End of the Year- Kindergarten

Romy is slowly gaining interest in eating.  She loves scrambled eggs and guacamole.  She has completely skipped the baby food and is into what we eat.  She is such a happy and sweet baby I wish all of you could experience her on a daily basis.  

I got roped into making 80 cake pops for Gwen's kindergarten graduation.  I haven't volunteered for much this year... I guess this is my payback!

Gwen and a classmate

Gwen's teacher giving her an award for being "determined".  I can confirm that.

Tried to get a picture of both of them.  Of course Zeke picks this moment to be not cooperative.

Gwen posing and her friend Saffie is in the background.  I hear a lot about Saffie and Gwen enjoys playing with her.  Zeke's still sulking cause I told him no more juice.

This school year has gone very fast.  Lord, help me to remember and not have all my brain cells sucked out my breastmilk.

Life in the Cul-de-Sac

Gwen and her friends playing dress up.

She's just beautiful!

Relaxing in the sun.

Kansas Spring

Wanna see what the Kansas spring is like?  Take a look at this video I took last Sunday!  It's the land of extremes here!

Sabbath

Lately Ben and I have made a commitment to keep Sunday free of plans and full of time with the Lord and family and face to face contact with neighbors and friends.  It has been good learning what is restful to us and how to navigate and get it all done without invading Sunday.  We have started attending a Saturday night service at church and so even Sunday mornings are spent riding bikes, watching the kids play, making breakfasts and reading the Bible.  

Romy woke up one day recently and decided she'd like to try food.  She hasn't gotten fantastically good at eating, but she's opening her mouth and deciding what she likes.  Here I am taking a video of her and I guess someone took a photo too.  Too. much. technology in one photo!

Ben's mom, Pam, and Romy at church at Romy's dedication.  The verse we chose for her is Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart"

No, we aren't at a night club.  This is church.

In the afternoon we went and visited Ben's Grandma and Grandpa.  This is Romy's namesake.  Ben's Grandma's name is Georgia and Romy's middle name is Georgia.

Easter 2014

Today has been a really nice day.  Here's a post it note I found the other day that Gwen drew on.  It says "I love Jesus" in her own way.  I hope one day she will love Jesus.  Tonight she told me she wants to get baptized or "babitized" tomorrow.  I told her you only get baptized when you ask Jesus to come into your life and take control and commit yourself to follow after Him no matter what.  I explained how you do that and she just looked thoughtful.  You never know how those talks will grow in a child's heart.  She told me she got to pet a real lamb today at church.  

Romy has had some breakthroughs with eating.  I'm not rushing it, but I've noticed that she enjoys table food much more than baby food.  She enjoyed some roasted sweet potato today on Grandma's finger.  Notice the knitted bib my mom made!

Romy got some attention from her Uncle Preston.  Gwen got a few dollars in the mail from her Grandma Morris and with it she bought a wand that lights up at Savers.  It's her new prized possession.

I had an Easter egg hunt in our backyard just for fun. This year we went to church on Saturday night and served this morning early.

Romy getting attentions from her Aunt Beki.

As the "grand prize" of the egg hunt they were presented a treasure map their dad drew to find buried treasure. (they each got a box of off brand legos that I got from Aldi)  I don't like fictitious characters that are supposed to visit children... Santa, Easter bunny, tooth fairy ect... but I do want to give fun things to my kids.

Jake and Melody are expecting their first born in October.  She's showing just a little bit here at 3 months.  We are very excited about a new little cousin coming.

It's impossible for anyone with three or more children to get a family photo without someone sticking their tongues out or looking strange.  I've decided the strawberry blond is not working for me.  Maybe it's having a baby, but I just didn't have it in me to do the dressing up Easter thing.  We just wore regular clothes.  

She is a real beauty.  I remember buying this outfit for Gwen.  I love it because it is super soft.

Grandma (Ben's mom) and her three grandchildren.

Beki and Jeff.

Barely Keeping Up

If you've wondered why I haven't blogged lately, you are about to get your answer.  A lot is going on here at the Barreth home and it is a lot to manage.  I'm doing my best to keep everyone bathed, fed and learning and respectful.  That, my friends, is a full time job.  Can't even imagine working an outside job on top of mothering!  YIKES!  

We got a new dishwasher.  This is a huge deal as we use it frequently.  Lots of cooking going on here all the time cause we rarely eat out.

Zeke and I have gone gluten free again about 3 weeks ago.  Me cause I want to keep arthritis from coming back and I felt some twinges.  I feel much better now and my knees are fine.  Zeke cause he has bad eczema and a cyst on his ankle and constant fever blisters.  I don't know what to contribute all of this to, but he's got a lot going on with his poor body.  We are trying to figure it out.  So far, his eczema is slightly better, fewer sores on his mouth and his cyst burst and is going down.  I'll give it a few months and we'll see.  If you are a peanut butter lover like me this stuff is a must.  They took peanut butter, took out 85% of the fat, powderized it and viola!  PB2 is great in smoothies or you can add water and it's peanut butter.  Whoever did this deserves a presidential award.

Class picture day.  She insisted on this shawl.  I had one like it as a kid that I wore every Sunday to church.

When we were doing flooring all the furniture was in the living room.  I lived this way for 2 + weeks.  I was starting to lose my mind.

and Ben thought he was losing his mind... but he did it.

We are still trying to get Romy to eat.  She just looks at me and clamps her mouth shut.  She doesn't seem to be "thinning out" or anything. :)  She is fussy a lot in the day now.  I think teething is the culprit.  I DO NOT LIKE TEETHING! There, I feel much better.

My gorgeous.  His skin and lips looking much better.  He's doing pretty well with the no gluten.  Poor kid.