Meeting Santa

We had Christmas at Justin's grandparents' house this past weekend. Every year they have Santa come to hand out the stockings. So this was Ty's first ever experience sitting on Santa's lap, and I'm happy to report that he didn't seem too freaked out. No crying or anything like that.

Here's me getting "Baby Barnhart's" stocking. Poor Shirley was so upset that we wouldn't tell her his name so she could sew it on his stocking this year.

Ty and his distant cousin Jackson had a fun time playing elephants. Ty pretended that Aunt Kaygan was his elephant and Justin was Jackson's elephant (Jackson is 4 and too heavy for Kaygan), and they made countless trips up and down the hallway with kids on their backs. Fortunately, Mommy has a good excuse right now to opt out of elephant duty and be the photographer instead.

After we got home from Shirley's we started decorating our tree at home. I was so excited to have Ty's help this year. He had a good time with it for about the first 15 minutes or so (typical 2 year old) and then lost interest. It was after his bedtime anyway, so off to bed he went while Mommy finished up.

Ty's decorating handiwork...

And I had to throw this one in for good measure just because I think it's adorable...

Ty's Abstract Art

Ty has recently figured out how to take pictures with my camera (thus the reason Santa is going to be bringing him his own "kid tough" camera this year for Christmas.) When I was downloading my newest batch of pictures I found these on there and it just cracked me up. Here are some examples of his artwork...

Introducing ?????? Barnhart

Thanks to Justin's sweet-talking abilities, we were able to have a 3-D ultrasound done for free at the hospital he is building in Lebanon. I guess it's lucky for me that the radiology girls like him. Sooo, here's our first portrait of our new little guy.

Of course he had to have his hands in front of his face the whole time, so it was difficult to get a full face shot, but we felt like these turned out pretty well overall. In the picture above I think he's rubbing his face with his hand and sort of pulling down on his lower lip. His nose definitely looks like Ty's. What a couple of cuties I'm going to have!!!

And to all those inquiring minds out there: YES we DO know his name, but WE'RE NOT TELLING!! Hahaha!

What I'm Thankful For...

Lately Ty has developed a real fascination with the vacuum for some reason. I'm not sure what it is, but I probably have some of the cleanest floors around because the sweeper gets run at least once a day if not more. He runs around saying, "Do again sweeper" until you get it out and sweep. He likes to ride on it when Justin sweeps, but if I'm sweeping he won't ride it. He pushes his lawn mower along beside me and pretends that he is sweeping too. Too cute.

We're not really sure if Ty understands the concept of his "Baby Brother" yet. If you ask him where his baby brother is, he'll come over and point to my belly. But then sometimes he'll walk away from me and go over to Justin, lift his shirt up and start looking for the baby brother in daddy's tummy!!! One day he was eating fruit snacks and he brought one up to me and tried to feed it to his brother through my bellybutton. HA! His latest thing is to put his hands on my tummy and say, "He movin'!" (whether he is or not). We'll see how much fun Ty thinks he is after he's born.

I just thought this one was cute...world's strongest toddler can lift a tractor with one hand.

Here we are at Mammaw and Pappaw Ogden's house on Thanksgiving riding the bouncy horse that has been ridden by every grandkid and great grandkid for at least the past 30 years.

Visiting Uncle Elisha at the fire station on Thanksgiving.

Ty in his "hide out." I think this is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. Justin has recently taught him how to make a hide out with blankets, and he is totally into it. He even calls it a hide out, which just cracks me up. He takes his toys in there and sometimes a flashlight and just plays and plays. He pops his head out every now and then and yells "Roar!" to scare us. He's such a boy!

Chocolate milk mustache

Helping Aunt Trista and Uncle Elisha with their lights.

2 basketball bellies. Mommy won't have hers much longer!

A Date with Ty

Unfortunately, I have no pictures for this post. I just wanted to document my day yesterday with my little man for posterity's sake. I know that these are the little things that I won't be able to remember a few years from now if I don't document them now. I have a horrible memory anyway, but pregnancy will inevitably erase more than it's fair share....

Daddy was off with the Farr men this weekend in pursuit of the ever-elusive white tail buck, so Ty and I had the whole day on Sunday to ourselves. We started the day off with waffles and Special Agent Oso, which is nothing special. That's what we do about every day. Then we got dressed up and went to church. It had been several weeks since we had been to church since we are up in Anderson so much during the summer months. Lately we have started to feel like we go to church just for one of us to spend the whole service in the nursery. But this week, for the first time, was different! Ty did really well during the first half of the service...about up to the prayer before he started getting bored and antsy. So he went to the nursery with "Nanny" (his babysitter's mom) and one of the teenage girls who attends our church. For a while now, this particular girl has been asking if she can watch Ty in the nursery, which would be fine with us, but up to now he hasn't wanted to stay in there if Justin or I are not in there. But this week, he stayed in there, and I got to enjoy the whole service without interruption. Apparently he just played with the other kids and was very well behaved. Yeah!!

After church we went home, ate lunch, and I laid Ty down for a nap while I cleaned up the house. We had a showing on our house from 2-3:30, so when Ty got up from his nap we headed out to find something to do for an hour and a half. I decided we should go to Avon to Once Upon a Child and see if we could find some good deals on some winter maternity shirts for Mommy (I know...big fun for Ty, right??) Well, turns out that we couldn't find the store, but we did happen upon a Cold Stone Creamery. So I decided to take my little man on a date to Cold Stone. I patiently waited in line, ordered an Apple Dumpling ala Mode, the whole time thinking how much Ty was going to enjoy it. Then....when we sit down to eat it, he will have absolutely nothing to do with it!! Very strange because he loves ice cream. I was somewhat disappointed not to be able to share it with him, but I quickly got over it and ate the whole thing myself.

From there we went home, and by this time I was absolutely exhausted. So we played with toys in the living room and waited for Daddy to get home. Overall it was just a wonderful day that I got to have my little guy all to myself. All too soon those types of days will be a distant memory...hence my need to document this one so that when he's too old to want to spend time with his Mommy I can look back on this day and remember that once upon a time he loved me.

Mommy's Littlest Man

And here he is, the third love of my life...name yet to be determined.

These ultrasound pictures were taken at 30 weeks. I went in for my regular 30 week visit, and the doctor decided that we should do another ultrasound since my tummy measured a little bit small for dates. This, of course, was fine with me...any chance to see the baby. I knew this was nothing to worry over. I'm just small; been hearing that my whole life. I had an extra ultrasound with Ty too for being small. So we went in the next day for the ultrasound, and the baby measured right on target. They estimate he weights about 3.5 lbs. The only measurement that was slightly behind was his head circumference, but apparently that's just because both my boys are going to inherit their mommy's tiny head....stuffed full of brains, though, of course!!

If it isn't obvious, the picture below is further proof that he's a boy. With Ty I used to have nightmares that they had made a mistake on the ultrasound and he was actually a girl, and there I was with all this blue stuff and not a shred of anything even remotely girly. I don't believe I'll be having any of those dreams this time around. It has been more than obvious on every ultrasound that this is a boy. In retrospect, it was obvious on Ty's ultrasounds too. I guess I just second guessed everything since it was the first time around.

This pregnancy has been a great one, just like with Ty. I'm 30 weeks and 4 days along as I write this, and so far I have gained 20 pounds. (I gained 41 altogether with Ty, which I'll probably get close to matching by the end of this pregnancy. The baby must really be trying to put on some weight now because I feel hungry ALL the time. Justin would say that's nothing out of the ordinary for me. But now it's worse, and I literally feel like I could eat nonstop...doesn't really matter what, no particular cravings.) I'm starting to get a little bit uncomfortable now, but not anything too serious...just a sore spot under my right ribcage where I think there's a foot poking me (oddly enough, I had this in the exact same spot with Ty...perhaps these boys are in cahoots already.) I'm a little slower getting around, I get winded pretty easily now, and it's getting hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but it's perfectly fine with me. I wouldn't trade it for anything because I know the end results will be so worth it I won't give my own slight discomforts a second thought. Anyway, I guess I am one of those lucky women who enjoys being pregnant. I never really had any morning sickness with either one. I just love feeling the baby kick and move around. While I know that by the time I deliver this baby, I'll be ready to have my body back to myself, pregnancy is one of those things that I'm really going to miss. It's bittersweet for me this time around because, while overall I'm enjoying all the phases of the pregnancy, it's going so fast this time. What's worse is I know this is the last one. I'm sure the reason it seems like it's going so fast is because I have a 2 year old to chase around, so I can't just sit around and think about the new baby all the time, even though I do that plenty. But it feels like it's going to be over in the blink of an eye, and I don't get to have this experience again. I'll miss it. But on the bright side, I'll have the world's two cutest boys to show for it. Who could ask for anything more? Your mommy loves you Little Boy, and I can't wait to meet you.

Trick or Treat

Ty went as the world's cutest fisherman this year for Halloween. I saw a pre-made fisherman costume online when I was deciding what he should be, but it only came in a size 3-4T, which he would have been able to swim in. So I decided to make him a costume (which, owing to my complete lack of creativity, was quite a feat).



I have to say, though, I think it turned out pretty well. I got him some rubber boots and snowpants (aka "waders") at Walmart, made him a pretend fishing license (which is pinned to his waders) and made him a "fly hat" on my lunch hour one day. It's a good thing I work at Walmart where they have all these various supplies right on hand because the night before Halloween I realized that I couldn't find his other fisherman's hat that I had planned to use. Since I had to work on Halloween, on my lunch I went to the baby section and found a new hat (on clearance for $1, I might add) and some small baits, cut the hooks off of them and pinned them on this new hat. Pretty good, huh?

Ahoy! A fisherman and 2 pirates.

He went Trick or Treating at his Great Grandma and Grandpa Barnhart's, Grandpa and Grandma Barnhart's, Pappaw Taylor's, Great Grandma and Grandpa Farr's, Mammaw and Pappaw Ogden's, Aunt Trista's and Mammaw's houses. It was a long night considering we didn't get started until close to 7. He didn't go to bed until after 10. Hooray for staying up late on holidays when you're a kid.

In related news...

Here's how Daddy and his helper clean up the leaves out of the yard...oh well. It sure was fun jumping in all those leaves.

taking a peanutbutter sandwich break...this was immediately following his "time out" for throwing a temper tantrum. He wanted to keep going in and out of the back yard and I told him no because he'd let the dogs out, to which he threw a royal fit. I decided this was probably a combination of frustration at being told no and hunger, so we went inside for some calm down time while I made him a sandwich. And I had a MAJOR "mom breakthrough". I sat him in his time out chair and told him, "Stay here and calm down. I'm going to go make you a sandwich." So I proceed into the kitchen, knowing full well he wouldn't stay in that chair. I see him out of the corner of my eye sneaking into the living room, so I quickly walk into the living room and give him the "mom look" and without my saying a word he hi-tailed it right back to his time out chair and sat there until I told him he could get up!! YYYAAAAHHHOOOO!!!! Wouldn't Supernanny be proud!

look at that face...how can I ever be mad at him?

Leaves are falling everywhere!

How Much is that Doggy in the Window?

PRICELESS!!!

Watching "toons" in style

Mommy sure does love this little fisherman!

Ty's Tool Training

OK so now it's time to put some of these birthday presents to use. A little practice at home on his own...

...before he enters Daddy's official tool training course.

Daddy says, "Don't get used to this, son. In the real world, a guy doesn't get chariot rides around the job site. I'm just doing it for you because you're so darn cute."

Measure twice, cut once!

Hammer...don't drop it on your toes!

Lefty loosey, rightey tightey.
Speaking of lefty, notice which hand Ty is using in the 2 pictures above. Is my boy going to be a lefty???


Take a break!!