Avery's Baby Shower

A week ago friends from Church, Courtney and Natalie threw Avery a baby shower. Yeah girl stuff! Here is a pic of some of the ladies playing games.

Here are all the sweet gifts she got, and yes I still need to wash and organize everything. She got lots of cute clothes in different sizes and a few blankets and burp clothes.

She also got this adorable hair accessory holder to hang up on the wall. It had lots of headbands and flower clips to get me started.

Here is the changing table/dresser Michael got from craigslist and the diaper cake from the shower.


Now a few belly pics. Avery is 34 weeks so we are getting closer. My weight is more than it was with Joshua at the end but I guess that's what I get from eating lots of holiday goodies for the past few months. My blood pressure is up too but my doctor isn't very concerned. My doctor also isn't talking about inducing me at 38weeks anymore. This is leaving me very anxious that she's going to decide to come quickly like Joshua and I'm going to give birth on the side of the road with no meds or docs. I guess we'll see, she's a little higher up than my boys so maybe she's planning on staying in a little longer. Michael and I are already joking that she's going to be 8 or 9lbs instead of little, like her brothers were. The doctor thinks she is already around 5lbs so if I go into labor he'll just let me deliver. Maybe 1 or 2 more weeks and I'll be totally ready for that. The weight of my belly is killing my back and my pelvis especially at work. I think you forget how miserable you feel the last month of pregnancy!

New Years

For New Years Weekend we were lucky to have family come visit. Grandma and Grandpa Barnum came and they brought Great Grandpa Barnum to stay at our house for a few days. I was supposed to work the holiday, but got cancelled. We stayed home and just had a small celebration with only a few brave souls staying up until midnight.


Before everyone came, my sweet boys helped mom with all of the scrubbing and cleaning.

We made a gingerbread house since we never got to it before Christmas.

And then of course we had to have some sparklers. The boys were really excited about staying for New Years. Joshua lasted until about 10:30 and Ethan made it until 11:30. We woke him up just for a minute a midnight to say Happy New Year!

Here is Baby Avery at 31 weeks. She keeps growing and everything looks good. Mom is getting tired of carrying all the weight around, but knows it won't be long until we have a sweet baby girl at our house.

Christmas Day

Here is just a smattering of photos from our Christmas Morning. Santa came with lots of great items, the Barnum Family must have been good this year.

Extreme excitement at the sight of all our gifts!

The Boys got lots of nice gifts from family too!

Josh giving his new bike a quick spin outside!

Ethan with his beloved DS, Santa delivered and he would play all day if we let him.

Josh with more fun gifts!


Dad getting a turn with the DS.

We had a wonderful Christmas, I didn't have to work so we were able to eat some waffles and stay home all day relaxing and enjoying the holiday. In the evening we had friends over for dinner and went to bed a little sad that the holiday had to end.

Christmas Eve

I can't believe Christmas is already over. You wait for it all year and then the time just flys by. We had a good christmas and were able to do most of the fun activities and visits that we wanted to.

A few days before Christmas we went to visit Grandpa Cole and Grandma Mary (I guess for the boys this would be their great-grandparents). Their Sun City community had some train exhibits and a Santa Claus to visit.

That brings us to Christmas Eve. We went to Grandma Sandy's house and visited with Grandma Connie, aunts and uncles and lots of extended family.

This me and my brother Aaron, who was very excited to see everyone for Christmas.

Michael and I, and yes I am starting to swell and have fat face.

The boys ate with all the other kids out in the front yard on blankets.

Me with my brothers Tayler and Caleb and their new tools I gave them.


This is the boys with their cousin Rylee and lots of other cousins in the background.


The boys got to play with some puppy dogs when we first arrived.

After we got home the boys opened just a few presents. They opened their Christmas jammies from us, so they could be ready for Santa to come. Then we let them open a gift from Grandma Connie. She made them some stuffed doggies to sleep with.

Finally with the reindeer food put outside and our Christmas jammies on it was time to go to sleep and wait for Santa Claus to come!