Utah!

The kids and I headed to Utah the tuesday after Russ and Janelle had visited. The 16 hour drive seems to get easier everytime. Levi had woken up extra early that morning, so once we got on the road he slept for about 2 hours. Later he was super mad and ready to be out of the car. I gave him some benadryl which worked like a charm. He slept for about 3 hours then we stopped for lunch. After lunch he fell asleep for another 3 hours. It was divine! Emma is always good in the car and just colored and watched some movies. Levi still slept well that night and was so excited to see Grandma and Grandpa Barlow and be out of the car.
The next day the kids had fun playing in Grandma's back yard.






That night we got to go to my cousin Nate's wedding reception. My parents just bought a brand new van so we all got to ride in that. Jake and Jamie came too. Grandpa and Jake were really excited to sit in the back with Emma and watch a princess movie. The van they bought is a VW. My dad said it has a Chrysler engine and was built in Canada. Kinda funny. It is way nice though and has 3 dvd players. The windows on the doors roll up and down and they have a built in screen on the windows that you can pull up. You can also download your pictures and music right into the van. There is a touch screen in the dashboard where you can play music, look at pictures or watch a movie. It's pretty incredible.

It was so fun to see some cousins I haven't seen forever. My Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Farrell are on an LDS mission in Uganda right now so they had them on Skype. Isn't technology amazing? It was the middle of the night for them...but I'm sure they wouldn't have missed it for the world. They even moved the computer into the other room for dancing. Nate has a band so they were the "wedding band." My cousin John gave a very nice speech and then Nate sang a song to his new wife Eliza. Those Barlow's really know how to party! This first picture is one I took of the Groom's Room. These cousins were just hangin out in there. They said they didn't want to go downstairs because all the girls wanted to dance with them. :)




Here are a few pics I took of the reception center. My cousin Mark's in laws own this place. It is gorgeous! My Aunt Marilyn did the upholstery in the bride's room. VERY nice!

Visitors from Nebraska!

Russ and Janelle and the boys came to visit us the end of May. It was so fun to have them come and see where we live. Russ went to check out Viterra and see where Ivan works and what he does. I don't know if he was impressed or not. He said that it was smaller than he thought it would be. The boys stayed home with Janelle and I and were excited to mow our lawn. We were excited to have them mow it for us! They are such good boys and really know how to work. It was good having them around.
We went out to dinner the first night they were here to JDub's Pizza. It was good pizza and company but the place didn't have water. They had bottled pop you could buy...but no fountain drinks or water. They couldn't even bring us ice...because they had no water! Weird. They told us we could fill up a glass in the bathroom. YUCK! That's North Dakota for ya.
I think the funnest thing we did while they were here was to watch lots of Mr. Bean on Netflix. I have always loved that show...but it is so much funnier when you have Russell and the boys laughing SO HARD!
On Saturday we joined our ward in cleaning up a park here in town. We clean this park constantly! It is a good thing for us to do...I just wish someone would maybe teach the boys who hang out at the skate park to clean up after themselves...you know..the whole teach a man to fish thing. It was fun to have family come with us to that.



We also had a ward bbq later that day. It was fun but there were not a lot of people that showed up. We hung around and ate some hotdogs and then took off. We drove around Williston and the surrounding area a little bit. Here's a picture I took of some oil field housing. They are individual rooms that are stacked. They came from the olympics in Vancouver by train. Kind of a cool thing to see.
We also stopped at a new monument in Williston which Russell got out to read. He said it was one of the most well written monuments he had ever read. I said that was really saying something coming from him! If I said that it would be more like that was the most well written of the 3 monuments I have read. haha Janelle and the boys said it took forever to drive here because they had to stop at every monument.
Russ and family wanted to go check out some sights so they went and visited the confluence center and Fort Buford. Levi was really grouchy by that time so I stayed home with him so he could have a nap.
They came to church with us on Sunday but left after Sacrament meeting to head home. It was so fun to have them come and visit us. Emma talked about it for days. We can't wait to head to Nebraska to see them next.

How we roll...

One of the best parts about stayin' home with my kids is watching them be themselves. Know what I mean? This is Emma being herself...



And here are both little weirdos being themselves...


Both of my kids LOVE to be outside. When I was at my mom's house Levi would go to the door and point and screeeeaaaammmmm! He wants to be outside all the time. When Ivan gets home from work he is excited about him being home...and even more excited about the door being open. Here are some pictures of us playing at the school playground a while back with our friends the Freeze's. Levi loved having his Daddy lift him up to shoot a basket. Ivan has been playing basketball at the church with a group of guys at 6am about 4 days a week. I think he is crazy to get up that early....especially on days when he has stayed up really late...but he really enjoys it.

Time for some catch up!

Summer has been flying by! I spent a month in Utah and have gotten even further behind on the old blog. Here we go!

Mother's Day...
I can't think of anything in life that I have done or could do that is more rewarding that being a mom. My kiddos drive me absolutely crazy but I love them more than anything in this world. Miss Emma is a little sweetheart and lets me know each day how much she loves me. We call her the Kissy Monster because she loves to give kisses...over...and over....and over! That takes us back to the driving me crazy part. :) She is such a good big sister and is such a big help with the little monster. I can't believe that she has been in our lives for 5 years now...yet I don't really remember life without her. She is very smart and very creative. She loves to tie things together and we find traps all over the house.
Levi likes to go go go! He is so busy and is such a boy. He is starting to snuggle lots more and loves to come and hug me during the day. The other day he hugged Emma and she was so excited that he hugged her "the way big kids do it!" These little people keep me so busy but I can't imagine anything I would rather be doing with my time.
Emma and Ike picked out a beautiful planter for me to put on our back steps. Ike also had the kids make these super cute cards for me. It was so funny because at the crawfish boil Levi kept dipping his hand in ketchup and anything else he could get his hands on and making hand prints. I guess he liked making the cards. :) The one picture that Emma is holding up says "Emma's favorite thing to do with Mommy" and it is a picture of a slide. I felt very loved this Mother's Day and am so happy to be a mom.



After Mother's Day my good friend Candace came and stayed the night at our house. She used to live in Ray and recently moved to Minot. She had been involved in the community choir, band and orchestra here. She has a major in music and is very talented. She plays the french horn in the orchestra but also plays the piano and guitar. I think she might also play some other instruments but I can't remember. She is amazing is all I know. I am sad that she moved because she was going to give Emma piano lessons and we were putting together a kids music time. Oh well.
We were able to go to her orchestra concert and I helped her do her hair. It was so fun to have her stay with us...I really miss her. Levi loved the concert! Only problem is he wanted to be really close to listen. That kids loves music more than anyone I know. When we were at church in Corinne there was a musical number and he bolted out of the overflow room where we were sitting so that he could see where the music was coming from. He likes to dance to every commercial with music and all his musical toys. He also really likes to lead the music at church. He is a funny boy. We enjoyed the concert despite having to chase around the little monster. This top picture is Levi conducting the audience. It was way cute...but I bet some people were annoyed. Such is life. :)

Crawfish Boil

The Saturday before Mother's Day we went to our first ever Crawfish Boil at our friends Todd and Tonya's house. It was the same day I did a craft booth in the park for Snapbandz followed by working a few hours at the shop. It was a super long day but it was so fun to end it with some good friends. Our friend Chris was in charge of the food. They ordered shrimp and crawfish from Louisiana. He also did a couple different kinds of brisket. I am not a fan of any kind of fish but I did have some shrimp. It was AMAZING! I'm not sure what was on it besides oranges but I went back for seconds. The brisket was really good too...there was one kind that was mild and sweet and a cajun one that way spicy. They were both really good. We also had dutch oven peach cobbler for dessert. Ivan and I were not feeling adventurous that day so neither one of us tried the crawfish. Sounds about as good as eating a live grasshopper to me! They had a really cool table set up for the Crawfish. They cut holes in plywood and had garbage cans underneath. You can see it in the pics. It was a REALLY cold night so we ended up eating in the garage. This is the same house we had Thanksgiving at. The best part about moving so far has been all the great friends we have made. Here are a few of them...







And here's the food...




The ragamuffins...



And here's a few pics from the parade earlier that day. It was band day...whatever that is! All I know is there were lots of bands in the parade and lots of bands playing all day in the park. We had lots of fun.