Kenneth Cope concert

I mooch off my parents for a lot of things. After all, what are parents for? Last night I mooched off them for their stake activity. They had a Kenneth Cope concert. Hello! Totally worth the mooching! We had GREAT seats. Fifth row I think, and I was dead center, practically eye to eye with Kennetch Cope. It was an amazing concert. He's kind of a quirky guy, but I loved his songs. They had such great messages. And he has such a strong testimony. That totally comes out in his songs. He believes so strongly in the gospel, in our Savior and in His ability to heal and strengthen us. It was a great testimony builer to hear him perform. Some of his song really hit me and so I found some links to listen to them on YouTube. I am so thankful for experiences like this that help me to get back into focus on what is important, what I need to be doing right now, what I need to be worrying about and spending my time on. I have a few goals in mind that came from last night and I really want to try to be even more in tune with the spirit. I also went Visiting Teaching yesterday and loved one quote in this months message:

Margaret D. Nadauld, former Young Women general president: “Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. … We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith” (“The Joy of Womanhood,” Liahona, Jan. 2001, 18; Ensign, Nov. 2000, 15).

I loved this because it again reminded me of what I need to be focusing on and what it is to be a woman. So many times I compare myself to women of the world or even just peers. But i shouldn't do that. I shouldn't aspire to be like them necessarily. I need to aspire to have worthy qualities maybe, but I need to especially aspire to be tender, kind, and faithful. That's the woman I want to be. Kenneth Cope said something last night that I thought was pretty insightful. We came to earth to get bodies, but those bodies aren't "us." We can't look in the mirror and not like what we see and then not like us. That's not US. We are the eternal spirits that come from our Eternal Father. Who cares about the other stuff? Well, I guess I should care a little. But I shouldn't let it get me down. I don't need to be the prettiest, the skinniest, the funniest. But I should be striving to be the most faithful, the most obedient, the most loving woman that I can be. He also commented on the Atonement and how without Christ, we are nothing. We can do nothing and we can achieve nothing. We need to realize this to realize that the things we do here on Earth aren't getting us into Heaven. We're not earning our way into Heaven. We're not going to deserve to go to Heaven. The only way we get into Heaven is through Jesus Christ. But of course what we do is important. EXTREMELY important. It shows our love for the Savior, for our Father. It shows that we believe in Him, it shows our FAITH. It shows that we know him. We can do good all around us, but unless we know Him, it's no good. Last night gave me a lot to think about and it's awesome. I have such a desire to prove my love for the Savior by being the best I can be. Mostly by trying to be the kind of person that the Savior was here on Earth. TRYING. I know I'll have a hard time, but it's that effort, that desire that I want to be evident. I want people to know that I love the Savior because of my countenance. I want His image in my countenance. Anyway, listen to these songs, they are truly inspiring and beautiful.

Boo at the Zoo and other fun times

So Halloween has been preceded this year by a few other occasions for Cailen to dress up. He's a pirate and I was a little nervous of how the hat, sword and eye patch would go, so I figured these other activities would be his practice for Halloween. Well, the eye patch works for like 2 seconds, and surprisingly, he kept the hat on for most of the time at the zoo. He did break the sword at the zoo so we had to buy him a new one for Halloween. Thank heavens for the dollar store!

We went to my parent's Halloween party for their ward last Friday, mostly because Mark was working and I didn't have anything better to do (translation: didn't have anything better that I wanted to do...those dishes, etc were going to have to wait!). He didn't like most of his accessories there, but managed to eat 2 1/2 hotdogs. He got a few pieces of candy playing some of the games. He liked to throw the balls at the bottles, but didn't really care if he got them in. And he liked to play with the rubber duckies but didn't care that the # on the bottom gave him a prize. And he got his face painted, and promptly smeared it :)

Boo at the Zoo (I think most of you who read my blog know what this is) is a chance for the kids to trick or treat at the zoo and see some animals. I went with my friend Allyson and her daughter Lily, who was a lion. Allyson made the costume herself and it turned out GREAT! Good job Allyson! Anyway, there were lots of businesses there handing out candy and Cailen got to see a few of the animals (the ones we could see through the crowd!) - zebras (he LOVED those), bears, giraffe, tiger, monkeys (also really loved these), turkeys, and a few others. He had a lot of fun, but was pretty tired. He conked out after we rode the carosel. He didn't know what to think about that ride; he held onto me pretty tight as he went back and forth between the elephant and the leopard, I think it was. All in all, lots of candy for "Cailen" (I think Mark and I have eaten most of it) and lots of fun hanging out with friends. We even got a coupon to Red Robin so we went there afterwards. Thanks Allyson for inviting us!

My little pirate in his "ship" or stroller. And Lily the Lion!

Trying to pose our little munchkins! And Cailen trying to climb in with the bears. Literally, he did try.

I LOVE this picture! Cailen is looking at the giraffes!

On the carousel.

On a random note, and to finish with the stuff I wanted to blog about today, Cailen ate cereal by himself for the first time today. No, not the rice cereal stuff. I mean Apple Jacks with milk! He did a pretty good job. I think he felt like a big boy eating cereal with Mommy. He would point to my cereal and then point to his, it was cute! He did end up making a mess of it while I went to brush my teeth. He poured out a lot of the milk and the remaining Apple Jacks onto his tray and was playing in the mess...are girls this messy or is it just boys!?! But I love him and love his little antics too. That's why I have the camera ready!

Cailen's Obsessions

Cailen has a few obsessions. Now while there are quite a few I could list, I have pictures of two. Cars and diapers. Interesting bunch, I know. Without going into the retarded details (if you must know, I can tell you later), we own a '76 Corvette (Stingray). Well, we like half own it right now. Soon we won't own it. Again, not going into the details. But while we had it at our house, Cailen was THRILLED to drive it. I mean THRILLED. He loves to try to drive our cars and can tell you exactly the sound it makes ("vroom vroom"). He spots cars and makes the sound. He hears cars, he makes the sound. You ask him, he'll make the sound. He gets pretty mad once you put him by the steering wheel and then try to take him away. So this Corvette was sitting in our driveway and Mark took Cailen to see it. He put him in the passenger seat and walked around to the driver's side. By the time Mark had gotten around, Cailen had climbed over to the driver's seat and was climbing up to hold the steering wheel. He loved it! He even has this little Chevron car he got for his birthday that he gets mad at because he can't get in to drive it. Silly little boy.

On to the next obsession: diapers. Rather, this obsession is more about throwing away his diapers. He HAS to throw his diapers away. He seriously gets mad if you don't let him. He walks it over to his diaper genie, or the trash can some days, opens the lid, puts it in (we have to help him push it all the way in), occasionally waves bye-bye, then closes the lid. He loves to throw things away in general. Like his tissues. He loves that too. He even threw a dryer sheet in the toilet because he was trying to be helpful. Along those lines, he loves to flush the toilet and will also way bye-bye...Silly child. Back to the diapers. Just the other day I was working a shift at West Ridge Academy and we had to change his diaper. It was a stinky one and I didn't want to leave it for them to deal with, so I put it outside. Cailen saw the diaper sitting out there and ran to the window/door. He kept pointing, yelling, trying to get outside to get to the diaper. I thought maybe he'd forget after awhile, but he kept it up pretty darn good. Finally, we had to get the diaper and he promptly walked over to the trashcan and threw it away. Again, silly boy. Here are some pictures when his diaper genie was full and he "helped" me bring them over to the trashcan so we'd remember to throw the diaper "sausage," as it's been so lovingly dubed, away.

First Snow of the Year

Yes, this was awhile ago, but I'm a little behind in blogging. I am trying to catch you all up on our lives! So it snowed one Saturday night/Sunday morning and we woke up to a white wonderland. It was cold, wet, andI had to hunt for shoes I could wear to church that wouldn't get my toes all wet and cold. Bring out the winter stuff from storage! Sadly, our backyard took a toll too. Two BIG branches fell down during the night and my poor garden was froze! I almost had corn and then...they died because of the snow. Look at these pictures! You can't even tell I once had corn that was like 6 feet tall! It has since been almost three weeks and no more snow. Crazy Utah weather! But it definitely has been cold on occasion (although the last few days have been quite warm) and we know that more snow is coming soon. I'm excited to get Cailen out there playing in the snow. We just need some good gloves and we're all set!

No more corn!

The fallen branches

New Regime

I've been trying to exercise regularly and this had proved difficult. Either I'm lazy, Cailen's sleeping, there's no one to watch Cailen, I'm lazy, or I'm lazy. So I am trying this this week: I will walk 4 miles every day on the track at the rec center. That way, I can take Cailen in his stroller. Hopefully he can nap while I do it. They have free weights and a few machines at the far end of the track so I can use those, and I get to see people practice ice skating. Today was my second day. Cailen slept half the time yesterday so I was pretty excited about today. No luck today. Wide awake the whole time. So I figured I could go to the store afterward, no problem. The SECOND I put him in his carseat and turn on the car, he's out! Why couldn't he do that when he was sitting in the stroller for 2 hours!? Anyway, hopefully he will get in the habit. But I feel good about this idea, because it includes Cailen and it should be pretty simple. I can do it whenever and it's straightforward. We'll see how this goes. And I'll probably make a few friends who are seniors because that's all I ever see there! :)

Defense of the Mullet

Apparently my sister Heather saw the pictures I just lately posted and decided to call me with an "intervention" on behalf of Cailen. She says that he has a...mullet. I, uh, have no...idea what she, uh, is talking about. Ok, fine. He has a little bit of the crazy hair. But that's only because it won't grow on top! All he has is the little fuzz in the back and I'll be darned if I'm going to cut 1/4" off the back of his hair so that he won't have a so-called mullet. He hasn't had his first haircut yet and the scrapbooker in me will not allow it to be so un-glamorous as that. It's going to be an event, I'm telling you, when it finally happens. We'll keep a lock of hair, take millions of pictures, he'll probably cry, it'll be great. But sorry world (aka. Heather), it's not happening yet! Besides, I like to play with his hair when he is cuddling with me. The mullet's all I got! Maybe one day I'll get sick of it. When I do, I'll let you all know.

Oops, I was tagged!

I'm not very good at keeping my blog updated and even less good at making sure I check other people's blogs regularly. So I was tagged awhile ago and am getting to it now!!

This one is where the tagger gives the tagged a letter and they have to write out 10 things they like that start with that letter.

My letter is R.

1. Ryan, my brother :)
2. Rice, I just had Chinese food the other day and yummy!
3. Reading! Anyone have any recommendations? I need some new books
4. Redecorating
5. Radio, love music!
6. Recipes (anyone have any suggestions for this too??)
7. Reconnecting with old friends
8. Rock candy :)
9. Ribs
10. Rubber duckies, haha

Thats it! So..... if you are interested in this tag... let me know, and I will give you a letter. Here is a letter for some of you already, if you want to do it:

Sheena: S
Emily: E
Julianne: J
Annie: A
Brynna: B
Megan: M
(yes, I gave you all the letter your name starts with!)

Darn Computers

So I got on to put a couple posts up and my computer is having issues. For some reason, it cannot tell that my camera is attached and wants to upload pictures! I search and I search, but I can't figure it out. So...once I get that taken care of, there will be multiple posts. As it stands now, they are written and ready to post sans pictures. *sigh* I love technology, but sometimes it frustrates me!

P.S. Look to posts before this because once I upload the pictures they'll be posted when I made the drafts, which was obviously before my stressful reflection on stupid computers.

Halloween Party Fun!

So we had a family Halloween party the other day and Cailen had tons of fun making his own little pumpkin, eating lasagna, drinking soda with the other big kids, and watching movies. We dressed up a little for the party, which was being held just upstairs (we live in our sister in laws basement) so that was pretty handy. We painted spiders on our faces, got dressed up in Halloween garb (note Cailen's glow in the dark ghost shirt), and joined aunts, uncles and cousins with pumpkins! My sister in law Amy bought some cute things for the little kids to use on their pumpkins so they wouldn't have to carve. Both Cailen and his cousin Becca used these plastic pieces to create their pumpkins. It was cute. Cailen would "help" me push the pieces into place. Of course, once we put the lollipops in as hair, he wanted to eat them. Even now as we have the pumpkin in our living room he likes to go over and point to it, say "buh-bin" and demand a lollipop. We have sort of hidden his pumpkin now so he doesn't see it as much :) After dinner, everyone laid down in the living room to watch the Charlie Brown Halloween movie (which the name of escapes me at the moment...). Cailen watched for a little bit, then went back to the pumpkins, where he kept picking one up and throwing it...Like I said before, he confuses pumpkins with balls! He was wiped out in the end and had a blast. We're excited for Halloween!!

Family Outings

So the other day we headed to a Petting Zoo! Cailen loves animals and so I thought this might be something he would enjoy. It is at Gardner Village and Cailen was free since he was so young! Woohoo for freebies! There were mostly goats running around, but Cailen loved the pig. He kept going back to it! It was kinda funny (and kinda gross). He pet the occasional goat and sheep. He loved the honking geese that were gated inside. They kept honking at this baby goat who was trying to sneak into the geeses' place and Cailen would try to honk along with them. It was hilarious. I wish I had been able to get that on video. He saw pigs, goats, sheep, horses, llamas and I think an alpacha (spelling??). There were chickens and bunnies too. He had lots of fun walking around with me and Mark was our camera man trying to capture the cute things he was doing :) It was fun!

On our way back to the car, we walked around Gardner Village and they had some fun pumkin things set up that Cailen played with. He likes pumpkins and finally knows their name. He kept calling them balls when we would see them at the grocery store. Now he knows they are "buh-bins." He climbed on the pumpkins and we tried to pose him too. That's kind of hard to do now! He has a mind of his own, that's for sure :) But that's what makes life with Cailen fun!!

After the petting zoo and pumpkins, we were headed to a Real Salt Lake soccer game!! It was the first game in their new stadium, which was very cool looking, and they were having a little carnival-type thing before hand. We struggled to find parking, then walked around and watched people win blankets, kick soccer balls and spin wheels. We met some friends there, John and Amber, and had pretty good seats too! Cailen was having a blast and loved to watch and see all the balls! He is a little obsessed with them and I'd probably say that is his favorite word. He finally conked out a little before the end of the game (which we sadly lost). We had lots of fun watching the game and hanging out with friends. It was a bit chilly, which lets us know that summer is over and fall is here! I'm not sure how I feel about that...

The Fun Adventures of Cailen Cont.

Cailen is a dork! But that's cause he is Mark's and my child and he is adorable :) I bought him these yellow rainboots when he was first born, hoping that one day he would wear them because they were so cute. Sadly, the day has passed that he fits them, as we found out when Cailen brought them over to me wanting to put them on. Granted, he was wearing his pajamas so they may fit better than I think. I also love these pajamas that I got him from Children's Place. So cute on him!! I love babies in pjs!

When perusing at our local video store I thought I might get a video Cailen would enjoy. His attention span isn't quite ready for that yet, but he did discover a love for Elmo. What is it with Elmo that all kids LOVE him!? It's now one of his favorite words and he replaces things he might otherwise say with Elmo. Silly Cailen. He did watch about half the movie though, which was amazing and I took pictures of him "hanging out" watching his Elmo movie :)

Just wanted to show you the amazingly cute shoes I bought him the other day! ADORABLE!

We have become members of our local Recreation Center and while I try to go there to work out, the days that are the most fun are the days that I take Cailen swimming! Here are pictures when we first went (it's kind of hard to take pictures near water when you're trying to watch a one year old and not drop the camera at the same time!). He LOVES the slide and he loves to throw his little water ball into these water rocket things and watch as his ball gets pushed back out. We go in the Lazy River, he practices kicking (which he is quite good at), and the other day we practiced going under water (for like .2 seconds!). He is getting better at getting water in his face, which is good and so hopefully when the time comes, he'll love learning to swim! He definitely is a big thinker and wants to do things the other kids can. He wanted to go down the big slide and climb up all the toys, which was hard to keep him away from. But one of these days he'll be able to go. In the meantime, he loves the pool!

I've been tagged!

Okay, here are the rules for this tag:1: Each player starts with 8 random habits/facts about themselves.2: People who are tagged need to write a post on their blog about their eight things and post these rules.3: At the end of the post you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.

Hmm, this is hard! I've never been very good at this kind of stuff. But I'll give it a shot.

1. I've had stitches 3 times. Once, when I was sitting on my dad's shoulders and he let me hit my head on a cement overhang. Ouch. A second time when my sister and I were playing circus with our swimming tubes. I hit the light cover and it fell and hit me in the face, right by my nose. That was intense. Also intense was the 3rd time, when Katy Pine and I were at cheerleading camp and we were catching a girl in a stunt we were doing. She practically bit my chin and I had to get stiches. Like you said Kendal, contact sport!!!

2. I am going to piggyback on one of Kendal's comments because she tagged me and caught me at an uncreative time. I also have an obsession, but mine is with Europe and most specifically Paris. I spent a semester studying abroad there (I loved it even before I went and was THRILLED when I was able to go) and it was heaven!! I lived 5 minutes walking distance from the Eiffel Tower and would go running around the park right by it (the few times I could get myself to go running, ha). I really really really really want to go back there and take Mark to see the beautiful city. Plus, I love French countryside and really want a little cottage like they have :) Ok, enough about my obsession or this post will get crazy long!

3. Ok, similar to Kendal, I count my steps too. But it's when I go up the stairs. It's sometimes really annoying but I can't get myself to stop! Most stairs in houses have 14 steps just in case you were wondering.

4. Mark and I were married 3 years from the day we met. Which was at my grandmother's house :)

5. When I was in the 3rd grade, I broke a blood vessel in my eyelid that turned into a huge goose egg. It's because I was messing around during recess. Anyway, it never completely went back to normal and now one of my eyes is slightly different looking than the other. The fact that I mentioned this scares me because now everyone is going to notice and I hate that!!!!

6. My first kiss was outside my first job and it was gross. I hope the guy doesn't know he was my first kiss and is somehow randomly reading this....

7. I can bend my pointer finger on my left hand to read all the way back..it's kind of gross and it's my circus trick :)

8. I can lick my elbow.

Now Tagged: Brynna, Sheena, Audrey, Megan T., Megan S., Maggie, Allyson, and Julianne!

The Fun Adventures of Cailen Mark Barber

I know that most of my posts are about Cailen, but I just simply can't resist it. I want to put in pictures and that is what I take pictures of mostly - Cailen's crazy antics. Also, he's my company throughout the day so all of my activities include him. And he's cute. I also could have lumped all the things I have posted today into one post, but honestly, falafel and Cailen just don't go together in a post. So here is a post dedicated to the crazy things Cailen does and the fun pictures that go along with it.

My sister in law Amy had a party the other day, just for fun, and one of the games was chewing a donut off a string. All the kids were participating, so Mark volunteered to help Cailen out. He didn't succeed in getting it off the string (Mark had to pull it off), but he did succeed in getting messy, cute, and eating sugar.

Next is Cailen's love to dress up. My little brother is 11 so he still has lots of toys around my parents house. He decided to put his Superman cape on Cailen and Cailen loved it! We ended up borrowing it and Cailen wore it around our house when his friend Grant visited. He wears it whenever he feels like it. I have contemplated having him be Superman for Halloween because of it (I think he's going to be a pirate instead). So here are some pictures of him running around my parents house as Superman!

When our friends Matt, Julie and their little guy Grant came to visit, the boys loved the garden! Cailen kept picking cherry tomatoes off the plants whether they were ripe or not (he did not like the unripe ones and would just discard and go for the next!). Grant enjoyed the grapes and ate his weight in them. Ok, just kidding. But since Cailen ate so many tomatoes, he got the seeds all over his shirt and pants. So we took them off :) He ran around the garden in his diaper after that! Grant later joined and they roamed the living room as a Diaper Duo.

That's all the pictures for now! But I do love the little things I see randomly every day. Like as I am typing this, Cailen is roaming around the house (stink free after a diaper changing break) and I peeked in his room to catch him "reading" his books. He is on a definite book craze which is fun. It was so cute to watch him entertaining himself. Granted he has spent half this post in my lap trying to get me to read books to him, so I'd better get to that. That and dancing. He LOVES to dance. So we're going to go dance and read some books before going to the Rec Center to go swimming! See ya next post! We're done for the day!