She's 5!!

My little Maddie turned 5 on December 19. She had kind of a relaxing birthday. We celebrated her Birthday with the Barker side on Tuesday December 16th with Grandpa Barker's and my birthday. On Friday my parents and family were going to come and we were going to go and see the light for her birthday, but the weather was so bad they didn't make it. So with me on bed rest, she had to wait for Ben to get home to open presents and do anything fun for her birthday. We went up to Grandma & Grandpa Barker's house and had pizza and cake with Jason and Mindi's kids and Nick and Mariah. Although it was a relaxing day I think she had a good time. She got a Cool School, the Dora chair, a My Little Pony Party Bus, some cloths, a purse with her inital on it, a 4 ft barbie that she can color, and Tinkerbell P.J.'s.

Happy Birthday Maddie!!

Christmas Dance Recital

Maddie had her Christmas dance recital on December 13. She did a dance to "Hard Knock Life". She did a really good.

More Family Pictures

As most of you know we got our family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago Here are some more pictures that Jeana took that where not originally put on the blog.

What a week!!!

So since last Tuesday when I got the phone call from my dad about my Grandpa, our lives have been a whirlwind. Tuesday I went to see my Grandpa at the hospital, Wednesday I learned that he had passed away, Thursday was Thanksgiving and I came home for my in-laws house and was sick for the rest of the night and into most of Friday. Saturday we packed up our stuff and headed to Malad for my Grandpa's funeral. Sunday was the viewing, and Monday was the Funeral. We got home Monday night and I crashed into bed and thought to myself how glad I was that it was all over and that life was going to get back to normal. I was wishful thinking I guess. Tuesday morning when I woke up our house was freezing. I thought Ben had just turned the heat down while we were gone. I went to turn the thermastate up and the heat would not come on. When Ben got home that night he played around with it for a while, but could not get it to work. We finally called someone to come and fix it but they couldn't come until Thursday. So for two days we lived with a portable heater heating our house. Wednesday I always meet Ben for lunch, well I gave him a call to see where we were meeting and he informed me that his car had been broken into at work in the middle of the day and that they had stolen his Video IPod. Ben had some of our kids Christmas presents in his back seat and they didn't take them, he also had taken his laptop to work that morning, but happened to remember it was in the car and had taken it out before it got broken into. I am glad that all we lost was the IPod and that no one got hurt but it sure made me mad.
Thursday I went to my monthly doctors appointment and found out that I was dilated to a 1 1/2 now at almost 29 weeks along so I am now back on bed rest until I hit 36 weeks. 7 weeks!!!! However, thats better then last time. I got put down at 24 weeks and had to stay down until 36 weeks. This time is a little more difficult with two kids, but we are working through it. I guess I will have a lot of time to work on scrapbooks and read so if anyone know of any really good books let me know. I have a lot of time on my hands.
I would say that I am glad this week is almost over, but I am not sure next week is going to get any better so I think I will just keep it to myself.

Grandpa Parry

This Thanksgiving was another one of those Thanksgivings that you think of all the things you are thankful for and the next day you get bad news. Last year I lost my Grandpa Willie on November 12, which was very hard but was a blessing for him. This is was another one of those years.
Tuesday I got a call from my Dad telling me that my Grandpa Parry was not doing well and if I wanted to see him I needed to get to Malad as soon as possible. So I dropped my kids off with Ben and he took them to my wonderful mother-in-law's house. I stopped in Brigham and picked up my sister Melissa and headed to Malad to see Grandpa. It was good to see him, but also so hard to see him in that state. He held our hand and was trying really hard to talk to us, but we just could not understand him. I came home that night and the next day learned that my Grandpa had passed away, the day before Thanksgiving. We had his funeral today and it was a wonderful funeral. It was so nice to hear stories about my Grandpa and to be able to pay tribute to him. My kids don't completely understand what is going on, but they are really cute about it. Ben made a DVD of pictures of my Grandpa. While we were watching the DVD Colton ran up to the TV and yelled "Grandpa Parry", Maddie turned to him and said, "That Grandpa is with Jesus now." Tears came to my eyes has I thought how cute she was and I was also having a proud moment for a minute.

We love you Grandpa and will miss you dearly.

Family Pictures

The day before Thanksgiving we went and got our family pictures taken. Jeana Bird, one of our good friends took the pictures. She has posted these pictures on her blog, http://www.jeanabirdphotographyblog.com/, but I thought I would post them here as well. She did a great job with the pictures. It has been a while since we have gotten pictures taken so we figured it was time to take them again. All the pictures were taken at Wheeler Farm.

Halloween Continued...

As many of you can see the Barker's really like Halloween. On Halloween night we went to Malad to visit my family. They have a Trunk or Treat as a community so its pretty sweet because we get all the trick or treating done in a short period of time. Below are some pictures of Maddie and Colton with their cousins.

Brooklyn Green, Kassidy, Kristle, Maddie, Colton, Kole, Timmy, and Natalie

On the way up to Malad we had to pick up a TV from Eric for my parents. I guess twins think alike because Ben and Eric dressed up the same. Below is a picture of both of them.

Below is a picture of Ben all dressed up. He never quite fit into the small town of Malad so he decided it was time to start fitting in.