Bring on the Summer!

Today is the last day my amazing husband has to work for this school year! Yeah!  The greatest perk about being married to somebody who works for a school district......summers off! I can hardly believe that we have the next two months together!  Our family is truly blessed.

I am so proud of Caleb.  He has done such a great job this year as Director of Security for the school district, as well as head coach for the JV/Freshman football team and head Strength and Conditioning coach the remainder of the year at the high school.  It is fun to see how the guys all look up to and respect "Coach Barnes."  And it is great to know that, as he is there protecting the schools, that he is also making such an impact on the kids.

And by the way, yes that is a jackalope in the picture.  He had to bring it to work this year for his desk or he was risking it being "lost" at home.  I didn't want it on my fireplace mantle like he did. Hahaha!

Awe, bring on the summer! Family time! :)

Barnes' Family Renunion 2013

This last weekend we had such a great time at the beach with all of Caleb's family.  Everybody was there and it was so special to introduce them to Ellie!

Sheila had been then only one who had met Ellie before this weekend.  She and Cam, and Kate and Garrett all flew in on Thursday.  They stopped by our house on their way to Lincoln City.  And then, Bob, who had driven up, stopped by on his way and stayed the night on Thursday at our place.  Caleb, Ellie and I joined up with them after Caleb finished off his work week. Then we stayed for a long weekend.

It was an amazing weekend full of hanging out with each other and just relaxing....couldn't ask for anything better!

The place that Caleb's parents rented was such a great place!  It was spacious, close to the beach, and the backyard had a river that ran through it.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  We all pretty much just hung out for the whole weekend!

The first day was a bit chilly, but we still all got down to the beach where Uncle Cam decided to take on the waves.  He did a great job, especially for the first time being out there surfing!  Aunt Kate did a photo shoot of our family.  But it was so cold and bright (even though the sun wasn't out) that Ellie just kept her eyes closed the whole time! haha!

The next day was Father's Day, which was so special for us being that it was Caleb's first as a Dad!  Before we left for the weekend, Ellie and I gave him some molds of her hands and feet for him to remember how little she was.  And then on actual Father's Day we gave him a Star Wars #1 Dad t-shirt...he always told her over and over when she was in my tummy "I am your father."  hahaha! And then we also gave him a picture of her for his office, as well as a print we had made up thanks to my friend Kristi.  I had seen something on line and didn't want to pay the money for it, so we did it ourselves.  The words we came up with were..."My daddy is a SUPERHERO because...he LOVES Jesus, Mommy and me...he is BRAVE like a lion...he is FUNNY and makes me laugh & smile...he holds me up with his STRONG arms...and he WORKS HARD for us.  Love, Ellie"

We all hung out in the morning, then went to church together and then out to Mo's for lunch.  Gotta love their clam chowder!

 And then Monday was such a gorgeous day out there.  We did another family photo shoot of the entire family and walked the beach.  It was perfect!

It is sad we all live so far from each other.  I guess that just means we have an excuse to do family vacation get-a-ways more often!

Someone Is 3 Months Today!

I can hardly believe that Elliot Jane is 3 months old today!  In so many ways it feels like yesterday that we brought her home...and, in other ways, it feels like she has been a part of our life forever.

We have loved, so much, seeing more and more of her personality come out this month.  She is such a good baby.  She rarely has break downs, and seems pretty laid back.  But I have to say that she is becoming more of a "talker" recently.  She is the only baby I know of that will stop feeding just to talk for 10 minutes or so.   There are literally times where she would rather chat than eat!  And she also loves it when I sing to her, and sometimes she even tried to sing along.  Hopefully she got Auntie Kate's voice!  She smiles at me when I am singing...but it could very likely be that she is laughing at me.  haha!

We love how Ellie loves to smile.  She has the biggest, toothless grin.  Almost every morning, the first person who usually gets to her smile is her daddy.  He just looks at her each morning when I am feeding or changing her and she gets this big ole' grin.  It doesn't go away until he leaves the room.  It is pretty sweet.  She loves her Daddy.  And, boy, does he love her!

Ellie also laughs and smiles when Mama tickles her face with her hair.  She loves it so much!  We kinda make a game of it, and I stand above her with my hair falling onto her face and brush it back and forth.  She kinda tries to catch it in her mouth sometimes too.  It's pretty funny to watch.

We are excited to have Caleb home this summer.  Since he works for the school district, that means that he will have about 2 months off of work here soon.  (Other than football boot camps, camps, practice, etc.)  But football is fun for him, and Ellie and I plan on going and walking the track many mornings. And I may even do the boot camp some days with the team!

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the last month...