Cailen's Birthday Party

On June 4th, Cailen turned 3 years old!! Wow, time has really flown by. I can't believe he is so old and big. Ok, in the grand scheme of things, 3 isn't that old, but for a mom it sure is! Anyway, on his birthday, we headed to Zion's, as described in a previous post. So we planned his birthday party for the 9th of June and invited a bunch of family and friends to my parents' house to hang out and play. I hadn't had a ton of time to plan this party, sadly, so using a little ingenuity, I came up with the theme "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." Cailen is a HUGE fan of this show and I think it's mostly because we can get episodes on our phone through Sprint TV so he watches it a lot when we need him to be busy. He has gotten sucked in and honestly, I really like the show. So that was our theme and we re-used decorations from his 1 yr old party (Disneyland themed). Below are some pictures showing the fantastic time we had celebrating my little guy's bday. Thanks to all who helped, participated and hung out :)

Cailen's birthday "cake" - a Mickey Mouse head of cupcakes...maybe if you squint you can see it! haha

We brought the imfamous rocket for the kids to play with and it was a hit. I think the one who loved it the most was Cailen's friend Camden :) (little guy in the white and blue shorts)

My sister-and brother-in law playing each other in Scrabble..on their Iphones. Dorks :)

Present time! A bubble gun we gave Cailen, it works GREAT!

Playdoh from his Schmidt cousins (next to him is Hannah, one of the Schmidts)

A tricycle from Gma and Gpa Davis. These are just some of the presents he got (I couldn't get good pictures of him opening them all)

Mark with our brother-in-law Craig (Trisha's husband) playing ping-pong: They have an ongoing competition in this game...

It was a lot of fun and I am glad I put a little effort in to have the party instead of bagging it like I wanted to do and thinking "he's 3, is he really going to care?"

I've decided I need to make someone else the photographer, because I am NEVER in any of these pictures and I am not going to have any record of what I looked like in 2010 for me to laugh at in 2040 :)

Good News...

...I found the cord to my camera. Yay! I can now charge it so I can keep using it. I can also get pictures off my camera so there is room for MORE pictures. Hallelujah. Now I just need to get internet so that I can actually DO something with these pictures (aka. blog).

Cailen's 3rd Bday and Zion's Canyon

The first weekend in June we went camping with Mark's family to Zion's Canyon. I've lived in Utah for awhile but I have never been there. It was also the weekend of Cailen's birthday!! My little boy is now THREE! WOW! It is hard to believe but every day manifests to me more and more how much he is growing up! He does some of the funniest and most grown-up things. Then again, sometimes he reverts to my little baby again. It's been an awesome three years with him! Here is a little review of our fun camping trip and celebrating Cailen's birthday.

We carpooled with Mark's mom, stepdad and gma so we had to leave when they left that morning....5AM! Not very fun. But it worked out ok I guess. We just picked Cailen up out of bed and he slept for about an hour in the car before he woke up at all. Then he dozed off and on the rest of the trip. We stopped for gas about 8:00 and there was a petting zoo at the gas station! We were caravanning with Mark's sister Trisha and her family, so her three kids and Cailen decided they wanted to take a break to look at the animals.

Here is Trisha helping Cailen touch the lamb

Kaden and Lysi hanging out in the pjs at the petting zoo :)

We got to our camping spot about 12/12:30 and headed to a little restaurant to get some lunch. This was really our first chance to "celebrate" Cailen's bday. He'd spent the first part of it in the car! He had been waiting that whole time to open his presents from Mom and Dad, which he was very patient for considering it was a 5-6 hour drive!

Cailen knows how old he is now!

Smiling for the camera on his birthday. Gosh, that's a cheesy grin.

Opening two presents (he'll get more from family when we're NOT camping)

He got some sandals for hiking in the desert (above) and the Hungry Hungry Hippo game (travel size so he doesn't lose all the pieces!) He LOVED playing that game all weekend

After setting up camp, we decided to go swimming. We were camping at an RV/Tent/hotel spot so we got to use the hotel pool. Sweet. We got Cailen some new sunglasses just for the occasion and he did amazing at wearing them. I thought for sure he'd throw them off in five seconds. He looks so old!

The scenery was pretty awesome and we got excited to go on our hike the next day!

The kids were excited to see a snake in our campground. I wasn't as thrilled.

Cailen hanging out with some of his cousins, Landen and Braxton (oh and Woody is hanging out with them too, on Cailen's shoulder)

Ready for our hike!

Taking a rest on the hike. It got so hot that day! 102 or 103! Cailen was a trooper!! He kept his hat and sunglasses on the whole time AND he WALKED the whole time! He was kinda slow after awhile but he did great. We ended up hiking like 2 miles. And part of it was pretty grueling. Good job Cailen!

Ok...so there was one moment when he walked, but this was near the beginning when Mark cared about keeping up with everyone else. It didn't last long.

The waterfall we hiked to, we all got a little wet as we walked under it to continue our hike.

At the top of our hike, we ended at the Upper Emerald Pool and all the kids got to enjoy splashing in the water. Mark even jumped off one of the rocks to really cool off. Cailen had a BLAST!

Our attempt at a panoramic shot of the waterfall at the Upper Pool

Still going...semi-strong. We paused for a rest and a family shot. We look a lot cooler and happier than we were probably feeling. I'm glad Cailen smiled.

We went swimming after the hike, needless to say. The whole weekend kind of ended up being a neverending celebration of Cailen's birthday. Since we were there the 4th-6th, it was hard not to! His cousin Logan's birthday is the 3rd of June so we had a family dinner/birthday celebration for the both of them Saturday night after the hike. Mark made us some yummy dutch oven cobbler for the birthday "cake." It turned out great! Here are some pictures of Cailen watching Mark make the raspberry and peach cobblers.

Getting ready to open a couple of presents from grandparents!

He got an awesome Toy Story rocket from Gma Sharon and Gpa Jerry, which they all had to try right afterwards. He also got some Woody and Buzz action figures (below)

Mark's grandma, Grandma Case, gave Cailen this awesome Buzz Lightyear costume! We put it on him immediately of course.

Here's the awesome rocket and Cailen showing off how soaking wet he got

It ended up being a pretty fun weekend and really pooped Cailen out. When we got home, it was almost 10:00 and we wanted to unload as much as possible before going to bed and Cailen was apparently pretty tired because as you can see below, he fell asleep on the carpet as Mark and I were unloading. Poor guy. We tuckered him out good!

It was a pretty awesome weekend, but I am definitely glad to be back for some good ol' air conditioning!!

Davis Family Campout

I am having issues with my camera. As I mentioned before, we have moved houses and while I am thankful for all the help we got moving, I have no idea where anything is!!! And that includes my camera charger and plug to the computer. I could not get any pictures off my camera in order to take more! Finally I stuck the memory card in my parents computer so that I would take some pictures this last weekend. Sadly, I didn't leave them on here, I transferred them all and then deleted them (dumb) so they are on my computer at home with no internet instead of on my parents' computer WITH internet. *Sigh* So I have limited pictures to share but I figured I had better take this opportunity to post and update a little :) I'll transfer some other pictures later to share. And now my camera is dead and so I need to solve that problem as well!! Moving on...

Memorial Day weekend is a tradition for my family because it is our annual Davis Family Campout. This is a family reunion that has been going on for 47 years!! It started with my great-grandparents and has included all of their decendants. Talk about a lot of people! We rent out an entire campground and hang out for the whole weekend. I missed out on it a lot when we were living in Texas, but now that I am in Utah, I've gone every year (minus the year Cailen was born bc I didn't want to go into labor while camping...not fun). This year we had a family picture taken and I think it brought a lot of people to town that normally don't make it. Or we just had a big baby boom or something. Anyway, there was a record attendance of 550 people!!! WOWEE!! How awesome. The number of total descendants is something like 770. Craziness, talk about a big family. My grandpa came from like 11 kids so it's inevitable. It was a lot of fun though to see all my cousins and tons of people I didn't really know (ha). We set up camp Friday and just enjoyed the day watching everyone arrive. Then we had pictures Saturday and there was a carnival with kids games in the afternoon. Then there is a dance every Saturday where the kids can all get together and do silly dances like the Chicken dance and the Macarena (I loathe this dance and refuse to dance to it EVERY year. Too many middle school dances have scarred me with this song). Cailen eventually learned the Chicken dance but that was days later so he didn't do a whole lot at the dance. I think he was a bit overwhelmed! Sunday we have a little church service where we tell the numbers that year (550! CRAZY!) and the missionaries who returned in the previous 12 months come up to talk about their missions. It's always pretty cool. Someone talked about heritage and it was really cool to listen because that is what the whole weekend is really about, our heritage and our family. Sunday evening we all get together to sing silly songs (seriously weird, but cool songs) and have the kids perform a play that the return missionaries put together. Family Feud is always played and miraculously the men always win (Mark Garfield, we all know you rig it). It's a lot of fun. Every year it usually rains but this year was AMAZING weather! It was sunny and warm and not a drop fell. It was a miracle! We all think it was because we prepared this year for rain. We never really prepare for it and it always comes even though we hope it doesn't. So this year we assumed it would and had all sorts of shelter and it was beautiful weather!! Here are some pictures from the weekend (Clarissa, I snagged a few from your Facebook, hope you don't mind!)

This is my generation, all of us 2nd cousins! There are a total of 300-and something. Wow!

Here are all of the 1st cousins, my parents' generation. There are a total of 76 of them!

The family dance - People doing the Bunny Hop! (yes, that's my mom and dad, for those of you wondering)

My cousin Case bringing up the rear, trying to get Cailen involved :)

Carnival games

Face Painting! Cailen chose to get Mickey Mouse. We later put RSL on his other cheek for Dad :)

Cailen taking a nap. It was hot out so we stripped him down a little

Hanging out with his 2nd cousin Emily and my 1st cousin Sara (Sara is my cousin Clarissa's sister and Emily is Clarissa's daughter!)

*I am on my husband's laptop while camping (they have wi-fi!) and only had what I had saved from working on this at my parents' house, so there are more pictures that I will add later :)

Back from the Dead!

Holy Cow! It's been more than 2 months since I last posted...how sad. And I feel like at least one out of every 3 posts I write has me apologizing that it has been so long. I am apparently not very good at this blogging thing! Anyway, I'll tell a little about what is going on in the life of the Barber family and it will help explain why it's been so long since I've posted :)

Last post was late February and pretty much about that time we decided to move. My grandparents built a new house up in Layton but decided to wait a little bit to sell their house in Bountiful. We talked with them and agreed to help fix up their house with a little remodeling and we could live there while we worked. We decided all this and moved pretty fast. We got into "our new house" starting the first of May and pretty much had everything moved by the 3rd. Thanks to everyone for their help!! Isn't family great? Especially when they have trucks and trailers and muscly men (ok, and women - Trish, Wendy and even you Sharon!) to help move it all. Anyway, that kind of threw things for a loop and right about that time I got sick too. I was feeling pretty crappy for the whole move and about a week after. It was crummy. Needless to say, I didn't help much with packing and moving (wait...there was no packing, it was just throw it in the truck and go!) and so I didn't know where anything was and didn't feel like unpacking things either. It has taken us awhile to feel sorta settled in. It will take even longer now that we have started working on the house!

While we live and work in my grandparents' house, we decided to stay in our old ward because we didn't know what would happen, how long it would be, etc. and didn't want to throw Cailen and everyone for a loop with the quick move. So we are "commuting" the 10 minutes to church every week and are involved with all our callings despite being on the other end of Bountiful. It's working alright :)

But like I said, we've started working on the house and so things have been kind of in an upheaval! We decided to start with the kitchen and Mark made lots of holes in the roof to add some great lighting. It looks marvelous! Next was paint and we gathered up that great family of ours to help with the project. We got it all done in one day (pretty much) and that made the kitchen TONS better looking.

Now....the project currently going on is new flooring. I love my grandparent's tons but their old carpet.....SCARY! Tjhat's all I'm going to say :) Anyway, we've torn up most of that and Mark is doing a superb job of putting laminate flooring in. You know, that stuff that looks like hardwood floor but way cheaper. It is looking GREAT! I am so excited for the kitchen to be done because it is going to be a drastic before and after! Next, we've got to repaint the entire rest of the house (3 stories......yikes!) and recarpet practically the whole house and lots of other do-dads all around. It's going to be lots of work, but very exciting!

Needless to say, we've been busy. Along with all that, we don't have internet. We decided to make do without it and it has been interesting...I really miss it. But we have survived! The thing that has slacked because of it is 1) my BLOGGING! :( and 2)checking my email. I'm not so good at that. Luckily, I have facebook on my phone so I can catch up on the world someone that way! Well, I'm off to have a late lunch, but I just wanted to say hello to everyone in the blogging world and let you know that we are still here :) I would have pictures in the post except they are on my computer or my camera and I lost the connector for my camera in the move and so I haven't been unable to unload pics from my camera and take new ones! THE DRAMA! Hope I'll be back sooner rather than later, see ya!