Barker Family

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Lavender Fields

We took a trip down south to Young Living Farms to visit the beautiful lavender fields last week with some friends. It was amazing to see an ocean of purple and green smack in the middle of the brown desert and it smelled amazing as well. My friend took a few pictures of the kids and then we played around the farm for a little while. We fed ducks and played on the swings and looked at all the animals, they have camels, elk, bison, deer and ponies. It's a pretty cool place. On the way home we stopped at a big red barn and bought fresh cherries and squeaky cheese.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Best Day Ever...again!

We are starting to see that every day is a "Best Day EVER" kind of day for Ava. It drives Jeremy crazy when she shouts this at the top of her lungs. I think it's pretty darn cute. How would it be to love life as much as this girl does. So here we are biking down the canyon. I wish I had a video but I don't, so you just have to imagine Ava peddling as fast as her little tiny legs will go, on her now too small of a bike, and "Best day ever!" is echoing off the canyon walls.:)

Ruthy enjoyed the ride so much that it relaxed her right into a nap.:)

Best Day Ever!

The words written on the back of our dusty car pretty much say it all. Our trip out Geode hunting was the best day ever... wait... accept for our blown out tire on the way home...oh and the time Ruth started choking and I finger swiped her mouth and pulled out a big ol' grasshopper wing, which probably belonged to the same grasshopper that owned the leg we found in Ruth's fist earlier during our picnic lunch at Simpon Springs...poor grasshopper never stood a chance...we never did find the body...eeew! Anyway back to the best day ever...we grabbed donuts for our breakfast and filled up the cooler with lots of water and ice and our picnic and our "picks aaand uuumm shovels and rrrrakes":) and headed out. We followed the old Pony Express road heading west out into the Utah desert, is was a beautiful drive.

Simpson Springs

Cute little Rockhounds

The kids had a great time finding these magical little egg rocks. They filled up their rock bags made by Papa John and Grandma Patsy that they got a few years back for Christmas. It was really fun and definitely worth the drive out.

These are a few of the whole Geodes that we took home and used the tile saw to cut open.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Those sweet little big things

Cute little things like the way Ruthy chews on her toes...

...or how Ava pulls out this little white lawn chair anytime Jeremy is doing any kind of work outside like mowing the lawn or sanding garage doors. She just sits herself down and watches (takes after good ol' Bompy).

...or the time Luke came home from school with a traced pair of these glasses just for Ava and she was so excited. He is always thinking of her.

...or when Luke fell asleep in the shopping cart.

...and how Jeremy now has to haul "3 kids" to bed. Luke and Ava used to say "2 kids?" and that meant they wanted dad to carry them both to bed. I'm wondering how long he's going to be able to keep this up.:)

..or how I can look out the window to see Duce sitting in the yard while Fred speeds by wanting to play and all Duce does is bite at the air as Fred passes in front of him.

... or sweet moments like these...dancing and hanging out with Uncle Scotty.

...or looking in my rear view mirror to see this. I love them and I already feel the time I have with them as little kids is quickly slipping away. I want it all to just slow down a bit.

I could keep going and going. I just never want to forget these little things.
I think I started getting a little sentimental one night while we were reading before bed. I was scratching Luke's back and Ava was pulling..err..doing my hair. It made me think back to when my mom would read 'Little House on the Prairie' to my sisters and I while we did her hair and scratched each others backs. It just doesn't seem all that long ago and I loved those times. Then one evening I was reading 'Stone Fox' to the kids...and we all know how horribly that book ends... I remembered it was sad, but oh my heck, I couldn't even finish the book! I had to pass it off to Jeremy. Ava and Luke just stared at me as I laughed and tried to wipe away my tears. Again it reminded me of my mom reading this one extremely sad horse book to us. We always picked it for her to read and she hated it because it always made her cry and we always laughed at her. I don't even remember what it was called, but I do remember a colt falling down a waterfall because it didn't listen to it's mom and it turned into a unicorn at the end. (Do you remember that book mom?) Anyway, I loved those times we read together and did hair :) and I love it now with my own kids. Right now we are finishing up the book 'Henry Huggins' and it is just the cutest book ever. We call Fred, Ribsy now because of it. Reading together is just the best. It may be just a little thing now, but looking back it's for sure one of those big things.

There is one other little thing that is turning into a big thing for me. These stupid white boxes at the end of all my posts!!! They are driving me crazy and I can't figure out what they are or how to get rid of them! HELP!?!