Goals

Sometime during college, I learned about the beauty of setting and achieving goals. I had some wonderful roommates who were very good at this, and it rubbed off on me. It was very satisfying to write down a goal, and then to check it off or put a sticker on it or something when it was accomplished. I think at one time, our apartment had a page for each of us, listing qualities that we wanted in a future husband, and thus needed to develop in ourselves. I also found that using a daily planner to block out which subjects I was going to study during which hours was an excellent way to help me keep a handle on my endless assignments and daunting tests that I had to study for.

When I served my mission, as you can probably suspect, goal-setting and achieving continued to play a big part in my life. Now with all of the rearranging and changes that have happened in missionary work since I was in the field, this may have changed, but when I was there...you set daily goals, weekly goals and monthly goals. You set personal goals, goals for and with your investigators, companionship goals, district goals, and mission goals. I definitely remember several companionship studies devoted entirely to making cute charts and ways to track our goals.

What I learned from my years spent in setting goals is that you won't always achieve them. You should set goals that are hard to reach, but reachable. But often you will fall short. What I also learned is that even if you do happen to fall short...it is not usually a terrible thing, and you usually accomplished more working towards the goal than if you didn't have a goal at all.

After all this, I have been thinking lately that I have definitely been slacking. I have the most important responsibilty I have ever had now---being Mason and his future brother's mom. I need to be continually improving myself so that I can rear my children in righteousness....yet this is the time in my life that I seem to be slacking in the goal department. I'm sure it's because when you're a mom...you don't really have to formally report...except maybe at the doctor's at checkups...but that's usually only about things like if your house is child-proofed, or if your child stares for long periods of time without responding.

Anyways, So...the point to this post...I am going to start setting goals. I know that if I don't have any accountability, they will not get accomplished, so I'm putting them up here for anyone who wants to to see. Here are a few things that I would like to accomplish or get into the habit of this year:
1. Check the ads and purchase at least one item on sale for our food storage a month-peanut butter is on sale this week!!
2. Read from the scriptures every day.
3. Every week, choose a scripture story or gospel principle to emphasize with Mason and his brother.
4. Go a month (starting tomorrow) without chocolate.
5. Get physical exercise 3 times a week (this may have to be adjusted in April for a little bit).
6. Finish my Medical Transcription course by March.
7. Read the RS lesson ahead of time.

Well, that should give me plenty work on...wish me luck! :)

Christmas Day!

It was a joy to be able to help Mason celebrate Christmas. He got very excited about everything! We feel truly blessed to be able to raise and be part of this special little boy's life!

I love this picture of him, he looks so amazed to see a brand new doggy towel just for him. :)

David and I both had a fun time helping Mason enjoy his gifts.

Mason got so excited about some of the chocolate that Santa brought him that he tried to eat right through the wrapper!

After David made us some delicious breakfast burritos, we were off for the festivities of the day. First, we went to David's family's house. We had a fun time visiting!

Here Mason is playing with his Aunt Cindy who was visiting from BYU.

Later, Mason got to do his most favorite thing-watch "Shrek"! He was so happy that Uncle Brian watched it with him. Unfortunately, I had unwisely tried some cheaper diapers and Mason had an accident all over Brian! I felt so bad, but Brian was really nice about it.

When we went to my parents' house, I sadly misplaced the camera, so I am relying on pictures taken by my sisters to help document the day. I haven't borrowed those pictures yet, though. We got to see my family more that week, so here are a few pictures of Mason playing with his cousins the next day:

Grandpa Barker has the tradition that he always puts the cousins on his shoulders. Now that Mason is old enough, he wants to join in on the fun-so Uncle Dan was nice enough to offer him a ride. :)

On Christmas morning, we woke up to falling snow...that didn't stop the whole day! We weren't even expecting a white Christmas. There must have been quite a few very good little children who asked for snow for Christmas!

Mason just couldn't stay out of the snow, here he is with Aunt Katie getting ready to go play!

A little bit from Christmas Eve

The elves brought us all pajamas on Christmas Eve while Mason was taking a bath. They decided to bring Mason a size bigger than he is wearing now so that he'll have plenty of time to enjoy them. Mason is very attached to milk and will walk around, especially towards bedtime and naptimes with his milk attached to his mouth.

In case anyone is interested, here is a picture of me at 25 weeks. I am feeling bigger and bigger and I know that that is a good thing, but I definitely need to take a fast from chocolate and sweets after this holiday season!

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! :)