My little girl, you are so beautiful and amazing. You are getting so big, these past few months you’ve grown so much. You are so inquisitive about everything and have a zillion questions. You love attention and ask me quite frequently to watch you. You follow me around constantly, I seriously have to sneak away sometimes to get a minute alone. You don’t really like tv, and instead like to play preschool or princess games on my phone. You love redheads and instantly warm up to those you meet (Tara, Jen, and Sonja =)) You love my hair in braids and get excited when I wear them (which is good since that is my “go to” hair do).

You have really started to eat well and will try most foods I eat. Recently you’ve tried and loved healthy salad with chicken, carrots, cucumber, sunflower seeds, and Balsamic Vinegarette. You love “Mama’s Soup” aka Minestrone, and strangely enough you will eat broccoli in rice bowls or my WW dinners, but you won’t eat raw, or streamed broccoli to save your life. You’ll gobble up the peas in “mama’s soup”, but won’t touch a fresh one to save your life. My crazy little eater.

You’ve also recently started really getting into your Barbie Princesses and doll house. You’ll sit and have your “Prince” and Princesses dance at the Royal Ball. You also like to dress up in your many princess costumes and dance around playing princess. And sometimes you even forgo the princesses entirely (yay) and play Garchunk, the royal castle guard. Garchunk is by far my favorite character that you play. Even Heaten knows to go along with the game when it pops up out of nowhere. I’ll hear you suddenly ask Heaten, “Whats my name”, and he’ll immediately answer “Garchunk”. I love it!! I love your imagination and I love watching you play make believe. One of my favorite parts of the day is when you and Heaten go upstairs at night to play alone before bed. I love it for the obvious reason, bedtime = happy parents, but also because you and Heaten come up with the funnest games. I love to hear you playing, talking, and laughing together.

While Heaten loves to squeeze my face between his hands and plant a loud kiss on my lips, you prefer to kiss me everywhere except for my face. You will randomly run up to me and kiss my leg, my arm, my belly, my hand, whatever you find first, but if I dare ask for one on my lips you’ll run away yelling, “nope, never”. I’ll take your kisses however I can get them, I’m not complaining.

Other loves: Ballet class, you love your teacher Miss Kylie and love to dance with Linnaea and Brooklyn. You also love your friend Jack. Last week you told me the best part of your day was holding Jacks hand. You love to dress up. You love your Barbies and play with them more than any other toy (but I wouldn’t go as far to say you’re crazy about them like Heaten is his trains). You love yoga, you love to jump and do so constantly, you love to run, spin, roll, and all other very energetic things. Oh how I wish I had just one ounce of your energy. The photo below shows you in ‘downward dog’.

Every day the thought goes through my head that you are so much like me it is crazy. You are super competitive and have to be the best/first/tallest/fastest at everything you do. This is mainly against Heaten, but I’m sure as you get older you will be competitive at with everything, just like your Mama. =) Daily you ask me if you’re taller than Heaten. Or do you weigh more. At night when we’re getting ready for lights out you race him to the bathroom and boast to his face when you win and pout and cry when you lose.

You are my sunshine, forever and everfor. You are so awesome, funny, smart, silly, crazy, and beautiful. I love you!

Oh how I love my little boy. You are still as sweet and cuddly as can be. Multiple times a day we have this exact conversation:
Heaten: Mommy (or Daddy)
Me (or Jeff): Yeah Bud
Heaten: I love you and I don’t want to eat you (?no clue where this came from, this is your recent edition)
Us: Awww, we love you too Heaten, and Shenzie too, and we don’t want to eat you either
Heaten: And Mommy and Daddy and Shenzie. We are a family and we live on the Orth (Earth)
Us: Thats right, we’re the best family and we love each other

This conversation never, ever gets old.

At 4.3 you are [finally] in your big boy bed and 100% night potty trained. You still love [rice] milk, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, bean burrito rollups, and any other unhealthy foods you can think of. You are VERY picky, and refuse pretty much everything that is good for you. We have to fight you daily to eat your apple (one of the few fruits you will eat), and sneak veggies into your food.

Of course you still LOVE trains. You have accumulated quite the collection….a huge train table, Thomas Shake Shake Bridge, Geo Trax, Thomas track with tunnel, Mini Thomas track to go, and our newest edition - WINOL!!!!! Aka Lionel’s Little Lines. Every week after Shenzie’s ballet class we go to the model store. This is by far your favorite part of any day. We look at all of the model trains and discuss in great length train tracks, trains, crossing gates, and all other things train. Every time we leave the house you bring your baby doggy with you along with rainbow train and rainbow caboose.

You are all boy and love all things gross. Tooty booty….hahahahahah. Stink butt…..hahahah. Poopoo head….hahahahahah. You love to make funny gross jokes and has a blast with Daddy and all of his poop jokes. You also started making crazy noises like Fffffffffffoooooooooooood. Ffffffffffffffffffffffivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve. Over and over and over again. Can we say annoying.

You watch entirely too much tv (my fault). Your current fav’s are Backyardigans,Sponge Bob, Team Umi Zoomi, and anything train related.

Last night as we were picking out a book for our night time story you took your time choosing the perfect book (all train books). You looked up at me and said “Wow, I have so many books, I love all of my books”. As a person who loves books and reading this made my heart jump for joy.

A few gross things just because this is your journal and you are kinda gross when you pick your boogies and eat them. Yes, daily. And yes, it grosses me out every single time. You love to gross me out and make sure I’m watching before you do it again. Then you get this big crazy grin [see below] on your face and crack up.

I love you forever and ever. You are amazing, funny, sensitive, crazy, loud, and awesome!!

Part of My Heart Edition:

Oh how I love this little Man, so, so much.

I’m over the health updates. I’m consistent with working out and loving it so I don’t feel the need to track my progress. I feel good, I feel strong, I feel healthy, and it feels good!! Instead of reading about yoga lets talk about Crazy Skittle Vodka parties. A few weeks ago a few friends and I got together for a much needed night of drinking, eating, laughing, and my first experience with getting completely stuck in the snow. The night was awesome, the drinks, not so much.

Introducing Skittle infused Vodka.

The process to make these suckers is pretty lengthy. Crazy Mel (said with love because girl! you know you’re crazy) orchestrated the entire shabang and painstakingly sorted all of the skittles according to color. Her recipe was 67 skittle sorted by color per 150ml of vodka.

Next we strained the melted skittle/vodka through paper towels a few times, which was really quite gross.

Then the taste test. Hahahaha. DISGUSTING. They were foul. Everyone had a favorite, I think mine was red or purple, but really, they were just all gross. Great company made up for the fact that our drinks tasted like poison. =) Thanks girls, for an awesome night, and the many that have followed since. <3

Shenzie and Heaten love piggy back and shoulder rides. They thought it was hilarious to give them to each other. Of course I thought it was pretty funny too. =)

*Video taken with my 5D Mark II.

Hair Gone Wrong Edition:

Heaten has gone through many, many hairstyles. At 5 months old he had the spikey hair…..

Then he had the shag….

The shag turned into the Super Shag…

Once the Shag was out of control we took him for his very first haircut. Since then we’ve pretty much kept the same haircut.

A little longer in the front which is how I love it…

After the first few screamfests at the salon I started doing it myself at home. Most times it looks ok. We’ve had a few debacles over the years, but nothing crazy…..until now. No clue what happened, but the front ended up choppy, uneven, and not cute so Jeff suggested we just buzz it off. Not to be mean, but Heaten’s head is rather large. I was VERY unsure how this would look. I took his advice and buzz, buzz, buzzed it off. Afterward I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, what did I do!?!?!?!? Of course, it is only hair, and it will grow back, but man….what a change this was for me.

That night after looking in the mirror Heaten was a bit bummed out. He said he didn’t like his hair and that he wasn’t my Heaten because his hair was gone. Of course my heart broke since I’m the one who did this to him (he hates to have his hair cut and I have to bribe him every time). Luckily it grew on us both and everything is back to normal at the old Casa de Barr. I actually like it short, it makes his eyes look even more awesome and talk about easy peesy!!!

3/6 Power Yoga
3/7 Jullian Michaels 30 Day Shred 20 Minute Workout
3/8 Snowboarding Hoodoo (with Sonja)
3/10 Power Yoga
3/11 Power Yoga

Pretty good week. Not enough cardio, but snowboarding was awesome!!

Why My Husband is so Awesome Edition:

Every night after we put the Crazies to bed, before I get all settled in, comfy and warm on the couch I get all of my “night time things” lined up next to me so I won’t have to get up again. These things include a drink, preferably vanilla vodka and diet coke. My glasses because I’m an old hag and need them to watch tv (and drive). My phone so I can play words with the many, many friends I play daily (hi to, in no particular order…..Jeff, Kristy, Denise, Sonja, Laura, Jessica, Melissa, Ember, Addy, Stacey, Brooke, Jessica O, Jamie, and Julie.) Two dove chocolates and one hershey’s kiss (my treat for being awesome), my book just in case I get bored watching tv, and my lip balm. Oh and the best part, my slanket that I love. It looks dorky, but it keeps me nice and toasty. In addition to all of this I remove two of the couch cushions and snuggle into two pillows deeper into the couch. I love my little corner nest. So last night I get to the couch to start my routine only to find my awesome and amazing husband had everything…..every single thing from my ridiculous list was on the couch. The pillows arranged just so and everything lined up perfectly on the couch. He even helped me into my slanket. =)

*

My husband is pretty rad when he’s not sitting at his desk looking like Guido, playing his air guitar, and rocking out to Tenacious D. <3

*Photo taken on December 31, 2004 as we were heading out for a night of Las Vegas Fun, ahhh, life before kids, when you could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. My little Crazies are well worth it, even when they are being little poop buckets.

Just another yoga week.

2/28 Power Yoga
3/1 Power Yoga
3/3 Power Yoga
3/4 Power Yoga

On a super awesome note, all of my jeans/pants are fitting a little looser and I’m back down to a size 3 which is pretty awesome…..I’m fairly small boned and a shorty to boot (barely 5′2) so anything over my current weight just feels too much for me.

How To Pop a Balloon Edition: