Why does she look so grown up these days?!

Time is just going at a ridiculous speed now. Seriously, some days it feels like she's years older than she is, until she sneaks into my bed for snuggles, or asks me lay with her and sing to her every night. Then I remember that she really is still just my tiny little human, just 6 years old. She is so wise beyond her years though and I feel like I'm going to blink and these years will be gone, so I'm taking ALL the snuggles and singing all of the songs, because I KNOW that before I know it she won't want those things from me anymore.

It's true what they say, you really have to slow down and truly cherish the moments with all of your kids, but especially that last baby you'll ever have! 

Seriously...how cute is she in this photo taken last weekend at the beach in her new tankini?! 

Sneaking in a photo with her puppers!

I've never seen a kid love vegetables like this kid does! 

Just wear the bikini

I am 42 years old and I've finally done it and I'm damn proud of myself. I finally got comfortable enough with my body insecurities and put on a damn bikini! This was the year that I just decided to do it and I'm glad I did.

While I don't always love the image I see of myself in the mirror, I am content and proud of the body that I am living in. This body deals with a chronic illness that has good days and bad, it grew and birthed 3 tiny humans, had 5 open abdomen surgeries (appendectomy, bowel resection, 2 lower c-sections and 1 large belly button to pubic bone c-section/hysterectomy) and has been my comfort and support through many weight gains and losses. It is stronger than it's ever been and genuinely loves and craves physical activity.

The me of 5 years ago never would have felt that a daily walk was an important part of my routine, the me now rarely goes a day without a walk. I live a very busy life, so sometimes all I can manage in a day is 15-20 minutes, but other days I find or make the time to do an hour and I love it. I take what time I can for myself because I've realized how much of a positive impact it has had on my mental and physical health in the 2+ years that I've been walking regularly. When I think back to all of the years that I had small kids, I do wish that I'd had the motivation that I do now as I bet my body would be much healthier and fitter than it is now. But I don't live with the regret, I just live in gratefulness that I've adopted a much healthier lifestyle now than I had for all of those years. It took me till I was almost 40 to realize that I didn't want to wake up at 60 still sitting on my couch every day doing nothing! 

Whew...I took a lot of deep breaths as I added these photos and while I don't love them and could pick them apart if I tried, I'm not going to. I'm going to hit publish proudly and have these memories to look back on forever!

Crib Tournament Results - 2021 and 2022

I first wrote about our annual fun crib tournament in a post called 2021 Crib Tournament - how many games can we play in 365 days?

I always intended to share the results of that tournament, but clearly my total lack of 2022 blog posts would mean I never did. So, as suspected, Jim has now beat me two years in a row. The kids and I joke that it could be many years before I actually beat him, but I do believe that it WILL HAPPEN! 

So here are the stats: In 2021 we played a total of 162 games! Jim won 92 games to my 70 games. He had 13 skunks + 1 double skunk to my 8 skunks. I remember one particularly horrible day where he skunked me twice and double skunked me all in the same day. Why in the hell did I keep playing him after the first skunk/double skunk?! 

Just for fun, we also play for MONEY! We pay .05 cents per hole and .10 cents for each hole in a skunk. In 2021 Jim won $115.40 and I won $74.95 so he was the overall winner of $40.45.

In 2022 - we sadly only played a total of 95 games all year :( We went through almost 2 months and didn't play a single game. We struggled with a lot of things in 2022 and this was just one of those things that we didn't often find the time or energy to do.

2022's tournament ended up being a way closer race but in the end Jim won 49 games to my 46 games (10 skunks to my 6 skunks). His winnings totaled $66.65 to my $43.15 so he was money winner of $23.50 and again the overall game winner.

I'd love to see a year where the games won are close but the money winner is the opposite person. It could easily happen...but I will admit that 2023 is NOT feeling like my year either. I am already 0/4 of games played so it's not looking great! Still lots of games left to play and we're hoping for more time and energy this year. 

We still LOVE this crib board we bought off Wayfair in 2020. We use almost every time we play together. And in this photo you can see the trusty black book that holds our scores and our cards too!

Camping is always our main times to play crib. This past year I'd say at least 30% of all of our games played were while we were camping in the spring/summer

If you've never played this game and you love crib, you should try it out! It's called Crib Wars and it's crazy. It screws with the rules of cribs and makes you have to play really strategically and that doesn't always mean scoring the highest hands possible! We don't play it a lot but this weekend up at the Woodson's cabin on Lois Lake we did play quite a few rounds on it! 

 

Living the cabin life during my favorite weekend of the whole summer! I got a wicked sunburn but we played so many games that weekend. 

I love this last photo....our Jordie boy has learned to play crib too! He loves playing the game, while the other two have zero interest in learning. This kid is so much like his daddy!

Weekly snapshots of the Barrows family

Now that I've got a new system in place for getting photos onto this blog I am committed to doing more random photo posts with no concern to date order or captions. I take so many photos and so many never get shared. I love these posts just so in the future I will be able to look back and see my kids at every stage of their life. Just like with each of my kids, there are always more of the youngest and far less of the oldest one who tends to do his own thing more and more these days so I'm starting off this post with a photo of him and his daddy at the ball park the other night! 

She is in LOVE with her new dollhouse! Swap and shop win on this one!

FINALLY he is toothless!

Sunday afternoon playdates with Mom and Dad!

Jim and I decided on Sunday to take the afternoon and have some fun with the kids. Jim has been working a bunch of overtime lately and we felt that we haven't had much time to do fun things with them. I took Kennedy to airplane park, then Willingdon beach while Jim took the boys out to Myrtle Point to hit some balls. Then we met up at Putters for some before dinner ice cream :) 

Then we stopped at Nana and Papa's to check out the new gazebo being built on the deck!

Making memories with sunset swimming

On our recent camping trip we found that one of Kennedy's favorite things to do was head to the beach for a before bed swim...usually in her clothes instead of bothering to change into her swimsuit! This spot at Haywire was absolutely beautiful, especially with the gorgeous sun setting behind her.

Beach time dancing girl

Another day and this time Kennedy and Jordie went in in their clothes! 

And on the way back to camp we jump in the huge mud puddle in the trail! She was so happy and truly living her best life getting dirty and having fun!

This time it was swimsuits and a swim with our girls Hads and Kins!

These are the memories I am trying to soak up now that she is growing so fast. So often we find ourselves alone with her while her brothers are off doing other big kid stuff. I am sad that we don't do as much family stuff, but also grateful to have these moments with Kennedy too. Everything is so different with her, not just because she's a little girl, but also because she is our last baby and these moments will be the last of these kinds we get to share with our kids as toddlers. We are treasuring the moments while we can!!