Happy Father's Day Matt!

I just wanted to make a special post for Matt since this is his first Father's Day as a father. Matt is an amazing Dad. Stratton loves to wrestle and play rough with him. Everyday when Matt gets home from work, Stratton gets so excited. He loves to crawl around while Matt crawls behind him growling and chasing him. Matt also gives great shoulder rides. Strat likes to grab on to Matt's hair with both hands and then bounce. They're so cute when they play, they squeal and giggle. It's like I have two little boys, at least Matt's mostly potty-trained :) It's so fun for me to watch Stratton give the same looks that Matt does, I just can't believe how he's becoming more and more like his dad. He already charms the ladies, too. Matt always helps out with diapers and feeding, even after a long day at the gallery. He works so hard for our family and to support Stratton's expensive Teddy Grahm addiction. I'm so grateful to have such a wonderful husband who is a perfect dad for my little boy. So, Happy Father's Day Honey. I love you!

Minutes after Strat was born. A proud Daddy!

This was on our trip through Nauvoo. It was really windy and we wre trying to protect Stratton's ears, not join a Harley gang.

Last year's Barnes fam reunion. Strat's first camping trip.

My boys love to nap.

Christmas morning

My boys

Matt teaching him all the secrets of becoming an artist.

Stratton's first trip down a slide.

A Very Busy Month and a Half

Ok, before you send anymore angry emails, guilt-trip phone calls, or hurtful comments, I'm sorry that I kind of fell off the blog bus for a while :) We've been really busy lately. We had lots of family visit over that last couple of months (I'm not blaming you) and Stratton has been sick a lot (I'm sort of blaming him) so sorry for the lack of new posts.

So to re-cap all of the fun and not-so-fun times, here we go:
At the beginning of April Melissa, Jaxon, Emily, and Samuel all flew to Scottsdale to spend some time with us. We had lists of fun things we wanted to do, but soon realized that with 3 babies to dress, feed, change, and nap it's hard to do much anything else. But we were happy to spend hours just hanging out and letting the babies play together. Stratton hasn't been around many babies his age, and was terrified of Samuel for the first while. Any time he was touched or bumped by one of the other babies he would start to scream. But after a few days of being man-handled he really toughened up. After 5 days of us girls and babies, Nate, Tyler, Dad and Teresa joined us! Here's a short list of the most memorable parts:

• Wierd rashes-Strat and Samuel got rashes (they cleared up on their own)
• Baby proofing-Samuel has amazing hand skills and opened anything he could get his hands on including several "baby proof" pill bottles
• puke: Stratton caught the flu and threw-up on me on at least 10 different occasions. (it was so nice to have my sisters to help peel off vomit-covered clothes)
• Poison Control: Samuel was working on a sealed bottle of hydrogen peroxide when it slipped out of his hands and broke open, spraying peroxide all over him and in his eyes. Here's a shout-out to the friendly, helpful Poison Control Hotline, thanks!
  
• The Nasties: (not to be confused with THE NASTY) this is our new name for diarrhea. Stratton's puking was followed up by a good week of "the nasties".
• Phoenix Zoo: We did make it to the zoo one day- Matt even took work off and came with us. The babies slept through most of it, but it was a fun day. We even got to pet Sting Rays!
• Good food: It's always nice to have an excuse to eat out! We also had a great BBQ the last night everyone was here.
• Shopping: we found some great baby stuff at the outlet malls!
• More puking and Nasties: Stratton's flu bug worked it's way through me, Melissa, Matt, Teresa, and maybe a few others that were too tough to show it. For a couple of days we just laid around eating take-out and playing games. It was great- except for the Nasties... Thanks Emily for taking care of everybody!
• Foot Surgery: One night we all went up to Matt's parents for a picnic and some sand volleyball. Everything went well, and we had a great time. Then we got home and my dad said "look at my foot, I broke my toe playing volleyball!" His foot was black and blue from the tip of his big toe to the middle of his foot. He was like, "Hmmm, it's fine I have crooked toes anyways" That's my dad! He's the strongest man alive. Matt said that he has an unnatural pain tolerance...Anyways, he had to have surgery when he got back to Idaho...
• Expensive jet skis: Emily and Nate stayed a couple of days after everyone else left. One day we rented a couple of jet skis and went to a near by lake (I was surprised that they even have lakes here) Well, to make a long story short, Em, the babies and I were playing to the shore and the boys were off in the water. They were gone for a while and when they came back, both Jet skis were pretty banged up. I guess they rammed each other or something. The details are still a little sketchy. I just kept hearing phrases like "we were going 45 mph" and "so we were trying to submerge the jet skis" and "Nate dared me" All I know is Matt had bruises all over, and that Jet skis are incredibly expensive to repair.
  

So, all in all it was a great time, I'll take just about anything to be able to spend time with my family!

Andy, Liz, and Lorin (andy's fiancee) also visited this month! We had a great time playing tons of games, shopping, hitting up our favorite restaurants, and lounging by the pool. Any there was no throwing up, so it was great!

Oh yeah! And I was just put in as the Young Womens president in my ward! Yikes! That has been keeping me pretty busy too. It's been very intimidating. It's a small ward, and I'm loving the girls!

The 3 cousins together again! Jaxon, Stratton, and Samuel

When Strat was sick, he just wanted to cuddle with Dad

This is at the zoo, when we got to pet the sting rays

This was probably the only time all 3 of the babies were awake.

Strat loves to have his dad help him walk around.

Easter Goodness

Stratton liked having green hair

He did not like having egg hair. Neither did Matt.

We had Easter dinner with Matt's parents and fam last week, that left us on our own for real Easter. We have 9:00 church so amid the usual frantic try-to-get-to-church-on-time hustle, Matt didn't even notice the Easter "baskets" I had put together. Mostly it was a little candy, some granola bars, baby treats, and paper grass stuffed into Tupperware bowls. So I pointed out the goodness and we hurried to church. When we got home, the boys played with their treats while I got dinner ready. We decided to still do a big yummy dinner so I made ham, scalloped potatoes, and rolls. It was a really warm day and we were able to eat out on the patio, it was great. Then we went for a walk at the park. There were so many big groups of people having picnics and BBQs at the park. Seriously, probably hundreds, the park was packed. It was a fabulous day outside, and I decided that as long as we have Easter in Arizona, we will be having picnics instead of cooking hot food inside. Plus, then there's less clean-up (which Matt did anyway...) The only problem at the park was that all the families were having Easter egg hunts and every egg we passed, it was all I could do to hold Matt back. But it was a great day-especially after we took the eggs out of Stratton's hair.