Family pictures from the Reunion

My cousin Maria is one of my favorite photographers. She took our family pictures while we were together for our family reunion. Here are a few of them.

The three silly amigos

My man and I

We don't really take pictures of ourselves, but I know I'm going to look back someday and wish I had just one picture. Here they are. My man and I. (Not in the same picture, that would be way too rare!)

Gotta love the big belly - three months more and its really going to be big!

Waaayyyy too many books

I LOVE BOOKS! Lately, I have been blessed to have many delicious books cross my path through birthday, discount section of the LDS bookstore, and the best one - good friends who are downsizing their immense library. The only problem - no bookshelf. That and I just want to read everything all at once. The combination of the two equals:

Anyone up for a little reading before bed?

Just Heidi and Joe

The other day I took some pictures of Heidi and Joe while Aubrey was at school. As you can see, they both have "personality".

The most persistent thing on two wheels

Heidi is the newest member of the Critchfield two wheeler crew. After Aubrey learned to ride a two wheeler, Heidi just had to do it as well. She was the most persistent learner I have ever seen. Falling down with an, "I'm ok." every ten seconds (really), she learned how to stay up longer and longer every time. She still runs over people occasionally, and my van shows signs of wear from her running into it, but she still goes. She rides fast and wild. Still falling every few minutes, but I suppose its just part of a normal ride for her. I adore this little person. She is amazing!

First day of Kindergarten

Today is Aubrey's first day of Kindergarden! She was excited and not a bit scared this morning when I took her to school and dropped her off. We've been practicing getting up and getting to school for a month, so it should have been easy. No tears, no fears... Thank goodness. Only after we dropped off Aubrey did I realize the nature of Heidi's Aubrey withdrawals. I am back to the job of full time entertainer for the time being. No one really knew what to do with themselves at first without Aubrey, but already things are getting more normal.

PM Update: Aubrey had a great first day of school. She loves her teacher and she has learned all the rules... JJ got in trouble because he was naughty, but all the girls were good. She doesn't know the rest of the kids names. She got chocolate milk without money today at lunch. She ate about half the lunch mommy packed for her. Mrs. Courtney had a lot of kids to help out during lunch - she was so busy! Aubrey got three recesses! They played with playdough, sat on the rug for story time, colored a picture of themselves, learned all the rules and raised their hands to answer questions.

The rest of us missed her... But we are all doing fine!

Happy Birthday Heidi (oh yeah, and Jill too)!

August 8th was Heidi and my birthdays. We had a great day. Heidi and I went to Claire's (the girl store) and spent an hour trying to decide what she wanted to buy with her birthday money. She finally settled on a set of lip gloss, nail polish and a hair doodad, a pretty flower hair decoration and a cute pair of flip flops that will fit better next year. We got Aubrey a pair too because they were basically free when we bought the first pair.
We ate pizza for lunch and had cake and present opening after that. Then that evening Brian bought Heidi's new bike and surprised her with it. He also suprised me with some delicious, glorious books (I just love books!)! We had a lovely day!

Happy 4th Heidi! Happy 29th Jill!

Finally a blog entry...

Its been a busy summer. I know you don’t care about all the details so I will hit the highlights (that I remember), and get on to the pictures (that’s what you want to see anyway, isn’t it?)
Our biggest adventure was 19 hour drive to and from UT for a Barnhart family reunion. We rented a house in Midway for a week and celebrated my Grandpa Barnhart’s 80th birthday. It was really so fun. I loved being with family, and it made me so happy to see my kids and my cousin’s kids playing together.
Brian and I had a wonderful 8th anniversary. We took the kids bowling and then out to Dollar General where we all picked out a present for another person and went home to have dessert, open presents, and sing happy anniversary to you. It was a great celebration of our family.
I think I would call the garden an event. We are doing something in it at least every day. But now, its not all work – we are harvesting. (Boy are we ever!) It doesn’t take too many cucumber plants to take over an ENTIRE garden. They keep trying to edge in on our beloved tomatoes, and we fight them back daily. Our butternut squash have done pretty well too. They own the other half of the garden. The tomatoes are now about 12 feet tall and still producing. They like the heat, but 105 degrees is not what they had in mind, so our best harvest was earlier when it was slightly cooler.
I guess we have another ongoing “event” – but it gets its own post -

The power of PINK

We are expecting baby number 4 - our third girl! YAY! She is due December 7th - we are all so excited to welcome another member of our family.

Here is a side photo from the ultrasound

Harvest Time!

It took me two trips with the basket to haul all this stuff in yesterday.

Here is what you do every few nights if your garden produces loads of cucumbers... Brian is now a pickling expert.

Onion braid, so pretty

We even grew "The Big One". Just don't know how we're going to haul this thing to the county fair... but its a blue ribbon for sure!