Little "Owee"

This is a scene I've seen too many times lately! 

Owen thinks he is old enough to pour his own milk.  Well he's definitely strong enough! He can carry a full gallon of milk around the house. The thing about this accident is that even though I was upset about what he did, I was mostly relieved that it wasn't on the living room carpet this time! (he's spilled half a gallon of milk on the carpet TWICE now; within the last month.) At least in the kitchen it's easy to clean up.  I'm also ticked because I just put a fridge lock on the fridge door yesterday to prevent this very thing from happening again, and someone forgot to lock it after getting something from the fridge! Oh well. 

It's hard to be TOO mad at that cute boy! (at least for very long)

He was singing into the paper towel tube.

 He thinks his shirt's a pocket for his string cheese. 

When I took the picture he was saying "pocket? pocket?"

He also just discovered he can peel a clementine orange all by himself and put the peels in the trash can.  It's great! But my favorite part is that he always comes up to me when he's done peeling and says "I did it!" "I did it!" I think that's his first full sentence.

The poor child has eaten waaaay too many clementines though and now his bum is paying the price in a rash. No more for a day or two I guess. He's going to be ticked!

Road Trip #2

 Just when we thought we were done road tripping for a while, we found out Kart's family was driving to Washington state a week and a half after we got home to see Kart's brother Kameron and sister-in-law Emily be sealed in the temple to their little boy they were finally able to adopt! (they were foster care parents to him, as well as a 1 year old girl- who they're hoping they can adopt soon too.) So we decided to caravan up with Karts family to be there for the sealing.  We were so happy to be a part of that really special experience of seeing them sealed together in the temple as a family for eternity. It was a much more emotional experience than I realized it would be.

 Emily's family

 Kameron's parents/my in-laws

 The whole Barnett clan!
  (minus Kellen and Aubrey)

 The newly sealed family!
(Minus their daughter Katie)

The after party at Kam and Em's house.

I'm loving the bow ties on Kart! It was my Christmas present to him.  He wanted to start wearing bow ties, and I was happy to get him some.  I love how they look.

Their daughter Katie

 Chatting with friends...

 Playing with new toys from Grandma.  Aiden got one from her for Christmas too and the kids love it! (the mailbox- it comes with letters and postcards with velcro stamps)

It's Luke!
He's such a cute energetic boy and I'm so happy to be his aunt.

 I'm really grateful we made the trip out. The time we had in WA with them was short- too short, and the road trip was long (12 hours there and 15 hours back- trying to avoid bad weather by going a different route), but it was worth it.

These pictures are from the trip home. In the last 10 years of my life I've become a little obsessed with Oregon.  I'd never been there, until this trip, but I knew from TV and pictures how gorgeous it is there! So when we got to drive through it I was so excited.  And look at the gorgeousness of this scenic rest stop! I love the yellow grassy hills and the cloud formations. You could tell a storm was coming in with the dark sky, and sure enough as soon as we got back to UT they got a LOT of snow! I'm glad we made it back when we did.  And I'm really glad I could get a tiny taste of what it's like there. I WILL go back some day soon.  I really hope this summer sometime- I want to go to Portland, visit a friend there and explore the city. See ya later Oregon! And congrats Luke, Kameron and Emily! We're so glad we could be with you on such a special day.

Colorado

After we left Kansas we decided to stop one more night on the drive home from VA and stayed with my Aunt Jamie and her two teenage boys in Colorado. We got there around 11pm, spent the night, and after we ate breakfast and had a short visit we got back in the car to finish the last day of our road trip home.  But after being on the road for 20 mins. I felt like I should call the numbers for the roads in Wyoming and Colorado (we were headed for Wyoming) to check on road conditions. Bad news! A LOT of road closures in WY and bad road conditions in CO.  So we decided the risk of driving through the CO mountains wasn't worth it and ended up back on Jamie's doorstep.  Luckily she welcomed us back and we got to spend the day with her; which happened to be New Years Eve.  I was actually really happy we had to stay longer.  It was so fun to catch up.  

My kids favorite thing about her house was their rabbit.  It just roams around the house! He's so cute and was so nice to let the kids constantly pet him. 

 Emma and Aiden had fun making "designs", as they call them (collages), with her scrap paper. 

I love you Jamie! Thanks for being such a gracious host, letting us sleep on your sleep number bed and entertaining and feeding us. I left well rested and inspired by your beautifully decorated home, to go home and make mine more beautiful. (I'm working on it.)

(She didn't want me to take a picture of her because she just got up - but I think 

you'll agree, she's beautiful- even just of bed!)

So the roads the next morning were much better and all clear of snow. We made it home that night around 8pm.  It was lovely to get home at a decent hour and to just finally be HOME! I'm glad we did the road trip, so glad. Although next time I hope it doesn't take 4 1/2 days to get back! The journey was fun but looong. At least now road trips aren't so daunting.  We know the kids, and Kart and I, can handle it.      

Kansas IS great

On our way home to Utah from Virginia we decided to make our first overnight stop in Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri.  I still don't get why they would do that- name cities in different states the same name when the cities border each other.  It makes it confusing!

Well we decided to stop there because I'd heard Kansas City, KS was known for their barbeque, and eating barbeque in a state that's known for barbeque was on my bucket list.  So I was excited to have dinner there.  Then we found out they also have a great art scene in Kansas City, MO. There's an Art Institute there, and right next to the institute is the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. 

So once we checked into our hotel we spent the afternoon at the two museums.  I loved the contemporary one's exhibits more, but the Nelson-Atkins Museum has an awesome sculpture garden.

Here's the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

After walking through the museum I did a mini photo shoot (until my battery died! So emma and I didn't get portraits) with the boys on the side of the building.  I love the walls of the building. I wish we could've done our family photos here. The architecture of the museum was really modern.  I loved it!

 Haha! Aiden cracks me up.  He's been doing this pose a lot lately, as well as flashing the peace sign. I don't know where he picked it up from.

 This is one cool kid.

 Kart and mini-Kart

 Yep, that'd be my husband.  I'm a lucky girl! 

Next, we drove a few blocks to the other museum and explored it until I couldn't take Emma asking me every 2 minutes when we were going to dinner!  

 Looking out at the front lawn of the Nelson-Atkins museum. 

 I LOVE art museum gift shops and this is one of the best ones I've ever been to.

Here's the Art Institute.  Isn't the building cool? A lot of the buildings in the area were really unique, especially the other art institute buildings, but even the regular houses were cool.

On our way to dinner we drove past this shopping district that was all lit up.  It made the buildings look like gingerbread houses.  We loved it.  Owen just kept saying "cissmas lights!" every 5 seconds.

Finally we made it to a place I'd found online that had good reviews- Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue (this place was in Kansas City, Kansas).  It was part of a GAS STATION! (you can't tell in this picture, but the pumps are to the left)  We weren't sure if this was where we wanted to go when we saw the gas pumps, but then we saw the line was out the door! You know it's good food when the line's out the door. So we got in the long line.  It wasn't just out the door, it wrapped around the inside of the building like an amusement park ride! But I have to admit it was worth it. They mostly had different types of sandwiches, but you could also get ribs or other kinds of meat by itself, and there were fries and onion rings.  Pretty casual, but really really good!

 It was much prettier before I started eating it but I wanted to at least get one picture of my pulled pork with coleslaw sandwich. It was really yummy. I also LOVED their fries. There was some seasoning on it that put them over the top.

 Kart and the kids approved too. :)

This stop was so fun! I always said I hated Kansas, but I take it back.  It may have some boring parts, but I guess most states do.   Kansas City (KS and MO) is great though! We were so glad we stopped there.