The Fix

Due to the hair cut I talked about a few weeks ago, I decided to go ahead and give Emily a full blown haircut. It is obvious to me that I have never cut a girl's hair before, and I have no idea what I'm doing. However, considering this is my first attempt EVER, I figured I did a pretty good job. She is adorable in a short do.



Emily loves to smile for the camera. She enjoyed getting her hair cut, but I had to stick her in front of the TV to get even a relatively even cut.

Here is the back. Really short. But it helped to make it not look so scraggly. I may even consider keeping it short. We shall see.

More Fun with the Barkers (my family)

This is the last post from our trip to Oklahoma, I promise. I just wanted to make sure all of these stories ended up in the blog book for the year. My parents have a Playstation something or another. They also have Guitar Hero for it. This happens to be Peter's favorite game. So, we finally got around to playing it while we were there.

Josh thought it was quite fun. He would sit there and try to play with the game, and bounce up and down and kind of dance along with the music. He was totally into it. I tried to catch him on video, but he always managed to stop when I'd turn on the recorder, even though he wasn't paying attention.

Emily needed a little more help with the game. The guitar was nearly as big as she is, so holding it was a bit awkward.

We love to go bowling in my family. It was something I remember doing every time we went and visited my Barker grandparents. Go to the BYU bowling alley with Grandpa. Ah, the memories. So, now we go to the one in Ponca when we visit home. The kids enjoyed bowling for a little while. Josh's favorite part was that he got to sit at the car arcade game with the steering wheel while we waited. He didn't actually play, but he sure had a blast.

Emily getting ready to knock down a few pins. Grandpa was such a big helper.

We really wore out Grandma.... and Jessie, too. How sweet!

On our way home, the kids got to know their car seats quite well. Can't you see the excitement in this cute little face? Can't you hear him saying, "Mommy can we drive for another few hours? I just don't think 20 hours is long enough." ;)

Take a look at Emily's hair. It sure liked that seat of hers. She thought it was hilarious, even though she couldn't see it herself. 3 down, just 17 more (hours) to go... or something like that.

Swimming in December

Amid all that snow in Oklahoma, we also made it to the pool. Yep, it warmed up super hot one day, and we went swimming. :) Just kidding. The ConocoPhillips complex where my dad has worked for the past few years... since I was 2... has a nice swimming pool. We got to go and play in it one day with Grandpa and cousins. It was so cold, but I think we all had a bit of fun. Grandma stayed home and took care of Jessie so I could enjoy myself, too. Thanks Grandma!



Daddy and Emily

Grandpa helping Josh swim on the kickboard.

Josh swimming "by himself" on the kickboard. Good job Josh! ;)

Everyone just playing in the water with their kickboards. We may have to find some of these this year.

Snow, snow & more snow

While we were in Oklahoma for Christmas, there was just so much snow. We had a blast playing in it several times during the week. Josh is in love with it. I think he still hopes that when we move we'll move into a "snow house." We shall see!

Building a snowman with Daddy. Sticks all over the place. Apparently, you can't have too many "limbs."

Josh sledding with Grandpa.

Emily giving it a try with Daddy.

Josh didn't need adult help. Here he is sledding down, backwards, with his cousin, Kaity.

Poor Josh got hurt every time we did anything on this trip. Fortunately, Grandpa was there to help him through this one.

Emily on Grandma and Grandpa's purple sled. I think this may have been the only smile from her on this trip sledding. It was just SOOOO cold that day... and just about every day we were there.

Josh and Daddy making their way back up after a run down the slope. What troopers.

Jessica's Blessing

One of the reasons we headed home for Christmas was so that we'd have a better chance of having more of our family around for Jessie's baby blessing. Since we had that big snow storm on Christmas Eve, and it never really warmed up to or above freezing, church was canceled that Sunday, December 27. So we did the blessing at Peter's parent's house. It was a very nice way to do it.

We managed to have Peter's entire immediate family there. We took lots of family pictures the morning of the blessing. This was the one with the whole family all together. Aren't we a lovely bunch. :)

With all the family pictures we took that morning, I guess we just got all pictured out. We completely forgot to get a picture of all the people in my family that came. My parents, my brother, Nathan, and my sister, Robyn, were all there. We also didn't get a picture of Jessie in her blessing gown. My goodness, we totally fell down on the job on this one. So, I eventually got her back into the blessing gown and snapped this photo. She's nearly a month older here. I was afraid the dress wouldn't even fit, but it was just fine. My mom makes blessing outfits, so this was one of hers. Thanks a bunch, mom! It was gorgeous. (By the way, if you are looking for a blessing outfit, let me know, I'll get you in touch with her, and you can see if she has anything you'd like. She'd be more than happy to sell you one.)

Jessie with Great Grandma Datin the day of the blessing.

Josh is always looking for an opportunity to hold Jessica. He's such a sweet big brother.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning is a lot of fun. Watching the kids get new stuff and enjoying themselves is always neat.

First thing in the morning, we went out to the front room and got our stockings. Josh and Emily were super impressed. Jessie was not so much. Maybe next year. Somehow, this is the only picture we got from the Christmas morning presents. Oops! It was super cold that morning, so it was really nice to be right next to a hot fire. Emily was just happy to be getting some new things. Can you tell?

Look at all that snow we got on Christmas Eve! This, by the way, is not a toy tractor. It is quite big. And the snow drifts are practically covering the equipment attached to the back.

Granny pulled out a box of old Legos. Josh had such a great time putting them together. Especially when Granny was helping him out. He spent a long time putting these things together, even after no one was helping any longer. I think we've found a great toy for his 5th birthday... which is not the one coming up in a couple weeks.

I debated whether to post this picture, as it may be a little embarrassing to Josh as he gets older, but I wanted to make sure it ended up in the blog. Emily got a box of Tinkerbell and friends costumes for Christmas, and I let Josh dress up when Emily did. It was a little disturbing to look at. He really is a handsome boy, but not such a pretty fairy, don't you think? Emily, on the other hand is a very pretty Tinkerbell.

A small story to go with this in the blog book. We went back to the bedroom we were staying in, and Emily decided she wanted to get into her new play clothes. So, I helped her get changed. Then, I asked Josh if he wanted to get dressed up too. It was strange that he hadn't jumped in on his own, but once invited, there was no holding back. They both got totally decked out, and wanted to go show it off to everyone else in the house. Of course, no one else knew what we'd been up to, so when we got out there, everyone just burst out laughing. And lots of pictures were snapped. Josh was such a good sport, and just stood there posing for all the pictures with his little sister. It was definitely amusing.

A little later, we decided to take advantage of all this snow, and went out to play with the sleds. Emily was apprehensive, but once we got going, she loved every minute. Until she fell out of the sled on her face... at which point she wanted to go inside. I think it just surprised her how cold it really was.

Both the kids got to ride on sleds at the same time getting pulled behind their fun aunt Katie. Pictured above is the beginning of one of the "good" falls Emily had.

As you can see here, falling on her back didn't bother her one bit.

Josh enjoyed falling off the sleds as well. It was a lot of fun to watch.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas and Christmas Eve with Peter's family. We had a really great time. It snowed buckets. It was declared a blizzard. Can you believe it? Blizzard in Oklahoma? Who'd a thunk? Peter's sister, Katie, had fun projects for the kids to do that evening. She's so creative.

The proud granny holding little Jessica. I love it when a baby sleeps on you like this.

Getting ready to brave the storm.

Just such an adorable picture, I had to include it.

Emily wasn't so sure about all this snow. And especially all this cold. We don't do cold very often down here in Florida... though it's hardly broken 60 in the past couple weeks and the lows have been in the low 30s. Brrrrr.... But that was after this trip.

Josh, on the other hand, was not phased. He LOVES the snow. He could have stayed out there for quite some time. But it was getting dangerously cold, so we brought the kids in pretty quickly after all that bundling up.

Katie had the kids make candy Christmas trees. From what I understand, Emily did little decorating and a lot of eating. What can you do? At least she obviously enjoyed herself.

Josh here, showing off his own artwork. He was so proud of himself.

Then Josh knew what you're supposed to do with candy, and frosting, and ice cream cones. You eat it. As soon as you can. I think this was the only bite he took, though. They had so much fun with it all.