Christmas Part I

I am feeling kind of overwhelmed by the amount of pictures that I have to post from Christmas. I will try to put them up quickly so you're not seeing Christmas pictures at the end of January! :) We feel extremely blessed to have so many wonderful opportunities to make Christmas special.

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and look forward to hearing about them. We love and miss you all! :)

The Friday before Christmas, we had our annual Barker family Christmas party with my cousins and family on my dad's side.

We rarely get pictures of our little family all together, so I jumped at the chance to have Cindy take this one of us.

Grandpa and Emmy generously picked out some cute toys to give to all of the great-grandchildren. They were all very excited to be able to open a gift before Christmas. As soon as Mason got his open, he immediately said "Bear!" (It is really a beaver, but who would expect a one-year-old to know the difference?)

Later, all of the cousins were playing in the ballroom. Some of us moms were in there as well, and decided that we should get all of them together for a great-grandchildren picture. As I'm sure you can imagine, with that many little kids, it was hard to get them all to sit still...I wish we could see everyone's face, but what can you do? We wish that all of the cousins could be there, hopefully one day we will all be together so we can take a complete picture! :)

Here is Mason with his 2nd cousin, Alyssa. All of the sudden we looked over and they were walking across the room holding hands! It was the cutest thing to see, and of course no one had a camera handy. By the time I got mine, the moment was gone.

I really really regret that somehow I did not get a picture with my good friend and now cousin, Linsi. We grew up together and were roommates at BYU-where she met and married my cousin. I'm always so grateful that I get to see her at family functions when they are visiting from their home in Florida.

We ended the night with our tradition of singing Christmas carols. Linsi and I laughed so hard when we walked in and saw our husbands working together on tying this pink baby blanket. (Another tradition is to do a service project; this year it was to tie blankets).

Snow and Santa

This week we have been making up for the lack of snow that we had been experiencing. It came just in time for the Christmas season! When we were going out to run errands, Mason was so intrigued by it, so I promised him that I would let him play in it later that afternoon. He was very excited, and even though he doesn't have snow pants, he had a blast!

A lot has changed since last year!

David and I decided to take Mason to see Santa at the mall on Thursday night. Here he is, all bundled up and excited to go!

For the second year in a row, we arrived at the beginning of Santa's break...you would think we would learn from last year, but we didn't. Since we had time to kill, we went to a cowboy store and tried boots and a cowboy hat on Mason.

We didn't want to pay 16 dollars for the professional picture of Mason with Santa, so we just took our own picture. They make you stand way back to do that, but it works. The lighting wasn't the best, but I'm going to try to take Mason to the Christmas party at the Kid's club at our gym because they're taking pictures for free there! The second I set Mason on Santa's lap, he started crying and trying to escape. The Santa let me sit next to him holding Mason.

I just wanted to put in this picture 'cuz it is so cute. Here is Mason deeply concentrating on Teletubbies. I leave him like this so I can go and take a shower, and he is always in the exact same position when I'm done. :)

Thanksgiving

Even though Thanksgiving was awhile ago, I still wanted to put up a few pictures...better late than never, I guess.
We are so blessed to live in the same stake of both David's and my parents! This means that we get to have 2 Thanksgiving dinners! I was feeling pretty stuffed...but there sure was a lot of good food! After dinner at my parents' house, the cousins got to watch the traditional "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". I still remember watching that show as a child. I especially remember the beeping sound that Rudolph's nose made when it was glowing...does anyone know what I mean?





Haha anyways, it was so cute to see the kids all lined up in their little chairs and blankets. I am so glad that Mason has a few cousins close to his age and that they live so close to us!

Of course, Mason's attention span isn't very long (except for when he's watching Shrek or Teletubbies), so Grandpa found something else fun to entertain him.

He was entertained by this umbrella for a good 1/2 hour...Then he had to give it up because all of his cousins were waiting patiently for their turns.









Mason has the silliest habit, especially when he's at my parents' house, where he has to get all of the blankets that he can find and have them piled on him. This wouldn't be so bad except that as soon as he gets the blanket on him, he pops up and brings it over to whoever's nearest to put it on him again.
Here's Uncle Michael humoring him (he sure loves his Uncle Michael!).







And here he is trying to steal all of the blankets! I'm kind of worried about what's going to happen when he sees his new brother always bundled up with blankets...we'll have to work more on sharing before then! :)

And the verdict is....

We will be having another little boy! We are really excited! It will be so fun for Mason to have a little buddy to play around with. :) At the very beginning of the ultrasound, we could see the baby's face really well...but she said that it wasn't a good shot for the measuring that she had to do...and I guess they don't believe in just taking a cute picture for the fun of it at Kaiser. Here are a few pictures of our little cutie.




In this picture, our son is looking straight at you. His head is near the top. We like this one because, if you look closely, you can see that he has his hand up by his head...this is exactly how Mason has always slept. Must be a genetic thing. :)

Our baby is lying on his side in this one, it totally looks like he is reaching out or waving to us! :)

Responding to a tag

My cousin, Kim, tagged me quite awhile ago. I always meant to respond, but I haven't yet. Mason is sleeping in this morning...so here it is:

The rules of the game should be posted at the beginning of the post. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

So here are 6 facts/habits about Kristalyn:

1. Whenever there are brownies, cookies, cake or anything like that in the house in the morning, I have an uncontrollable compulsion to eat them for breakfast. This unfortunate compulsion started when I was very young, I can still remember eating birthday cake for breakfast the day after any birthday in my house. I do this despite the fact that I ALWAYS feel sick afterwards. I usually don't even like to eat donuts too early in the morning 'cuz the sugar just makes me feel so gross. I don't know why I have to have cookies and brownies for breakfast, just 'cuz they are sitting there, old habits die hard, I guess!

2. In high school, a friend and I kept track in the back of our Writer's Ink books how many times we said "hi" to different boys.

3. On my wedding day, after the ceremony in the temple, we took the usual pictures outside on the temple grounds. Because my wedding dress did not have pockets, my mom held on to my recommend and locker key for me. We both forgot about this fact, and when it came time for my mom to go home to prepare for the rest of the day, we didn't think anything of it. Not until it was time for me to go back into the temple and change for the picnic lunch that David's family was hosting. Despite the fact that I had just gotten married in the temple, and David and I was in what was obviously a wedding atire, they would not let me back in without my recommend. My parents were unreachable at that time, so I was taken into the side office and told that I had to call my branch president. All of the emotions of the day and the stress of what was happening made me start to cry. This, apparently, was the right thing to do because as soon as the temple workers saw that, they decided to just let me through. I went back to the changing room and it was obvious that I had been crying...all of the nice ladies back there probably thought I had been left by my groom or something. Luckily there was a master key that let me get into my locker.

4. When I was a couple months pregnant with Mason, I was on a business trip for my work. I still hadn't told anyone at work that I was pregnant, and for the most part, I was feeling fine. The trip was actually a sales trip, and as good salesmen usually do, the one that I was working with took the customers out to a fancy restaurant, and I got to come. I had duck with this really good sauce and I ate the whole thing, plus dessert. On the way home, I immediately regretted that decision. I normally have a tendency to be carsick, but when I'm pregnant, it's magnified by at least 100. Of course, the drive home was not smooth and had a lot of stops and turns. I told the sales guy, who was driving, that I think I was going to be sick and asked if we could pull over. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, it took a while to find a spot to pull over, and so I had to unroll the window to avoid making a mess. When the sales guy saw this...he immediately swerved to the nearest parking lot. In the process, he hit the backside of a big truck and bashed out the headlights of the rental car we were using. He is a nice guy and never mentioned the incident again...but I was soooo embarrassed!

5. In college, I never really watched anything on television. I was nerd and if I had time to watch tv, I would rather use it to study chemistry or something. I thought that since I got through 4 years of not caring about tv, I could do it the rest of my life. I have to admit that I do try never to miss the shows: House, Criminal Minds, Journeyman (newly added this season), and NCIS.

6. Right now, I'm taking a course to become a medical transcriptionist. If all goes well, I'll start early next year helping out with our income by doing this.


OK...I would be interested to know about any one...if you're reading it and feel so inclined, you're tagged....but especially: Penny, Lauren and Alisa. :)

Killer Geese

So today, Mason and I decided to walk around the lake. Seriously, the weather reminded me of summer time. I didn't have a jacket, but I was getting hot! I can't believe this warm weather, but I'm not complaining! Anyways, we hadn't been for awhile and were pretty surprised to see that the water level had gone WAAAAAYYYYY down. At first, I assumed it was because we haven't gotten hardly any moisture in the past couple months, but then I saw a sign that explained that they are draining part of the lake to do improvement projects or something like that.

Well, Mason loves to feed the ducks and even though we hadn't been there in awhile, he totally remembered. This time was a little different than usual though. Here is a picture of us feeding the ducks back in September:

My dear friend Nikki took the last picture for us, so I just have to include a picture of her and Mason. (Lots of my blog readers will recognize her).

Here is the same dock today....

I didn't get a picture from the same angle, but hopefully you can tell. It kind of reminded me of being at the beach. Mason and I saw some other people walking by the shore, so we decided to go too.

It just about made Mason's week to go exploring in this new place.

As soon as we got the bread out, we were swarmed by geese and ducks! I was startled by how close they came. They were not shy at all. I actually got kind of spooked 'cuz it felt like they were going to attack us, so I scooped up an unwilling Mason and we finished feeding them on the dock. :)

Here they are getting closer and closer. I snapped this picture as I was quickly backing away (okay, maybe running away) from them.

Here is Mason looking at the ducks from a safer vantage point. :)

We stayed for a pretty long time, and Mason never got bored of it. When it was finally time to go, he threw the hugest fit! He's been doing that a lot lately. He screamed and cried all of the way back to the car and I had a really hard time putting him in his car seat 'cuz he was arching his back and would sit down. He fell asleep before we got home, so I know part of it was that he was so tired.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year! Mason was able to carve pumpkins, enjoy two trunk-or-treats, go trick-or-treating with his cousins, and of course, enjoy some candy. Here are some pictures of the festivities:

The past couple of days, we have had a different schedule and so on the day of our ward's trunk-or-treat, it finally caught up with Mason and he took a late nap. He didn't get a chance to eat dinner before it started, so here he is with David, eating a sandwich in the foyer before he stuffed himself with candy.










This was about the only time he would walk, I think all of the hordes of eager children were a little too much for him, so David carried him around to the different trunks.

On Halloween, David's mom called and asked us if we wanted to come to their trunk-or-treat. She is also in Diana's ward, and Diana had invited us before, as well. It was fun to see Mason's cousins and Grandma Ford there! Diana lent me her wagon, which Mason loves, so he got to be pulled around to all of the trunks this time.
















We are so glad that Mason and Levi are so close in age, they already have a fun time playing with each other!






After trunk-or-treat, we went to both Grandma and Grandpas' houses. Here Mason is with Grandpa Barker. He was also able to go around the block with his cousins and do some real live trick-or-treating. Mason enjoyed this immensely more than the crowded, crazy trunk-or-treats!











Unfortunately, David had to work late, so he missed the trick-or-treating. :( When we got home, we found that he was waiting for us and had lit the jack-o-lanterns! Mason was pretty excited about this!















It was so funny, he just kept patting his owl pumpkin.

Here Mason is the next day, surrounded by all of our pumpkins. He has his favorite Halloween treat in his mouth, a dum-dum sucker.

A Fall Sunday

Church sure makes a 17-month-old tired and grumpy!!!

Let's just say that we are counting down the weeks until nursery.

Good thing Daddy came home from home teaching to liven up the place!!

Unwelcome Visitor

So, a little while back, David and I were sitting in the living room. It was getting to be pretty late, but David had Biology homework to finish up and I was up for moral support. As David worked on his diagrams showing mitosis and meiosis, I was just staring ahead into the kitchen when I saw it. It surprised me at first and it didn't exactly register what it was...I gasped and pointed and David looked up just in time to verify that I wasn't seeing things. We had a mouse in our house!! YUCK!

This is a re-enactment of what I saw (using a rubber mouse that I have no idea where we got it).

Immediately the homework was postponed so David could go see if he could catch it, but the unwelcome visitor had disappeared. We searched around and found the hole where it must be getting in from the crawlspace downstairs. Now I was totally grossed out! That yucky mouse had been walking on the same kitchen floors that Mason plays on every day. I worried to David that he might run into it one day get bitten. Of course, David had to inform me that if that happened, they would give Mason a rabies shot, no questions asked. Then he proceeded to tell me that a rabies shot actually consists of 9 very long needles that they stick in your abdomen. (David knows a lot of random trivia). So...the next while or so I spent gazing at my little boy's pictures on our walls and welling up with tears imagining him having to go through such a terrible ordeal.

Doesn't it make you sad to think of this innocent sweetheart getting bit by a mouse? (The story of why he's wet will be in another blog) :)

Anyways, this just happened to be the night in the week that David has the most homework, so by the time he finished it, it was around midnight. I didn't expect him to go get traps that night, but, being the protector of the family, he decided to make a midnight run to the grocery store and picked up some mousetraps and DeCon...so at least we could sleep semi-easier that night. The next morning, the first thing that David did was to go and check the traps, and I had no objections to that. I was in bed, and half expected him to come up the stairs with a dead mouse dangling from a trap. I know this sounds gross...but that's what my dad used to do when I was younger, so I just expected David to, as well. So, of course, when David came and dangled this: in my face, I screamed and hid my head under the covers.

Sadly, no mice had fallen victim to our traps that night.

I was so grossed out to even go in our kitchen, it was terrible. My morning consisted of cleaning out the bottom of our pantry, where we were pretty sure the mice liked to go. I found several packets of microwave popcorn that were chewed all the way through and that confirmed our suspicions. Here is a picture of the floor. They didn't touch the bags of rice or flour...the only thing that they got into was the popcorn.

Well, probably 4 days later, David was at a church meeting and I heard one of the traps snap in the kitchen. Mason and I were in the living room and I couldn't bring myself to go into the kitchen for fear of running into a hurt or bleeding mouse carrying around a mousetrap. When David got home, he confirmed that the mouse was dead, and that it probably died instantly. We haven't caught any since then, so hopefully there was only the one.

I hate bugs and anything rodent-like, I won't even touch my niece's hamster when I'm over there. What would I have done without David in this whole situation? I don't even want to think about it.