Having some fun this summer!

Not to be a pessimist (because I really try not to do that) but do you ever feel that summer is over before it begins? I guess because summer has sprung on us so fast I want to make sure we are making the most of every moment!

I ran across this sweet idea and had to run with it. I love the idea of having something...wether it be big or small....to do everyday!

make something MONDAY: crafts or projects

time to read TUESDAY: weekly trip to the library

what's cooking WEDNESDAY: baking or cooking

be thoughtful THURSDAY: write letters, make cookies, do a service project

somewhere fun FRIDAY: go swimming, visit a museum, get out of the house

I'm actually putting some of the finishing touches on my calendar so this week has been kind of random, but last week we really had some fun!

For our monday craft, we tried our hand at colored rice. I know it sounds weird but we seriously had a blast doing this one!

I just used about 1/3 cups of rice per bag and we did 5 colors. According to the website we used about 4-5 drops of color and a few squirts of hand sanitizer (I guess this helps to "set" the color). All I had was bath and body hand sanitizer, but it worked fine. It took quite a while to dry so maybe do this first thing in the morning?

So pretty!

We called it her toys magic sand box!

I thought this would be fun, but seriously this entertained her for an hour at least!

And, as you can see, she was pretty warn out afterwards!

Tuesday we made our weekly trip to the library. I would say previous to this I went about every other week....but I don't think it's a bad idea to go weekly. It sure it nice to add some new books to our nightly reading. And it's nice to see what she likes. Usually there is a used section in the library and we've been able to find some of our favorites there for less than a dollar!

Wednesday we made dinner from our new favorite cook book...our best bites. My SIL Heidi turned me onto this book/website and they are awesome! I think she got her copy at Deseret Book for close to 30.00, but Costco was carrying it and I snagged it for about 15.00! I would highly recommend it (or just snag the recipes off the website)! I mean I LOVE food network, so you'd think I'd like to cook more...but I felt like I was stuck in a rut making the same thing all the time. I really feel inspired by this cookbook! Oh and it's yummy and usually pretty easy too! Also, thanks to Heidi, I've been using these shopping lists and have found that they keep me SO much more organized. They have really helped me keep the grocery budget in check. Give them a try...you will feel so much better you did!

Thursday we were helping a friend out by having Bailey over to hang out for the afternoon....but let me tell you we had a blast! It's fun to have a buddy practically next door. They unanimously decided that painting would be a good idea. I think they were right! In the end I almost felt as though they were helping us out by letting Bailey come over because, like I said, we had a blast and it was nice for Katy to switch up her day. Bailey was cracking me up, she kept wanting to know where Steve went. I had to explain that he was at work!

Friday we went hiking up Milcreek Canyon. It's a favorite place of ours because dogs can come. We decided Colt will not officially be a part of our family until he comes hiking with us! We tried to go to dog lake, but the top of the canyon was closed due to all the snow!!! I cant remember what hike this was but it was beautiful! Katy actually hiked about a half a mile all by herself!

Toward the top when the trail "opened up" and we got these incredible views! Katy insisted on holding Chuck. Dang I need to remember what days you can have your dog's off leash because that was annoying, but we felt like we needed to follow the rules!

Colt was happy to lay spread eagle in the freezing cold water any chance he had! Luckily for us he didn't get Guardia by drink all the stream water!

Katy LOVED all the flowers. I felt like since most of them were dandy lions that she picked, that was okay! Ha!

Saturday night Jon and Michelle had us over for a BBQ. We had a great time, even though you cant tell by this picture! It was great to see everyone and it was such a beautiful night! Thank you again for the great time!

SOOOOOO...hopefully this little post inspires you to do some fun things with your kiddos this summer. Oh and hey if you have any great craft/fun ideas shoot them my way!!!

Scrub a dub dub, Katy in the tub!

I know that this is totally a random post, but let it be noted that Katy LOVES the tubby! We finally got around to getting some bubbles (poor deprived child) recently and she LOVES it even more!

But she still hate's her picture taken.....

Seriously mom?!?!

Ok, maybe I could laugh a little!

I have to laugh at her little divot under her nose! Ahhh, so cute!

Happy Birthday Brynne

The big joke with Steve and I is that Katy is part of a Brynn/Brynne sandwich. My sister's Brynn is 6 months older than Katy and my SIL Heidi's Brynne is 6 months younger than Katy...thus making her part of the sandwich!

We were able to go to Wheeler Farm to celebrate with her.

The birthday girl! I can't believe she is 2. I cant believe I have a 2 and a half year old!

Katy and Brynne (for the most part) get along pretty well. Today was a good day!

They thought it was so funny feeding the ducks. Oh and let it be noted that I have officially decided that I HATE geese! They are mean and ugly and jerks and I hate the hissing! Ok, I feel better now!

Happy National Holiday Brynne!

McDuff & Mr. Chuck

So among other things, we have started into our summer plans. I have tried to have something planned every day (more on that later). Tuesdays are "Teach me Tuesdays", which means it's the day we make our weekly trip to the library.

You never know what you're going to find at the library, and I'm happy to say that I stumbled onto McDuff! I've heard of them before, in fact...we were told (back in the day) when we were at obedience class for Chuck...that he looked just like McDuff. Also let it be noted that Rosemary Wells writes these. Let me help you there, she writes the Max and Ruby books we love so much. She doesn't illustrate these but I love her stories. Oh, and I LOVE these pictures. Yup, these are defiantly a favorite...we'll have to see if there are more stories we can pick up this next week!

Our own little McDuff the Chuck! AHHHHHH......not really! Poor guy, he's seen better days. Yup, I whipped out the ol' clippers last week and failed miserably. Who knew cutting a little wirey dog could be so hard? Even though we totally butchered Chuck, I think he is still my cute little McDuff!!!

Thanks for being a good sport buddy!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day = Awesome! I love it. What a wonderful holiday to share with your family to celebrate our blessings! We got to kick things off with Steve's family. We went to the graves and then out to lunch at the Chuck-a-Rama....Papa's favorite. I think he'd be proud! It seems like we've done this a few years now...I hope we keep this tradition running because it's a blast!

The gang.

On Sunday of the weekend we always have a BBQ at Grandma Ida's house. What a fun tradition. My Grandma lives up by Brighton High School and has the most incredible back yard ever!!! We always called it her secret garden. I have also always been amazed with my grandma's knowledge of horticulture and such. She is AMAZING!

Please excuse the fact that Katy doesn't match at all. I needed a quick jacket as we were walking out and this is what I ended up with! Hey, don't blame me it was cold that day. In fact it started raining just as we went into the garage to watch old slides of my mom and aunts and uncle growing up. SO FUN. I remember my great grandma Lewis had these slide viewers you could use to look at the slides...I felt like I was back at Great Grandma Lewis's house!

The Barker Kidos!

Mom, Zach, Katie, Grandma and Steveo

Hey we get a lot of good use out of all our names. Katy with Katie and Brynn with cousin Bryn. Actually if you really want to laugh cousin Bryn named her son Andrew (like my cousin and her brother Andrew) but they call him Drew instead of Andy (which is what we call my cousin). Who knows what we will recycle next around here!

Tara Whitney Pictures!!!!

Ok I don't know if you will even be as excited about these as I am, but Tara Whitney actually took our family pictures and I couldn't be more happy!!!!

If you want to check out our gallery....

go here: http://tarawhitney.com/clients/beardshall/

Password: beach

What do you think?

California Vacation Extravaganza///Son of a Beach!

We spent our last few days having a few more adventures. We headed to Hollywood, but didn't quite make it down to the walk of fame before our meter expired....

We went to the international police museum, but it was closed....

This pretty shiner under Joanne's arm was due to a fall we experienced in McDonalds the day before. If only you were there! I mean it was quite funny after the fact. She tripped on a chair and had her hands full of a drink and catsup. Both RaNae and I didn't know what happened before she was on the floor! Poor thing, we spent the rest of the trip laughing at her!

When all else fails go to the beach, too bad we couldn't go in our suits. We made the most of the day by playing in the sand, shopping and going to dinner.

Sun set was pretty cool even though these pictures don't even do it justice.

Until next time California! We had a BLAST!!!

California Vacation Extravaganza///Disneyland!!!

Enter Wednesday and Disneyland....where all your dreams come true! It rained Wednesday morning but not as bad. We opted to make this our disneyland day since it would probably be more busy on Thursday.

Now Katy is 2 and a half...and free, bonus!....so I was thinking that we were going to blow her mind. And we did, but not in a way I had expected to.

The fam dam in front of "Mikey's castle". As you can see Katy has a weakness for sugar just like me!

I don't ever recall going on Dumbo...but was told that Katy would love it and that would be a good way to start out day since it can take longer to get on as the day goes on. In line Katy was making me laugh so hard because she kept saying..."No it's not your turn, it's my turn" when anyone in front of us got on the ride. Can you say ONLY CHILD! Not being very good at sharing is another post! Once we were on the ride she was in heaven. "This is SO fun"....followed by giggling! She kept telling me that she was flying! (on a side note Roger was not too excited to be on Dumbo...even though he went for Katy...he kept referring to how he was the oldest one on the ride! Ha, Katy will always remember that though!)

The dumbo ride what where the fun stopped!

Now I think that Peter Pan is my MOST favorite ride, but that seemed to be the busiest ride of them all...like an hour wait. Since we were trying to hit up both parks we opted to go on the carousel, which she loved, followed by Mr. Toads wild ride, which she did not love! We can't seem to agree on who's idea it was but I am sticking to my guns on this one and saying that it was Steve's idea, and a BAD one at that. It was dark and loud and she HATED it! Cried the whole time. Poor thing. Ok, noted she doesn't like dark loud rides. Lesson learned.

We thought it would be fun, and a good idea to hit up the Small World ride. It was going good until we got in the tunnel and she lost it again. She was not feelin' the LOUD music and singing. By the end of the ride she seemed ok. This was the start of the end of rides....because she didn't go on anything else after that!

This was us before that all happened. She was sitting up front with RaNae and Ken before she turned around scared out of her mind!

We decided it would be a good idea to split up and Steve and I took Katy up to Toon Town. Lots of fun for Katy. We even got there when all the characters were out. Hey! Do you want to get your picture taken? NO!!!!

I LOVE Pluto so I opted to get my picture with him alone! We thought that would warm her up to the idea, but it didn't!

Steve of course had to flex us some of his muscles!!!! Woo, go dad....he sure is strong!

Since Katy wasn't going on anything she started asking about Pascal. We always say how he is our favorite caracter on Tangled. I told her we could probably find one at Disneyland. I did some research and found that you can, in fact, buy a cute stuffed Pascal at Disneyland. So we went to find one. Only problem......THEY WERE SOLD OUT! The gal that was helping us informed us that they had been sold out for months and they couldn't keep them on the shelves. Gee, thanks! This was not turning into the best showing for us here! We did find Max the horse on our way though. She was ok getting her picture with Max! Say Cheese!

After lunch we made our way over to California Adventure. While we were going on Soarin' over California Steve and Katy checked out the shops. Steve told me Katy stopped him dead in his tracks when there was a sign for a make your own Mr. Potato Head. This thing was adorable, it was 20 bucks and if you could fit it in the box you could have it. Let me tell you, that thing was brimming!!! We couldn't really shut it all the way but the gal that checked us out said it was no problem because she was so impressed with our stuffing skills! It has a Mickey Mouse hat, camera, clock, Minnie Mouse bow, Mickey doll, wizard hat, Mickey balloon, pirate eyes....pretty much anything you could think of we shoved in the box. As you can tell, she LOVED it. She wouldn't let that thing out of her sight all day.

Roger and Joanne even humored me and posed for a quick pic!

This picture made me laugh because it was a nicer day in the fake backdrop than we had, but it was the perfect day to go because it never really rained....which kept everyone away and also not too hot.

Me, Steve, Roger and Uncle Ken

Ha, if you know me I am kind of a wuss when it comes to dropping straight down....as you can see by my face! I have been skydiving, but something about dropping straight down get's me every time! What a fun ride though....too bad I seriously wussed out and only went once!

Since Katy was not going on rides I kind of had to force her to go on this one! Something about the huge Mr. Potato Head that was out front talking to everyone threw her off...I can't imagine why! She kept saying I don't like him, I like my Mr. Potato Head. He cried a little, not as much...and said afterwards that it was her favorite ride. Yeah right! But cute none the less!

The Mr. on the boardwalk, so CUTE!

Katy found ways to entertain herself in between things with some fun Tangled apps Steve downloaded for her before we left.

Sporting our Mickey Mouse watches. Joanne got one and RaNae and I were jealous and had to get one too!

Yup, all in all a great day.......

I think Even Mr. Potato head would agree! Don't you think Steve and Ken? Until next time!

California Vacation Extravaganza Part 1

I feel now that the weather has been nicer, I've been neglecting my blog (journaling). But I am feeling that I am getting behind so here is our May California Vacation Extravaganza update for you! Ha, you're so excited I can tell!

I actually did not take advantage of my camera enough on this trip, so i am sorry I don't have more interesting pictures either. But here is part one none the less!

We left Saturday morning and headed to Vegas. We spent the night there and were able to meet up with Steve's cousin Suzie and her family. We got pizza and ate and talked. I do believe Katy was loving the fact that there were so many kidos around. They have 4 of the cutest kid's I've met and they are so well behaved too. They just have a great family. Both Suzie and Steve are great parents. Steve even took Katy up the stairs so they could look at the toys up there. Oh and they are expecting one more, a girl. I say keep emceeing when they are that cute and well behaved!

Sunday morning we were able to go to church with them at their ward. Katy even went to nursery with Ryder. I was impressed to say the least. After church we moseyed on to California. I'm not sure what the deal was but we totally hit BAD traffic on the way there, right on the state line. It's like Vegas has all these awesome wide lanes...and when you get to California it goes down to two lanes. We were stuck in traffic a pretty long time so we didn't get to our hotel until it was pretty late.

When we got to our hotel Katy kept saying over and over...."this is SO fun"! There were Disney pictures all over the walls. We got to go swimming that night with more "this is SO fun" comments and happy screaming/giggles!

Monday Roger had a work meeting in the morning at his headquarters, so we hit up the swap meet that Ken had found. Roger didn't feel too bad he didn't get to go to that one! But he did hit it up as we were getting done. Doesn't this look fun......?!?

Steve was really hoping that he could find a cell phone case but didn't find one.....Not sure why! Doesn't that look like a place you could find a cell phone case?

The rest of Monday we spent hanging out and shopping. Monday evening we had our family pictures on Seal Beach. Like I said in my previous post it was Hurricane force winds! Not what I was expecting, but I can't wait to see them none the less. Tara Whitney was AWESOME!

Tuesday we were supposed to go to Disneyland but it was super rainy, SO....we did some more shopping. We were actually planning on going to Disneyland but changed our mind when we got to the cars. Fortunately for us Uncle Ken found a great mini golf course!

We have a running joke in our family that Ken is the King so I felt that this was an appropriate picture for him....

Ken is actually a big golfer....RaNae, not so much! But she showed us all up when she was the only one to get a hole in one! Go Nae Nae!

Katy had a blast, of course! Even more so when she got to choose the purple ball! They were all out of pink ones.

We did get some sun that day, which is always good when you've had a full morning of rain! Like I said we were planning on going to Disneyland...hence the running shoes with jeans. Oh my, I really am pulling out the grandma card in this picture (no offense to the grandma's out there). I'm not really against running shoes with Jeans....but not skinny jeans! Ha, oh well. At least I wasn't wasn't being judged for my choice of shoes!

We even found a strawberry stand on the way back to the hotel where we picked up some YUMMY strawberries!