out house in Buckeye some of our great friends came over for a visit. Brinna looked around our empty house and said, "Heather, where did you move your couches?" Then a little later she asked me where all of Madi's toys were. I was already a little emotional about leaving and so when I started to tell this sweet little three year old that we were moving far away I just started crying.

Just a short while later our good friends the Wright's showed up and the kids all started running around having great fun. The three little girls were in the den running around on the bare hardwood floors. Then Kutter (the only boy) would run in and all of the girls would scream. It was great fun.

After awhile it was time to get on the road. That first night we drove to Flagstaff and stayed the night. The next morning we got on the road around 8:00AM. After being stuck in the car for hours Madi started getting a little restless. She started to get a little fussy and cried, "I want to go home!" I was driving the car when she said that and the tears just started to roll. Brett was very quick and told Madi that we were going to Nana and Papa's house and that made her really happy. Madi is just happy to be with family and friends so I'm sure she doesn't think anything about our old house. Although she has been talking about Brinna and Payton so it's probably not far away that she will be begging to go play with her friends. It's going to be interesting trying to explain that we can't just walk over to Brinna's or drive over to Payton's. I know she'll make new friends soon but I hope that she remembers her Buckeye friends.

She speaks her mind

Just a quick post before I forget.

On our trip to Vernal from Arizona we needed to stop for a potty break but we hadn't seen a gas station for awhile. We finally came to this little diner and decided to stop. The bathroom in the diner wasn't really for the public to use but little old lady behind the counter offered to take Madi to use her private bathroom. When they arrived at the bathroom Madi said, "I don't want to use the potty it's dirty!" I've said it before and I'll say it again.. She is such a girl and I love it.

Move from Arizona to Iowa (continuation)

So we left Buckeye a day earlier than we had originally planned. Since the movers were finished we decided that we should just get on the road. We said our tearful goodbyes and set out on the road. Our car was packed to the brim and then some. We had the rooftop carrier full of stuff and the floor under the girls full of stuff the back of the car over flowing with stuff it was a lot of stuff we had with us.

My emotions were very close to the surface because things were a bit uncertain in our future. We had left our house to move to a new state that I had never even visited and we didn't even have somewhere to move to yet. I wasn't very nervous about finding somewhere to live I thought that was coming together it just wasn't set yet. We had done something similar to this before but we didn't have kids back then. When we moved from Colorado back to Vernal we sold our house so quickly that we just packed up and headed out and didn't have anything set of where we were going to live. That time we just put all of our belongings in three different garages and stayed with Brett's parents. We ended up buying Brett's brother's house (which is the childhood house that Brett grew up in). Anyway, back to the move from Arizona. That night we drove for a few hours until we reached Flagstaff where we stayed the night.

The next day as I was driving Madi says, "I want to go home." She was sick of being in the car. I just started crying. I didn't know where home was yet and we had just left the home that she knew. I tried to keep a brave face and told her that we were going to Grandma's house because I knew that she would be happy about that.

We lived in Arizona for two years and only made the drive back to Utah this one time and it was when we were moving away. It's such a long drive for kids so we packed a bunch of movies and books and toys and treats to keep the girls happy for as long as possible. We also made the best investment ever and purchased a portable DVD player. That thing was a life saver for Madi. Poor little Kimber was a trooper as best she could at six months old. She was happiest if she had a blanket to cuddle with.We reached Vernal at about 8:30PM on the second day of our travels. I think we kind of took the longest road to get there but we got there and all in one piece. We were so happy to be in a familiar place. It was also very exciting because only Brett's Mom had met Kimber so Kimber had a lot of people to meet.

New job

Brett took a position as a Production Supervisor in northwest Iowa. We are pretty excited for this new change and can't wait to get there and get all settled. Our movers are still scheduled to be here tomorrow so we are going to be really busy the next few days. Then we are off to Vernal to visit family there. This will probably be my last post for a little while. If I get a chance while we are visiting in Vernal I may post something then.
To all of our friends in Buckeye we will truly miss you so keep in touch!
I know we wont miss the heat in the summer but we will really miss the cool weather in the winter.. It's going to be really really really cold in Iowa.. Brrr!! Good thing we held onto our winter coats.
Goodbye Arizona, Hello Iowa!!

Lightning!

Natures fireworks!! The other night we had a big thunderstorm. Brett had gone to bed and I was up watching TV. I started to notice the flashes of light coming from outside so I went to look out the window. The lightning would flash every few seconds. I thought, "COOL!! I'm going to get my camera and take a picture!" So I set up my tripod and put the release switch on the camera so I could take a long exposure. Just as I was about to open the sliding glass door and put the camera outside a bolt of lightning struck really close. So close the the thunder cracked at the same time. I don't think I've ever run so fast. I ran through the kitchen and down the hall and Brett met me half way. The lightning and thunder had startled him awake. I was completely freaked out. When I finally built up enough courage I went to close the curtains on the door and put my camera away. I moved pretty quickly because I didn't want the lightning to zap me through the door. Doesn't that happen sometimes? It seems like I've heard that you can be struck by lightning in your house.. Yikes!!! Nature is amazing but oh so scary!! I was so rattled that when I went to bed I couldn't stop shaking. I'm such a big scared-e-cat.
Two years ago when Brett was driving into Buckeye for the first time a bolt of lightning hit a telephone pole right in front of him. He said there were sparks flying everywhere. Yikes!!

Did I mention that I hate spiders?

I don't know why it always seems to happen all around the same time but I have had another spider encounter. It was a day or two after the black widow in the garage. Do you remember the movie Arachnophobia? Remember the part where the Dad is sitting on the toilet and the spider is crawling up to bite him? Well, that wasn't exactly what happened to me but it could have. I was going into the bathroom and looked down at the trash can and saw a huge spider. I think it was a wolf spider I didn't want to look too close. Brett was at work when I found this spider so I had to take care of it myself. I was pretty brave since it was contained in the trash can. I'll tell you what they really don't like that poison.
I'm just glad that I wasn't sitting on the toilet when I discovered the spider.. Can you imagine? That would be terrible.
I hope this is my last blog about a spider. They are probably my least favorite thing.

Moving update!

Well the movers will be here Monday morning to start packing up our stuff. They scheduled us for two days of packing and then the third day to load the truck. From my experience with the other moves they have always been able to pack us in one day and then load the truck the next day. So we will either be leaving Wednesday or Thursday of this coming week.. Eeek!! I'm so excited! I'm so excited to get a chance to visit family and friends in Vernal! So many things have changed since we've been back so it's going to be so much fun to catch up. We will be there just after Katie is set to have her baby boy! We are so excited to meet that little guy! I am also so excited for everyone to meet Kimber! She is such a doll and is at such a fun stage right now.
So that is the plan right now and I'll keep you posted if there are any changes.. That is if I have access to a computer.

Cute things little girls say

I should totally be in bed asleep right now but I just remembered something that happened earlier that I didn't want to forget.

Tonight we had our good friends and neighbors the Wallin's (Holly, Kelly, Brinna and Laci) over to play BIG (a way fun card game) and eat pizza and snacks. Brinna and Madi were sitting at the counter eating their pizza and this was the conversation between Holly, Brinna and Madi.
Holly, "Madi your necklace is so sparkly!"
Madi, "I know!"
Brinna then turns to Madi and says, "I'm going to kiss you when were done."

I don't know if it's so funny because I was there and it was so cute but oh my goodness!! What a bunch of silly girls! Where do they come up with this stuff? They really are just too cute!

It's so funny that this just popped into my head at 1:30AM but I'm so glad it did because I almost forgot. I can't say it enough that we really are going to miss our dear friends and I know that there will be many tears when we go to drive away.. Oh man I'm tearing up right now.... Eeeek!! Ok it passed.. Whew!

My newest obsession

My friend Holly showed me how to make the cutest bracelets! I wanted to make a bracelet for Madilynn's medical alert tag so Holly said she would help me. On our trip to get bracelet making supplies Holly and I found cute watch faces and we both decided to make a watch bracelet. Then when Holly was ordering beads from another place I picked some out that I thought would go with just about everything. I guess great minds think alike because Holly, Kym and I all picked the same beads for our watches. We were up until 3:00AM working on our watches but we finished them and I think they turned out so cute! I just love to wear mine it's so girly! Now I just want to make jewelry all of the time.

These photo's aren't the greatest but I think you get the idea. I think my favorite part and Madi's too is the heart locket on the back. So fun!

I should have taken a photo of Holly's bracelet. She put cute charms throughout hers. Thanks Holly for showing me how to do this! I can't wait to make more and my Mom already wants me to help her with one. Oh yeah I made earrings too! Love it!

A case of the Heebee Geebee's!

Last night it was raining around the time that Madilynn was going to bed. She wanted to look out the window at the rain but it didn't really show up since it was dark. I told her to stay at the window and I would turn the light on outside. To get to the light outside I had to go out into the garage and walk to the other side to flip the switch. No big deal. So Madi got to see the rain and I put her to bed. A few hours later as I was getting ready to go to bed I remembered that the light was on outside. I went out in the garage in my pj's and right away I felt like something had touched my leg but didn't think much of it. On the way back to go in the house for some reason I looked down towards the floor and I saw a spider in a web right next to the door.. Ewww!!! It creeped me out. I thought about how I had felt something touch my leg so I had to check to make sure I didn't have a spider in my pants. It's a good thing we don't have windows in our garage because you would have seen my underoos.. So since the spider was so close to the door and the car was right close to that I decided to walk around the back of the car and then go in the door. Once I was near the front of the car I couldn't see the spider any more.. Ahhh!! Where did it go?!! I walked back to the other side of the car to look again but I still didn't see it. I felt trapped it was so scary.. (I'm such a wimp) After a little look around I walked back around the car and slowly but quickly at the same time got in the door. After I was safe in the house I opened the door again to look around again. Brett had a pair of running shoes by the door and there in the top I saw it a very ugly black widow.. Ewww!!! Even now I get heebee geebee's just thinking about it. I went and grabbed the can of raid but I was too chicken to do the dirty work myself so I went and woke Brett up. Did I mention that this was at 12:30AM? Brett is my hero! He got out of bed and killed that yucky spider. Neither of us like spiders at all so after our encounter we both kept feeling like something was crawling on us. I didn't sleep very well because of that and then both of the girls woke up crying. Fun night! Did I mention that I hate spiders?

We're going private

We have decided to make our blog private. If you would like to continue to see our blog please leave a comment with the e-mail address you use for your blog. That way we can add you to our list. Thanks everyone!
Why are we going private? Partly because of what happened on the Babes in Hairland blog. Also because we don't want unknown creepy people sneaking in and looking at our family.

Our blue eyed girl

Fun friends!

Last night a few of the girls came over to make bows and work on beads. When Bailey walked in I saw that she and Madilynn had on the same PJ's. Of course I had to take a picture. They watched movies and played so cute together.

The hardest part about moving away is taking Madi away from all of her cute friends. She'll miss them all so much.

With Love from Madi to all of her little friends! We'll miss you! Twin PJ girls! Twin hair girls!I need a more recent photo of Madi and Payton! This was taken before Madi turned two.

Iowa here we come!

Brett has been actively looking for a new job for the past few months. This past week he accepted a position as a Production Supervisor in Iowa. If everything goes as planned we should be in Iowa by the 8th of September.
We have mixed feelings about leaving Arizona but are very excited for this new stage in our lives. We will miss our dear friends that we have made here so you all better keep in touch!
I know this probably seems kind of sudden since I haven't mentioned it before. I have kept it under the radar on purpose.
As soon as we have more specifics I'll get you all up to speed.

My Dad the boxer

I'm not completely finished restoring this photo of my Dad but I was so excited I had to go ahead and post it. This photo was in the program from a boxing match my Dad was in. I seem to remember that he won this match. It's so fun for me to see photo's of my parents when they were younger. This photo looks so much like my brother's.
My Mom and I have been working together over the phone and e-mail to get these old photo's scanned and preserved on the computer. This photo of my Dad is on really fragile paper that has browned. My Mom had to carefully peel it out of an old photo album so that we could get it repaired. The photo is in pieces so I've had to cut and paste and smooth some things out. I am totally amazed at what can be done with photo editing software. I still have to tweak this some but so far it's a great improvement. Notice in the before photo that my Dad's right hand is missing. I used is left hand to recreate the right. I think it looks pretty darn good. I'm just so glad to be able to restore this photo and save it for years to come. Thanks Mom for scanning these photo's. My Mom wasn't sure about how to do the scanning but with a little help she has done such a great job. I'm so impressed with her ability on the computer. Love ya Mom and Dad!!

Missing my B

Brett is traveling today and I am always so nervous until he is back home with me. I don't like it when he goes without me but I know I can't always be right there with him. I feel like if I'm with him he'll be safe. How silly! I'm not superwoman..
Well, I better go clean something so the time goes by quicker..

Missing my hubby

I don't like to be away from Brett at all. I think it's important to have some time to yourself but I just like to hang with Brett all of the time. He's my buddy. Whenever he has to go somewhere without me I always miss him terribly and I worry. I should probably be a pro at this by now especially after the time away while he was in the army. I just don't like it and I am always a nervous wreck until I have him back in my sights. For whatever reason I think that if I would be able to go with him he would be kept from any harm which is silly because I'm not Super Woman.

Waiting for Daddy to come home

I wasn't able to get a photo of Madi this morning so hopefully I do a good job of explaining this. Brett's current work schedule gets him home around 8:00AM. Madi's bedroom is right near the garage so she can hear when Brett opens the garage door. This morning I noticed that the hall light turned on sometime around 6:00AM. I put a child gate up at night to keep Madi from getting into mischief but she is still able to get to the bathroom and to our bedroom. So I wasn't too worried about what she was doing. After a while and I hadn't seen her I got up and walked down the hall. As I turned the corner I found Madi laying on the floor near the door where Brett would be entering the house. She is just short enough to lay in the middle of the hall and almost have her head touch one side and her feet the other side. She was totally sleeping it was so funny. Laying beside her were her new favorite pair of shoes, a purse, a doll with a blanket and of course her most precious silky. I just decided to leave her there and hoped that she would stay there until Brett walked in. I knew he would just love to see her waiting there for him. It didn't work she woke up and came into the room with me. Oh well it was a good story to tell Brett anyway. I just wish that I had my camera in the bedroom so that I could have snapped a photo. She is such a Daddy's girl it's so cute!

While Madi was taking a nap today it dawned on me that I could recreate the moment using Kimber as my model.. It works and I think you can totally see what I'm talking about.

The quack quack towel

I have always loved this photo of Madi. I even put it in a baby photo contest.I tried to recreate it with Kimber. I think I got close. It's so fun to see photo's of them around the same age and in similar poses. They could almost be twins. Even their ultrasound photo's were almost identical.

The Barnes Family

I absolutely love this photo. It just makes me smile every time I look at it. This was taken at Disneyland sometime around 1985 (Brett thinks). Momma Mitzi is in the back next to Bud (The Dude), Brett is on the left side of Bud, then Russell and Katie is in the front looking so cute. The only person missing is precious Kimberly who is in heaven. We named our little Kimber after Kimberly.
The family is growing all the time. You know about our two little girls. Russell and Megan have a son named Lukas. Katie and Jared are expecting a baby boy in September.
Brett and I are the only ones that don't live in Vernal. We really miss living close to our families but treasure the visits that we have with them.
I am so glad to be a part of this family. They have always loved and welcomed me into their family. I can't wait for them to all meet Kimber she is such a fun baby I know that they are all frothing at the mouth to hold her.
We love you guys! Hope to see you really soon!

Mom and Dad

My parent's both have birthday's this month. Here are a few photo's of them young until now. Happy Birthday Mom and Dad! I'm so very blessed to have you for my parent's. I love you guys!My Dad is the blond on the far left in the front.

Time for school! My Dad is the second from the left.

At the age of sixteen my Dad told a little fib like so many did so that he could defend our country. He was on the USS Heermann during World War II.

I always thought this photo was so Hollywood.

The littlest milk maid. My Mom isn't she cute.
This is the sister line up. My Mom is the fourth person in this photo. Two of her younger sisters are not in this photo.

This is my Mom around sixteen years old. I love this photo of her. When I was little I remember one of my uncles saying that I looked just like my Mom. What a great compliment.

This photo was taken sometime around 1989

My Mom and Dad just being silly. We talked them into taking the photo booth photo's. I'm so glad that I hung onto them.

Mount Olympus Games!

I know these are so silly but I just couldn't help myself. Enjoy!

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Mount Olympus Games!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Mount Olympus Games!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Our baby photo's

Here we all are as babies. I thought it would be fun to show all of us around the same age and see who you think looks like who. Does that make sense? Anyway, here they are.

Brett

Heather

Madilynn
Kimber

Another Madi quote

Yesterday as I was loading the girls in the car after church Madi said something funny but very correct. I said, "Oh it's warm!" and then Madi replied, "It's not warm Mom! It's HOT!!" What can I say she was right.

"I watched Elmo.. It's finished.." Huh???

Every night right before I go to bed I go in and check on the girls. Madi is almost always in some funny position so I straighten her out and cover her with her blanket. Tonight as I lifted her and laid her on the pillow she said, "I watched Elmo.. It's finished.." At least I think that's what she said. I said, "What?" and she repeated it very clearly, well as clearly as she talks in her little two year old voice. I still didn't hear what she was saying so I whispered, "What is Elmo doing?" Then she whispered back, "Elmo..." Then she rolled over and put her thumb in her mouth and went back to sleeping. I don't know if she was a little bit awake or not but she definitely had Elmo on the brain.
I knew that if I didn't write this down right away I would forget. When Madilynn is older it will be fun to read over all of these funny things she did and said.