Elora's 3rd Birthday

Elora turned 3 on the 5th! She had some friends over and got a Barbie, a little piano, a babydoll, and an aquadoodle. She loves all her presents and can't decide which one she likes most. She had lots of fun playing in the cardboard box filled with wrapping paper, too!















Yay! She's three!








For about three days afterwards, she kept asking me if she was still three. When I explained that she would be three until her next birthday, her eyes got really big, and she said, "Really?; yay!" I guess she thought she would go back to being two after her birthday was over.

First Snow of the Year!

We finally got snow here! We've had a few dustings before, but nothing that stayed for more than a few hours--until today. The kids were so excited that they went out to play before I even got up this morning. They've been going out all day and after much begging and pleading, I finally went out with them.

( Before they threw the snowballs at me)

After they threw them (I was trying to get them mid-air, but it didn't work)

Elias' Blessing

Elias got blessed today in church. Dale blessed him that he would be a powerful missionary and a force for good. Here's a few of our attempts at a family picture (we've decided to leave this to the professionals and get it done at a studio sometime this week) and some cute ones of Elias.

New Flooring

Yes...another project! I figured since I was finished painting (at least for a while) that I needed something else to do on our house. Because Thanksgiving was only 2 weeks away and my family was coming to eat here, I thought, 'Why not replace the plush carpet in our dining room and the tile in our entryway with laminate wood flooring?' So, that Saturday, I went to the hardware store and bought a sledgehammer to break out the tile. Dale and the kids ripped up the carpet while I was gone. We put goggles on the kids and handed them some hammers and they went to it! They really seemed to enjoy beating the tile to pieces. After they got tired, I broke the tile with the sledgehammer and then Dale tore it all up with the wonderbar. About halfway through breaking the tile, Dale said, "We're not going to finish this today, are we?" He thought we'd be finished by bedtime with taking all the old flooring out and putting in the new laminate! I started laughing and told him it would take a long time. As it ended up, I laid flooring for 4 hours on Saturday and then finished it up off and on all day Monday, so it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I think it turned out rather nice...way better than the plush carpet. I mean, who the heck puts light gray plush in a dining room?! It got very dirty, very easily; plus, it was hard to get up and down from the table because the chairs would get stuck in the carpet.

Now I'm thinking about redoing the entire main floor in this laminate....but I'll save that project for another time. Wonder Woman's had enough for today!

Confessions of a Super Mom!

I get called 'Super Mom' all the time, but the truth is that I feel like I'm always behind in my housecleaning, rarely get dressed before lunch (if at all), and feel lucky if my family eats something besides ready-made meals for dinner. Here's what I look like most days (except add a baby in my arms and picture me pulling out my hair from not knowing how to deal with my preschoolers).

Every once in a while, though, I actually get dressed and clean the house and feel like I really accomplish a lot. On those days, I feel like Wonder Woman!

Ok, I know I'm silly. I was bored today...what can I say!?

Our family portrait

Ok, since some of you have requested a picture of Dale and I, here's a family portrait we had taken January of 2007. That was before I was pregnant with Elias and before I cut my hair (you can't see it very well, but it was almost to my waist then); now I weigh 25 pounds more and have hair that's just past my shoulders. I soon hope to lose the weight and am growing my hair out again, so we'll just pretend I still look like that. Elias is obviously missing from this photograph, as well. We're planning on getting another family picture soon, but we'll see how that goes. I was going to schedule the appointment last week, and then Dalan got a black eye while he was playing on the playground. It seems like something like that happens everytime I'm going to schedule our session. This picture may be on here for a year, the way things go around here. Anyway, now you know what we look like.

House in Idaho Falls

Here's our house in Idaho Falls. All the walls were white when we moved in and I couldn't stand it, so I had a marathon painting tour. Dale thought I was nuts, but now that everything's painted, he admits that it looks/feels much better. I'm going to eventually paint every room, but I still have the basement stairway, family room, office, laundry room, and master bathroom left.

Here's the living room. Dale and his friend Kelly painted the vaulted part. I was very glad to have their help. Eventually, a shelf will go around the whole room where the two different colors meet. Until then, it will look a little weird, but we've got to save up some money before that project.

Here's our bedroom. The walls were the color of pistachio pudding, or mint chocolate chip ice cream, (you can still see it around the top, where we haven't finished touch-up painting) both of which I find disgusting. I felt like puking every time I walked in the room, so it was the first to be painted. Now the walls are a light olive green. Ahhhh! Much better!

(Dining room) The yellow is a little darker than I was planning, but oh well.

(Kitchen) I've been wanting to paint a room red for a while, but never had the guts to do it. I was daring and decided to paint the kitchen and breakfast nook red in this house and I love it!

(Kydee's room) I think this paint job turned out so cute! Kydee loves it; I would have loved it when I was a little girl, too.

Dalan's room is light blue with Superman stickers all over. In our Cedar house, he wanted Spiderman decorations, so I painted a city skyline on the wall and put Spiderman stickers up that looked like Spiderman was swinging from the buildings. This time he decided he wanted Superman.

Elora wanted a pink room, so 'what the princess wants, the princess gets.'

Here's the TV part of our family room.

Here's the play area of the family room. Yes, I know...our kids are spoiled.

So, now that you've seen our house, feel free to really come see it. We would love to have any of our friends and family come visit.

Cedar City house that we built

Here's some pictures of our beautiful little house in Cedar City. We miss living close to so many relatives--we had no idea how much we'd miss everyone until we moved away.

This vanity was an old buffet that we found at a thrift store. The top was ruined, but that didn't matter, since we were going to use it for a vanity. We just cut out the drawers, nailed the fronts shut, and put plumbing up through the back. After I came up with this idea, I actually saw it on a home improvement show. Aren't I so creative?!

Here's the master bath. It's a double showerhead with real marble tile that my aunt Melanie and I hung.

Here's our living room. I did all the wood flooring myself. It was a lot of work, but worth it; I think it looks so pretty!

My kitchen was huge in this house. I loved it.

It's been really hard to go from designing and building a house to having to pick one on the market. I liked being able to customize everything. I redid the plans for the entire interior of our Cedar City house.

Bear World--where all your dreams come true

This spring, Ariane and Matt came to visit and we went to Yellowstone Bear World in Rigby. Here's some pics; it was fun!
They have bears there from Yellowstone that have become too used to humans. We got to see lots of full-grown bears and some cute little cubs. We didn't get there early enough to feed the cubs, but the kids loved petting the deer. As we were driving into the park, Kydee said, "Bear World. Bear World. Where all your dreams come true!" It was funny.

New Baby

Here's Kydee, Elora, and Dalan with their new baby brother. Elias Martineau Barbee was born October 2, 2007 (his father's birthday) at 12:08 p.m.and weighed 10 lbs. 2 oz. We're so excited to have him in our family.

Hey everyone! I created this blog about two years ago and never did anything with it until now. Anyway, we just bought a new house. Email me to get our address and phone if you need it. We'll be moving between Aug. 14 and 23. I will post some pics as soon as I get some. See ya!