Mammoth Weekend

I posted this backwards, so the pictures are first instead of last... oops!

Last weekend, we got away from the desert and spent two nights in the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains. We were supposed to go tent camping in Big Pine, but at 7 1/2 months pregnant, I really didn't want to sleep on the ground, so we splurged and got a hotel in Mammoth Lakes. It was so nice! We enjoyed a cool 75 degrees all weekend, when it was 106 in Victorville. It was a great weekend to get away!

Here are some of my favorite pictures. We took a lot and Gracie took her very first pictures which I am posting too. You can tell which ones she took because both Barry and I are in them, and she was good about cutting off his head---- but I have to tell you the pride and joy on her face after taking them was priceless. It was so neat watching her taking the pictures, "1,2,3, CHEESE!!!"

Unfortunately, Fischer wasn't with us because he was enjoying a few weeks in Turlock. But I hope he can go with us next time. We had so much fun hiking to Devil's Postpile, looking at the earthquake fault, going to a concert in the Village, and stopping at a beautiful lake at the top of Tom's Place off the 395. We should get away like this more often!

Josh Turner, take 1

Alright, for anyone who knows me really well, you know how much I L-O-V-E Josh Turner. I think he's extremely handsome and talented, I love his deep voice, I love that he loves God and he's not afraid to show it, I love that he's a down-home southern man devoted to his wife and children, and I love his music (all of it). So, he's performing at my home town fair on August 7th for FREE and we are going to take the 5 hour drive to go see him. I love my husband even more by the way, but right now especially because he's taking me to see JT ;) So, when Barry told me he'd take me to see him, I joined the JT fan club and signed up for the meet and greet to *hopefully* meet him. After the registration, I was informed on the web site that the meet and greets are given out on a lottery basis and I'd be notified if I was one of the chosen fans. I thought, yeah right... I won't be one of those lucky girls. But, it will still be really fun to go to the concert with my hubby and sister and her hubby (and hopefully the rest of my family if they can go).


Then today, I received this from the Josh Turner Fan Club:



This email confirms you for 1 Meet and Greet pass to the following show:

Date: 2009-08-07

Location: Turlock, Ca

Event: Stanislaus County Fair



Can you imagine my reaction?! AHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm sooooo excited!!!! WOOHOO!!!! :D So, stay tuned for the 2nd post with pictures!!! Yippee... this totally made my day.

Cricut

I am so excited! Barry bought me a Cricut for our anniversary in June. What a great husband, huh?! I've played with it a little here and there, but today was my first big day of cutting. I'm doing a surprise project for my sisters tonight and used the Cricut to cut out all the stuff I need for the project. Then, I installed the machine to my computer and used a new software called "SureCutsALot" to use the fonts already on my computer to design something for my scrapbook.

This software was only $75 and I'll never need to buy another cartridge for the Cricut again! If you're familiar with the machine, you know it costs between $30-90 for each cartridge, so this is a huge savings! Plus, I learned you can print all the fonts you have on your computer, but also you can also download a bunch of free fonts and wingdings or dingbats!! If you have a Cricut and are interested, check out scrappingtable.com for more information. The web site tells you how to get your machine hooked up to your computer step-by-step so there's no confusion. It really helped me out a lot.

Happy cutting!!! :)

Whew!

Yesterday was my last day of classes for my fourth term at Kaplan University. I'm a little over 1/3 of the way done with my degree! I can't believe I've accomplished so much already in the past year and am looking forward to continuing to work on my degree after a little break. (I decided to take a term off so I can focus on having Annie in about 7 weeks and enjoy the first 6-8 weeks with her before I start back again in the middle of October.)

So, the next three months will be full of doing fun things... crafts, sewing, scrapbooking, and blogging... and the not so fun things like cleaning and organizing the house =) But, at least I'll have a little time for myself and not have to stress so much over deadlines and school projects.

Me while writing two finals yesterday:

Me today:

Creative Moment

On Christmas 2007, I got the brand new sewing machine I asked for. A year and half later, I finally put it to use! Yesterday I decided to finally tackle the shopping cart cover pattern I bought a few months ago. I got the material, thread, and all the necessities then too. There was no excuse not to sew it except "no time." I got up, looked at my sewing machine, and said "Now is as good a time as ever." And off I went. I finished it at 11pm last night with virtually no breaks :) I haven't sewed anything substantial since my prom dress 14 years ago!! This was a challenging "beginner" project, but I did it all by myself except for the two phone calls to Mom to ask questions about terminology I couldn't remember. I was so proud when I was all done. And, I'm happy to say my sewing machine purrs like a kitten, works wonderfully, and the only major mishap was when the safety pin came undone when I was feeding the elastic through the material. It was a pain in the behind to finish that part, but I did it!! And I successfully did my first "gathering" without a hitch... whew!

Now, on to the pajama project. I hope it's much easier than this one. I can't remember if there are buttons on it... let's hope not! :)

Happy Independence Day!

The 4th of July is always such a fun time for me. I love going to my parents' house and having homemade ice cream, watching fireworks, and hanging out with all the extended family. This year, it was fun to watch Gracie and Hailey play together and wrestle with Fischer, Papa, and Nana. Brooke just turned 2, so she was in the mix as well... such cute little girls!!! Chloe went to bed at her normal 7:30 time, so she missed all the nighttime festivities but next year will be her turn to see what the fuss is all about :)

Gracie and Hailey wrestling with Papa (no, she wasn't pantsing him)

My sister is handing out pretty necklaces to all the girls :)

Fischer was throwing pillows at Mom and the girls and they were attacking him back... that was a fun part of the evening to watch.

This is a picture of my Grandma and Grandpa Barnard with me and Aunt Mildred (Grandpa's sister). The last picture I have with all of us was when Fischer was about 6 months old and Mildred was out visiting from Oklahoma (several years before her stroke).

Time's running out!

I just realized today, with a little bit of surprise, that there are only FIVE paydays left until Annie is due! We get paid every two weeks, so that's 10 weeks! Yikes... time is flying by in these last days, and I have so much to do. Where does the time go?

Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa

I should have put this post in between Easter and Morgan, but I just now remembered all the great pictures I got. We took Barry's mom and stepdad to Disneyland a few weeks back for Barry's birthday weekend. We stayed at the Paradise Pier Hotel, right by Downtown Disney and had the best time I've ever had there. We had lunch the first day at the Blue Bayou, the fancy restaurant that overlooks the Pirates of the Carribean ride. Then we had breakfast the next day with Minnie and Friends... that was the best part of the whole trip. We saw so many characters in a short amount of time and they all came to US!!! We took some great pictures and it was so worth the extra money for the buffet. We will definitely do that again. We also got a lot of Fast Passes to the rides so we didn't have to wait as long and we all had a great time.

The $4000 Smile

Okay, it was really only $3800 and our insurance paid for half of it, but here it is!

Fischer finally got his braces off today after 2 1/2 years. I remember the day I got mine off like it was yesterday, so I warned him about the smooth, slimy feeling and that the inside of his mouth will wonder what happened with all the metal gone. Sure enough, he says, "It feels like I don't have teeth!" :) His orthodontist gave him a mug "full of all the candy he wasn't supposed to have while he had braces, but that he probably did anyway", LOL. Isn't that a cute idea? He's so excited to have them off. Just wait until Thursday night when he gets his retainer...

A Wonderful Time With Morgan

Barry and I flew to Florida last weekend for a quick trip to visit Morgan. We spent all day Saturday together: we weathered a horrible storm in the morning, spent a few hours at Mote Aquarium in Sarasota, FL., went to lunch at McDonald's, got a pedicure (just me and Morgan and it was Morgan's 1st!), saw Up in 3-d, had dinner at Cracker Barrel where we taught Morgan to play Chinese and regular checkers, then we had to take Morgan back late at night before we drove to Tampa to catch our plane. It was a fun day, but much too short. Morgan is a delightful 7 year old, full of life and love. We really enjoyed our time together. We can't wait to see her again later this year for a full week and with the rest of our family.

Easter

So, I'm a little behind as usual. We had fun decorating eggs and opening the kids' baskets Easter morning. The day was spent at church, then at Barry's mom's house in Newberry Springs. The food was fantastic and all the grandkids had lots of fun at Grandma and Grandpa's place on the tractor, around Lake Sickler, and hunting eggs. Thanks for a wonderful day!

Fischer

I should've taken a camera. You would think he moved away and came back after a really long time. After two months of "homeschooling," Fischer went back to Riverside Prep today. He asked me about a month ago if he could go back, but we had to wait for the principal to respond because they had three weeks of Spring Break. So yesterday, we found out the great news that Fischer could go back and he started today. It was a great reunion for him and a few friends within the first ten minutes of arriving on campus. All I could hear were screams of "Fischer!" from all the girls, and once we got in the office, he was ransacked by a few... almost knocked down by the smallest one! I didn't know he had his own fan club :-) It was cute to see his painted-on smile. He was so happy to be back, he even RAN to his first class, LOL. Too funny. I guess he can't say he doesn't like school!

Our 5th Baby

We had our ultrasound for baby #5 yesterday. She is so adorable already... I know, how can we tell right? She was playing peek-a-boo! :) She had her face to the "camera" the whole time and wouldn't give us any good profile pics, but it's definitely a girl. We have decided to name her Annie.

This is how we came up with it: we're always throwing around names and one day Barry said Anne... I said, how about "Annie", so it matches the other two girls ending in -ee sounds. He said, "yeah, maybe." We did this sort of thing ALL the time, so it wasn't any different this day.

A few days later I was reading a book and the girl's name was Annie. A few days after that I was reading the Ensign and there were two Annie's. Every time this happened, I knew that her name was supposed to be Annie. Then, we went to the temple and I did proxy work for a woman named Annie. That was when I knew for sure. We prayed at the temple and I continued receiving revelations about her name. So there was no doubt.

Somehow, I still thought I might have a boy! LOL I'm so silly! Yesterday's knowledge confirmed that the Lord is in charge and he told me all along I was having a girl.

So, little Annie, we know you were waiting for us and we are so excited to become your parents. It always seems that through adversity comes faith and strength, and we are blessed by this opportunity. We love you already and can't wait to meet you in September.