Lion’s Face Edition (and a happy smile):

Oh how I love those little faces.

Extreme Edition:

On any given day we have extreme laughter, extreme whining, and of course extreme crying. Can you guess which is my favorite? =)

Oh my poor, neglected blog, how I miss thee so. Well, that’s not entirely truthful. I am sure that I have missed blogging things I would like to remember in the future, but things have just been crazy busy at Casa de Barr and blogging just doesn’t make the list. I debated last year merging this blog with my Photography Blog and I have now decided that is the route I am going to take. There is just no possible way of keeping them both up, and since I’m barely blogging here as it is, the other blog won’t get completely saturated with The Crazies. As of October 2nd when they turn 5 (OMG, my tiny babies are turning FIVE!!!!) this blog will no longer be updated, I hope to see you over the river and across the woods.

So what have we been up to that I hope to eventually blog about. We are full on enjoying the shit out of summer. Winter was long, spring (which felt winterish) was even longer. Why can’t summer follow suit and be even longer? Instead it is quickly coming to an end, and I’m so very trying to live in the moment and not let the thoughts of cold ruin my summer high. After a really rough stretch when Jeff went back to work and I just couldn’t get my crap together things have really turned around and are really good here. The kids are pretty much awesome, and so incredibly fun (and funny). We took a trip to Hood River to ride Thomas the Train, which I’m sure as can guess was the highlight of Heaten’s month!

We took another trip to Hood River to see my two very best friends from when we were 12. Thanks to my awesomesauce friend Sonja we now have a baby sitter so I’m getting to do more yoga and thanks to my other friend Marci I’ve also started trail riding. I’ve had my mountain bike for seriously like 20 years and never rode it. Maybe one time in Vegas and a handful on the roads here, but never on an actual mountain trail. Turns out I love it and am so sad that I found yoga and biking so late in life. I am also able to run again (whooooo), although my ankle still hurts when I run for too long. I’m hoping the more I run the stronger it will get and eventually not hurt. Thoughts?

My garden is doing awesome and I’m seriously so surprised. I’m having more fun doing the growing than the actual eating. Well, not really, but seriously the zucchini just won’t stop. Once I learned how to sex it up it is just growing and growing and omg, I’m so sick of eating zucchini. The cucumbers are delish, the broccoli was so fresh and yummy. Pea pods yummo. The lettuce was a little too green and soft for my taste. I like a crisp romaine and this was soft butter lettuce, but still yummy. Still waiting on the carrots, potatoes, strawberries, and celery. I’m doing starts for cauliflower and pumpkin now. One thing I will say is I’m such a city girl. I’m not used to eating fresh garden food. The bugs. Oh my, the bugs, spiders, mites, ear wigs (TONS of these little f’ers), ants, flies, and other grossness.

Work. I’ve been really busy and since I’m so busy enjoying our short summer I keep getting behind and then of course I’m stressed, but overall I think I’m doing a fairly good job with the balance. Preschool is my sanity saver and the twinzies seem to really love it. I’m excited for the actual Pre-K Program to start next month, where they will be with the same teacher each day.

We’ve taken a few trips to the river and the kids have had a blast playing in the water and sand. I can’t wait to actually float it, and by the looks of things I won’t get a chance this summer. My Mom came to visit which was the highlight of Shenzie’s month. She couldn’t get enough of Grandma Jan and had a blast having sleepovers with her every night. My Mom fell in love with Bend, lets hope that means we’ll get lots more visits. =) Unfortunately, I only took one photo of Grandma’s visit (yes, I suck).

So I’m hopeful to get some of our Summer Highlights blogged in more detail with photos, but for now its time to pick the Twinzies up from school and enjoy this fabulous summer day.

2011 Book Listing
January
I am the Messenger ¤ Markus Zusak ****
Sarah’s Key ¤ Tatiana de Rosnay *****
Me Talk Pretty One Day ¤ David Sedaris ****
Welcome to the Real World ¤ Carole Matthews ***
Slam ¤ Nick Hornby ***
The Strain ¤ Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan **** ½
The Fall ¤ Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan ****
Fly Away Home ¤ Jennifer Weiner ****
The Serialist ¤ David Gordon **** ½
Hater ¤ David Moody ****

February
Dog Blood ¤ David Moody ***
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ¤ Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows *****
Mr. Peanut ¤ AdamRoss *** ½
Run Like a Mother ¤ Dimity McDowell ***** nonfiction
Indulgence in Death ¤ J.D. Robb ***
Cross Fire ¤ James Patterson ** ½

March
Little Bee ¤ Chris Cleave ****
Kapitoil ¤ Teddy Wayne ***** bc
The Invisible Bridge ¤ Julie Orringer **** ½

April
Room ¤ Emma Donoghue *****
The Night Season ¤ Chelsea Cain ****
Desert Places ¤ Blake Crouch *** 1/2
The Forgotten Garden ¤ Kate Morton ****
Vows, Vendettas & a Little Black Dress¤ Kyra Davis *** 1/2

May
Live to Tell ¤ Lisa Gardner ****
Last Night at Chateau Marmont¤ Lauren Weisberger *** 1/2
The Wedding Girl ¤ Madeleine Wickham ***
Live Wire ¤ Harlan Coben ****

June
Moonlight Mile ¤ Dennis Lehane *****
Mucho Mojo ¤ Joe R. Lansdale ****
Fear and Yoga in New Jersey ¤ Debra Galant ***
Your Five Year Old ¤ Louise Bates Ames PH.D& Frances L Ilg M.D ****

A little late getting this up….its been a crazy summer! I read a lot of great books so far this year, 5 stars are bold, but there are a lot of 4.5 and 4 stars worth reading.

A Year Later:

The other day while playing with Shenzie in the yard I snagged this beauty.

I realized she is wearing the same shirt as in the photo below (taken June 2010). A year later and even more beautiful if I do say so myself. =)

I loved the set I took last year so much I decided to do a wall display with them.

These are 16×24 mounted prints hanging in my dining room. Oh how I love big smiling faces displayed on big prints. =)

It Grows!!!!

This spring I got the crazy idea to start a garden. Mind you, I have zero experience with gardening and truth be told, I can barely keep houseplants alive. Or maybe not even barely, but not at all. Jeff has banned me from house plants since they just all die. So yeah, my garden. It is actually growing!!!!

I started my plants from seeds in our garden window in March which was a bit premature since (unknown to me at the time), you can’t actually plant until June. The twinzies helped me plant, water, and grow our seeds into plants which was pretty amazing to see. Not as amazing as the vegetables actually growing. I’m still quite shocked that my “garden experiment” is working. The summers here are short, the nights cold, and the weather insane, so growing here is very tricky.

The first veggies we noticed were the pea pods growing. Shenzie loves to run out and find new pods to eat, which of course makes my heart happy. We planted strawberries, cucumbers (vine and bush variety), potatoes, zucchini, squash, Oregon pea pods, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, and green, red, and yellow peppers. The peppers and strawberries are from store bought starts, the rest are from seeds (I’m pretty proud of this as you can tell).

It grows! I started off hoping maybe, just maybe, one thing would grow. I am surprised, happy, and proud that the entire garden is growing beautifully and I cannot wait to pick fresh, home grown veggies for us to eat!!

Along with growing my garden I’ve been trying to “green up” our grass and get rid of the dead spots. Bwahahahaaha. This was a complete and utter FAIL! Not only does the grass look worse, I over fertilized and killed way more than I helped. Actually having a yard and garden to care to is definitely a learning experience and we are enjoying each and every lesson we’ve learned.

Rock Stars Video Edition:

*Featuring Heaten Grey on drums and Shenzie Weather on guitar. They will sing Choo Choo (at 33 seconds in) and Song with no Name.

Spring has FINALLY Sprung Edition:

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And we couldn’t be happier…..WheeeeeeHawwwwwww!

Most times I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job of this entire “Mom” thing. My kids are doing pretty awesome and we are all really happy. And then, there are times, like now, that I feel like the worst.mom.ever!

I put off taking the twinzies to the dentist for as long as possible, my head filled with dread at the thought of it. I have a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnng history with dentists, and not a good one. I have spent more time and $$ than I ever want to think about on my teeth, that are still not the greatest teeth around. So yeah, I suck. Last month we finally broke down and took them to their first dentist appointment.

The first visit Heaten was a little scared so they just peeked around and told me the bad news, 6 cavities, soft enamel, too close of spacing, etc. etc. They set him up on a treatment schedule and off we went. Our next visit both Heaten and Shenzie got cleanings. They did awesome, and while Sheznie’s teeth are much, much better, she still had two cavities. =( The dentist told us two things we could do to make a huge difference in their teeth was buy a real Sonicare for them (we did and LOVE it). They are pricey, so we got one for the twinzies to share with two different heads. The other thing is flossing. Ugh. I hate, hate, hate flossing. I went out and bought those little kids flosser plastic thingys, and they work great.

Last week we went for our first treatment appointment where Shenzie got two fillings and Heaten got 3. They used gas on them both which was quite hilarious. I was expecting silliness since it is called laughing gas, but really they just immediately zoned out to the tv. Heaten required 2 shots of Novocaine (which he was a super champ about). It was pretty funny seeing his fat lip and watching him play with it, confused at the feeling.

We have to go back 2 more times for the rest of Heaten’s fillings which sucks, but at least we now know we need to step up their teeth care a few notches. Brushing 2-3x daily, flossing daily, and fluoride tablets daily. So parents, don’t be lame like me and wait until your kids are ohhhhhhhhhhhh, you know, adults before going to the dentist. The sooner the better, and a valuable lesson learned for this Mama.

Crazy Faces Edition:

Oh how I love my little Crazy Faced Crazies!!