Thirty Sucks!

Well, well, guess who FINALLY turned the BIG 3-0?! That’s right: my child-groom, Mr. Barrick. (Hard to believe, I know, because he doesn’t look a day over 29). I’m so grateful that this day finally came, because he has been gloating about being in a different decade than me for two years now. (Three years, if you ask him in August/September during the three weeks between my birthday and his. Both logic and math take a huge hit.)

 

Anyway, I wanted to do something special for my favorite guy, so I set out to throw a surprise party. This was a daunting task, since I am the WORST. LIAR. EVER. In the end, I decided that even if he figured out that I was throwing him a party, I wanted the guest list to be the main attraction. About a month or so in advance, I sent out a secret evite to our family and friends all over Texas and beyond. In the end, 20 or so people were able to make it. The fabulous travelers included his brother and sister-in-law from Lubbock, his parents from North Texas, an aunt and uncle from Huntsville, cousins from Austin, high school friends from Waco, my mom, brother and sister-in-law from Louisiana, another aunt, uncle and cousin from Pensacola, and our best friends that now reside in Corpus Christi. Of course, we had a few friends from in town, too! He was so surprised when he walked in and saw everyone, but what was awesome was seeing him continue to smile and be surprised as he discovered each of the guests who had come from so far to celebrate with us!

 

Here he is making the rounds and saying “hi” to everyone!



Kerry, Dylan & Uncle Kenneth




Wayne, Brad, Addison, Holly & Britt



Cousin Claire! Yay!

Our San Antonio Peeps!

Here we are enjoying some yummy lunch at our crazy-long table!



 



 

 

We had three nursing babies at the party… I guess that comes with the territory for us 20 and 30-somethings!



Liz and Jess rocking those nursing covers!



Speaking of hungry babies, Noah decided to chase his milk with some of Uncle Gav’s ribs!

 

Give me the ribs!

 

Nom Nom Nom!

I kept the décor simple: lollipop bouquets, balloons, some confetti (which is apparently not allowed at D&B – kudos to Mr. Manager for calling me out for not reading my contract), and photo collages from the birthday boy’s early years. THANK YOU, Diane, for sending me those treasures. And thank you for not sending Brian back to his room to change 15 years ago when he came out in the blue tank top, black socks, and sandals. Really. That picture was the highlight of my year.

 

 

 

 

We sang and had cake, of course! I would have loved to make him a cake, but it might have blown the surprise (since he does walk through the kitchen from time to time).

 

 

 



Blow out those candles, Old Man!

Afterwards we hit the game room for some fun!

Some quality father/son time

The guns were popular

You can take the boy out of the Army...



Addison enjoying the party

Emmeline enjoying a snooze

Brian used his tickets to get treats for Ben and Gracie, who were hanging out at home with the Collins kids and our YL girls.

  

A football and a Tinkerbell bracelet!



All of the sneaky planning ended up being SOOOO worth it! We really enjoyed having our family and friends around (it was like a mini-reunion). Brian and I are both so grateful to all of you who came in to town from so far away to help him ring in his new decade! Thank you, thank you, thank you! And Happy 30th Birthday to the best hubby ever! On each of your birthdays I am reminded of what a gift you are to me. I love you!

Thirty doesn't suck so much, after all!

Flying L Guest Ranch

Mom came to town for Labor Day weekend and we decided to try out a new area attraction while she was here. A number of my friends have mentioned visiting the Flying L Guest Ranch out in Bandera, TX. It is about an hour northwest of San Antonio and it has a water park on the property.
We didn’t stay at the ranch overnight (though that is now on our to-do list) but we really enjoyed the water park! It is the perfect size for the gremlins. They have a wave pool connected to a lazy river (always my favorite) and 3 water slides that all connect to a wading pool. There is also a volleyball net set up in a deeper pool and a mini-golf course. The best part about it is everything is pretty close together. You can have 1 kid on each of the three slides and pretty much see all of them at the same time. I’m sure this is a place we’ll visit again in the future!
Ben immediately took off for the wave pool, and then spent the majority of his time on the big water slide.



Gracie was a trip, as usual. She stayed close to her Sweetie, took special care with the placement of her beach chair, and did her fair share of sliding & swimming, too!





Noah spent the day just laying around & doing his best to conserve calories.

He has been looking a little thin lately.

It seems IMPOSSIBLE that this little boy was an underweight preemie just 5 short months ago.
The Barrick crew gives the Flying L water park two very pruney, water-logged thumbs up! We can’t wait to go back!

It's halftime

This month, the children of 3 of our closest friends (who are, by default, Ben's closest friends) started Kindergarten. Even though we made a family decision to wait one more year before sending Ben to kindergarten, I found myself being very weepy the night before school was going to start for Tanner, Emily, and Mia. I was laying in bed that night thinking, wow, where have these five years gone? I then did some quick math and realized that in five more years, I would be sending my baby off on his first day of school. The concept of time became real to me in a way I haven't ever thought about it before. I was half way there. Five years down, five to go.

When you have little ones at home (and particularly when you are a stay at home or mostly stay at home mom), the days tend to DRAG by. Way too often I find myself looking at the clock and thinking, "Seriously, is it not nap time yet?!" Lately I've had to remind myself to slow down. Ten years. That is the time that the Lord has gifted me with these three precious little ones at home. Ten years filled with things like diaper changes, meal clean-up, potty training, and lessons in sharing (all squeezed in between floor mopping, bill paying, toilet scrubbing and laundry). I too often focus on that part and get a little overwhelmed. I forget that it's also ten years filled with playing trains and coloring sheets and children’s stories. Ten years of play dates and lunches at McDonald's. Ten years of napping in our pajamas because we couldn't think of a good enough reason to get out of them that morning. Ten years of arms wrapped around my legs while I do dishes, ten years of stopping what I'm doing so that a little person can crawl into my lap and clue me in to their current life-consuming dilema. Ten years of those sweet, tiny voices mispronouncing words and asking curious questions… a lot of questions... SOOOOO many questions.

A few times over these past five years I've wondered if I made the right decision by not working full-time and staying home with my little bitties. Did I give up a great career? Am I wasting my degree? Should I be contributing more to our finances? Then I think about these 10 finite years and I wonder, what could be worth exchanging these years? Who wouldn't like more dinners out, a bigger house, a nicer car, newer clothes, or exotic vactations? I certainly wouldn't turn down any of those things. But would I trade my 10 years for them? There isn't enough money in the world. They'll be plenty of time for those things in the future, but my little ones won't be little forever, and I don't want to miss it.

I blinked and half of my years are up. My prayer is that the Lord would give me the presence of mind to savor the next five, as busy, frustrating, and overwhelming as they may be.

The Paci Cow

The time has come for Gracie Belle to say good-bye to one of her best friends, the paci. Now that she's in a big girl bed, she's gotten up a couple times during the night when her paci falls down between the wall and her mattress. It is not fun to have to stumble to her room and fish it out at 3 in the morning. We had a similar experience with Ben around the same age, so we decided that it was time for paci to move on. We talked to Gracie all week about saying good-bye to paci and getting to pick out a new "pet" (what she and Ben call stuffed animals). She told me she wanted a puppy dog, but Brian took her to the store tonight and she came back with a cow. "Paci Cow" as he is now affectionately known.

Here are some pictures of our momentous evening.



Here they are, her two favorite paci's



Enjoying them for the last time!



Oh, pacis, you have been so dear to me.

Tucking them inside Paci Cow



Getting some hugs from Paci Cow after he was all sewn up.



Paci Cow has some moves!

We're going to be great friends, Paci Cow!

For the most part, our evening was filled with giggles and smiles. Then Gracie climbed into bed and said, "Ok, Paci out." 

Um, sweetie, Mommy sewed up Paci Cow. He doesn't open anymore. Your paci is in Paci Cow's tummy... you can feel them and hug them... see?

No, lady, I do not see. Kindly remove my paci's from this ridiculous cow before I go and find the seam ripper myself. Whose idea was this cow, anyway?  

(Ok, so she didn't say those things... but it's what she was thinking.)

A little upset with Paci Cow

 I then spent approximately 30 minutes making Paci Cow sing songs to Gracie. "Paci Cow says moo moo moo... Paci Cow says I love you!"

(I, like you, am mystified that my song writing has not yet received a Grammy Award).

My silliness won my sweet girl over and she made up with Paci Cow. She even requested that he have the prime spot in her bed, tucked with her under her blanket.



We'll get through this together, Paci Cow!



Requesting that I kiss Paci Cow "good-night"

 10 minutes (and no tears) later, she was passed out. I'm counting it a success!

The 4th of July that wasn't

For the past couple of years, we've spent July 4th with the Collins and Sullivans. We've cooked out, we've had a pool party, and we've gone on off-roading adventures on La Cantera Pkwy to get a prime spot to see the Six Flags fireworks show. This year, the Fourth of July included none of those things. The Sullivans had family in town and the Collins had some lame excuse about having a 1 week old baby (just kidding - love you guys), so we couldn't make it happen. To add insult to injury, nearly the entire state was under a fireworks ban, so there were no fireworks to see, either. It ended up being just Bri, the kids and I and we grilled hot dogs at home. Sadness.

Although we couldn't be together for the actual holiday, Liz, Melissa and I couldn't bear the thought of not having the annual picture of the kids in their red, white & blue. So we made plans to get together and fake it. Here are some of the pictures from previous years:

 

2009



2010

  I love all of these kids - they may as well be my family. These pictures are treasures. You can see why we couldn't skip a year just because of a logistical error! :)

So, here we all are this morning in our front yard. It's getting harder and harder to get everyone to look the same way at the same time. Happy Fake Fourth of July!  

Avery, Rylan, Tanner, Ben, Noah, Grace, Emily, Luke & Grant

 

I was trying to get a picture of just my 3, but Tanner asked if he could

 be in it, too. How could I say no?



They are too big in this picture.....

best friends!



My three blessings!

This picture cracks me up. Noah always has the same expression whenever Grace is touching him - one of complete terror and distrust. She loves him to pieces, and I think he's terrified that she will literally love him to pieces. Easy, Lennie.



She waited so patiently for her turn to hold Noah.

And the onesie is so accurate: "All American Hunk". SOOOO squeezable! I think one of these is going to be his 4 month picture since a) he actually turned four months old today, and b) I have once again failed to make an appointment to have his picture taken by a professional. Poor third child!