Christmas Part 1

We had plans to head down to Prineville, Oregon for Christmas with Brad's family. With the weather conditions we changed our plans and decided to stay closer to home. We still left home for Christmas and traveled to Bainbridge Island to stay a few days with Fafa & Grammy Barquist. We went over on Christmas Eve and stayed for two days after Christmas. It was a great time for everyone! Abi & Brody played all day long and Colt just watched all the action unfold. We had games of poker, wonderful food, and great company. We were able to celebrate Jesus' birthday with our wonderful family and only wish every single person in our family could be with us.

Brody's favorite gift was without a doubt his new vacuum. I wish I had the camera rolling when he opened it. He was so excited he could hardly speak and then let out a big "yeah!". I never knew a vacuum could cause so much excitement in a little boy.

We still are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with Papa Bob & Grandma Shari. Rumors are that Brody and Colt have a few more presents waiting for them.

Colt's 4 month checkup

It's always hard to believe how quickly these first months of life go by. Colt was 4 months on the 20th. We had his check up on Friday and it was a little discouraging for this mom who was trying not to cry and feel guilty for the little things this poor guy has. I took him and knew he had some type of diaper rash. I was expecting something and sure enough he has a yeast infection and we have put some cream on it and it is already going away. The first thing that was unexpected was his 2 ounce weight gain since his last check up. It was only the day before that I was admiring his chunky legs that are starting to get rolls. Plus, it really feels like he is eating a lot because I'm always so worn out after feeding him. Well the doctor started talking about different ideas to get his weight up including supplementing his feedings with formula. Ok, I guess I can do that. So our next surprise came when the doctor checked his ears and discovered that he has an ear infection ---IN BOTH EARS! Oh I'm a great mother! The poor kid. He really needs to tell me these things...how can I help him? I think we are back on track to getting him healthy, but really I would have never known because he seems like a pretty happy guy to me.

Still loving the Snow!

This has truly been a lot of fun having so much snow around. It does make for a little bit of "cabin fever", but we are trying to get out in the white stuff as much as possible. Usually we get out when Brad gets home from work which is right before it gets dark. Brody doesn't mind he just likes to explore all this new stuff. Every day I have played in the snow it brings back my childhood memories. Most of my snow memories revolve around the rices, especially Brian Rice. We went sledding, built snowmen, snowforts, igloos, drank hot chocolate, made snow angels and even made a snow slide. This is one of the reasons I decided to build a little slide for Brody. After my snowman got knocked over and became a snow mound I used it to start my slide. Last night around 10:00 I spent an hour or so working on this slide. Today Brad went outside with Brody to test it out. We had to modify it a little and used a garbage bag so Brody could slip a little faster. He loved it at first but for some reason soon wanted to be "all done." You can't really see him in this video but if you listen you can hear all the adults trying to coax him into sliding again. The crazy things we do to have a little fun.

Snow Day!

It was a day late...but the snow finally came and we got a lot of it. It was such a beautiful day watching the white stuff slowly fall to the ground. I was anxious to get Brody out in the snow but had to wait until Colt was taking a nap. In our first adventure Brody did a little exploring and then wanted to be carried. I think he was having trouble walking since there was so much snow stuck to the bottom of his boots. After lunch I decided I would try to take both of the boys outside, mostly because all of our neighbor kids were playing out in the cul-de-sac. As hectic as it was getting both the boys and myself dressed we managed to get out ok. Brody had a fun time watching the older kids play. He even was pulled around in a sled. Then Brody and I went for a sled ride down the hill, but he quickly said "All done".

We were lucky because Brad did not have a long day at work and was home in time to take Brody out in the snow again. He looked so cute all bundled up. The best part is that the snow is supposed to stay around for a few days. I'm sure I will be a little housebound soon, but it's all worth it.

Thank you Aunt Jessie!

We had a fun time hanging out with cousin Gunner and Aunt Jessie. We are sad they had to leave but they are coming back in January and staying with Papa Bob & Grandma Shari for a few months, so we will get a chance to see them more. We were really happy to get fun Christmas gifts from Aunt Jessie..... Seahawks Jerseys for the boys! Brody is none other than Hasselbeck and Colt is Tatupu. Brad absolutely loves the jerseys so we had to take a photo shoot with our boys. Some of the pictures turned out better than others.

Tree Hunting

Last Saturday morning was dedicated to finding our Christmas tree. When I say finding I mean finding. We had the best of intentions to go back to the friendly tree farm we visited last year in North Bend. As we were getting the boys packed up Brad asked "Hey, do you think there are any trees on your parent's property?" I don't know but we could always ask. A brief phone call to my parents and brother revealed that there were in fact trees, but it was unknown how good of Christmas trees they would be. We decided we had nothing to lose and ventured on up to North Bend. Uncle Jason was kind enough to lead us around the property looking for trees. I had Colt in the front pack carrier and Brody was carried most of the time by daddy or Uncle Jason. We searched hard for our perfect Christmas tree. The ones we did find were looking like Charlie Brown's tree. We weren't sure if the lights or ornaments would break the branches. After 2 hours of searching we decided to move on and went 1/4 mile down the road to an actual tree farm. It was there that Brody and daddy found our Christmas tree. Colt was having his lunch in the car. On Sunday we put the lights and ornaments on the tree and are excited to have decorations up for the Christmas season. What a fun time of year!

No More Tummy Time!

I have to admit that I have been very bad at giving Colt plenty of tummy time. It has been a combination of worrying about his belly button (it's actually a herniated umbilical) fearing that Brody will step on him and just plain being lazy about it. With Colt's cousin Gunner in town I have been feeling a little more guilty about Colt's "lack" of progress. It's really not a lack of anything, Gunner is just a strong little baby and he is one month older than Colt. Well this evening I decided to put him on his tummy and within 4 seconds he had rolled onto his back. I thought it might be a fluke thing so I put him on his tummy again and he rolled over again. He rolled over 5 times tonight before he started getting annoyed with the whole thing. The next time Gunner and Colt are together they will be rolling on top of each other.

16 little things to be thankful for

With Thanksgiving tomorrow I can't help but think of all the things I am thankful for. There really is so much. Aside from the typical "I'm thankful for God, family, friends, health etc." I have come up with 16 little things I am thankful for. While they are little things it can make a big difference in my day. And why 16. There is no reason other than it was a soccer number. So here they are in no particular order.
1) Brody will look up at me, say "walk" and grab my hand to hold on to.
2) My husband calls me "HOTNESS", Brody calls me "hotness"
3) I miss teaching. It means I was doing something I truly enjoyed doing.
4) Brody loves dancing. It gives me an excuse and a reason to dance.
5) Reading Books with Brody
6) New Underwear
7) Fantasy Football - It makes for interesting conversations and it keeps Brad thinking about stuff other than work.
8) "Hard Economic Times" - It makes me thankful for all we have knowing that we are safe in God's hands.
9) Apolo - our easy going Russian Tortoise. We can neglect her for months at a time and she doesn't treat us any differently.
10) Brad's Jeep - Brody's favorite ride especially as he listens to Santana.
11) Bouncy Chair - Colt loves it and is in it most of the day.
12) Books - Brody loves to read books with his mommy and daddy.
13) Colt's smiles
14) Our house with great neighbors.
15) Brody can clearly say "I love you!"
16) Date nights at home with MY hotness!

Fix It!

Brody is such a handy little helper around our house. He loves to sweep, vacuum, dust, and fix things. We are trying our best to encourage him so that he will continue to do this as he gets older. Sometimes it does take a lot of patience because the dirt I sweep end up usually ends up on the bottom of Brody's socks. One of his favorite things to do is help Daddy especially when he is out in the garage. Our next big item for Brody will likely be a work bench. But in the mean time we have decided to be resourceful and have made a screwdriver for Brody. Well, I guess I can't say "we" because the only part I had in it was leaving the house with Brody so Brad could work on making one. This is the final product. I must say that I am very impressed with the quality of this little screwdriver. (Unfortunately the picture isn't very high quality) Brody LOVES it and walks around the house fixing things.

3 months

I vividly remember when Brody turned 3 months and I told myself "Ok, I think I can do this mom thing." It seemed like he was settling into a good routine and I was getting better at knowing Brody. And now that Colt is 3 months I feel like I can say "I can handle two kids." Colt seems to be settled into his new life and Brody is now used to him being around. It's not to say that we aren't busy, because our days just seem to fly by and I still have tons on my to do list. But I'm learning to enjoy these moments with the boys. They are already going by way too fast for me.

Colt is such a sweet little boy. He is smiling at us, cooing and loves to watch Brody. It will be fun to watch him as he continues to grow.

Yesterday, we met his cousin Gunner for the first time. Gunner is exactly one month older than Colt. He looks and acts so much older. Gunner is already rolling over and holding his head up really well. It's interesting to see the difference but I know it won't be too long before they are chasing each other around.

A Productive Day

We had one of those very rare days where we had absolutely nothing planned. No one was coming over and we had no where to go. It was very nice. It was especially nice because I had an extra hand to help with the boys for the entire day. So, what did we do on this day. It started with a morning of raking leaves. Brad was determined to get a start on this project since it was an unusually sunny and dry day in Seattle. Fortunately he had his little helper.

Brody loved helping his daddy and loved exploring every section of our yard. It's so fun watching him get dirty and climb up the hills. He is such a boy!

After the morning of raking leaves the boys had lunch and then Brody was ready for his nap. While the boys were napping Brad worked on some other random house projects. I would like to say I was productive but really was far from getting anything significant done. When the boys woke up from their nap Brody joined Brad in the garage while I took care of Colt. When I went to check in on them they were about to go on a Jeep ride. This was specifically requested by Brody. He was very upset when it was over.

Our next task was to cut Brody's hair. So we took out our buzzer and gave Brody his buzz cut.

We finished off our day by spending time just playing with our boys. Colt is a little harder to "play" with but we had fun with Brody. Brad put him on his back and ran around the house for quite a while. Brody LOVED this and was about to throw a tantrum when it was all over. I stepped in and said "Brody, can YOU carry your friends on YOUR back." His face lit up and he ran into the other room and started to carry his teddy bear and Mickey Mouse on his back. Thank goodness for distraction techniques. It was a somewhat productive, relaxing and fun day for our family. We are hoping to find more days like this.

Stuffed Animals

I have tried my best to get pictures of the boys every single month. It helps that we have a picture frame where we need to put pictures in. So far I have been pretty good about it, usually missing by only a few days. I have also started taking pictures of the boys on the same blue chair. Someone recently told me about taking a picture next to a favorite stuffed animal, so I have started to do that as well. We are using sock monkey with the boys (although Colt's first "animal" picture was with a different monkey). Anyways, the other day I was taking Brody's 19 month picture and gave him the sock monkey so he could sit next to it. Of course, Brody would not let sock monkey just sit there he had to hug it and swing it around. I managed to get a few pictures. Later in the day I wanted to retake pictures of Brody by himself, but Brody insisted on having his monkey with him. Not only did he insist on his monkey being with him but he wanted all of his animal friends with him. Now we have a cute picture of all of Brody's animal friends. :)

Elmo & Tigger

Grammy did some shopping and bought the cutest little costumes for our boys. Brody was Elmo and Colt was Tigger. We were able to wear the costumes for more than one day when we had a play date and when we were trying them on. And then of course we went trick-or-treating in our costumes. We were thankful it wasn't raining (even though it was raining pretty hard earlier in the day). It also wasn't very cold, so we set out to go trick or treating well before it started to get dark. We had never done this before and I wasn't sure how long it would take for Brody to make it to the 4 houses in our cul-de-sac. It was Brody as Elmo, Colt as Tigger, Mommy as Snow White, and daddy was the Tigger tamer carrying him in the Baby Bjorn. After our first 2 houses we realized we still had a lot of daylight left so we went for a little walk down the street and checked out 2 houses that had some fun Halloween decorations. We decided to send Brody trick-or-treating there. When we made it back to our cul-de-sac we saw that other kids had started to emerge from their house so we went back to hand out candy. Unfortunately, our neighborhood, though very family friendly, does not get very many trick-or-treaters....so now we have way too much candy left over.

Cousin Abi's Influence

Brody has a great time playing with Abi. It is especially fun when we go over to Abi's house because she has so many new and different toys. Brody also loves his Aunt Angie and Uncle Brian. He can't stop talking about them. Now part of having an older cousin who is a girl is being subjected to some of the "girl" stuff Abi has and at this point playing with these things. Today when we are at Abi's house Brody found Abi's tutu and put it on. I don't protest these things although Daddy would. I just think it's so darn cute. So I let Brody put the tutu on and he did not want to take it off. Instead he danced in it, twirled in it, and ran all around the house wearing it. Maybe some day these pictures will be used against them somehow...but for now I think they are so darn cute.

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we took a family outing to the Fall City Farms' pumpkin patch. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day (usually a rare thing in Seattle this time of year, but this year we have had 3 beautiful weekends). It was busy, as was expected, so we had the great idea of going over to the part of the farm where no one was so that we could find our perfect pumpkin. Colt was in the Bjorn and Brody was walking with daddy. Once we found a cart we were set to go and ventured down to "our secret pumpkin patch." After walking down there and looking around for about 10 minutes we realized why this place was so secret, or why no one was here.....there were no "perfect" pumpkins....or really there were no good pumpkins. They were all either green or had holes in them. So we decided to head back to the main section. As we were walking back Brody became very distracted by the sandbox with all the tractors, so this put a little delay in our searching. We finally made it down to the pumpkin patch and realized it was already 12:30, which meant Colt would be eating or should be eating and Brody was close to his nap time. We decided we would have to forgo the pumpkin searching ourselves and just pick a pumpking from the preselected pumpkins. We found one we liked and went to pay for our $13.00 pumpkin... I didn't know they could be so expensive.

We learned a few lessons from our pumpkin patch outing.
1) Go in the middle of the week, when it's not as crowded.
2) Be prepared for lunch or at least have a snack.
3) Only go to the section where others are looking.

Having fun without Mommy

Today Brody joined his cousin, Abi and our friend Gunnar Tegman for a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. Colt had his 2 month checkup (more on that later) so we had to stay behind. I am pretty comfortable leaving Brody with just about anyone. It's not that I don't love my boy I just know he is pretty easy going and isn't hard to take care of. However, today I was a little sad that I wasn't going to be with him when he went to the pumpkin patch. I knew he was in good hands and was going to have a super fun time but I wanted to be with him to experience this again. I also came to the realization that now with 2 boys in our lives there are going to be moments and things that I miss out on in their lives. It's one of the hard things about being a mom, knowing that you won't be able to go with them to their senior prom. :) Brody did bring his pumpkin home and every time he picks it up he says "pumpkin patch." We are hoping to go to the pumpkin patch as a family this weekend.

A visit from Nanny

Yesterday Nanny and Grammy came over to see the boys. Nanny (Brad's grandma) has been up here in Seattle for a couple of weeks and really wanted to hang out with her great grandsons. Brody always loves some company and couldn't resist showing off his skills when they were here. He loves to dance, whistle, sing songs, and talk. Colt was super sweet and had lots of smiles for Nanny. He has even started cooing and had plenty to say. He needs to work on his talking if he is going to compete with his brother. We all had a wonderful time.

Papa Bob's Helper

Today Brad had to work most of the day, which is unusual for a Saturday. I had a baby shower to go to so I loaded the boys in the car and we drove down to Papa Bob & Grandma Shari's. We spent most of the day there, but I took Colt with me and my mom to the baby shower. This left Brody under the watchful eye of Papa Bob. As with most people, Brody LOVES Papa Bob. Today they had tons of fun and Brody was Papa Bob's helper. He was helping fix Uncle Jason's car by picking up the bolts and putting them in the drain pipe. (Reports indicate that all bolts have been found) After fixing the car Brody rode on Papa Bob's tractor. Since it looked as if they were going to be riding it for quite awhile they decided to mow the lawn. One day we hope all this "helping" translates into a nicely weeded yard at our house. :)

Nixie Knox

It is so fun to watch the way our boys are growing. Today I had a fun time reading books with Brody. He is especially fond of his Dr. Seuss books. He often asks for Hop on Pop or Fox in Socks. Today we were reading Dr. Seuss' ABC book. As I opened up the book to the X page, Brody pointed at the picture and said "Nixie Knox". If you are not familiar with Nixie "she" is one of the characters on this page. Now this is really interesting because we have not been "quizzing" Brody on this he just remembered it from the numerous times it has been read to him.

The first stitches

Brody had another first...his first set of stitches. I really hope that this is not the beginning of many more trips to the emergency room. So how did it happen? Well, basically we were not paying close attention to our little explorer. We were having dinner at Brad & Shawna File's house and Brody went up the stairs, fell backwards and hit is lip on the post.

I am thankful Brad is a calm person because it helped everyone including me. After about 2 minutes of a cold washcloth and some peas Brody wanted down and wanted to continue playing. Brad was a little worried that the cut might need stitches so they went to the Emergency Room. It was a quick procedure and they gave Brody 3 stitches, a popsicle, a fancy bracelet, and a new beanie baby (a hippo). Brad said Brody did such a great job even though it was hard to watch him get a shot.

Today Brody is doing great and only notices his stitches when you say "stitches".

Welcome to the World, Baby Colton

We are so excited to welcome the latest member of our family, Colton Norman Barquist. Colt was born on August 20, 2008 at 9:32 AM. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long. We are all adjusting to life with a newborn, again, and anxiously awaiting a little more sleep.

Moclips Family Trip

Last week we took a week long trip to the Washington Beach at Moclips. We were able to stay in a cabin that Brad used to go to a long time ago. We had a great time and it was nice that it was just our family. It was especially fun to think about our family getting bigger very soon. Brody had a fantastic time at the beach. He loved playing in the water, shoveling sand in his buckets, and chasing the seagulls down the beach. As soon as I become a little more tech savvy I can download a few videos of him chasing the birds.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our next baby. We have a scheduled c-section for this Wednesday, August 20th at 9:00 am. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.