M.I.A.

So obviously over the summer I have been Missing in Action. We have been super busy with lots and lots of swimming and pretty much anything and everything we can think of to stay busy (and cool). We have had several exciting things happen to our family over the past few months. One of which is Kevin getting a new job!!! He started about 3 weeks ago and loving every minute of it. Though he greatly misses the CfA family we know this is where God has us and we are super excited for the future holds. Secondly my older sister got married! It was a beautiful wedding and the boys did great! And last but not least we started homeschooling this week with Connor being in 1st grade and Carson in 4K. They boys are loving every minute of it and for me it has been a little bit of a struggle trying to figure out how to school 1 mainly while keeping the other 2 (ehem...Colton) entertained. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to get in a good routine and I will find ways to keep Colton from climbing on the table, or throwing crayons at his brother while he is trying to do his lessons. Over the next few months I will have lots to post about, Carson is starting his first season of soccer, we are taking a family vacation to the beach (first one in about 2 years), and we will be celebrating 2 birthdays for 2 of our boys. So hopefully I will find the time to share all the pictures I will take.

Until then here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend Kevin's sister, Angela, and her 3 children, Natalee, Kyle, and Sean came in from out of town for a visit. It has been roughly a year since we had seen them so needless to say we spent every waking minute with them. When they arrived on Thursday we headed to my in laws to visit and eat dinner and then Connor and Carson were asked to spend the night with their cousins, which they jumped right on. Friday Angela and I took the kids bowling and then headed to a local park to let them play. Friday night the twins spent the night with us and the evening was spent playing lots of X box and Wii. Saturday was spent just hanging out and then we headed to an afternoon birthday party for my boys cousin, Eli. Then we headed to take some quick photos of the cousins to have an updated portrait. Sunday, by far was the best. Kevin's parents graciously offered to take us all to Spring Valley Beach for a day of fun. That morning Colton woke up not feeling so well so we dropped him off at my parents house and as we were heading out Kevin felt a migraine coming on so he unfortunately headed to the house as I continued on our way. All the kids had a blast and by far that is the best water park in our area. It was not crowded at all and was relatively clean. Connor and Carson loved riding the water slides with their cousins and then there was a kiddie area where my boys also loved to play. Connor said his favorite thing was the "dark slide" which was a tunnel slide. Carson agrees with Connor on this (not much they do agree on!) and while going down the slide you could hear him yelling "Awesome Dude!!" He was so cute and had everyone at the bottom of slide laughing! Though we hated our weekend had to come to an end we are glad we got to make some great memories with our family and can't wait to do it again!

Easter Snake Hunt

So I know I am way late on getting this post out but here it is anyways...

Our Easter weekend was great. My family celebrated Easter on Saturday, which unfortunately Kevin had to work, so the boys and I headed to my parents for the day. After eating way to much food we had an egg hunt for my boys and my cousins son, Eli. What better way to hunt for eggs than on a John Deere ATV? The boys had a blast looking for eggs and some of them had special surprises thanks to my cousin John, as in a caterpillar, flower, a screw, and a leaf. Leave it to him to never leave something boring. To make things even more exciting while Eli was looking for eggs he came across a snake! I am so glad I was not the one that discovered that and thankfully it was not poisonous, but to me the best kind of snake is a dead one! So after all the boys admiring the snake they continued their hunt and then the checking out the goodies inside.











On Sunday after church we headed to Kevin's parents to eat lunch. The lunch was yummy as always and then we headed to their basement for an egg hunt. The boys had a blast hunting eggs and eating the candy inside and of course counting the eggs to see who got the most! Overall we had a great weekend are very blessed with great families that live so close.

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! :)

The Real 3 Ring Circus

So as most of you know, we have a 3 ring circus of our own. Well this past Friday we were surprised with 4 absolutely free tickets to the real 3 ring circus and pre-party. This was such a huge blessing because the night before, Kevin and I had talked about taking our own clowns but when I looked online the prices were too high and not that great of seats. Friday rolled around and my sister called with 4 tickets for that evening that were given to my cousin. I joyfully accepted the tickets and quickly made our plans for the evening. We decided to leave Colton with my mom, one because we had 4 tickets but most importantly I did not think he would enjoy it and would get antsy during the show. We all had a great time from beginning to end. The evening started off with the pre-party which consisted of dinner, thanks to Jim n Nicks - who also we are to thank for our wonderful tickets. During dinner there were alot of the characters from the circus coming and talking with the boys as well as face painting. The best part was the FREE popcorn, nachos and cheese, and most importantly cotton candy. We graciously ate all our stomachs desired at dinner and then took our cotton candy with us to the circus - which later I found out that saved us $12. Once at the circus the boys were in awe of everything. They loved every minute of it and kept asking when they could come back. Connor said his favorite part was the people walking on the "power lines" aka the tight rope and Carson's favorite part was getting his face painted like Spider Man. To make things even better, some great friends of ours were able to come and sit with us after intermission. Here a few pics of our magical night with 2 of our 3 ring circus!