Farewell 2010

In just a few short hours the year 2010 will fade into the past.  I've found myself reflecting on this past year a lot lately.  I'm not sure why.  New Year's usually isn't a big deal for me.  It's just another day.  But this year, I've been trying to recognize my blessings and focus on the positive and what I have rather than the negative and everything that I wish I had.  
In my pondering I realized something.  We had a very good year.  Yes, it had its challenges, but it was also filled with blessings. 

• Nate got his tonsils and adenoids removed this year.  He used to get very sick all the time and he'd always just work through it without complaint.  He'd go to work with walking pneumonia because he knew we needed the paycheck.  Finally being able to get his huge, infected tonsils taken out has resulted in hardly any illness this year.  Even his allergies are less severe.  
• I went back to school.  In May I enrolled at Utah State University in their online family studies program.  Completing my bachelor's degree has always been a goal of mine, one that was put on the back burner when we got married and started our family.  It feels amazing to be on that path again and making it happen.  I love learning and progressing toward achieving one of my life's goals.  
• Nate completed his bachelor's degree in August.  What a feat that is!  It's a very long story, one I'm sure I've blogged about before.  This achievement has been years in the making, with plenty of challenges and biased professors standing in the way.  I'm so proud of  Nate for seeing it through.  
• Nate started a new job with Verizon Wireless at the end of September.  On days like today, when the snow is pouring down and the wind is relentless, I'm so grateful that he's not spending the day changing tires.  Also, my bathtub is no longer black and our house doesn't smell like rubber.  Always a plus.  
• The kids have been healthy and injury free.  We've had the odd cold or ear infection, but nothing major.  All three kids are thriving.  They love to explore their world, learn, and make new friends.  

There are plenty of other blessings and wonderful things that we experienced in this year of 2010, but those are the major ones.  As we say good bye to a year full of personal and family growth, we can only be optimistic about what lies in store for us in 2011.  

Happy New Year!  May it bring with it peace, hope, love, and adventure!

Let's Play Christmas Catch-up

Thanks to our busy December, I've been pretty M.I.A. as far as the blog is concerned.  Now that the hustle and bustle is dying down, I figured I'd better get things posted before I get too busy again.  So this post will cover three or four different outings/events.  

Temple Square Lights

A couple weeks ago, before all this crazy snow, my mom, sisters, the kids and I visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see the Christmas lights.  We started with some dinner and then enjoyed walking around.  The kids loved the fountains the best, as usual.  They each brought a couple of pennies so they could throw them in a fountain. 

Aunt Sarah, Grandma Laurie, Aunt Rachel and the kids

One of the many fountains that we had to stop at, and stop the kids from jumping into. 

Lilly insisted on having her picture taken in this spot.  I tried to get her to move so that we wouldn't have the fabulous view of the donkey's rear end, but she wouldn't cooperate. 

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir with David Archuleta and Micheal York

A friend of ours who moved out of state had received four tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert featuring David Archuleta and Micheal York.  At the last minute, she and her husband weren't able to make the trip, so she called us and asked if we'd like to have her tickets.  We went with a couple of our friends. It was a wonderful concert!  We were sure to get there early, over an hour early actually.  It was a good thing though, apparently there were hundreds of people with tickets who couldn't get in because they weren't there early enough.  
The choir was amazing, as always.  I'm not a huge David Archuleta fan, but he's very likable and has an amazing voice.  He did a wonderful job.  I really enjoyed the telling of the story of the tabernacle choir by Micheal York.  I'd never known the history of the choir and he made it feel like an enchanting tale.  Another highlight of the concert were the bell ringers.  During my senior year of high school, our choir director managed to acquire a set of hand bells for us to learn to use for Christmas.  They are so fun to play, but they definitely require a lot of practice and the way these bell ringers at the concert were playing them was wonderful!  
It was a great night.  Thank you Erika for thinking of us.  This concert was the highlight of my Christmas season this year!

Christmas with the Barnums

Nate's parents and sisters were in town the weekend before Christmas.  We enjoyed having dinner together and opening presents.  And the kids had a blast playing with Aunt Emily, Aunt Amanda, and Grandma.  As one of our Christmas presents, we got a port-a-potty.  It's meant to inspire us to camp more, since Lilly is deathly afraid of outhouses.  Each of the kids had to sit on it and smile for the camera. 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom's house with all my brothers and sisters and my Grandma Bennett.  It was a fun night, albeit short, full of delicious food and laughter.  My mom asked if my family would do the nativity this year.  Lilly was Mary, Jayne was the Angel, Nate was Joseph, Jonah was a wise man and I was the narrator.  We had to recruit my sister, Sarah, to be a shepherd.  It was a less than perfect telling of the Christmas story, but it was fun to watch.  

Lilly aka Mary

Our Angel Jayne

Nate helped our Angel take flight to make the scene more realistic. =)

Jonah, the wise man

All the kids got new "softies" or blankets from Grandma Great.

Lilly giving the camera some "Chubby Bunny" love.

About a week ago, Jonah asked me if we could do something special on Christmas morning.  He said that before we open any presents, he wanted us to kneel down together as a family and say a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for sending us the gift of His son, Jesus Christ.  Isn't it amazing how a 6 year old can put things in perspective for you?  So on Christmas morning, we did just that.  Before any gifts were opened, we had a family prayer to give thanks to the Lord for sending His son to Earth.  
The kids loved all their goodies from Santa.  

Jayne the pirate with her pillow pet.  I think she was still a bit groggy.

Lilly and her unicorn pillow pet.

Jonah's jellyfish lamp. 

All the kids got books from Cathy and Loron.

A few years ago we started our strict "stay-at-home-on-Christmas-day" policy.  It's been our favorite tradition.  We don't go anywhere.  If family wants to, they can come see us, but we spend our day at home.  The kids get to play with all of their new toys and Nate and I get to just relax.  Then in the evening, we take a drive to find Christmas lights together.  This year, we decided to make a turkey dinner for Christmas.  Nate took over the turkey and it turned out so delicious!  I've informed him that it will have to be a new tradition, Daddy's Turkey on Christmas Day.  He says he's up for it and wants to try new recipes every year. 


Well, I think that's about it.  We had a wonderful Christmas and we hope all of you did too! 
 

Our December Family Letter

Dear Family & Friends,

It's that time of year again. You know, the time for snow, wish lists, Christmas lights, baking, caroling, partying, and stressing out. But, most importantly, it's time for our yearly recap of life as a Barnum. Don't worry, I'll keep it short and sweet!

Jonah is in 1^st grade this year. He loves school. He's reading way above his grade level and excelling in everything else as well. Jonah loves to read the Zoo Books magazines about crocodiles, sharks, snakes, etc. Jonah played soccer this last spring. It was his first experience with organized sports. He wasn't a big fan of it. He would get easily frustrated when he didn't kick the ball just right(that's the perfectionist in him). But since he got a trophy at the end of the season, he keeps talking about playing again next year.

Jonah favorite thing to do is to make a “project”. He'll get out paper, scissors, glue, staples, crayons, string, straws, pencils, paper cups, plates, napkins, utensils, and pretty much anything else he can find and spread them all across the table and begin creating. He comes up with some pretty interesting stuff. It can get frustrating when he uses up all of my scotch tape on his catapult or duct tapes all the pencils in the house together, but I just keep reminding myself that one day he may be creating new inventions, or building beautiful bridges or buildings or something like that.

Lilly turned 4 this year and is going to preschool four days a week. Lilly is learning to read. She knows all her letters and sounds and is working on sight words. Lilly loves to watch Scooby-Doo and she really enjoys playing with her friends. Lilly's quite the social butterfly at school. Her teachers tell me that she is a friend to everyone and it's easy to see. Whenever I pick her up she has to say goodbye to and hug all of her friends. Lilly's not too happy about winter time. She's more of a summertime girl. Several times in the last month, she's come out of her room all dressed up in her swimsuit and wanting to play in the water. I finally had to hide that thing until next summer.

Jayne just turned 2 in October. She is such a fun little girl! She talks like a pro and loves to sing songs and “ballerina”. That's what she calls dancing. Her favorite thing to do is put on her sparkly shoes and her little tutu that her Grandma Barnum made her and run around the house dancing and playing. Lately she's really into watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and reading “Pinkalicious.” She's definitely girl through and through.

Nate had a big year this year. He finished his bachelor's degree in Spanish and criminal justice through Weber State University. I'm so proud of him for sticking with it and seeing it through to the end. Nate also recently started a new job. He's a sales representative for Verizon Wireless in West Valley. He's only been there for a couple of months and he's already ranking among their top sales reps in his area.  It's been such a blessing to not have him doing such hard labor out in the elements, especially now that it's winter. Nate just got called to serve as assistant scout master in our church ward. He's excited to go on the camp outs with the boys. They'll be doing a winter camp in January.

Nate got his tonsils taken out this year, which has made a huge difference in his health. Usually he's had some walking pneumonia or tonsillitis by this time of year, but so far.....nothing. When they took them out, the doctor was surprised by how large and infected they were. He couldn't believe we hadn't had it done sooner. I'm so glad we finally got those monsters taken out!

As for me, Ashley, I guess my biggest news this year is that I'm back in school. I started in the summer working on my bachelor's degree in family studies through Utah State University's online program. I'm really loving it so far. I've been taking two classes per semester, but I'm going to bump it up to three in the spring. I'm also serving as a Webelos den leader in our cub scout program, which is fun. It definitely helps keep me busy. I've also been doing a bit of babysitting, which is totally uncharacteristic of me. I've never been big on babysitting, but I'm enjoying it and the extra money is always helpful. We watch a friend of Lilly's after preschool twice a week and we just started watching a little two month old baby girl this week while her mom works part time.

And there you have it. That's our 2010 in a nutshell. We hope you all have had a happy, healthy, and prosperous year! Have a wonderful holiday season!

Love,

Nate, Ashley, Jonah, Lilly, & Jayne

My Favorite Holiday Treat

To me, Christmas is synonymous with delicious treats!  Every year while I was growing up, my mom would make cookies, divinity, fudge, and my favorite...caramels at Christmastime. 
I have such fond memories of sitting in front of a Christmas TV special or listening to Christmas music while sitting at the kitchen table cutting and wrapping caramels to give as gifts to neighbors and friends.  It always seemed to take quite a few batches to have enough to go around.  That probably had something to do with us having more than our share of "tastes" during the wrapping process. 
 I remember one Christmas when my mom had made her caramels early and put them in large popcorn tins out in the storage room that was in the garage.  I thought I was so sneaky going out there when no one was around and having one or two caramels.  I figured that she had made so many, she'd never notice just a few missing.  Little did I know that my dad and older brother had both been doing the same thing.  My mother was none too happy when she went to pull out the caramels and there were only a few remaining.  Now that I've made them myself, I can totally understand her frustration. 
I never fully appreciated the effort that this particularly delicious little morsel of joy requires until I was all grown up and decided to make them myself.  Ever since Nate and I got married, I've made caramels for Christmas.  I make other treats, sure, but caramels are by far my favorite. 

So what's your favorite holiday treat? 

Winter Fun

Well, not fun for me, but the kids had a pretty good time.  We recently got a couple of big snowstorms at our house.  We're talking a foot of snow falling in about 24 hours.  

Nate's Jeep had been parked on the front lawn as he often does. (sigh) He had a great time getting it out though.  He was excited about the big rooster tails of snow coming up off his back tires.

The morning after one of our big storms.

I sure am glad Nate was home to help shovel us out.  Even with both of us working on it, it took  us an hour to get the driveway and front sidewalk cleared.  I'm seriously considering investing in a snowblower.  It would definitely save us from all future chiropractor expenses we're going to have if we have to shovel this stuff every year.

 
The first thing Jonah said to me the next day was, "Can we go play in it mom?"  After putting it off as long as possible, mostly because it was insanely cold outside with highs in the 20's,  we dug out the boots and snow pants and gloves and took some time to play in the snow.  

Jonah just had to build a snowman first thing.  About half an hour later, he pulled the carrot nose out and ate it for a snack.  Funny kid.

The kids thought it would be fun to climb on top of the mountain of snow.

Lilly likes to make snow angels.....on her tummy.  She says the wings look better this way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's something about holding a baby....

...that just makes everything feel right in the world.  A friend of mine just dropped by with her two month old baby girl. I could have held her forever!  Don't start getting any ideas(Mom).  I'm done having babies.  As wonderful as it would be to have a sweet little baby to cuddle and feed and rock to sleep, I have to remind myself that they don't stay babies for very long.  Soon, they turn into toddlers.  Precocious, adventurous, can't-keep-up-with-them-for-anything toddlers.  And those beautiful little creatures require a whole lot of time and care and money.  Plus, I already have three to keep up with, throwing another one in the mix wouldn't bode well for my sanity. 
It was great to just sit and reminisce with my friend about being a new mother and  remember all my sweet little babies.  I'm grateful that now that mine are growing, I still get to hold other mothers' babies and feel that amazing warmth and spirit of a new child. 
Motherhood definitely is the greatest and most challenging adventure I've ever undertaken, but it offers such amazing rewards!