6 Months

My babe is now 6 months old. And to celebrate he got his first taste of semi-solid fool.

Rice cereal with bananas was the food of choice and he couldn't gobble it down fast enough.

Cameron has been such a great baby. He has had a bit of a cold lately and hasn't slept very well but he is still in great spirits during the day.  He loves to watch his bothers play and starts to laugh when they jump up and down. He grabs at everything now and has to hold the spoon when I feed him. I can't wait for the next 6 months.

Merry Christmas to all

The Sunday before Christmas is traditionally the day of the Barker Family Christmas Party. I know we were missing some people even though it was a packed house. It has been held at the city hall ever since the numbers made it impossible to fit in Grandma Barkers house.  I was not around in those days but every year I hear it just isn't the same now that the party is at Willard city hall. Nonetheless, it was a blast and Darren was the only one injured the whole evening.

Pretty much the whole Barker clan

Cordon and Santa

Christmas Eve (who's been naughty and who's been nice?)

Holiday Spirit

It was an unexpected houseful.  I have to give it up to Debbie for housing 22 people(9 of which were unexpected) overnight on Christmas eve without even breaking a sweat.  Becky and Aaron drove in from Nebraska and surprised everyone and since our flight was cancelled it resulted in a Christmas with the entire family. 12 adults. 10 kids and babies and 1 moose. All together for a Very Merry Christmas.

I'll be where? for Christmas

So Lance and I had plans to take our family back to Oregon to celebrate Christmas with Grammy and Grandpa and Sara and Mary this year. Mother Nature had other ideas.  We knew all the flights had been cancelled arriving in Portland yesterday but we were still holding on to hope that we would prevail.  At 5 am when I checked the SW airlines site it said our  8:30 flight was "on time." At 8 am it was still on time.  At 8:30 it was delayed and at 9:30 it was cancelled. Im just glad we were on a cancelled flight and not on one that was rerouted to Oakland or Reno and stuck there for however long.  Anyway, we are very sad not to be with family in Oregon but have since heard that the power is out there and they are pretty much stuck in the house until this wintery storm warms up a bit. I wish you guys luck and hopefully your pantry is stocked! Good Luck with Christmas dinner.  Oh yeah, and to top things off, Mom, your Christmas present was confiscated by security at the airport.  

Here are a couple pics of what my parents and sisters are dealing with in Oregon.  We could've made one heck of a snowman.

My parents front deck and patio furniture. That tree is not supposed to be there.

My sis's car. Yeah she's not going anywhere for a while.

funny times cont'd (and a little bit disgusting)

We were all in the van car and Darren kept touching Cameron. Since Cameron's seat faces backward I couldn't tell what he was doing and Darren had a guilty smile.

Me:" Darren what are you doing?"

Darren:" I'm eating Cameron's boogers"

We just picked up my mom from the Airport to spend the weekend with us. We had just pulled out and Darren wanted to share some of his knowledge he has gained about healthy eating.

Darren: "Grammy, Cheerios make your poop soft!!"

Bring on Christmas!!

Christmas spirit has hit our house in a big way this year.  The excitement is contagious when you have a three year old in the house that loves everything about the season.  We put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving (thanks to the advice from natalie) and ever since then it has been nonstop talk about Christmas.  Darren certainly is obsessed with what toy Santa will bring him but he also loves everything else we have been doing to celebrate.  Lance has all his ornaments from every year of his childhood and Darren wanted to know how old Lance was when he got each ornament and what he was doing at that age. Im surprised that Darren's attention span lasted through all the ornaments but he loved decorating the tree.  He has also watched Mickey's Christmas at least once a day and wants to send Santa a letter everyday.

I have talked to Darren about the true meaning of Christmas and surprisingly he loves talking about Jesus being born in bethlehem and his mother is Mary. He helped me set up my new Nativity and we talked about the first Christmas. When I told him that the wise men brought him presents he got stuck on that and insisted that they brought the baby Jesus toys and keeps asking what toys he got.