Never a Dull Moment

The weather has been absolutely to die for here where we live....I mean low 80's and breezy, cannot get much better than that (well unless I was at the beach with that kind of weather)! We have been spending a ton of time outside and have visited 3 different parks the past week. Last Friday we went to Heardmont Park with my dear friend Jaci and her 2 girls, Mia and Averi. The girls are the same ages as Connor and Carson and they always enjoy each others company. We started out at the playground and when the kids got hot (yes I said hot, I told them to wait until is was 100 degrees and then they will see what hot is!) we headed down to a creek. Well I was not prepared for the creek so we just rolled the boys jeans up and went with it. I had told them not to get their pants wet b/c we did not have a change of clothes but that must have gone in one ear and out the other. The girls managed to stay dry but not my boys - Colton's pants were soaking wet and had to be removed for fear he may drown in the creek with the extra weight, Connor and Carson were wet well above their knees but were made to keep their pants on! Overall we had a great time and are planning on going soon, but next time with swimsuits!




On Monday I met my cousin and her little boy, Eli, at a park in Springville. This park is awesome!! It has a huge fenced in playground with several nice play sets and a large covered pavilion with picnic tables. On this park visit I brought with us 2 of my friends kids, Addison and Hudson. All 6 of the kids played really well together and we had no meltdowns - which is a plus. After playing for a while we let the kids cool down with a snack at the picnic tables and then we headed to the creek nearby. This time I was prepared with having the kids wear shorts and I even had a towel - go me!! I was not prepared with extra clothes for Hudson who decided to go swimming in the creek - but thankfully I did have an extra pull up and so he just rode home that way!








Then yesterday afternoon after Kevin headed to work, my sweet neighbor Erica went with me to the park in Leeds. I have not been to this park in a while b/c it is not fenced in and has huge slides and it is a little hard to keep up with 3 kids on this thing. But since she could be an extra set of eyes we tried it again and the kids did really well. I have to say that the boys are at a much easier age and it was not that hard to keep up with them. It is so nice to have several nice parks near us so we have options.

*unfortunately I forgot my camera for this park visit*

Well last but certainly not least....we had our first cast put on today for our little Colton. It is so crazy b/c he was not doing anything other than pitching a fit b/c I had to leave and he wanted to go with me, and all we can guess is that he fell and caught himself with his hand which led to breaking through the growth plate in his wrist. So we have 3 weeks of life in a cast and hopefully it can come off. It will probably become a really good weapon and his brothers will probably learn to leave him alone after this! So that in a nutshell is what has been going on at the Barnett household - never a dull moment for sure!!

A Weekend to Remember

This past weekend was one of the most unique and blessing filled weekends we have had in a while. It all started Saturday evening when Kevin got home, he came in the door and said I need to talk to you quickly. I got kinda nervous because he looked serious. He said that John (a co-worker at CfA) had asked him earlier if we could keep a soldier in our home for the night, he had hosted him the night before. This soldier is walking, yes walking, from Tampa, FL to Los Angeles, CA raising awareness and funds for widowed women and orphans of fallen soldiers. My first reaction was "no" because you just can't trust people these days. We decided to look him on the Internet to see if this was legit and quickly found that he was a believer and everything John had told us was true. We really felt led that we needed to do this and did not want to miss out on one of God's many blessings. Kevin quickly went to CfA, where the guy was eating and picked him up and brought him to our home. Now the boys did not what to expect. Connor's first reaction when I told him what Daddy was doing was to run and hide because he was scared of the soldier. He was thinking he was like a Knight and would be carrying a big sword....I have no idea where he got that from! I reassured him he was nice, at least I was praying so, and told him the soldier was sort of like a policeman (like his Pop). When Kevin arrived with Matt, the soldier, the kids quickly welcomed him to our home - probably a bit too much. There is so much to tell about the evening we spent with him that you should probably just check out his blog post about us here. To say the least it was quite a night and one we will remember forever! The next morning he went to church with us and then we took him to Jim n Nicks to eat lunch and then Kevin dropped him back off at CfA in Leeds for him to continue on his journey. Matt is also on facebook if you would like to follow him on his adventure.

Here is a picture of the guys while we wait at Jim n Nicks



Now on to Sunday after lunch....Kevin came home after dropping off Matt and I remembered (with the help of my father in law) that Kevin had talked about taking the older boys to the Harlem Globetrotters Show that was in town. He quickly rushed out of the house and was planning on buying tickets when he got there. This was not in God's plan for us because when Kevin got there, there was a radio station guy that had 4 tickets to give away! How awesome is that!! Kevin was able to buy the boys each a basketball and they had them signed by a few of the players since we were not out the money on the tickets. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures to show the great time the kids had because in all the chaos Kevin forgot the camera....oh well there is always next year! So that pretty much was our weekend, very busy and very last minute - which if you know me at all that is so unlike me!

Busy and Toothless

Man, how time has flown since my last post. We have been super busy, with homeschooling Connor, Carson's speech, Connor's Science class, 3 out of 5 having the flu, and just the everyday life I have neglected my blog. Here is a catch up from the past month or so. Connor has lost his bottom two teeth-within a few weeks of each other. He was super excited about this because all of his friends had been toothless for months, so he was now in the "club". Homeschooling has been going well with Connor, he is reading quite well now and is excellent in Math. On his own he has been learning the states and where they are on the map just from watching basketball and then pulling out his map and asking me where the team was from. He is very eager to learn and is a great student - most days! Carson, well let's just say he has been being Carson. He has started this new thing of saying what he wants to whom he wants with no filter involved! Last week, he told some random man that boys weren't supposed to have long hair and he needed a haircut, a woman who was missing some teeth was told by my sweet Carson that she had some "loosed" teeth, and then while walking by a large woman he stated very loudly that she was BIG!! Oh my, this child! We have spoken with him about saying things to others that may hurt their feelings but how do you address the man with the long hair or the woman with the missing teeth? SHEESH!! On to Colton, this child has the vocabulary of a 5 year old. He says the cutest things all the time. One of our favorites is when we tell him not to do something he replies back "I not Mama/Daddy"! Eat him up!! We took him back to his GI dr last week and he was pleased with his weight gain and told us not to worry about him not eating because obviously the shakes were enough to make him gain weight. He still thinks he has Crohn's but some of his symptoms contradict each other so he is still not 100% sure. So for now he is still taking his daily meds and we are going on with our life.
Last night Kevin and I were blessed with hanging out with some of our out of town friends from Texas. They just adopted their 6th child/girl and we could not be more happy for them. They are such an inspiration to us and are great role models as Godly parents and as homeschool parents. So in a nutshell that is what has been going on with the Barnett crew and hopefully it won't be too long before I blog again, but if it is just know I am at home with 3 boys and quite busy! :)