The Barton Family Blog

New Years Eve... My little doll. Can't believe she's almost 2! So sad how it flies by! (I used a feature on my camera that will pull one color and leave the rest of the pix B&W. The first pix is pulling a specific shade of purple, while the 2nd pix is pulling all shades of purple. It's a fun effect!) Me & my sweet on New Years Eve (my dad and brother-in-law build these benches for our new concert scene "The Garage". We are starting up on the 17th of this month and will have concerts every-other weekend) Happy New Year! P.S. Natalee can count to 7 now! It's so cute (:

What a blessed Christmas this was! We started out at home opening stockings on Christmas Eve morning... Natalee got a recorder... Daddy can't wait for her to play it all day long! Johnny was so excited for all his stocking stuffers! Natalee had received a few gifts from Granny Brock so she opened them... (thanks Granny & Gramps!) After Christmas Eve service at church, we headed to Dallas and exchanged gifts with Johnny's family Natalee enjoyed ripping paper off the gifts... she really is starting to "get" Christmas! She's a big fan of books books books of course, and several fun toys as well! Mommy always loves the cute clothes that help keep our baby clothing budget down for the following year! This year was probably my favorite year of gift giving because so many of my gifts were homemade & heartfelt! I love that part of Christmas! (PICTURES TO COME! CAN YOU BELIEVE I DIDN'T TAKE ANY!?!?) For all your scrappers out there, I got a CriCut!! I'm so ...

of our Christmas tree. Kinda a sad little tree... we didn't get a tree this year due to the snow... we were out of town a bunch so that Daddy could work... so we just never got one. After our Christmas play at church, I brought the sad little $6.00 tree home. I kept saying it was a step down from a Charlie Brown Christmas tree... (: Natalee didn't care one bit! I absolutely love the awe of the season through the eyes of my baby girl. What a precious gift!

Here's a funny flashback video! Gotta love my little sugar-plum!

Let it SNOW Let it SNOW Let it SNOW!!

I know this is long. Ya'll don't have to read it all... I just want to remember it all... so this is mostly for me! Saturday we slept in till 9!!! It was amazing! can't remember the last time that happened! We vegged in the morning and watched Wall-e and ate a yummy hot breakfast provided by the hotel. it was relaxing to just have a slow morning, so we didn't check out till 1pm. We headed downtown, browsed @ Pioneer Place... and enjoyed all the holiday festivities going on there. There was a wonderful quartet that sang as well as decorations, pictures w/ Santa, and even snow machines (we didn't get to see it snow inside but we've been there before when it did.... so fun!) We ate lunch at the Spaghetti Factory... and did a little more shopping. What a wonderful 4th anniversary! We missed our little angel... but had a blast! We headed home before the big winter storm hit... but stopped in Dallas on our way home... and woke up to a WINTER WONDERLAND Sunday morning...

(In retrospect I wish I would have taken pictures of each part of the day.... just to have a picture journal of all the funny little things... Words will have to suffice.) The weekend began at 3 am. Friday morning. We woke Natalee and loaded up the car. Johnny was asked to drive our evangelist to the airport that morning since Johnny works in Portland anyway. I had already planned on coming with Johnny that morning so we could make the most of our day. Natalee was a chatter box the entire drive to Portland. I don't know why she didn't just go to sleep... I think it was the novelty of having me in the back seat next to her. She kept saying "hi" to Bob Hall.... it was funny (: Anyway, we arrived in Portland and dropped Bob Hall off... around 5am. We had 2 hours to kill before Johnny headed to work. We grabbed Starbucks and Natalee finally fell asleep. So we parked and napped a little till 7. Then Johnny headed off to work. I met my parents up in Portland. They wer...

It's our Anniversary! I love my man! Here is a shot of him just a few years ago, takin' a bath... Now you can see why Natalee is so darn cute! He even looks good in pink! Here's the beginning of us... now 4 years strong... Here we are the night he proposed! Pictures of our fun weekend get-a-away coming soon ! Happy 4 years baby! I love you!

Just a little video that I didn't post last week! The cutest part was when some random woman said, "a bear, O my goodness" and then Natalee just kept saying, "o my goodness, o goodness" Even tho' she had no idea what that meant. I'm glad the lady only said that! Who knows what Natalee would repeat!

Just wanted to tell any of that scrapbook... You can enter a contest sponsered by Jessica Turner this week. Jessica is doing a week of posts about the best products for scrapbooking your baby's first year. She has some awesome sponsors and is doing some super cool giveaways. Here is what she has to say about this week: I will be hosting "The Best in Baby Scrapbooking," which will feature a different baby scrapbooking product each day. In addition to showcasing samples of the products and discussing why the product is great for moms looking to chronicle their child's baby years through journaling/scrapbooking, I will be giving away prize packages of the featured items every day. All giveaways will be open for seven days. I have secured major companies for this special week including Creating Keepsakes, Making Memories and more. Just thought some of you might want to get in on the action... I did! Just click here , or on the picture at the top to be directed to her...

I was just telling Patti that she needed to do a blog post featuring Mackenzie... and we were teasing Kenz that she probably vetos every picture her mom takes... so we had Patti take one of us together. Mackenzie went in and edited the pix (she's good at playing with brightness, contrast etc.) Here's the end result: (pretty sweet huh?) How this fits w/ the "barton baby blog" theme?? um... well... I'm Johnny's baby, and I'm a Barton! (: does that count? tee hee!

Check out these cuties ! They have so much fun together... Natalee wakes up from her nap asking for Kyah. She doesn't even want me! She is such a social butterfly (: She wanted Kyah to come up into her crib when she woke up from her nap so they could jump! The girls were being so goofy they didn't want me to get them out of the bed. Kyah's got the "all fall down" part figured out. Natalee's being goofy... "Let's just keep jumpin!"

Natalee wakes up each morning asking for someone. (Most days it's Kyah. Some days it's Cassie's kids: "Stevie? Owen? Where Gavy?") The other day Natalee woke up asking for Kyah. The conversation went something like this: (I have to write these things down... I don't want to forget!) Natalee: Kyah? Me: No, Kyah's not coming today. Natalee: Kyah? Where Kyah go? Me: She's at her house, with her mom. Natalee: Kyah wur-tin. Kyah wur-tin. Me: Kyah's workin? Natalee: Ya, Kyah workin! Yesterday it went like this: N: Kyah? Me: No, no Kyah today. N: Shhh. (finger to lips) Shhh... Me: Shhh? N: Shhhh... Kyah sheepin'. Kyah sleepin'. ooo I love this girl!

Ok my pictures from Thanksgiving amount to a pathetic three. 3. Three pictures from all of our family time. What was I thinking? Why didn't I take a picture of the food? and family around the table?? [sigh] Here's Natalee getting to know Cousin Mavel... here she is thrilled to be taking a picture with Aunt Auttie... I did remember to take a 4 generations picture of Natalee, Johnny, his mom, & her dad... that's gotta count for something. I'm just sad that I didn't take more. This picture will be a precious memory.

How about you? you? you? You can come too, too, too, We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo (all parents of toddlers officially have the song stuck in their heads now!) Our Thanksgiving day started in a non-traditional way! The Portland Zoo opened with no admission fee as a thank you to the community for a $$$$ bond that just passed. Johnny has never been to the zoo with Natalee so we thought it the perfect time! We got up early and headed out knowing that we'd be competing with lots of runners who ran the "Turkey Trot" at 8 am. It was a little crazy, but a lot of fun! love-love-love this shot of them looking at the elephant Natalee being AWED by the huge elephant! cute little look Wow! Huge fish! can you see the polar bear in the back? Natalee thought that was pretty cool. This trip was the first time Natalee was interested in the animals. ...so it was a lot of fun in that respect! It was super cold tho' so a lot of animals weren't out. We'll just have to ...

Natalee has been potty training herself the past month or so. ...so sweet Auntie Amber bought her two pairs of panties! woo hoo!! Today I decided to be brave and try to be a little more consistent with potty training. Natalee was dry all morning (we did try on the potty 8 or 10 times!) Then at nap time I put a diaper on her and she promptly pee'd in it. After her nap I put her back in "chonies" (our word for panties) and she did fairly well for an hour or so. I was a proud mommy! This potty training thing is a breeze! Right? all those experienced moms? any comment? O don't worry. The story doesn't end there. Then she climbed up in our big black chair (Check out that sag! They're a little big still! :) ) and said, "water, momma, water" so of course I thought she wanted a drink. wrong. she had her first accident (or maybe it should be called an "on purpose" :) ) I'm sure it was a valid learning experience! Anyway... that's what...

Fall has... fallen. and I missed it. How is it possible that one day the trees are beautiful - stunning - breathtaking and then it rains. and in one day... sometimes just one or two hours... it's all gone. and I didn't get any pictures. poo. This is the closest thing I've got to fall pictures... and yes they're cute. But I wish the leaves were still on the trees! [sigh]