The Barnetts

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

July 6th!! (Better Late than Never)

I can not believe my baby is three years old! How did that happen so fast? This year I decided against having a birthday party at home. One, it's a whole lot easier to outsource and two, it's July in Alabama and we don't have a pool. I didn't want to send a bunch of three year-olds home high on sugar and a possible heat stroke.

Since all Hayes wanted for his birthday was a bounce house and a bike with pedals (which will be a Christmas gift), we opted to treat him and his classmates to Pump It Up. Take a building full of bounce houses and large inflatable slides, add in some cheese pizza and a construction themed birthday cake and you’ve got yourself a little 3 year old heaven right here on earth!

Everybody had a great time, especially the birthday boy, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that after cake, pizza and two hours in various houses o' death, Hayes maintained the look of sheer raw energy fueled by birthday presents and sugar for the rest of the weekend.

Hayes,

I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday. I'll never forget the way I felt when they placed you in my arms for the first time. You looked at me with these wide eyes and funny expression as if you were trying to size us up as parents. The verdict is still out. There are days we get it right and days we get it wrong, but the one constant is that you bring us more joy and laughter than I never knew existing three years ago.

My goal for the first few months of your third year is to make it a whole week without throwing away a pair of underwear, because isn't life all about setting goals? Potty training is exhausting. Coupled with the fact that you can toot on command but not make it to the potty to poop is beyond me.

Tonight you asked me why I had a boo boo on my arm. You were pointing at my elbow so I went into this long story about the time I had an accident and had to have surgery on my arm. Then you said, "No mama...right here!" and pointed to my other elbow. Um...it's just a dry elbow, but thanks for your concern. Parenting is not for the faint of heart!

We love you sweet boy!

Mama and Daddy

One last thing...not only is Santa bringing Hayes a bike for Christmas, he's also bringing him a brother! Pray for us. :)

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Happy Father's Day

I can't believe it's been six months since I've posted last. Life has just been really busy with a lot of good stuff and some bad stuff (potty training and back surgery) and I don't even know where to begin! Here are some pictures of our crazy life.

Easter came and went:

Turns out we have some practicing to do...

James and I ran away to Charleston for our anniversary.

We underwent some major home renovations.

Hayes is teaching himself how to play the guitar.

And how to play sports.

We replanted the garden for the summer.

I lost a fourth of it due to construction...

Potty training is going ~~well.~~..

We're taking swim lessons and have gone to the beach.

My cup runneth over. The main reason for this post is to wish a very special man a Happy Father's Day.

James,

Thank you for leading and loving us so well. I hope you have an amazing Father's Day weekend. The best has yet to come.

We love you,
AM & Hayes

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Tis the season...

Well we are in the midst of the Christmas season, but unlike the retailers or radio stations (96.5...I'm talking to you!), I will not forget about Halloween or Thanksgiving! Which makes me realize that not writing anything down for two whole months is not only bad but may require multiple posts.

So I'll just jump in where we left off, October. James left the Sunday before Halloween to go on a week long hunting trip in Sioux Falls, SD. It was one of his bucket list items. Rumor has it that one of those birds is at the taxidermist waiting to be mounted and relocated to our home. Awesome!

Lucky for me, Hayes picked that exact time to break free of the crib. Our world as we knew it was about to change.

He's upset because I would only read him three books as opposed to the 10 that his daddy reads him every night. Also, apparently he's got mad navy seal skills when he gets upset. (Just so you know, I did catch him the first three times he scaled the crib. The last time, I decided to get it on video so James could see how fine everything was while he was gone.)

Thank goodness for our dear friends who came over toot suite (at 9:00 that night) and converted his crib to a cute little toddler bed...that he would stay in for one whole night.

Hayes learned quickly that in the middle of the night, I am terrible negotiator and I'll cave at any terror request. Which is how I ended up with a two foot tall bed mate for a whole week!

In late September, Hayes decided that he wanted to be a cow for Halloween, which was hard for me to swallow. I had already purchased a cute little giraffe costume from Pottery Barn Kids and couldn't wait for him to try it on. Granted the giraffe head was a bit too big and too top heavy, but it was still cute and did not require me to bust out a glue gun or my sub-par craft skills.

After about 20 unsuccessful minutes of Hayes trying to raise his head to lift up the giraffe head, I realized that this costume was dead to him and tried a new angle. "Don't you want to be a penguin for Halloween?" (I had just received a hand me down penguin costume that was just darling. It was black and white like a cow and had these cute web shoe covers.) I pointed out all of the cuteness of the penguin, while trying not to "oversell it", to which he said, "Ohhhhh! Okay!! No thank you."

It appears that the Halloween gods were smiling down on me because my friend Jackie just happened to have a cow costume and it just happened to almost fit which is how we ended up at a fall festival, the week of Halloween, dressed like the love child of John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever and a cow. As the night wore on, the zipper got lower and lower. At one point, he had that costume unzipped past his belly button!

And just like Hayes's zipper, here is where Halloween started to go south and my love cow decided he wanted to be a fireman.

Which is when I put my foot down and informed him that he could be a fire cow, which is exactly the same as a dalmatian, but not. And lucky for me, he bought it! Which is good because after a week of being a single mom, my nerves were shot.

And then daddy came home!