The Barron Family

6/23/11

What we've been doing

Here's me playing catch-up for the past month. Abbi finished 1st grade and Reese finished preschool, but the pictures are still on my phone. I went to girls camp, and loved every minute of it! We went to 2 parades and a carnival all in one day, a look at my Tuesdays and all of the fun girls that my girls are blessed to have around. Finally some pics in from of the Provo temple.

Yeah, I look like a lumberjack.

This is the challenge coarse at our posh girls camp. I LOVE heights, so I had no problem climbing the tree to the top of the zip line, walking the line, and then letting go to go on the zip line.

I think I surprised a few of our Beehives with my....excitement:) It makes me laugh because every year a few girls seem genuinely surprised that there leaders love camp as much as them. No kids, not much reponsibility ( well compared to regular life), and we get to go hiking, boating, zip lining, and we can sleep in nice cabins and shower. Yeah, that is my type of camping!

I have a bunch of different expressions from Brynn on the ferris wheel, but I thought I'd go with the super cheese shot.

The swings. Their favorite ride.

The parade is pretty exciting to the kids, but notice Reese.

Poor Reese did NOT like the super loud police sirens.

Our Tuesdays look a lot like this every week. I watch my friend's 4 girls, and then there are my 4 girls, and then their friends....that are mostly girls. This doesn't even have our babies.

I thought it might be nice to get a picture of the girls in front of the temple for Andy to take to work. Unfortunately, we came here right after taking Reagan to the doc and learning that she had a 102.7 temp, double ear infection, strep, and a virus, (seriously!!!), and Brynn obviously did not want to take a picture. I think I might crop Brynn and blow it up and put it right next to her bed...we see this face a bunch lately.

5/3/11

7 months

Reagan is growing so fast. She is 7 months in the picture. Reese thought it would be great to decorate her sister, and she was okay with it for a while.

Reag sits up well on her own so we sit her next to a toy basket and she will usually play for a long time. She isn't crawling yet, but I think she's close. She will roll all around and get to pretty much anything that she wants anyway. This girl is a sweet baby.

Pre-Easter Celebrations

The day before Easter here in Utah is almost always freezing cold or raining, or if we're really lucky...both. This year we had both. Yipee (said with much sarcasm.) Freezing cold in the morning and then rain later in the day.

We went to a city Easter egg hunt in the morning. The rotary club was nice enough to sponsor the event, and the whole football field was covered in candy. My girls look forward to Easter because they know they will get a crazy amount of candy, and they are right. They always do. (I give them the day before and Easter day to eat however much candy that they want, then they have to have a break completely so they don't get sick.)

Later in the day we went to my parents house and they had another Easter egg hunt. I know, I know, it's too much. Then we had a nice dinner with them and my brother and his family.

I asked Abbi and Reese if they even knew why we celebrate Easter, and Abbi said, "Jesus?" Oh my, and here I thought I was actually teaching my children. Andy and I decided to have our FHE the Monday before Easter be about Easter, and why we celebrate it. It turns out that after they were reminded they said, "Oh yeah, we knew that." Good to know:)

Easter Day

Easter day was pretty chill at our house this year. We did the big dinner and 2 Easter egg hunts the day before. However, they still were not lacking in an enormous amount of candy on Easter day too. My girls love Easter! The Easter bunny leaves them a small basket of candy on the end of their beds to wake up to. Then they also get to hunt around the house for eggs. (Lucky girls!)

Abbi thinks it's really funny to smile like this. Crazy kid.

Getting a smiley picture of all of them was impossible, even though I took about 20, so these were some that I like because they show my girls how they really are.

P.S. Reagan is 8 months now. She learned to do a one armed army crawl, but starts it off and ends it on her knees. She gives kisses on demand, and they are the fun open mouth type. She loves baby food, and those puff things. She didn't love green beans at first, but now she will eat anything. I don't know how much she weighs, but she's a chub so she probably close to 20lbs. Another fun trick she learned just this week is sitting herself up from the laying down position.

4/1/11

Brynn turned 3

I have been trying to post this for the past month, and for whatever reason I was able to make it work today.

Brynn turned 3 last month. Her actual birthday is February 29th, Leap day, but we celebrate on March 1st. We had a very impromptu birthday party for her. She kept saying she didn't want a friend party, then 2 days before the day she decided otherwise. So, we had a princess tea party with 2 of her 4 friends. She wanted chocolate donuts instead of cake, but my parents surprised her and brought cake, so she had both. Lucky kid. They also bought her a pillow pet, and she was ecstatic about that! They ate yummy food, had donuts and cake, opened some presents, and played on the trampoline. It was the easier birthday party that I've ever done.

Things about Brynn

~Right now she gets out of bed every night after we put her to bed. So it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour for her to fall asleep.

~ She is very articulate. She has been since she was very little, and she will surprise people sometimes when she talks to them because she speaks so well.

~ She's loves her penguin pillow pet, and her heart blankie with all of her heart.

~She is usually classified as "sassy" or as having a lot of "spunk". It's true though. She is very animated when she talks, and will even wag her head a little and put her hands on her hips when she's saying things like "nu uh", or "no I didn't".

~She is the master misinterpreter. I know I've mentioned it before, but I so miss this when kids grow out of it. She calls hiccups "hip ups", and light bulbs "eye balls". And this isn't a misinterpretation, but I love it. She says" That's Amazing" all the time. And when she says it she raises her eye brows, and nods her head, and smiles this cute smile.

~She loves milk more than any other drink.

~She tries to do everything that Abbi and Reese do, and they are pretty good about letting her tag along.

~And finally she LOVES shoes, and purses. From the moment she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep she is wearing someone's shoes. Then, we have probably 30 purses for the girls to play with and she will fill them full of toy cars and lipsticks and other toys and carry them around.

7 months old

This little love is so fun to have in our house. She's 7 months now, and getting so big. I love that adorable round face, and her pretty eyes. She's my only girl to get some brown flecks in her eyes.

So we bought this jumper for her the other day, and I just had to post a picture of her in it. She loves it, and I love watching her play in it. The picture is blurry, but she is so happy when she's jumping her guts out.

Reagan rolls everywhere, and is trying to get up on her knees in the past week. Not that she needs to crawl; she seriously can get to the craziest places just by rolling. She likes to babble to herself and others, and will blow bubbles and make excited screeches when you talk to her. Ooh, she is also learning to wave, and sits up on her own.

She does not fall asleep for us while being held. She will squirm and do a cry, but not a real cry if she's really tired until she's put in her crib. Then will press her face into the corner of her crib and falls right to sleep. I will never complain about that. She sleeps really well in her car seat too, so that's a plus.

We have really lucked out with her as number 4. 4 girls can get loud, and there are a lot of emotions rolling through this house, but Reag stays pretty calm through it all. She doesn't start crying when Brynn scares her 5 times a day (we sometimes get a lip quiver, but rarely tears), and she doesn't join in the crying when it's ALL around her. She gets laid on, pulled by her legs, tickled, kissed endlessly, hugged for LONG periods of time, and many other things, but she loves most of it and endures the other stuff quite well. What a good baby!!

2/27/11

I LOVE it when kids misinterpret things, and Brynn is a great half listener so she surprises me often with what she says. This is her conversation the other day with Andy about lightbulbs.

Brynn: "What are you doing with those eyeballs?"

Andy: "Well, these "eyeballs" (chuckle, chuckle) have stopped working so I need to replace them with new ones."

Brynn: "Yeah, that happens. The eyeballs upstairs stopped working too. Are you going to replace those eyeballs?"

Andy: "Sure I will. Show me where, and I'll put in some new eyeballs."

Girls' Trip

Last week I went on a trip with 3 of my friends. We all have 4 kids each, and our cute husbands watched our kids while we partied for 3 days.

Our flight was really early on Thursday, so we arrived in Long Beach at 7:30 a.m. (which means we were awake WAY too early!!!) But, that also meant that we had a full day of fun at Disneyland and California Adventure. I was really excited to go to Disneyland because it's been 11 years since I've been, and I was not disappointed. We rode every ride that we wanted to, and we kept the people around us entertained with our conversations. I mean that literally. In line for Indiana Jones the girl in front of us turned around after about 20 minutes of listening to us, and asked us to repeat what we just said. She said she was in a college class, anthropology or something, and she had been walking around listening to conversations for the past 2 days, and she liked listening to us the most, and was jotting down notes as fast as her hand could fly. A little weird, sure, but we tried to keep the conversations really entertaining for her.

The tower of terror was my favorite ride! I took a picture of the picture that they take of you. I think my hair is pretty funny. All the pictures of me throughout the day are just as good. I know I look like a spaz, but that's ok...It's the happiest place on earth.

It was the last one that we rode, and had I known how much I would love it I probably would have dragged Megan, Lindsay, and Sarah on it a few more times throughout the day. We ended our day by going to the Color of Wonder show. I thought it was really cool. It was a busy day for us. We were there from open until after close, so we were pretty tired by the end of the day.

Friday we did the fun Hollywood/Beverly Hills experience, and I was reminded just how disgusting the walk of fame is. There are some crazy people that hang around that area! But it was fun anyway. I just made sure to clutch my purse with a vise grip, and stay together with the other girls. Good thing we had GPS because none of us had any clue how to get to the Hollywood sign, or how to get to anything else in L.A., but Sarah's phone was a lifesaver more than once. My favorites from Friday were going to the Hollywood sign and going to the Beverly Center. The Beverly Center, for those of you who don't know is a crazy expensive mall in Beverly Hills. The reason I loved going here wasn't because of the stores, it was because of the people. I have NEVER, and I repeat NEVER seen that many beautifully put together people in one place in my life. And beautiful black men. Compliments to them!!! They might as well have been dropping hundred dollar bills as they walked. The clothes, the hair, the jewelry was just beautiful. I have no idea if that is what it's always like at that mall, or if some NBA players/ family and friends were doing some shopping before the All Star weekend at the Staples center, but I don't care. It was so much fun to people watch, and enjoy the experience.

To wrap it up, Saturday we went to Newport, Costa Del Mar, and Balboa. We drove to the Newport temple just to see it. We ate pizza at a really yummy place on the beach, then walked the pier a little. Then we headed to South Coast plaza to shop for the rest of the day. It's funny because I got sick and was really sick for the entire trip, (yay for me), but I didn't really feel how sick I was until we got home from our trip because we were so busy having fun. I really hope we make this a tradition because I had so much fun with these girls!

2/8/11

Last month Abbi turned 8. She had a morning party because she wanted to have a breakfast. There are always at least 10 girls that come to her parties, and this year was no different. They decorated frames, and played games. It was fun. 3 things about Abbi that make her so adorable are: she wears a hoddie zipped to the top and skinny jeans MOST of the time, and would all the time if I didn't suggest other options some times. She loves to read to us out loud, and she is a very good reader, and she is a daddy's girl to the core. She cries when he has to travel, and can't get enough of him when he's home. Lucky for her he loves to be home with his girls.

Last Saturday Abbi was baptized. It was such a special day for her. She wasn't nervous at all, just excited about everything. The morning of she was very proud to tell me that she had memorized the 4th article of faith because it relates to baptism. Abbi is the best big sister, and we are so proud of her for being an example for her little sisters.

5 Months already

Reagan is a really good baby. I admit that with Reese and Brynn I was anxious for them to get to the next stage so often, but not with Reag. I have LOVED every single thing that she has learned, and I feel a little sad when she moves on to the next new experience.

She just barely started babbling a little bit. She will happily say "dadadada" all soft and cute, and then the further away I get the louder her "dada's" get until I come back. The girl loves her some attention.

At 4 months she was 14 lbs, so I'm guessing she is a pound or two more by now. She is an excellent sleeper, she can sit up a little bit, but not for long (we're working on it), she rolls over from her tummy to her back, but not the other way around yet, and pulls everything to her mouth, including faces and gives nice wet kisses.

2/1/11

What's Been Going on...

In December we had our biggest snowstorm in the 10 years that I've lived in Utah. It was pretty incredible! Unfortunately this storm cancelled school. Usually that would be great for Abbi, but it was the last day before Christmas break, so it was supposed to be a party day. All fun, and no work. Plus she had a gift for her teacher. She was devestated, but, she got over it and played in the snow for hours.

Molly looked like a marshmellow every time she came in the house. Her body was caked in snow.

Abbi is always the one helping the other girls. She pushed and pulled them all around. Apparently it gets pretty tiring. I pulled her around for a while so she could have some fun too.

We went to a funny sweater party before Christmas. We had a few matching sweaters, but it didn't really matter. It was just funny wearing a snowflake turtleneck, and a Christmas tree sweater. Next year we will have to be on the lookout early for great sweaters.

On Christmas day we went to Dana's parents' house for dinner, and games. The girls watch enough football that they had at least some idea of what to do.

Brynn is still learning to share, so most of the time she just ran around with the football ignoring everyone else asking for the ball.

Our kids and Laura and Isaac's on Christmas morning. You can't really tell, but it was almost crazy how many presents were crammed under that tree.

We drove back in the middle of the night after Christmas day. The drive home was pretty scary for part of the trip because we kept hydroplaning, but we made it back in one piece. Later that day we went to visit with my parents.