Gotta Love Him!

He is 4.5 and makes his bed every morning before he comes downstairs.  Did I mention he does this without me asking?  Love. It.

Begging for Rain

This is our yard:

You can imagine our corn.
Please God...send rain!

2012 Ford County Fair

Yeah!!! It's fair time!!!  We took in the Ford County Fair this week and got our fill of some fair food, animals, the smell of wood shavings, and rides.  The kids had a blast riding rides.  Alex went down the big slide by himself and Brecke and I rode down together.  She giggled the whole time...it was soooo adorable.

Here is a pic of Alex chauffeuring his sister.  At one point her knuckles were pretty white.  Then she found some buttons to push and she was good to go!

This isn't the grand champion, but we did end up petting the grand champion barrow!

Tractor!!!

Grandpa Ted got the old pedal tractor out and the kids had a great time riding around!  Guarantee this is the only red tractor left on the Barnard Farm!

Simple Beauty

Mom went on a memorable trip to London with her siblings.  She came back with almost 200 pictures which is absolutely amazing for my Mom.  I love poppies and look at the beautiful English poppies!!  Gorgeous!

And I wish this was referring to OUR CASTLE...

It Will Be Nana's Fault

If this little lady grows up thinking she is "queen", then I blame my Mom!  Take a look at what Nana brought the kids back from London...

And the Queen's foot guard (without pants--LOL):

Summer Fieldwork

Well, thank goodness I took the picture of Alex in the wheat field last night because at about 9AM the next day, 2 combines, 3 auger cars, 2 semis, and then eventually 4 tractors with different implements rolled in.  Quickly the wheat was gone, the field was worked (plowed and disked), planted and rolled.  Rolling fields is a big thing for the family (Birkys) that farm around us. Not sure I get it, but nonetheless, the kids were THRILLED that during mid summer they got to watch combines and tractors for hours!  So much so, that Alex was up 5:30 the next day, standing at our bedroom window that faces the field saying "Birkys where are you?"  Well, Birkys rolled in (excuse the pun) about 20 minutes later (6AM) to finish rolling the field and this is what you would have seen if you were here...

They are always so good about waving to him!!!!

Country Sunsets

...they can be breathtaking.

I have been saying for about 3 weeks that I need to get pictures of the kids in the wheat field right next to our house before they come harvest it.  It is always so pretty to see in the middle of summer. I came to the realization that Brecke would be too short to stand in the middle of the wheat field, so it was down to Alex.  Matt is gone this week and that means a couple of things for Alex and I: 1) he always gets to stay up a bit later and 2) he and I sit on the couch and I slice an apple slice by slice and we eat an apple together.  Well, tonight the routine was interrupted.  As the sun was setting, I just happened to look out and say to myself "DO IT NOW, so I ran up and grabbed a shirt for Alex, threw it over the railing and said put this on and grab your flip flops!  You should have seen how big his eyes got!  He was like "what are we doing Mommy???"  I said just put your shirt on and leave your jammie pants on.  So out we went.  He just couldn't figure it out.

I picked him up and plopped him in the field.  After about 30 pictures, I got one...maybe two good ones.  Here are two of my favorites.  Same picture--different edits.

Big Brother

Alex is all about being a big brother right now.  Sings to Brecke, holds her hand down the stairs, takes her down the basement and plays with her all by themselves, and he will help feed her when she won't eat for us.

She was a bit ouchy one morning while Matt was gone, so to help me out so I could get ready, he helped her eat and "get happy".

Pool Time

They love the water!!  Brecke has no fear (which is typical Brecke with anything) and Alex is working on going under the water.  Daddy was gone, so we took a video of time in the little pool.  As you can imagine, they were in and out and in and out.  He went under for the first time this day!!!!!

Nice Hit Buddy!

Coach Daddy was gone tonight, so I took some video of Alex's last hit in the game.  He had two great hits and stopped three hits in the infield AND remembered to throw the ball to first base!  He never "fought" his teammates for a ball and just did a great job of getting back to his position to get ready for the next hit.  I was so proud of him and as Brecke would say "GO ALGEE GO"!!

A Great Father's Day Weekend!

My Dad was able to come up Father's Day weekend and hang out with us since Mom was in London.  It was nice to just be together and not have much of anything going on!  We did get to take in an ISU alumni event in Champaign and meet the new president of Iowa State!  It was so good to see some red and gold!!

On Sunday, we went to church and then came home and bummed around the yard.  As you can see, we all played a bit of basketball!  Brecke even got in on some hoops!  

Cooling down with some lemonade

Happy Father's Day

Love these three to pieces!  So glad my kids have such a great father.  Thanks Matt for spending quality time with each of them separately and together.  They sure love you (and your tractor ;)) !!

The kids and I gave Matt this:

It is cutouts of our hands and says The Barnards across the top and is dated 2012.

Time with Good Friends

The Goleys were on their cross-country quest to move from Northern California to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and luckily Foosland was one of their stops!  It was great to catch up, meet little Addi (although she isn't so little anymore), and just be together!

One of the highlights was being able to have Liam play on Alex's t-ball team!  Liam had never played t-ball and so we had lots of chuckles, but it was just fun to see them both enjoy it so much!

Saying goodbye...

Alex was proud of helping Kai get his wheelchair loaded up

Happy Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I am always taken really good care of leading up to my birthday.  It is called "birthday week" around here. I get some extra hugs, some yummy chocolates from our local chocolate store, some beautiful flowers, and I hear the birthday song about 20-25 times before the big day even goes down in the history books!

Last night the boys made my favorite cupcakes--yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  Alex fancied them up with his own decorating skills!

Obviously it never hurts to get some frosting on your decorating utensils so you can lick it off!

Just LOVE the smile (and the frosting mustache)!

So the big day arrived, and Alex sang to me in bed at about 6:30AM and again later with Brecke during breakfast!  I took the day off work and tinkered around home.  Did some odd jobs, relaxed, had lunch with Matt and made myself and my family one of my favorite suppers.  Afterwards, I was serenaded again and then we finally got to eat the long-awaited cupcakes!  Everyone loved them with the exception of you know who, but she still smeared the frosting everywhere anyway!

They love to blow out candles!

The kids gave me a card with a chimpanzee asking for a "high five",so we took some time and did some high-fiving!

Always have a lot of help opening presents!

Matt was around for all of this too, but behind the camera--lucky him!  The boys took my car to wash it and make it shine, since we are obviously not going to get any rain for the next 10 days!  We all spent the rest of the night cuddling and watching the original Cars movie for like the 302nd time!

The number of text messages, cards, Facebook posts, and phone calls was overwhelming and made me feel special for the day!  Social media has sure made birthdays fun in a different way!

Here's to a great year!!

She LOVES this stuff!!!

On bananas, on meat, on grapes, chips...it doesn't really matter to her.

A Good Bath

Wow!  Did our house need a bath!  Between the mildew, the dirt, and the bugs, our house really needed a bath!  It looks like a completely different house!  Especially on the north side!  Matt high pressure sprayed the whole thing and it looks great!  Of course, Alex had to get in on the fun on the last day...

Really She Loved it--Really!

For birthday week, I was given some caramels from the local chocolate store! I shared the yummy treat with everyone and this is how Brecke looked towards the end of her caramel.  She doesn't like to be that messy.  Can you tell!?

Awesome God, Amazing Power!

Yep, bible school was a HUGE success!  So much that he wants to go this week too!!  Alex has memorized his first bible verse this week:  Be strong. Don't be afraid. God is with you! Joshua 1:9

During the week, it was funny to watch him help us outside cut bushes back and while he was picking up sticks he was yelling "Awesome God, Amazing Power!"  It all made sense when we went to the program Friday night and the 170 kids were yelling that same thing as loud as they could in the sanctuary!

Here are two pictures from his age group singing at the program.

Bible School

Alex is going to Bible School with his friend Natalie all week!  As you can imagine, he is beyond THRILLED about this!  We drop him off at her house in the morning and Darla is kind enough to take them each day! It is at the East Bend Mennonite Church out in the country east of our house a few miles.

The program is called Amazing Wonders Aviation--Encountering God's Awesome Power. He loves all the crafts centered around airplanes!  His name tag is even an airplane!  Here is a picture of him before bed watching Chuggington with his aviation goggles on!  I need to get a straight on shot of him with the goggles--they are adorable!

Tuesday's bible verse is Be Strong! Do not be afraid! God is with you! Joshua 1:9.  He learned how to act it out, so tonight we repeated it and repeated it and...

We are looking forward to his bible school program on Friday night!

My Boys...

I love this picture for many reasons.  I love it for the beauty itself.  I just love living in the country and this is proof of why.  The golden wheat field is gorgeous right now, the farmstead in the background is a crisp white, and the evening was just perfect!

I love this picture for the moment that a dad and a son might be having.  Alex loves the wheat and like a true farm boy--he is curious. He looks up to his Dad so much and just wants to be "big big" (me, I want him to stay little)!!

The simple things...

Sticking Together

It is not often our kids don't feel well, and it is definitely a rarity if one of them ever crawls up on the couch and lays down for more than oh, let's say---3 seconds!  So, when Alex came INSIDE from playing, took his shoes off and crawled up on the couch and covered himself up--I knew something was wrong.  His tummy hurt and it was short-lived, but Brecke didn't want him to feel alone, so she climbed right up by him and asked if they could watch Chuggington.  How could I say no!!!??