Happy Valentine's Day

I absolutely love Valentine's Day! I don't know what it is, but it has always been one of my favorite holidays. Of course, I had all sorts of grandiose plans about what I was going to do for Valentine's Day. I did make my traditional sugar cookies--which ended up in the freezer so that I could take them visiting teaching on a week when I wasn't so insanely busy. I did help with both girls' school parties. In fact, I ended up being more involved than I probably would have liked, but it was a lot of fun and both parties, I thought, were a success. I did make two of the three headbands for the girls' that I planned on making. I did chocolate dip cinnamon bears to give to the girls' teachers and make treat sacks for my primary class. And I did make a HUGE Valentine's Breakfast for my wonderful family after which I was totally wiped out from my very busy and very eventful week! It was all good, though. Ben and I went out with my parents to their stake's Valentine's Dance on Friday night and it snowed all day Saturday plus our plans to go to the temple were cancelled due to the fact that we found out it was closed for cleaning. So we took it easy all day on Saturday, brought Cafe Rio home and watched a movie with the fam (which I totally slept through). That sounds totally unromantic, but it was actually really nice. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Ben has the cutest tradition of giving each of the girls their very own flower for Valentine's Day. They love it!

Here's Emma and Eliza wearing their new headbands. (Yes, Eliza did put that dress on first thing in the morning and please don't mind Emma's horribly sad chapped lips. She had a really bad cold all week and they actually looked even worse than they do in this picture.)Here we are eating our Valentine's breakfast feast! (Seriously, I made enough food to feed an army. What can a say, I'm a pregnant woman with a very healthy appetite!)

Emma's Piano Recital

I have been such a slacker lately with my blog, but I am forcing myself to do this post of Emma's piano recital last Thursday. In my defense, besides having to deal with the everyday nausea and fatigue of pregnancy, I have had a stomach flu, cold, sinus infection and now another cold in the past month basically turning me into a useless lump who sits around on the couch all day. (Yes, that was a shameless plug for some sympathy, although it might be my husband who deserves the sympathy!)

Emma has been taking piano lessons from her grandma for a year now and I think she's doing very well. She doesn't always love practicing, but she doesn't want to quit yet so, hopefully, she'll keep it up!

Here she is with my mom after the recital.

New name and a new addition!

So now you all know we are expecting baby number five! We are very excited although I think we could have planned a little bit better than another August due date (August 10th, Emma's birthday, to be precise). I am pretty much counting on a July baby, but that is ions away so I really shouldn't be thinking that far ahead! I was also trying to think of a real name for my blog over the Christmas holiday. I was brainstorming with my family and mentioned that I want to play on the "Barfus" name. In case you don't know, barfuss translates to "barefoot" in German and when my sister suggested the name Barefoot and Pregnant it seemed very appropriate! Anyway, we'll see if it sticks!

Happy New Year!

My sister's birthday is on New Years Day. She hates it. This year, though, I think it turned out to be a pretty good day. It was our last chance to hang out with Todd and Heather before they headed back to Washington so we had a birthday lunch in Jenny's honor. I was in charge of the menu (tortilla soup) and my mom made triffle. Yum! It was a great way to welcome in the new year!

Later, we attended a girls only (as if we could convince the boys to come!) viewing of Twilight. Happy birthday Jen!

Riding the train to Temple Square

So I lost my camera in the black hole that is the van and so I didn't get around to posting these until today. (I honestly don't usually let it get that bad, but it's just so darn cold outside!) Anyway, we rode the light rail down to SLC last week with Nathan and Eve, my parents, Matt, Mic and Todd and Brienna to see the lights on temple square. I don't know if I would have taken the train with kids under any other circumstances, but they had a blast being with their cousins and that was half the fun.

Merry Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling that great, but I think the kids had a good time and we did listen to my dad read the Christmas story. I keep thinking that we will have the kids act out the Christmas story one of these days, but it just doesn't seem to work with three girls and one baby boy who can't sit still for a minute. We need more boy cousins!Here's the girls in their new pajamas on Christmas Eve. This is not one of our normal Christmas traditions, but I started them last winter and thought now would be the perfect time to actually finish them. It did make for lots of cute pictures so maybe we should start doing it every year.
Christmas morning finally arrived. I had been struck by the dreaded stomach flu a couple of days before Christmas, but woke up on Christmas morning feeling miraculously healed. So I was able to enjoy the excitement of my sweet children as they woke up anxious to see what Santa had left for them. Of course, Emma and Eliza were up quite early, but we had told them that they were not allowed to wake us until 7:00. Actually, they had to wait until 7:30 when my parents, grandmother, brother and sister arrived. They came to our house because I think my dad's missing the old days when he had lots of little kids around to make Christmas morning exciting. It was fun. We watched the kids open all their presents and then had a big breakfast.

Here's what Santa brought:

This is what Ben gave me for Christmas. I even actually used it this morning while I worked out. My sister is so proud that I'm actually becoming so technologically savy (okay, that might be pushing it). I can't say I gave him anything exciting. Most of the gifts I had for him had been puppy related and had to be taken back.Later, we went over to my parent's house to play on their new Wii. Here's the fam bowling:

A fun evening with two of my best friends

It was so nice. I got to go to a Christmas concert given by the Utah Chamber Artists which my good friend, Rachel Marshall, is a member of. I was tempted to take a little video of part of the concert so that all of you could appreciate how beautiful the music was, but it probably wouldn't have turned out that great on my tiny camera. The music was very beautiful and I felt the Spirit of the season as I listened to the wonderful Christmas music. One of my other best friends, my sister Jenny, met me in Salt Lake for the concert. It was so much fun to visit afterwards. Rachel is the kind of friend who, regardless of how long it's been since we've seen each other, it's like we've never been apart and we always laugh like we're giddy teenagers again.

I think this is actually the first picture of myself that I've posted on my blog and it's not even a very good one. Oh well, the other two look cute!