And a Merry Christmas to you....

After seeing my sister Sierra's blog post today, Abe and I realized that we forgot to take Adeline to see Santa in the midst of getting ready for our trip to Utah. So tonight we ventured out to the mall so she could see Santa. Let's just say it was a VERY similar experience to my sister's. Every time Adeline looked at Santa, she would start to whine a little bit. As soon as Abe tried to pass her off to Santa, she started freaking out and wouldn't let go of Abe's neck. Abe held her for another second, and then put her on Santa's lap. Santa gave her a little stuffed dog and she pushed it away. Now she is quite fond of it though :) When we went to the desk to get our pictures they said "best picture of the night!" Pretty funny. I feel like a mean mom!

Want a good deal on Shade Clothes?

So, as some of you know, I have been a "personal shopper" for Shade Clothing the past couple of years. They just announced that they are not longer going to have the Shade Clothing Personal Shopper program. So sorry to those of you who have been getting a discount! Well, that leaves me with a bunch of samples I bought awhile back. It's funny because I have honestly never even used these samples for showcases or anything. They are brand new and now I am stuck with them. Before I email all my clients, I figured I would do a blog post in case anybody wanted anything! To make it easy, I am just selling each item for $5. If you want to buy something, email me at nicolesbarker@gmail.com and we can discuss it further. If you live by me, I can just get it to you, if you are in Utah I can give it to you over Christmas, OR I can always mail it to you the cheapest way possible. (if you can't read what it says on the shirt, click on the picture and it will enlarge :)

IKEA & some funny videos

The other day my friend and I decided to venture out to the Gap Clearance Center, which is in Kentucky, and also IKEA. Are we crazy....? Yes we are, but the girls actually did way better than I thought they would. We ate lunch at IKEA and sat in the little kid area so they could enjoy the tables and chairs. And then of course they loved playing in the kid showroom.



Last night, we were hanging out in the basement and Adeline was being so funny. We did some pushups to see if she would copy us, and of course she did. You can also check out her jumping and gymnastics skills :)

Gross....but pretty funny

I think adeline thinks she is a dog like Chloe now. We caught her doing this....

I think that Adeline is growing or something. She is eating so much and sleeping all the time. I had to wake her up from her night sleep at 10:45am because I had to go somewhere. That is insane! Her naps have been at least three hours too. Good for me because these last two weeks I have been slammed with my card business.

Abe's last day of finals are tomorrow! Then he pretty much doesn't have to do anything until January. Woo-hoo!! We can't wait to come home to Utah for Christmas!!

Thanksgiving and more

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. Things have been a little bit crazy around here. We finally finished our basement last Wednesday and got the carpet in. We have to do a little touch up on the baseboards and still have to put the closet doors together, but other than that it is done! We threw all of Adeline's toys down there, so for now she has a very big playroom. I will post pictures once we are 100% completed and have it a little more organized down there. We will eventually be putting a couch and stuff down there to also make it a hangout area.

Here is Adeline going down to the basement to play

Two weeks ago I watched my friend Shelby's little boy Sol for a handful of days. I got a little taste of what it would be like to have twins. They are only 10 days apart. I brought them to the mall a couple of times to a little kid play area they have there to keep my sanity. A lot of people commented on my twins. One of the days, my friend Alexis needed me to watch her daughter Catherine last minute. So I had 3 one year olds and some how I got them all to take naps at the same time.

Thanksgiving was really fun. Thanksgiving is probably one of my top rated holidays. I love being with family and friends, eating a yummy meal and reflecting on all the things I am thankful for. I am Thankful for many things and feel so blessed. We had some of our friends over and we ate dinner and hung out. They all made really good food and were so nice to help me clean up after!

My extent of Thanksgiving decorations




Thanksgiving weekend we went and picked out our tree. I was so bummed that I forgot my camera. Maybe we are just cheap, but all the trees were so expensive. If we wanted a nicer one, it would have been over $100. Finally we found a charlie brown tree that was the cheapest one I had seen, and so we bought it. I actually thought it was really cute, however Abe would probably say differently. It was fun coming home, putting up the tree and decorating it. Adeline loves it and every day she walks up to it and says "tee". She also loves shaking the tree and ripping the ornaments off, but that is another story.


Adeline has just been as cute as ever. She says new words everyday and is a little jabber mouth. Most of the time it is just a lot of mumbo jumbo, but then she adds in some real words too. I need to be better at asking her to say things, because 75% of the time, she repeats what I say. I bought her a little chair to eat in. My mom has the same one and Adeline loves it. I swear that she eats better sitting in it too. Since Adeline has been such a HORRIBLE eater the past couple weeks, I decided to buy it. And let me tell you, she is a much better eater because of it.

Adeline doing her funny face in her chair

Adeline and Tag

Once again, nothing too exciting for us. Abe didn't have to go to school today since it was Veteran's Day, so that was nice to have the day together. It's freezing cold here now, and I'm sure in the next week we will probably have snow! That will be a change for us after living in Cali for three years. One GREAT thing about here is that gas is only $1.89/gal right now. It's so nice!!

Adeline has been as cute as ever lately. She seems older to me every day. She is learning a new word every day, which is kind of fun. As I was taking a video of her in the bath tonight (you can see below), I asked her to say cheese and she said "cheese". I didn't even know she could say it. In the past several days her favorite word is "NO!" Unfortunately she says it all the time. To Chloe, to me & to Abe. I told Chloe to get off the couch tonight, pointed at her and sad no. Afterwards Adeline turned to Chloe, pointed her finger at her and said "NO!" What a little mimic. Here are some cute pictures of her:



Here are a couple cute videos in the last couple of days.....
Adeline in the bathtub

Adeline feeding Chloe dog food

Adeline trying to put her diaper on her doll


Karen tagged me forever ago, and it has taken me awhile to do it. Sorry Karen. The tag was 8 things….but I changed it to 5 things, because 5 will already be hard enough.

5 Favorite TV Shows:
Lost
Intervention
Extreme Makeover
Anything on HGTV
The Office

5 Things I Did Yesterday:
Went to the store
Played with Adeline
Designed baby announcements
Made Calzones for dinner
Had our friends over for our new ritual: Dinner & game night!

5 Things I Look Forward To:
Christmas
Going home for the holidays and seeing family
Our granite counter tops
Getting Adeline up in the morning
Getting our basement finished

5 Favorite Restaurants:
Panera Bread
PF Chang
Olive Garden
Cheesecake Factory
Claim Jumper

5 Things On My Wish List:
Decorations for our house—it’s still very plain
New clothes
New shoes
King size bed would be nice
????

Cats and Dogs

Nothing has been too exciting with us the past week. Abe is just working hard at school everyday and Adeline and I are finding things to fill our days. Adeline's new thing is grabbing our finger and saying "go"! Then she directs us to where she wants to go. 99% of the time, that is to the door to go outside. That girl would live outside if she could. Since we have had 60-70 degree weather, we have spent a lot of time outside. The weather is starting to turn though :(

Everyday Adeline takes me to our neighbors house to see their cat and bird. Luckily our neighbors are wonderful and love the company. I can't believe how much Adeline loves cats. She is so gentle with them and would love one of her own.... but the problem is that we don't like cats as much as her!

Of course Adeline loves Chloe....they are best friends

Beggar's Night & Halloween

Last night we celebrated Beggar's Night, which is the same thing as Trick-or Treating. I have always known to trick or treat on Halloween, so this was new for us. I guess that every year it is a different day and sometimes it falls on Halloween. Why? Not sure. So last night we took Adeline Trick or Treating. I wasn't sure if she was going to like it, because she seems to get shy around people she doesn't know. I was wrong though. She loved it! She even helped to tap on the doors and gladly held out her pumpkin for them to put candy in.... and she KNEW she was getting candy. Afterwards, she would even say "tank tu" to them. Our neighbors that love Adeline so much even got her a little special treat bag filled with treats. I was very pleased with how the night went. Our neighborhood was packed full of little kids walking around and a lot of the neighbors were camped right outside of their doors passing out candy. Here are a couple pictures of last night.




When we got home from Trick or Treating, Adeline went through her huge stash of candy and picked out all the suckers and was trying to eat all of them. I ended up giving her one and she ate it in about 2 minutes. She practically begged me for another one, so I gave in for a second sucker. Halloween is only once a year, right? By the way, I have almost finished off her stash of candy :)


This morning for Halloween, Adeline and I went to the mall and met Alexis and Laura (& their kids) to go to a little Halloween party. It was pretty lame, so we just ended up letting the kids play in the play area in the mall and then went to the pet store. Tonight, Abe, Adeline and I went to a Halloween party at our neighbors house. We got invited late last night, so did not have costumes. I just ended up being a cat and made pretty lame cat ears and Abe wrapped himself up in cling wrap and was "dressed" up as leftovers. He won't let me post a picture, so you can just use your imagination. Let's just say that both our costumes were pretty lame! Here is a picture of Adeline and I tonight-- two cats.

Baby Emerson

I was able to fly out to California for a pretty last minute trip to spend time with my family and see Sierra's new baby! Sierra was due the day after I got there, but day after day went by and I thought I was going to miss it! Finally 5 days late, baby Emerson Thomas Campbell arrived! He is so darling and I am so happy I was able to be there.
Here are some pictures of baby Emerson:



Adeline and Jojo were running around the hospital room with these blown up gloves and were loving it. It was pretty funny. Here is Grandpa Smart with his 3 little grand-babies.

It was SO fun seeing Adeline and Johanna play and interact together. They held hands in the car, played together, fought over toys, Jojo taught Adeline how to jump, etc.... it was the best. I think Adeline may be missing her.

Cute little Jojo

Adeline




My friend Tara was in the area and stopped by so we could see each other. Adeline and Mikey played so well together. It was so much fun seeing them, especially since the last time was when Adeline was born!


And.... a video of the little girlies. Adeline's dance moves got pretty good while we were in Cali :)

There are so many friends that I would have loved to see in Cali, but there was just not very much time, as I was with my family the whole time. So, sorry to those of you that I did not contact when I was there!

Adeline had a weight check today... she weighed in at a whooping 17 lbs 13 ounces, which is in the 1st percentile. Her height was just above 30 inches, which is the 67th percentile. So she is just really skinny!!

What a good week

This week has been a pretty good week. I can't complain. Exactly one week ago, we went to the Dayton Farmers Market, which was a lot of fun. They gave Adeline a free pumpkin and a clown made her a little doggy balloon that she loved. The best part about it though was that there was live music and yummy food. Adeline LOVED dancing to the music. Heres a funny video of Adeline spitting hot chocolate everywhere and dancing--


Another great part about this week is that we finally have contact with a guy that is supposed to instal granite in our kitchen and practically had fallen off the face of the earth with our money. Yea-- he was trying to scam us....that is until I went to the police department and the cop called this guy and did a little threatening. It is starting to look like it is going to turn out now. We will let you know what happens :)

On Thursday I watched my friends baby Sol and he is only 10 days younger than Adeline. It was fun seeing what it would be like to have twins! Here are a couple pictures from them at the park.


Last night we went to the Beavercreek High School football game. Do we know anyone that plays?? No. Abe just loved his football. It was a fun night though and Adeline actually did pretty well and enjoyed it. Here are Abe and Adeline walking back to the car.

Another thing that was great about this week is that gas is only $2.50....that means a $1.50 drop in the last couple weeks. We were so excited to see that it only took $35 to fill up my car today

Last but not least, Adeline was in the Church news today! She is so adorable. If you would like to see it, go here