2010 in Photos

Good Bye to an amazing year.

Bigger than I ever could have imagined.

Filled with happy adventures.

Filled with memories.

Filled with family.

Hello, 2011.

Love, The Barton's

Bob

Meet Bob.

He is our Holiday Houseguest.

I can't wait for the Holidays to be over -

Bob leaves the toilet seat up, drinks out of the milk carton

and watches ESPN Classic all day long.

El Nino Trays

When it is raining non-stop outside

and we are without a car

we start getting REAL creative around the house

the boys are busy, busy, busy tractoring lentils, barley and penne

around on cookie sheets.

This afternoon, we will see what we can make/do with

toilet paper and decopage.

Please send help now.

Twas the Night Before Christmas....

The excitement is at its peak.

The boys are nestled all snug in their beds.

Morning cannot come fast enough.

But first, a Christmas Eve tradition.

A story from Daddy.

My Favorite Things

Looking back at 2010, here is a list of My Favorite Things:

Singing Christmas music....loudly...and watching my kids watch me sing

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Baking Sweet Treats

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Driving in the car with my family (Odd, I know. But all of us in one car is rare, so I cherish it. Nothing better than seeing little tiny faces in the rear view mirror when we are all headed to the same destination)

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REAL hugs from any of my three boys that make my heart hurt

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Sleeping with an open window under heavy blankets next to my Husband

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Capturing a photo of my boys laughing

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Dreaming up perfect family vacations that we will one day take

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Tears from laughing and making others laugh

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Saturday Family Movie Night

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My Husband's smiley eyes

And in the end, I guess they aren't really "Things" afterall.

Hoping you had year filled with your Favorite Things

See Kysa Swim...

Swim Kysa! Swim!

100m Freestyle

Bears taking a break to rehydrate

between races.

I'm not entirely sure what Mommy gave her to rehydrate,

but about 10 minutes after hydration, Bears was doin' the 'bot dance.

Whatever it was, it worked!

Two mischievous-looking spectators

SHE WON! FIRST PLACE!

So proud of you Bear-bear!

Race info

50m Breaststroke

Kysa lost her goggles when she dove in the water,

but it didn't even phase her - she swam a great race!

Great swim meet Kysa! We loved watching you race

and are so proud of you!!

Sunday in pictures

All is Calm; All is Bright

Saturday night, we decked the tree with

lights and trimmings

Then we danced until sweaty to

Pandora's Christmas Rock station

And finished off the night with a pallet of pillows and blankets

on the living room floor where we

ate too much popcorn

and stayed up way too late

and laughed way too hard

watching a Barton house favorite:

Home Alone

to kick off the

season

A perfect night, where all felt just right.

A Christmas (tree) Story

Saturday morning, we headed north,

past the urban boundry and into the full blown

country in search of a fresh Christmas tree.

The wind was blowing hard which made

for excellent snotcicles, so we took cover

in the barn and fondled gourds as we warmed our ears.

Once warm, we set out on the gravel road,

with saw in hand, said hi to this donkey

and hoped for the best.

Hi Donkey!

We passed a farm-made 40 foot slide and made a few

trips down it.

After rejecting 15 or more trees, we found the tree.

Nate, as Henry said, "sliced" the tree with the saw.

The watched daddy....in awe.

We've never seen daddy work harder.

Since Charlie didn't pull his weight with the "slicing", we

made him carry the tree back to the barn.

Ok, fine. Nate helped him.

And Charlie dilly-dallied behind.

It was so cold, that the boys and I abandoned daddy with the tree

and took cover to thaw the remaining snotcicles in the car

where we blasted Christmas music. Here, we were singing

"fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la" with gusto.

The End.

See Charlie Hide

I hope the day never comes when Charlie realizes that I

can actually see him when he is "hiding".

Mushmouth

I'm just sayin'

A funny

Just a funny for the cat lovers in my family!

Control-Alt-Apple+EIGHT

Charlie is on a (as he calls it) "Monsta Tink" (Monsters Inc.) kick. Every waking moment, he is thinking and talking about Monsta Tink. This morning, Charlie was watching Monsta Tink on the Mac while Nate and I worked in the garage. When we came back in the house, the Mac screen's colors were reversed, like a negative. Seeing how our Mac battery has recently swelled to twice the size it was originally, we thought this was just another sad step toward Mac heaven.

And then Nated Googled.

I kid you not, someone recommended "Control+Alt+Apple+Eight" as a fix.

And it worked.

Which means Charlie "Controled+Alt'd+Appled+Eighted" to get it there in the first place.

His punishment?

Piano lessons.

Because that is a mighty impressive octive+ reach that boy had to use to mess it up.

On a cold, rainy day...

I found Henry with our Q-Tips.

In a Q-Tip war.

He had "good guys" and "bad guys".

I didn't ask where he found the "bad guy" Q-tips.

Waiting for the Squirrels to Come

No really, they were waiting for the squirrels to come.

We have an army of squirrels that race around in our backyard which could

entertain the boys for hours on end.

So, to help the squirrels with their winter stores, they put peanuts out on the back

step and watched...and watched and watched.

The squirrels came and buried their treasures as the boys giggled and

laughed and Higgins had repeat doggie-coronaries because that strong "invisible shield" kept him from his mid-morning snack.

Tomorrow, I expect we will find THOUSANDS of squirrels sitting on our doorstep

staring into our family room looking for their share.

I can tell this is one of those neighborhoods where word gets around fast.

Tis the Season

For lots and lots of this!!!

You Are My Sunshine

You sing a song every night to your son every night before

bed for 2.5 years, and the day they finally sing it back to you

WITH A GUITAR accompanyment, has been one of the best moments

of my entire life.

Let's Catch Up!

Welcome to Speed Blogging.

Let's start with Halloween.

Meet Batman and Pirate:

This was our attempt at a little normal the day after we moved to our new house.

Trick-or-Treating!

Our neighborhood is....interesting.

And we'll just leave it at that.

While we downsized by over 50% in size, we are actually liking

our cozy little home.

I can light one candle and you can smell it throughout the house AND I can plug

the vacuum into ONE outlet and vacuum the ENTIRE house!

Of course, it can also go the OTHER way - one "wrestle with the devil" in the bathroom and

we have to light several matches in each "wing" of the house and you saute one onion and

your bath towel is dinner-scented until the next towel washing.

It is taking every ounce of control for me not to drag

the holiday decorations out. Little white lights and a few pointsettias can

transform any space into a winter wonderland.

In the meantime....

Charlie, at a mere, teeny-tiny 2.5 years old, is 100% potty-trained.

I'm extremely proud of our little guy, yet a little sad that we have moved

into boydom so quickly.

Now, the boys are all about matching unders and

prefer not to wear clothing over them:

Note the mirrored wall behind the boys above....ahhhh....mirrored walls.

Super classy!

We've played at the local park:

Learned a little guitar:

And built several lego spaceships in an effort to launch

us out of this rain drenched city.

We are still here.

We've had parent-teacher conferences with both boys' teachers

and are relieved to hear that we have two healthy, happy, kind,

well-mannered little boys.

And finally, the HOLIDAY SEASON has officially

begun. How do I know?

Because I found this in the kitchen yesterday:

That's Nate's Chex Mix and it is crazy-good.

We have 3 gallons of it..I'm just hoping we have some left to

bring to Thanksgiving dinner this week. (wink)

Here's to hoping tomorrow is our first SNOW in Portland!

Changes...so many changes

Today, was our first full day in our "downsized" living space. No more Big Ass House (BAH). We now live in an Itty Bitty Ranch. Almost 1/2 of the space we had. It is a world away from what we grew accustomed to....but it is quickly starting to feel and smell like our new home now that I have every outlet plugged with a scented plug-in and multiple candles burning every moment we are home. The boys are awesome - No, its not as fun as our BAH, but you'd think they were in Disney Land.

They love it. They'd love anything....and I love that about them. They spent one full hour this evening diving into a pile of packing paper laughing harder than I've ever heard them laugh. Henry told us it was his "Chinese Toilet". I have no idea what that was about.

Tonight at bedtime, Henry and I discovered that he has a loose tooth. I thought surely this was the result of it being hit, because, for the love...HE IS JUST A BABY! But then Henry asked me if he was going to lose a tooth just like the twins (in his Pre-K class) and it clicked. He is FIVE and he is going to lose his first tooth SOON. This milestone completely caught me off guard. Time and Mayoclinic.com are helping me to cope and understand that this is normal and appropriate. Sigh.

Once I find my camera...pictures will reappear here.

Until then....

(And hoping you feel better soon Mom!) Love you!

From the mouth of Henry Barton

"Dad, I don't need to go to school anymore......(waving his arms over his head) I've got it ALLLLLL figured out!"

"Mom, back when I was 4, did I like scary things?"

I think we've got a funny one on our hands!

All sorts of Nuggets

Tonight, like every night at dinner, we asked the kids about their day.

Henry shared the following:

"Today, Maddox called me a 'Fart Nugget'"

Oh Maddox, I didn't want to, but I'm going to have to put you on the List.

Charlie thought this was heelarious and repeated it over and over in Charlie language which came out something like this:

"F&^ckin Nugget! F#$ckin Nugget!"

And then all my parenting techniques went out the window because I couldn't stop laughing so we pulled out the tequila all took shots, lit our fart nuggets on fire and just ate chocolate for dinner.

I'll be accepting my Parent of the Year award next June.

Oh dear heavens, how I love my little white boy.....

Welcome back Fall....

We've waiting for you!

Go BEAVS!

Henry is going through a "no pants" phase.

Just ignore that part.

Thank you Google!

Today is Friday and I got to stay home from work and spend the day with

two of my favorite people in the world.

I let the boys decide what we would do today.

It was a unanimous "PARK!"

So I Googled "Best Parks in Portland"

and found The Millennium Park in Wilsonville about 15 minutes from us.

Google was so totally spot on.

My proud boys just conquered the rubber volcano:

And the spider web:

Thats right:

We moved over to the water area where they had

a splash pad and running river:

And brought our own lunch:

And then, being the great parent that I am, bribed the boys to leave by promising

them a Cherry Limeade from Sonic.

Henry was very cautious about this drink because the picture showed that the drink

came with real limes and real cherries and we all know what happens when Henry eats anything that is just "picked" and not "processed" into the shape of a chicken nugget.

After his first sip, all I heard from the back seat was

"OH MY GOSH."