5 Years Old!!!

this is what 5 looks like...5 trying on a costume he wore when he was 2.

bryson wallace barnes...our firstborn - how are you 5 today?

right now you are into paper airplanes and golf and your scooter and bike and you LOVE learning about how things work - your teachers go on and on about how fun you are to have in class because you get so enthusiastic to learn. you just wrote your name for the first time!

you just started getting really into trying new foods - you will usually take (at least one) bite of anything. your favorite breakfast is yogurt and granola - your favorite lunch is PB&J and your favorite dinner is fish or pizza.

you love playing with guns or swords (you said to dad - "i love weapons, dad. i love all weapons" you love dressing up - your imagination is endless, you love your school.

you are such a good big brother (most of the time) - you LOVE little bobby and try to hold him all the time - you are sweet with Bodie and help him figure things out. you are so much fun to have around - you make any day so colorful - you always have something to say about ANYTHING and it is always fun to hear what comes out of your mouth. today you said, "oh my golly gee" - not sure where that came from...

i love you bryson! 5 is going to be good for you...i bet this is the year you learn to tie your shoes...and start kindergarten...and learn how to read...but dont grow too fast, okay?

cleaning out the garage...barnes style...

this weekend was crazy productive for us. we didnt leave the house at all and planned to conquer a big project - the GARAGE.

since we moved we upgraded from boxes to plastic bins...they are bryan's nemesis. he created a space in the garage to be his work-out room. problem is that our garage also stores all my hobbies too....the beer kits and fabrics (oh my how did i get that much fabric?) and zoodies inventory.




we should have taken a before shot, but i believe we must have had at least 20 bins. i think we got rid of most of them.

 there were 3 bins of costume/dress up stuff - that we have accumulated through years of dress-up parties and halloweens. so, of course, we had to play in that for a good while...even bodie wanted in on the act...













when i met bryan he seldom drifted from elastic banded bottoms and t-shirts. he used to wear this outfit for reals....the shorts were in better shape then...i dont exactly know whey they are ripped to shreds...

i have tried to get rid of this outfit no less than 5 times throughout our marriage and each time he somehow finds out and stops the mutiny. sometimes when we are fighting he would put it on and walk around the house...it would of course cause me to laugh...i let him keep it only as a "working" shirt, which is why there is paint on it and chlorine ate through it. very sentimental this guy is...

then there is me...i wanted to throw away my letterman's jacket and he threw a fit...."you dont throw away your letterman jacket"  - i think i was saving it in case i had a little girl and she might want it someday...its a girly letterman jacket...

i also wanted to throw away some photo albums - but i guess throwing away pictures is verboten...which i think is silly...i dont need a million pictures of the same thing...

so, then this whole debate started about how i have so much STUFF (like my fabric stash for example) and why do i care about keeping a jacket...which is so so so different to me because i USE the fabric - it will serve a purpose/function...i will most likely never use the jacket or the photo albums...

i think every marriage has a hoarder and a throw-awayer...i somehow am both, but tend not to collect STUFF just to keep and not do anything with.

but i am AMAZED that we did this together and did not fight and worked together well and yay for us (patting myself on the back) because that is NOT typical of us doing something like this...because our processes are so so different.

now our garage is ready for p90x...90 days of a lot of exercise...90 days of busting booty...anyone want to join our gym? its free? we are going to try to recruit others so that we are highly highly motivated to follow through with it...

The After Shot

Fabric Bookcase

Zoodie Bookcase

Workout Station

Snuggly Saturdays

each of my children have been very different in regards to sleeping with us.

i think with bryson i was planning on him sleeping in the pack n play for the first 3 months and then moving him to the crib in another room. when i got him home from the hospital, though, i couldn't sleep unless he was on my chest. i needed to hear/feel him breathe.

i think he slept with us for 3 months...but it became clear that he slept much better away from me. i would wake him up and he did not take kindly to that (he gets that from his momma!) also he is not a snuggler....by ANY means...it is so on his terms (also from his mama...when she was a girl...although now i do love me some snuggles!).

Bodie loved sleeping with us. he slept so much better next to me. He slept in our bed for 8 months...and daddy was OVER it. he still talks about how bodie was in our bed for too long...i got him out because bryan wanted him to, but i would probably still be sleeping with bodie...well...maybe not with bobby!

bobby...seems to be more like bryson than bodie...he seems to enjoy being held, but sleeps better in his swing or bassinet.

but what is so fun is saturday mornings (who are we kidding...MOST mornings really!) when all the boys are in the bed....it usually only lasts about 20 minutes before someone gets hurt or the bigger boys start wrestling, but i am glad bryan snapped this shot...because we were truly laying like that and it was such a sweet morning. i love that my boys want to do this and come to our bed before trying to watch TV or something...i know this will change - i know we will only be cool for a short period...but i am cherishing these snuggly times!

nature walkin...

last week thursday was my only day the whole week where i wasn't in the office. i find myself in here more and more and let me just tell you how over it i am...i am over it! we have had all sorts of taxes stuff to do (we had filed an extension) and bank reconciling and billing and i am hopefully climbing over the mountain of to-dos and can get back to a normal (whatever that means) routine.

anyway - i was trying to get to all the stuff i neglected all week around the house. like picking up the house and the laundry and that sorts of stuff and the boys were fighting and everyone reached epic levels of craziness and i announced...thats it! we are leaving...NOW! and we did...and it was even quiet in the car...which was amazing.

i went to the nature walk because i needed to be outside...i feel so cooped up when i have to work all week...

it was so so so nice to be somewhere and not have the boys fight over toys...or riding their bikes almost into the street and freaking me out...or yell at them for getting into something they shouldn't...or be worried about how dirty they are....i was also renewed a lot...getting fresh air in my lungs and the sunlight on my face and the simple beauty of staring at an orb weaver or the changing leaves instead of a computer screen and my bank register (cause that is just all kinds of depressing)

it was good times for sure...and a funny/ironic thing happened to me while we were there.

bryson and bodie were next to this little stream (like this one below) and i was ahead of them about 10 yards calling for bryson. this old man and woman were walking past and the old man (gruffly) told my boys "be careful of the water!" and "mind your mother, she is calling you"...now this pissed me off for several reasons...1) when someone tells my kids to be careful, i feel like they are really telling me and don't...and i wish they would rather tell me than try to parent my kids themselves and 2) so what if my kids did fall in? its not like a dangerous rushing river...its a freaking stream....they would get muddy...thats it...and then they would learn a valuable lesson on being careful at a river's bed...much easier than me screaming at them every time they are near it...


i was thinking these thoughts as i was waiting for the boys to move along and then, not even twenty minutes later after our little picnic by another stream, while i was nursing bobby, bodie fell in...can you tell by the picture above that he was covered with mud?

i was laughing to myself/at myself. here is that valuable lesson you wanted him to learn, carlee! good thing i keep a change of clothes for bodie with me at (almost) all times!

but you know what? after i changed him he went right back to that stream...and he was a little more cautious...he stayed back a couple feet more than before, so maybe he did learn something?

and here is sweet bobby...he is the calm in the storm...just so content and sweet and oh so quiet compared to these brothers of his!! we are enjoying his little company oh so much!

we are done...

so...we are "officially" done making babies...bryan had a procedure done to ensure that.

i think i have felt every range of emotion possible in the last 2 months regarding this.

i want to be very raw and open regarding this...because, maybe it will help someone else struggling.

i find that when we are raw with others, we get rawness back and it leads to growth.

so...let me just be very real and say that i expected a boy...but what i didn't expect was a sort of grieving over the fact that i will never have a girl. and also let me be clear that i never felt ill toward bobby over being a boy. i was honestly so happy that he was a boy and we would have a band of brothers...but making the decision that 3 was our limit...i felt a very strong sense of loss that we would never experience a girl.

and its not just because i make girls' clothes.

its little things that pop up out of nowhere....like realizing that i will never have a st. lucia to decorate on st. lucia day...or that i won't have a little girl who will care very much about copying my chocolate cookie recipe....or that i won't have another girl to commiserate with about periods, or boys, or shopping or cooking or wanting to dance...but i realized in the past month that i am also putting my boys in a very "boy" box.

i have been taking dance class on tuesdays for the past 3 weeks. bryson sees my tap shoes and expresses his desire to start tapping...why not? i guess, because bodie and bryson are very much into "boy" things i have excluded them from the things that i, as a girl, are into as well....and that - i realize - is a disservice to them.

i have also realized in these last 2 months that i am very blessed in being surrounded by little girls in my own life...namely my god-daughter Charlotte...i have a god-daughter...that i am charged with in seeing to her spiritual growth, as well as her personal growth...and i couldn't love that little girl more if i tried. i also have 4 nieces...who are amazing and love the hand-made love i show. one of my nieces (Hope) i am convinced, is my child...i taught her to crochet and she is so interested in learning the domestic arts and i couldn't be more ecstatic that she has that desire to learn that at her almost 13 years of age.

so God has blessed me in more ways than i even know now.

yes...i have boys...and God must have known what he was doing to give me all boys. He must have known that i have something special that i can keep up with them and temper them and be the main woman in their lives.

does my heart long for a little girl still? probably yes....but i find that longing fulfilled in the little girls that i am surrounded with for now. i can honestly say that i am more than content with my band of boys. i look forward to our camping trips and sports games and everything they have to throw at me. i know that my charge as a mom is to be the best mama to boys i can be.

i guess i am telling you all - not to worrry - i am so happy with my boys. i think some people feel bad for me...but please don't. i am so blessed. so blessed.

The Pumpkin Patch

 bryan's parents came down this weekend. can i tell you what amazing house guests these guys are? they clean, they cook, they wake up with my children...everyone was so sad to see them go, but we enjoyed the time we had with them and always appreciate the looong drive from san jose that they do so often.

so....getting out is not the easiest - even with 4 adults trying to make it happen...or maybe the 4 adults make it more difficult? i dont know...but it took us forever to get going and going anywhere with all 3 is a challenge too...or maybe its just that bodie is a challenge right now. he likes to run off....and did i mention he is fast? and did i also mention he gets into EVERYTHING? i call him our little goat...because he is exactly like our goats growing up...leaving a wake of destruction so that their whole day's path could be traced.

i took all 3 boys here by myself a couple weeks ago and it wasn't easy...but somehow it was fun. i just had to time things really well - like nursing bobby while bodie was in the bounce house...or sitting down for lunch...or strapped in his car seat...did i also mention that bobby likes to nurse every hour? so that adds to the difficulty of not being able to chase down a boy that very much likes to be chased.

i am getting way off point here...this is a post about our fun times with the barnes at the pumpkin patch...not a post about how difficult 3 boys are...although i believe that theme will be prevalent in just about every post :)
so the pumpkin patch...we did a lot...petting zoo...bounce house, car ride, boat bumper thingy, games...which bryson won another 2 goldfish that hopefully i won't kill as fast as last time. he is freakishly good at those carnival games...its wierd...i can't ever win them....or perhaps it is more likely that i never try because i can't stand stuffed animals...hmmm...yes...lets go with that last one.





its fun to see bryson and bodie together like this. it lights up my heart when there is something exciting and bryson's first reaction is to tell bodie....like "Bodie LOOK! you want to ride the fire engine?" "Da"...did i also mention that bodie is apparently russian?

 we did end up buying some pumpkins...or i should say Bryan did...i am the cheap-o that goes to the pumpkin patch and takes pictures than heads over to ralphs and buys a pumpkin there...but bryan was into this "i always wanted to buy the biggest pumpkin" so $24 later...on a pumpkin...ridiculous...but now he has done something he always wanted to do, so there is that accomplished. can you taste the sarcasm?

the day was lovely - and i was so thankful to have some extra hands...some extra very special loving hands. bryson cried when they left after church on sunday...and i almost did too...and i think they were maybe a little grateful for the silent car ride after a weekend of a LOT of noise...maybe not - they are pretty used to a LOT of noise...so for that i am grateful!

the bros

and then there were three...
we have had quite the week. doctor visits...for all 3 boys...a surgery (outpatient) for the husband and the ER yesterday for Bodie...long story...involves his boyish parts...and still an undetermined prognosis - we think a skin irritation...4 hours and however many hundreds of dollars later...ughh....lets just say mama is hoping next week is a bit better...

while bodie was at the hospital (my sister took him since i was alone with the kids and couldn't imagine having all 3 at an ER with a cranky Bodie) bryson told me how he was so glad Bodie was gone because now he won't get into all his stuff...i know that kids are self-absorbed...but it did sorta shock me how little to none he cared that his brother was at the HOSPITAL...i realized that it is hard to teach compassion and empathy/sympathy and self-lessness. i know  kids learn from example, but at what age do they start getting it that the world doesnt revolve around them?

enter this book...i have heard a couple different MOPs speakers speak on this book i dont know if it pertains a lot to the toddler/pre-school set, but it has come highly recommended.

well...whatever...i'll try whatever i can at this point - because in bryson's world right now he is the sun...and the moon...and the stars...and the planets...and...and...and...