"Best Mom Ever"

I just have to document this day in history. I was told four times, yes four separate times, today that I am the best mom ever!! This was from Sam. The moments are not super spectacular. First I served Sam hot fruit drink in his bedroom after breakfast. This was because he was staying home from school sick (should have gone to school, he was definitely not that sick--side note, he may think twice about that next time, he had to do 3 pages of math). Second, ramen for lunch. Well, what else do you serve a kid who is fairly picky and home from school that everyone else wants to eat. (Ben however has declared himself a non ramen fan by dumping his all over the table.) Third, chicken nuggets for dinner. Yes, there does seem to be a pattern here. And the final one actually has nothing to do with food. If everyone was ready for bed and we had had family home evening they could watch a Charlie Brown show on TV (this was on at 7pm, I was aiming for early bedtime). Best mom ever he exclaimed while throwing his arms around me. Ahh, melt a moms heart, for a least a moment.

There you have it, to get rave reviews from Sam, other than making him do "more math than we do at school", serve him easy, fairly non-nutritious meals and let him watch TV.

Although now we have set through "I want a dog for Christmas" with Charlie Brown and my kids all want a dog. I do too, but not if I have to train a dog in the middle of winter. Thank you sisters for helping teach me that. :)

Halloween fun

Sorry we are slow on this, I had a grand vision of pictures from all the kids parties to post but then realized that we will not be getting some of those pictures for awhile so here is what we have. Here is the whole family just before the kids went trick-or-treating. It was a great night for trick-or-treating, I even sat outside giving out candy. (It was the warm before the storm, it rained all night and has been cold since then.)Up first we have The Dread Pirate Roberts. I happen to think he looks pretty handsome myself, and that sword is the coolest sword I have ever made (also the only one I have made to date--but cool none the less).
Don't be fold by the cuteness, Benjamin the Lion is really quite ferocious. You really should hear his roar (he does it in response to any of the other kids roaring).
Up next, the gorgeous Rapunzel, aka Tangled, complete with braided hair put up and adorned with flowers and also a skillet (which she almost did use on my sister's dog--oops). This dress will not make it into the Halloween box. She wears it often. The girls love to play "Tangled" and use a sheet as the hair. This is because the sheet can haul stuff up on the top bunk or they can drag each other through the house with it.
Next up, the mighty Hannah-saurus dinosaur. Her roar is mighty (which makes the lion roar as well) and she loves to chase small princesses through the house threatening to eat them. We added a flower to the costume this year, a little girlie touch.
And finally we have Sam the Ninja (or Pirate--he decided he could be both since people often mistook him for a pirate, although with that stick it ought to be pretty clear). I think he wants a sword like Dad but time didn't let that happen.
There you have it folks, the Halloween costumes of our family. The kids had a great time going to four parties and then out trick-or-treating. We have quite the haul of candy.

Family Reunion

I know this is a little late (okay, almost two months ago this happened) but it's the issue of which computer the pictures are on. Yes, we have a lot of computers! But anyway, here are some collages from the Barnes family reunion!

This first one shows Grandma and Grandpa Barnes, the hit that the "fishing" was (with most of the kids wanting to help attach stuff once they had had their chance to fish, and the rockets. Sam spent most of this time there. Justin has now found himself an air compressor so I think we are doing rockets with the cub scouts sometime!!

And then we have slacklining and aerial silks sponsored by the Glenn and Natalie Wilson family. (I had some text on this photos but it apparently doesn't transfer over this way, oh well, someday I will figure this out--this also explains why my text is suddenly blue, I don't have an idea.)

We had a great time! Thanks everyone!

Goblin Valley

We took advantage of a long weekend to go hiking and camping in Goblin Valley in September. It was great. The kids had a great time exploring. They went hiking up the white area of the rocks, did the junior ranger program, hiked a bit of a slot canyon, enjoyed a night program with a ranger, had a campfire (with s'mores of course), found out that scorpions glow under a black light, climbed goblins, found "geodes" (hey, Sam's convinced they are geodes), explored, explored, climbed, and climbed some more. Enjoy a collage of pictures from there (I have two other collages created but they are on a different computer of course).

My eyes are pink!

This is Michelle the other day (probably her third outfit, I really don't keep track anymore, I do remember telling her to change out of pajamas and back into clothes before we could leave). Yes, pink would probably be her favorite color. This is followed closely by purple because that is Hannah's favorite color.

So here is my funny story from her when we were on the way to the bus stop to get Sam:

Michelle: Can we paint my eyes pink?
Mom: your eyes?
Michelle: yeah, I want my eyes pink.
We went on to have a discussion about how you can't paint your eyes because that is bad for them and would make you blind (no we did not even consider talking about colored contacts) and then you wouldn't be able to see and that would be sad. "Why?" she asks. My answers turn to you wouldn't be able to see Ben to play with him, you wouldn't be able to play on the computer, "I wouldn't be able to play Purble Place?" No because you wouldn't know where to click since you wouldn't be able to see the screen. So she agrees that painting your eyes is a bad thing. So we get to the school and she finds her sunglasses in the car and goes out onto the grass and turns and looks at me and says:

"Mommy, look, my eyes are pink!"

Under Construction!! Parts are now finished

Here's a look at the destruction/construction we just finished living with at our house. We decided we wanted to put in laminate flooring in the hallway, living room, dining room and kitchen. This should only take a couple of days which turned into two long weeks. The picture of my bedroom isn't as bad as it became. We went on two different weekend trips during this and there was more stuff that was brought in. I had a path around the bed, into the bathroom, and out of the room and that is about it. It's still not all moved back out but it's closer. The other picture shows what my living room looked like for a week (washer/dryer/fridge all located there) and the little path to the front door.






And here are finished pictures. It's not as clean as I wanted it for pictures, but if I waited for that you might not every see pictures. (I do have four small children who know how to fend for themselves when it comes to getting food, and spilling it, and smashing it. And I also took the pictures to not show most of it. hehehe)


Loving it now that it is done. There is still some small stuff to do (finish up caulking, sweep continuously, etc). Oh and there is tile by the door to the garage and the in the laundry room but no picture of that. There you have it!

Pictures of Ben