The Twins

I find Tuesday is a good day for blogging. I just wrote a bit last night but then this morning I saw that Sasha had posted new pics of the girls and I just had to share some with you.

My nieces, Paiten and Raiden, live in Wford with my brother Bobby Joe and his wife Sasha. They are 9 months old today actually and they are so precious and of course beautiful. I think I am over the fact that they look NOTHING LIKE ME. We got to spend a lot of time with them in Wford and I loved it. Baker literally adored them. He just got down on the ground with them and showed them love. He also made them laugh. It was hilarious. It was like somehow he knew they were different than other babies. All Beau did was rip their bows off their heads.

I hope you enjoy the pics. They make my heart smile. Love you girls and miss you!

I had to throw in some of my crazy sister too. This is her on the way to the prom, and yes, she does look like me.

Food and Family

I have this mini obsession with beautiful food now. When I make something and am pleasantly surprised by its aesthetic beauty I can't help but take a picture of it. So, here is my broccoli and cheddar quiche from mealtime makeover and my first fruit salad, or well... not really a fruit salad, but you know what I mean.

And here are some pics from mother's day. My only goal was not to cook and we succeeded! Brian was great.

Birthday week!

Today is one of my best friend's birthdays. She is 28 and currently 1800 miles away, but what does that matter? We met in Tulsa and bonded over our growing bellies and growing relationships with the Lord. We walked together, ate together, laughed together, cryed together, and wondered through motherhood together. I find it invaluable that are boys are the same age and I beg the Lord that (Lord willing) we can have the same timing with little girls. Our friendship grew very quickly but very strong. She can read me almost as good as Brian can. There is no hiding from her b/c she can pick up on even the slighest upset tone in my voice, even if its just over the phone.

For her last 2 birthdays we have been together. For her 26th we went camping with our 2 and 3 month olds- bad idea. We didn't last long due to allergies and well, just the technicalities of feeding newborns. It was hot! We went back to my house and had a party, that is what the pic of us is from. Then last year we went to the Shangri La cabins and had a blast in our luxurious condo (see pic of boys)!! It was also the first day I started having contractions and Beau was born 2 days later!

Probably one of my favorite things to do with Jessica is play games, at least if my husband is there too. I take it as a great compliment to my friends when Brian can completely be himself around them. And I am sure Jessica wishes he was a little less himself! We have had so much fun playing Monopoly or Bibleopoly! It sounds so silly, but we love it.

So Happy Birthday Jess! I am so sad that we can't be together this year but I am sure you will have lots of fun at the Biltmore.

I love you and I admire you and I miss you! You seriously spur me on to love and good deeds. I don't know what better can be said of a friend.

Week 1

Well, it has been over a week now since Brian and I made this "commitment". I would say I am frustrated b/c in my mind I expected something crazy or magical to happen. Overnight we would have extremely important purpose and constantly the Lord would be telling us what to do. Not so. If anything I would say Satan just started throwing arrows at us and I would say I heard nothing specific from the Lord.
So, we are going a different route. Instead of looking and waiting for this mystical specific revelation to come, we are just going to work on the general revelation or obedience. I say all this b/c if I just keep it in my little head I have no accountability and could quit at any time.

I would say that this week we were much better at "loving the Lord your God" which is the most important commandment and that is a relief to finally prioritize time with the Lord. So, this week I will take something vague, by that I mean written for all not just Becky, and work on it.

"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. " Ephesians 4:32

I can only imagine how thankful Brian would be if I could just improve with this small bit as he and Baker would greatly be affected. So, that is all for now.

I provided some pics of the boys in our backyard, Praise the Lord for our backyard and for Ryan Gambill who gave us his awesome lawn mower to mow it. Man, I can't believe that think made it through the ND winter, but it runs so well! Anyways, the boys love it outside and especially in the mud and sand pit that we have. It is so cute to watch.
Can someone tell me how to watch video from clean slate? I want to see what happened but I can't find it on the churches website. I saw a bit on Emily's blog, thank you.

Committed

I seriously wonder what people think sometimes when they read this blog. Although it started out for Beau it has def shifted its attention towards more selfish topics.

Brian and I have been going through some majors changes. I am finishing up this Priscilla Shirer Bible study called "Discerning the Voice of God". It has been amazing and the Lord has def spoken to me. So, I am on the last week of study and she calls for a commitment of obedience to the Lord, blind obedience. As in, committing to say yes to the Lord to whatever He wants you to do BEFORE He asks, not knowing what He may ask. Up until now I would say everything might have been a debate or I might have said- of course I want the Lord's will. We def sought it out but we were never willing to give up everything for it. It was like in a moments time all things clicked together, especially about Crazy Love. It was a great book but still... I knew I was missing a piece and I think this is it.

So... Brian and I thought it out for about 4 or 5 days b/c there are a lot of unpleasant things the Lord could ask us to do you know? And I told Brian, but we will be rewarded and he said, "well maybe not in this life". And I was like- shoot! So we thought of all the things He could ask us to do like
Be the Duggars
Live in North Dakota FOREVER
Downsize to a crappier house
Becky go back to work
Move to Oman
Follow H&P around forever
Give away some of our savings or freak- all of it

Those were basically the worst things I could think of, but you get the point. To commit to blindly obey is scary but if we don't, what it says to the Lord is - I don't trust you. I am smarter than you and my ways are better.
So on Mother's Day we decided to take the plunge and we will see where it will lead. It starts with just getting up early to spend time with the Lord, so I am not a wanch all day, and actually trying to love our neighbors. We can't just say we will do it either, we actually have to seek the Lord's will and we get that by seeking Him. Day by day.



Anyways, we did it scared but there really can be no half assing it and that is something that just clicked.

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."

Luke 14:33 "Any of you who does not give up everything cannot be my disciple"

D.I.M. (did it myself)

So, today was very productive and I want to blog about it. I have provided you with pictures of our home. First you will see the kitchen with the previous tenants decor. She liked blue walls and I like blue shirts! So we nixed that and went for a sage green via a recommendation. You can see our new dining room set. It is only the 2nd brand new thing we have bought together.. as in large home purchases. Which, it was still in the as is room, can't pay full price for something like that. Anyway, a couple of wweks back we painted the brass hardware. You may have to look close in the pics and it turned out wonderful and saved us a ton of $$$. Knobs are like $4.00 a piece and we have 54!!

So, notice the brass light fixture above the table--- today I changed that while Brian was at work! The Lord has blessed me and the rest of the Bartons with a lot of common sense. My dad's dad didn't finish 8th grade but he was the chief engineer at Circus Circus in Las Vegas until 1993. I am just saying I am trying to give God glory in my life and if can receive glory from my kitchen then that is what I am shooting for here. He certainly did NOT bless us all with common sense.

So, I turned off the correct breaker, disassembled the light fixtures, used some of Kara's excitement for spray paint and voila- new fixtures. I also fogged the glass. I am not sure if that is in style but I like it.

Putting it back together was a bit rough. I had to save that part for nap time, but guess what?? THE LIGHTS WORK!!! Seriously, this is a big deal-Praise the Lord b/c I am not an electrician. So-I think I may never do this again b/c it was a lot of work. my nails look terrible, and I bet my arms and shoulders are super sore tomorrow but I am glad its done. Brian isn't home yet so that will be the real test!!!

happy mother's day

date night in Belfield

So, last night we had a date night, praise the Lord. I seriously don't know how some of you can get by with out them. They are vital for our success. Anyways, so we went to Belfield. It is a town of 1,500 people about 17 miles away. So really it was just like driving around Tulsa. We ate dinner at this place called Trapper's Kettle that is like half lodge, half truck stop. I just say the truck stop thing b/c it is right off the interstate in basically the middle of nowhere.
The main reason I am blogging about it is b/c of the theater. We went to Belfield b/c we didn't like the movies playing in Dickinson and they had "Bounty Hunter" which we hadn't seen. It was okay, not bad but not hilarious either. Anyways, it was this awesome one movie theater still stuck somewhere between 1950-1970 and I would say most of town was in attendance. It was just this quaint little place where everyone goes on the weekend. They show movies Fri, Sat, and Sunday (well, the one movie) and the show always starts at 7:30 AND it was only $5.00. Can't beat that. Anyways, it was fun and I thought you all would like a pic since neither Brian nor I had seen anything like this. The first time Brian went to W'ford's movie theater he thought it was so junky b/c it was only a 3 screen. You should have seen him react to this!