BarrettWorld

two wheels!

2010-05-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's a big day at the Barrett house. Daniel has mastered the art of bicycle riding!!

Easter Cookies

2010-03-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hoping to remember to do this on Saturday!

The Easter Story Cookies

To be made the evening before Easter.

You need:

1 cup whole pecans
1 tsp. vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
zipper baggie
wooden spoon
tape
A Bible

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. This is important! Don't wait until you're
half done with the recipe!

Place pecans in zipper baggie and let children beat them with the wooden spoon to break into small pieces. Explain that after Jesus was arrested,
He was beaten by the Roman soldiers.
Read John 19:1-3.

Let each child smell the vinegar.
Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl.
Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross,
He was given vinegar to drink.
Read John 19:28-30.

Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life.
Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life.
Read John 10:10-11.

Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and
brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears
shed by Jesus' followers, and the bitterness of our own sin.
Read Luke 23:27.

So far, the ingredients are not very appetizing.
Add 1 cup sugar.
Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died
because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him.
Read Ps. 34:8 and John 3:16.

Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks
are formed. Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.
Read Isa. 1:18 and John 3:1-3.

Fold in broken nuts. Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper covered cookie
sheet. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.
Read Matt. 27:57-60.

Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF.
Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Explain that
Jesus' tomb was sealed.
Read Matt. 27:65-66.

NOW GO TO BED!
Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers were in despair when the tomb was
sealed.
Read John 16:20 and 22.

On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! On the first
Easter, Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.
Read Matt. 28:1-9

Anna & her snowgirl

2010-02-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

It snowed in Austin! Despite conflicting weather forecasts, it did actually snow in a measurable amount. Daniel was excited but spent only 3.6 seconds outside before he declared it "too cold". Anna, on the other hand, had a blast rolling up snowballs to make this beautiful creation! She's apparently an old school traditionalist when it comes to snowman building. She would settle for nothing less than a carrot for the nose, hat and scarf, and sticks for arms. She conceeded to craisins for eyes, and a bell pepper smile. She added her Anna flair with the curly ribbon for hair. I'm so proud of my sweet Anna and her snowgirl - just hope snowgirl can last for a few hours before the rain melts her away!!!

bleak february in the garden

2010-02-11T21:05:00.001-08:00

February here in Austin has been rainy and cold! Sure we get a beautiful 50ish or 60ish day here and there, but it's just been very wet and yucky. My garden looks pretty much the same as last month, so I didn't post anything new. My herbs are so hardy! Oregano, thyme, mint, rosemary, and parsley seem to survive everything - cold, heat, dry, wet. Amazing!

So just hang on. Only 1 month until planting season! March 15th!!

My garden - mid January

2010-01-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

First off, here's what my boxes look like:

Box 1 has celery in top row, swiss chard in second row (purple), oregano in 3rd row (huge, needs to be cut back), and thyme, parsley, and cilantro in bottom row.

Box 2 has nothing on top row, garlic on 2nd row (frozen leftover romaine lettuce next to it - I'm crossing my fingers it will come sprout something), hollyhocks on 3rd row (only there because they are still green - they will come out soon), and a lone broccoli plant on bottom row.

What to do in mid-January?
From my "expertise" (HA!) - January is the time to clean out the dead stuff in your garden. Take care of greens that survived the frost. Sprinkle some fertilizer on your soil and mix it in to get ready for early spring planting. Turn the soil over, mix it up, get it ready for planting in mid March.

Since we live in Texas, there will be stretches of beautiful days, and you will be tempted to plant stuff outside. Save your money, unless you want pansies. It will freeze again and you will cry when you either lose your new baby to the cold, or when you spend way too much time and energy covering and rigging up warming devices to protect your plants. Take this time to look at the Burpee catalog and dream about the things you'll harvest this year.

That's it for now - headed out to prune back my huge oregano.

so you want to plant a garden?

2010-01-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

Over the last several years, I've enjoyed learning a bit about how to make stuff grow in the ground. Before my kids were in the picture, I'd come home from Home Depot with several different interesting plants and stick them in the ground to see what would happen. Dave & I spent lots of time the backyard back in Richardson, creating new beds, trying new things, planting trees/plants for special occasions. I had roses from the Antique Rose Emporium where my bridal portraits were made. We planted an oak tree in the front when Dave graduated from business school. We had a rose planted when Anna Rose joined us. The redbud tree was planted for Daniel. It was sad to leave our first house (I took the rose with me - Anna was not quite 1 when we left).

As we entered full-on toddlerhood, Dave and I put most of the yardwork on hold. We were in Granbury, and the soil around our new house was builders fill dirt, which is often referred to as "red death clay". We planted a few things (Anna's rose looked great when I saw it last fall) but kept it pretty simple. We were in a more country-type setting (no privacy fences, drainage creek in backyard) and deer and other critters were just waiting to devour any fun things we planted. We also had Bailey in the backyard, who had a habit of laying down on TOP of things we planted! We were crazy proud of our 1 inch tall Rose of Sharon seedlings that were about 7 feet tall when we moved out after 2 years!

In July of 2008, we came to Austin and said hello to the privacy fences. My kids were getting older (Daniel entered kindergarten in the fall) and I was able to spend a little more time outside without having to constantly attend to the needs of my kids or worry about the amount of dirt being consumed. In the spring of 2009, I saw a "Square Food Garden" on a blog I followed. I was immediately interested and purchased the book that told you what to do every step of the way. I started late in the process - late April, I think - and had some good and some terrible results.

Over the summer and fall, I talked about it with friends who came by and commented on the boxes in my backyard. I found 2 local nurseries that fed my growing desire to grow things and found more success. We had watermelons, bell peppers, and herbs all summer long. I learned a bit more about tomatoes, and harvested some in the early fall. We harvested delicious broccoli in late fall and continue to enjoy super-skinny but very tasty celery. And the kids LOVED growing huge sunflowers that unfortunately attracted crazy-weird bugs that were pretty scary! I failed on lettuce, corn, early tomatoes, jalapenos, spinach, onions and several things I probably brought home from Home Depot and planted but quickly died.

So, I've had friends ask me for help and my sister thought a blog was the way to go. So here I am -for now. I've been a very sporadic blogger in the past, but I'm hoping to redeem myself by posting short posts (excluding this one, obviously) about what I'm doing in the garden.

Here are some of my previous posts with pics of my garden:
http://barrettworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/garden-update.html
http://barrettworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/back-in-garden.html

If you're interested in Square Food Gardening, you can look at their website, but you're better off just buying the book to get all the scoop. If you live in the Austin area, The Natural Gardener sells a version of "Mel's Mix" that is MUCH easier that buying everything separate.

So, that's it for now! Feel free to ask questions by leaving a comment (in case someone has same question) or send me an email daveandsuzanne @ gmail dot com. (Must confess I don't know exactly why people do their email like this on blogs, but if it keeps the spam away, I'm in).

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family! Our Christmas cards are late, but they are on the way. :) Our sweet friend Jami Sall took these photos - check out her site for her new nonprofit http://restoredphotography.org/main.html

Here a picture of the cuzzes (aka cousins, my 3 nieces) - Daniel (6 1/2), Anna (4 1/2), Baby Ivey (10 weeks), Halle (2) and Ellie (4 1/2).

just another halloween post

2009-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Enjoy the Halloween pics! Daniel decided to join the Dark Side. Maybe Anna decided we needed good to balance out the evil - she is Violet from The Incredibles. :) We had a great time hanging with neighbors and enjoying chili before trick or treating. GO Manor!!

Soccer girl

2009-11-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Anna started soccer this fall. She's having fun socially, but is not really enjoying the whole team sport side of it. She's definitely her momma's girl! Here is the girl half of her wonderful co-ed team - Anna with cousin Ellie and Peyton Travis. The boy half of our Longhorn team is Jack, Cole Richardson, and Caleb Kloubec. And we love Coach Aaron - he's a great coach!

Monster Mashed

2009-10-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

My kids and my nieces got Monster Mashed! (Anna is the Frankenstein)

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Ivey is here!

2009-10-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

Ivey Grace Peck is here! She arrived on Friday afternoon, 7 pounds, 14 ounces, 20.5 inches. She is beautiful and healthy and has all 10 fingers and 10 toes. I can't seem to get enough time with her - Anna asks to hold her constantly. Anna loves her baby cousin and was very protective of her as the nurse performed a hearing test on her. She stood as close as possible to her and watched that nurse with her famous Anna-stare-of-death to make sure nothing would harm sweet Ivey. Leslie is doing great and looks wonderful! We're looking forward to them coming home from the hospital for some uninterrupted hang time.

The album below also includes some birthday photos from Dad's birthday, which was Oct 4th. It's fun to have back-to-back birthdays!

and the walls came tum-ba-lin down!

2009-09-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today is a big day for the Austin Stone Community Church! The site for our future new church facility is finally getting cleared of the old American Inn/Chariot Inn! This demolition has been a long time coming and will remove an eyesore from the I-35 frontage road. So, today we mark the changing of the physical landscape of the St. John's neighborhood here in Austin. please pray for us as we continue to change the entire landscape of St. John's for the sake of the gospel: what is seen and what is unseen!

for moms with little girls

2009-07-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Just found a great product, moms! My next door neighbor pointed me to Sassy*Bows (www.mysassybows.com). The basic Keely bow is $2 and comes in great colors with a wonderful no-slip alligator clip. Shipping was $3 for priority mail. What a deal!!!

Dave's Colorado trip

2009-07-17T18:03:00.001-07:00

Here are some shots from the camping, hiking, and fishing side of Colorado. Click on the slideshow to see larger pictures.

Colorado vacation - the short-ish story

2009-07-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

We took a long vacation - probably the longest in our history of being married - this July. Dave, the kids, and I hopped in the Pilot and headed off for an adventure! Our first leg took us to Mimi and Paw Paw's house in Parker (Dave's parents). After 2 nights and a fun filled day (including kids @ Chuck E Cheese and playing with Dave's childhood lego collection), we headed off to visit the Visentines in Colorado Springs. The kids did great on the 13 hour car trip! We hiked, drove, saw the sights, and LOVED the weather! We did an overnight trip in Winter Park and drove through Rocky Mountain National Forest, complete with a snowball fight! The kids and I flew to Dallas and spent several days with Grammy & Papa Ray in Granbury before heading back to Austin. Dave stayed in Colorado and had a blast with Michael and brother Dan (who flew in from Virginia). They camped, hiked, and fly-fished in and around the South Platte River and Pike National Forest. We were so blessed with such a wonderful trip! Here's a slideshow of our fun!!

barbershop!

2009-07-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

Dave has expanded his talents again - he's now a barber!! I recently got Dave some trimmers (you might notice the vacation beard in one of the pictures) and we decided to help pay for the clippers by giving our shaggy boy a haircut! Dave did a GREAT job!! Daniel got to celebrate with a root beer float. Dave is currently celebrating with a nap!! (Sorry, no picture!).

Garden update

2009-07-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, Barretts are still alive and kicking! More updates soon, I hope. We've been on vacation and relaxing during the summer vacation.

I've continued to enjoy watching my garden grow, despite the soaring Texas heat and no rain. We've definitely seen the "fruit" of our labor! However, everything seems to be growing miniature versions of everything! My first lesson in gardening has been the importance of fertilizer!! I showered my weak plants with some miracle-grow about a month ago and was shocked when everything shot up and got alot more green! The square-foot-gardening method was supposed to take care of that, but apparently I took a few shortcuts that I shouldn't have!! Fortunately, the growing season in Texas is LLLLOOONNNNGGGG, so I hopefully have time to recover!

Despite the small proportions, we've enjoyed watching our magic garden! First picture is one of our ice box watermelons! They are small by design, but this one is about the size of a tennis ball!! That's a pretty small ice box!!!

The next one is our corn. It is supposed to be about 6 feet tall, but ours only made it up to about 3 or 4 feet! We have 3 ears growing, but one has already fallen victim to the ants! We opened it up and saw some pretty yellow kernels inside (and ants, of course).

Next is my "prize" tomato. Actually, my only tomato! It was a beautiful firm green tomato when we left for Colorado. When we came home, it was a beautiful red, but also had a big hole in it! :( Someone else beat us to the harvest!

Last, these are my bell peppers. We had one that I "harvested" - but it was about the size of a walnut! I've got these guys growing with hopes they get a little bit larger!

The herbs in the background are doing great! Basil and oregano LOVE the heat! Parsley too! Definitely those guys are the most successful parts of the garden!! Oh - and more pictures soon of Anna's and Daniel's sunflowers!! They are great!!!!!

trip to Virginia

2009-06-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

We had a blast visiting Uncle Dan and Aunt Amy in Virginia. It was the kids first time to go to their house and the ABsolutely loved it! We saw "Up", and visited the National Zoo, National Aquarium (in Baltimore), and Mount Vernon (home of George Washington). We also spent lots of time hanging out at their house - playing Wii Lego Star Wars, getting addicted to Fieldrunner (on Dan's iTouch), cutting out paper dolls, playing with their sweet dog Dixie, and eating! In true Barrett fashion, the guys even managed to squeeze in a home improvement project, likely setting a record for shortest home improvement project ever! They fixed a gutter drainage problem in the backyard and didn't even have to go back to Home Depot or run into any problems - amazing! :) Aunt Amy and Uncle Dan even had a birthday celebration for Daniel's 6th birthday. We had a blast and can't wait to go back again!!

Daniel's Birthday Jam

2009-05-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

We had some of Daniel's friends join him at Chuck E Cheese's for a Star Wars birthday celebration. One of the highlights was the video screen, where the kids could dance and be projected up onto about 4 or 5 video screens. Thankfully, my dance with the birthday boy was not captured on video! Here's Blair, Annie, and Anna with some serious moves. Watch closely for a special appearance by the infamous Hurricane Sammy!

We are blessed with wonderful family and friends to celebrate Daniel's 6th birthday. Thanks to everyone who came to show their love and support for Daniel. Dave and I are grateful to have your love and support while we do our best to train our children in the way of the Lord.

Hope you enjoy a few more pics from the day (click on the picture below)

Chuck E Cheese Birthday

Daniel's Kindergarten graduation

2009-05-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful year at Veritas Academy! I'm so thankful for the abundant blessings from this year!! We have all learned so much from this experience. Daniel is a great reader and loves math. The journal assignments that were so painful at first became easier throughout the year - he did the last entry almost all by himself. It was a joy to watch the lightbulbs come on as we walked through the assignments together.

Veritas Kinder teachers have a tradition of giving each "graduating" student a character rock based on her observations over the year. Daniel's teacher Mrs. Keels also gave out a Bible verse to go with it. If you know Daniel, you know that Mrs. Keels hit the nail on the head!!

Click on the picture to view a few more shots from that morning:

Daniel's Kindergarten Graduation

Happy 6th Birthday Daniel!

2009-05-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

It's finally official - my baby boy is 6! We've spent a lot of time celebrating this momentous occasion this week - starting with his Veritas class celebration on Thursday. His choice for special snack time was flavored marshmallows (in convenient single-serve packaging). Next was his almost Star Wars party with some friends and family on Friday at Chuck E. Cheese. Saturday was play day - LOTS of time learning the moves on Wii's Lego Star Wars games. Sunday is the official birthday, with a donut stop before church, a goodie bag with 6 Kit Kats to eat whenever he wanted, a trip to Yogurt Planet (YUM! It's in the Triangle - you must try it!), a small gift in anticipation of Disney Pixar's new movie "Up", and a quest to find him a wallet, complete with zipper pouch for coins. His favorite things from today also include playing Wii Lego Star Wars with Dave and jumping on the trampoline with friends Will and Jackson. I'd say we celebrated well!

Austin Stone Family Reunion!

2009-05-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

This is going to be an awesome day! One of my wonderful friends Sarah is going to be baptized that day!! Can't wait!!

Join the Austin Stone on Saturday, May 16, for our church-wide Family Reunion + Baptism at First EV Free Church. Family Reunion + Baptism is a chance for us to gather as an entire church family and celebrate what God’s been doing in individuals and communities in our city. It’s also a great time to bring friends and family who don’t yet have a relationship with Jesus to experience the life-changing worship that is baptism at the Austin Stone. If there’s one thing we know how to celebrate, it’s baptism!

The festivities will get started at 11am, with lunch at noon, baptisms at 2pm, and games and live music throughout the day. This is a great time to catch up with some old friends, meet some new friends and hear about what God is doing as we pursue being a church for the city.

In classic family reunion-style, we’ll have great BBQ from Iron Works to enjoy! Courrier (http://www.myspace.com/courriermusic) will provide some great lunchtime music.

You can go to http://www.austinstone.org/familyreunion to buy lunch tickets. There are great deals for families!

We’ll have a host of games and other fun activities for kids and adults alike. Here’s some of the stuff we’ll have out there:

Inflatables and Bounce Houses

Playground

Kiddie Pool

Sport fields for running and playing

Sand Volleyball

Rockwall climbing

Basketball

Family Reunion + Baptism will be at First Evangelical Free Church (EV Free) at 4220 Monterey Oaks Blvd., in Southwest Austin near the Mopac/290 interchange.

Texas Day

2009-05-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Anna and Ellie's preschool had a Texas Day last week. I helped out with the sand art craft - and had a blast seeing all the kids come through. Here's Ellie with Bethany and Kenlie, digging for treasure.

Cowgirl Anna poses for the camera

Neighborhood friends Ella and Anna (aka the other Anna) came by my sand table that day, too!

Isn't she SO cute?!

Aquarena Springs

2009-05-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

In April, Daniel's Kindergarten Class went on a field trip to Aquarena Springs in San Marcos. It was my first trip - but several moms were revisiting Aquarena. Apparently, this place used to be the place to go, back in the 1980s before Sea World and fancy places like that. They had a diving pig, an underwater mermaid show, and crazy-dangerous cable/tram cars you could ride over the springs and attractions. While all of those things are gone, it was still a wonderful day and worth the drive and admission! We saw plenty of turtles, water bugs, and tilapia, who guarding the eggs in their nests. We went on the glass bottom boat ride, which (to my surprize) was actually pretty cool. They did a few other activities - like looking at the water through a "microscope" to see small bugs - and then we broke for lunch. Our guide, Topher, was great and everyone seemed to have a great time. We brought cousin Ellie and friends Shanna, Brooklyn, Jackson, and Will with us - our big ol' car was packed full!!

Back in the Garden

2009-05-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

A long, long time ago, in a city far, far away, I developed a love for plants, flowers, and gardening. I still don't know a ton about it - just enough to be dangerous. :) Then came babies!!

I recently came across a method called "Square Food Gardening" and decided it was time to get back in the dirt. My sweet and handy hubby helped build the planter/box and I soon had every square filled! We are growing tomatoes, bell peppers (two varieties), habanero peppers (they were out of jalapeno - be wary of our homemade salsa!), lettuce, and a bunch of herbs - parsley, cilantro, thyme, and basil. The kids each planted a sunflower seed - and they have already sprouted! And if you look closely, we have already have a bell pepper already on the way!!

Friends and Family Day

2009-05-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Daniel's school, Veritas Academy, had a "Friends and Family Day." Mom, Anna, and I got to visit Daniel's class during a "regular" school day for about 30 minutes, then later got to see him during music and PE. Anna was thrilled to get to sit and do the center activity, just like the big kids. It was alot of fun to get to see him interact in his classroom with his friends and wonderful teacher Mrs. Keels.

Later that night, the entire school performed in a huge school play/musical. The Kindergarten classes sang "To God Be the Glory"; Daniel sang every word and had a huge smile! Dave & I enjoyed the evening and were so proud of our big boy!! The show was really pretty entertaining - we had fun seeing the other kids we know perform too (great job Annie, Jude, & JD!).

This was on display in the lobby area at the school (meets at EV Free). It reads: I am good at... speling evan ef it es to hurd (translation - spelling, even if it is too hard). Too funny!!

Only 4 more classroom days of Kindergarten remaining! Watch out world, here comes Daniel the First Grader!!!

If you're in Austin...

2009-04-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

Next Saturday at the Galaxy Highland movie theater, you can catch a showing of Malatya, a film about the 3 modern Turkish martyrs. Two guys from Austin Stone made this happen; Dave & I are really looking forward to seeing it (and neither of us are the deep, intellectual type that loves foreign films or art movies). Click here for more info.

Amazing Video

2009-04-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

This amazing video was made by a very talented guy at our church. It was SO powerful!

Cardboard Stories from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

We are still alive!

2009-04-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging! My main lame excuse is that I changed computers. But I've also tried to cut back my time on the computer.

Instead of catch you up on EVERYthing, thought I'd take a small bite and show you a project we worked on today.

For Easter, we opted out of colored eggs (not for religious reasons - we just didn't get around to it and nobody seemed to care). We made a play-do tomb scene to help tell the Easter story. Of course, I am including cute pics of the kids in the process:

Daniel & Anna helped get the dough made

Making the mountain around the tomb

Making people - Jesus, soldiers, Mary, angels

The dough had to cook for several hours. Later, after Grammie and Papa Ray came, Ellie joined us for some painting and decorating.

Anna and Ellie enjoyed acting out the story

He's ALIVE!

Christmas Time in Manor!

2008-12-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

Hope you've had a great Christmas!!

The Stewart grandkids have been elfed!

2008-12-13T12:58:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The fat lady is warming up!

2008-12-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dave & I went on a date yesterday to Independence Bank in Manor, Texas to sign our closing document - in the presence of their notary. Everything is signed, stamped, initialled, dated, and stapled. We put everything in the overnight mail, so hopefully it should be at the Title Company in Acton by now. There were no big surprizes on any of the documents, so that was a very good thing! By Monday, our mortgage should be paid off and there will be a little left over that will go into our bank account! THEN we will hear the fat lady sing - and we will likely join in!

We did get a call from our realtor yesterday, telling us the buyers were upset that the curtain rod and curtains from the dining room were missing. They wanted money - $200 -to replace them. Earlier in the house selling process, the buyers wanted $600 for caulking and replacement screws that were on the inspection report. We decided to tell them they could find their own curtains. :) We "leased" the house to them for $0 so they could move in and paint before the loan funded. We think that was a pretty nice deal, don't you?!

In hindsight, we should have left the curtains, since they were in the house when they buyers wrote the contract. But come ON - they got a GREAT deal on the house! I spent maybe $80 on the "window treatment". Geesh.

All in all, we are so thankful that God provided a buyer and especially that we were able to close before Christmas! God has been SO faithful to provide for us, in so many ways. He has used so many of our friends and family to encourage us and provide for us during our transition to Austin. It's definitely been challenging, but amazing to see God's hand in everything as we do our best to follow Him.

Looking forward to Christmas - and even to finishing Christmas shopping!!

it's almost official

2008-12-03T21:48:00.001-08:00

I'm holding my breath for the next week plus a day. We're set to close on the sale of our beautiful home in Granbury next week. Bittersweet to say the least. I'm thankful for the time God had us there and thankful that He has a plan that is bigger than we can imagine...

Polar Express Time!

2008-12-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

We had the cousins over last night to watch Polar Express!! They got to sit on the carpet to eat dinner while wearing pjs! And after they finished all their peas, they each got hot chocolate with marshmallows, just like the kids on the train. I'm still not convinced that they made that connection, but maybe it will sink in someday. Halle (14 months) was obviously not impressed with the movie, but she had a great time walking around the living room & kitchen and cuddling with her Aunt Suzy. :)

Granbury Fun

2008-12-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

We made a trip to Granbury for pre-Thanksgiving fun. Dave & I are thankful that we were able to sign an offer on our house there! Hopefully, we will be back to one house payment again!!

We got to spend an evening with our sweet Sprayberry friends. I don't think we ever leave their house without something borrowed - Anna absolutely loves the cheetah/cat girl dress (complete with ear headband) and Daniel plays with the remote control car every day.

Thanks again for a great evening!!

Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast

2008-12-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

We had a blast at Daniel's Thanksgiving feast at school. All of the kids in his class dressed up as Pilgrims or Indians (I guess it's still OK to call them that when you're 5), made up a name, and told a little about themselves. Daniel's class (and most of the other ones) were definitely favoring the Indians - the Pilgrims were WAY outnumbered. :) After they did their solo presentations, they recited their memory verse together (Proverbs 3:1-18) and then sang "Albuquerque Turkey", which was hilariously performed with a hick accent. They all did great and we had a wonderful feast together.

One of the facts they learned while studying the Pilgrims was that they feasted for 3 days. Yesterday, as we were getting back into the home school stuff, Daniel made a great comment. "Hey Mom. The Pilgrims only got to take a break for 3 days. We got to take off a whole week!" Maybe you had to be there, but it made me grin.

Daniel and his buddy John

Happy Birthday Grammie!

2008-12-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

Daniel, Anna, and I trekked up to Granbury to celebrate Grammie's birthday! We had a blast with a special treat - Sprinkles Cupcakes! As my favorite TV chef would say, YUM-O!

Yes, sports fans, Daniel picked the Longhorn cupcake. We are learning to love our brothers while living in Austin. But his favorite color is still maroon!!

Howdy Pilgrim!

2008-11-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

Introducing Thomas Barrett, Pilgrim. For his kindergarten project, Daniel is dressing up as a Pilgrim, complete with a name and occupation. See the video below for his first "presentation"!

Anna did not want to be left out of the fun! Thomas, meet Strawberry Shortcake!

Post production note - Mom & I decided the collar was a bit too long. We trimmed off a couple of inches!! email me if you need info on how to make a cheap pilgrim costume!! this one was about $10!!

Strawberry's Video

2008-11-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

Little sister did not want to miss the action. Here's her video!

i heart 80s music

2008-11-14T11:55:00.001-08:00

I've been such a bad blogger! But, I'm much better with Facebook! If you're on there, be my friend!!! See pictures of Barrett kids.

On a side note, I'm back working at Hockaday again. I've had Sky.fm 80s radio playing on itunes all day. LOVE it. Find myself singing without even knowing it! Glad my doors are closed. :)

Dave's in Virginia hunting with his brother. They are having a blast!!

Must run - back to work!!

for the love of candy...

2008-11-10T20:13:00.001-08:00

Sorry we're so late with this! Daniel was a Hot Wheels race car driver and Anna was Alicia, the sister from Go, Diego, Go!

We had a blast trick-or-treating in our neighborhood!! We had a potluck chili party at Leslie's house - so fun!! Then the herd walked up and down a few streets to fill up the candy bags. Mimi and Paw Paw were in town and had fun watching the craziness. Daniel & Anna had a blast handing out candy to the kids who came to our house later that night.

We're still eating all the candy!! Yum!

We're still here...

2008-10-22T08:23:00.001-07:00

I have caved to peer pressure! All my blogging friends have posted super-cute pics of various pumpkin-related activities and their kids. We have not made it to the local pumpkin patch; the closest thing I've seen so far is the huge box of pumpkins at Wal-Mart! But our orange gourds turned out pretty cute (thanks for the plastic inserts, Wal-Mart) so I just felt I had to share!

On another note, I've been spending a fair amount of time with an old friend from Dallas, Dr. Brian Drake. He's a chiropractor here in Austin and is helping me get straightened out and out of pain. Apparently, staring at a laptop, hunched over, is not really good for your posture. So, my laptop spends alot more time in the SHUT position, which means less blogging (among other things). That being said, I'm off to practice good posture and clean up the continual mess of a kitchen. TTFN!

Granbury fun

2008-10-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my sister and I trucked the kids up for a visit to G-town. It was definitely a contest as to who was more excited - the grandparents or the grandkids. We all had a lot of fun and left our hubbies to get some work done in peace and quiet. We had a blast celebrating Papa Ray's birthday!!

My sister put together a fantastic slideshow - take a peek!

http://kevinandleslie.blogspot.com/2008/10/little-slideshow-from-our-trip-to.html

I brought the kids back for more fun this weekend. Mom & Dad are playing with kids while I spend a little time at Hockaday, helping my friend while she is on maternity leave. It's so fun to go back there, especially now that it's been more than 5 years since I left full-time employment. I love to catch up with my old friends and meet all the new ones. However, I'm very aware of the fact that I can no longer sit at the computer and "crank" all day like I used to! It feels more like my college study days - work for 20 minutes, break, work for 10, break, then time for lunch! Probably why Dave would never study with me in college! He was a serious study-er!!

So, that's it for my work break, back to the numbers!!

something else I do

2008-09-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Over the past 6 years, I have helped my dear friend Sarah and her mom Judy support the AGAND children's home that Judy started 30 years ago in Guatemala. I only help with the books and online stuff, but I enjoy getting to hear the stories and know what is going on. The two women who run the home are amazing! Recent international adoption law changes are threatening the future of this home, which places children (many with special needs) with loving, adoptive families in the US. I've recently updated our website and just wanted to share. They would appreciate your prayers as they face big decisions. http://www.agand.org/

Our games

2008-09-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

My kids love to get tickled! They each have their own made-up games, which I just felt compelled to share. Anna has a couple of "games" - her favorite being "get me" or "catch me". No explanation needed, really - she just looks at me with that gleam in her eye and says "get me!" I chase for a few seconds, grab her, and tickle. My mom found the perfect shirt for her recently - it has butterflies and says "catch me" on the front. She LOVES it! For her other game, she sits in my lap, smiles, and says "go, the tickler!" and soon after "stop, the tickler!" This could definitely go on and on! Daniel's game is a little more complicated. I think it started with the game my dad used to play with me (and my sister). Dad would get ready to tickle and say, "Stop means go and go means stop." Commence tickling. "Do you want me to stop?" he'd ask. Of course, if I would say "stop", he would repeat the above phrase. If I said "go" he would reply "OK, I'll keep going". Daniel caught onto this quickly and changed the rules on me. His code word for tickling is "apple juice". Stop tickling is "water". We have added many other beverages to the list with various meanings. He always remembers exactly what they are - mom and dad always seem to forget! Orange juice, coffee, hugs, kisses. We have so much fun!!

and a matching pair

2008-09-19T15:18:00.001-07:00

What's the saying? When it rains, it pours. I spent most of last weekend sick in bed with strep throat. At some point I stumbled out of bed to try to get some clean sheets from the dryer. Hmmm, still wet. I started it again and went back to bed (I think, it's a fuzzy memory). Checked back later, still wet. Rats. Started it again, let it run for a few minutes, and yep, not hot. Bummer. Dave & I come up with a plan - it's a very busy week for him. Calls to Home Depot were not fruitful. Finally, Dave makes it to Lowe's and comes home with this beauty:

Prior to this new addition, I had new white washer and an old bisque one. I'm so glad to match again. ;)

Update in pictures

2008-09-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

I took a couple of minutes to download pictures to my camera. My sister took pics for Anna & Ellie's 1st day of preschool, so that will come later. ;)

We took a few hours one Saturday to explore the western side of Austin. We went for a "hike" up to Mount Bonnell. It was a very easy and fun walk and even had stairs on one end of the hill. It was a UT game day, so there was plenty of people watching! I can not understand the love of burnt orange...

After our hike, we went out to The Oasis restaurant on Lake Travis. This place is an Austin legend and is HUGE. Most of the seating is outdoors on many tiers of decks. We were enjoying lunch when a rainshower popped up. No, wet fries and chicken nuggets don't taste that good, even to a 5 year old. Our waiter graciously brought us another order before we headed back home. :) We didn't bring the camera in the restaurant; this pic is from the spaceship sculpture in the front. Kids loved it! BTW, we feel more "local" because we have the plastic "Oasis" cups in our kitchen now!

Grammie & Papa Ray had a crazy weekend. They hosted all 4 cousins with no mommies or daddies! Needless to say, the big kids in Austin had a fun, relaxing weekend just like the old days before kids. Dave & I even took a quick trip up to the state capitol. :) Nerds, yes we are. Here are the kids buckled in and ready to go meet Grammie in Waco. Daniel got the front seat.

Try not to let the hair distract you too much. For Kindergarten, September's unit is "all about me". One of our homeschool projects was to make a paper version of yourself. Daniel and Daddy worked diligently to make a version of Daniel's favorite shirt that has flames and a guitar on it. :) Anna had to make one too, of course!

Another homeschool project below. Daniel created all of the numbers - they are too fun! We also made bunny ears and played a game with them. We have so much fun doing school!!!

That's it for now! I'll try to keep up. :)

Big picture update

2008-09-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

We're still settling into our "new normal" (borrowing from my friend Lisa). Anna started school this week. Despite a bit of a tearful goodbye, she had a wonderful time. She and cousin Ellie are in the same class and there are several kids in our neighborhood who also go there, so it's fun for her to see lots of familiar faces. We're looking forward to a great year!

Daniel is continuing to do well with Kindergarten and so is "Mrs. Mommy". I'm finding out how much Daniel LOVES numbers and math and I get excited as he ventures into the world of reading. I wish I would've taken a picture of the sweet birthday card he made for his cousin Halle (who celebrated her 1st birthday yesterday!). I think the phrase he wrote was "HBEBRTHDAHLLE" - loosely translated is "Happy Birthday Halle" of course.

Other news to note is that I've been in bed for a couple of days with a variety of symptoms. I'm feeling much better and am planning to head to the doctor's office tomorrow. Praise God for friends and family who helped take care of my family over the weekend. Anna woke up with fever too, so the two of us stayed home from church today. We took turns watching the Disney Channel and snoozing. She kept waking me up to tell me to stop breathing too loud! Poor girl - couldn't get a Handy Manny fix without mom snoring through the middle of it. :)

Dave's doing great too. Our church launched the fall vision series and it is really awesome. Dave's still learning the ropes and the people but it doing a great job at balancing it all.

I hope to post again soon with Anna's first day picks and (hopefully) pics from the belated birthday party for Dave, who had a sick wife during his Saturday birthday.

Happy Belated, Sweetheart

2008-09-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

Happy belated birthday, Dave. I'm so sorry I was sick on your special day. I'm thankful for our friends and family who could make the day special for you. We'll have a do-over soon! Thanks for taking such good care of me and Anna (and Daniel too, even though he wasn't sick). YTB!

First day of HOME school

2008-08-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

We did it! Daniel, Anna, and I made it through our first real "school at home" day today! We didn't get off to an early start, but it was a good relaxing morning. Over breakfast, Anna asked if we were going to have "school home" today. When I told her we were, she grinned and asked me if I was going to be "Mrs. Mommy". They both got a big kick out of that!

I walked through the homework plan that was given to us by our teacher. We talked about why you raise your hand to answer questions, good listening skills, and other great things that make Kindergarten such a wonderful time. We moved on to our journal writing - throw on the brakes! I had prepped Daniel on his assignment of thinking about the best thing about his summer earlier in the week. He finally decided that playing with his cousin was the highlight. It was a little bit like pulling teeth to get Daniel to talk about that topic. So Mrs. Mommy asked the questions, got some basic answers from the student , and tried to journal in a way that at least sounded like Daniel was involved in the process. It became more painful when Daniel discovered he had to draw pictures to describe the story. Wow - break time!

We moved on to reading our rhyming books (thanks Sister!) and then our math lesson. He L.O.V.E.D. the math meeting - it was about calendars, talking about days, months, years, filling in the calendar, etc.

Then it was back to the tough stuff. I think I mentioned that the class animal Bob Frog came home with us after the FIRST DAY of school. We had to write about our adventure with Bob AND, you guessed it, draw a picture about it! Again, the writing process was as smooth as crunchy peanut butter. I just kept telling myself to relax and that this was just part of the learning process. That worked pretty well. :) After much encouragement and coaching, Daniel proclaimed his work of art complete.

Actual Art and Inspriation Photo:

In case you need an interpretation, this is a scene from his grandparent's house in Parker (just east of Plano). Paw Paw (in brown) is driving an ATV, Daniel (yellow) is in the back seat holding Bob Frog (green) in his lap.

All in all, I'd give us all an "A" for the day. Daniel and I hung in there with each other. Anna was definitely always in the mix and playing along as much as she could. We will all continue to learn how to do this over time - I'm so glad we're starting in Kindergarten!!

passing this on...

2008-08-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Melody recently posted about blog books. I haven't tried them yet, but it sounds so fun! They take your blog and turn it into a scrapbook. Check it out: http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook

survive and thrive!

2008-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Today was D-day - the first day of Kindergarten for Daniel. I must admit - I felt the tears coming when driving into the parking lot. We just-so-happened to pull up next to the Carters, our dear sweet friends, and there was plenty of distraction to keep me from getting sappy.

We all gathered around the church's outdoor baptism pool for a first-day-of-school prayer. It fired me up to be part of such a wonderful group of kids, parents, faculty, and staff who are dedicated to raising up our children for God's glory!

Daniel did great and went right into his classroom, unpacked his backpack, signed in (to practice writing skills - he is one of 12 in his class!), and found his spot on the carpet. He was excited when Anna and I came to pick him up - he had a wonderful day! He even got to bring home Bob the Frog - who gets to have an adventure over the weekend with us. We take pictures of him and then write in a book about his journey. Daniel gets to be the special student of the week and bring some show-and-tell to school on Tuesday. How's that for kicking off the school year?!

Anna and I had a great day together. We did lots of leisurely shopping (got a big girl booster seat in bright pink!), explored Austin highways, and had a lunch date at Taco Cabana. We met up with Jen Carter and Sammy before heading back to campus to pick up the kids.

We are all looking forward to a great year! Next stop - Anna's preschool, September 9th!

Here's Daddy giving Daniel a goodbye hug and kiss from home.

My boy did NOT want to take part in the sappy mom first-day picture taking!

Here's Daniel (far left) with friends Annie (1st) and John Daniel (2nd). They are Veritas pros and carpool buddies!! We are gathering for our prayer here.

Daniel signs in on Mrs. Keel's desk while she looks on. She is so great with the kids and actually has 5 of her own!!

we've been busy

2008-08-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since the last post - evidence of our crazy life. Since our Kindergarten Camp, we've been to Sea World San Antonio with Aunt Leslie and the cousins, Dave performed his first wedding, Anna got sick (again), I had a fun girls night out, and lots of other little stuff. Pictures to come soon!!

Currently, the kids are having a blast with Mimi and Paw Paw at their home in Parker while I spend a little time working at Hockaday in Dallas (one of my favorite summer traditions). On Wednesday, the kids got to stay at Hockaday in the Child Development Center (which the kids call "Hockaday Kids"). They had a blast and all of the teachers commented on how well Daniel cared for his little sister during the day. I was such a proud momma!! My good friend JT (who took my place at Hockaday) let me crash at her house and I've had a blast working with her and hanging out with her and her sweet daughter Hannah, who is 2. JT is expecting her second little girl in October - so fun!! We're headed back to Austin tonight to see how Dave has enjoyed some peace and quiet. :) Grammie is coming to visit this weekend, so it sounds like we're in for more fun!!

Daniel starts school in less than a week, so we will be gearing up for that! We're planning a family celebration Wednesday night for this rite of passage - REAL SCHOOL. Unbelievable but so exciting!! I wonder if either of us will shed some tears on Thursday as he goes to his class. Hmmm, my money is on the mommy, not the boy!

School is just around the corner!

2008-08-02T11:18:00.001-07:00

Daniel and I just finished up our Family Education Week at Veritas Academy last week. Daniel enjoyed three days of Kindergarten Camp, which was a great introduction for him on how things work, where things are, who his classmates will be, and expectations of his new Kindergarten world. I can hardly believe that we are entering the "school age" zone, but Daniel is definitely ready to conquer the challenge! He had a great time and feels ready to start school soon. I'm super excited about our school - it is a University Model School (read more here), so Daniel will go to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a "professional" teacher (ie licensed) and will have school at home with me on Wednesdays and Mondays. Sundays are workdays for Dave, so having some flexibility on Fridays during Daddy's day off should be fun!

I also got alot of training last week as well! I learned how to setup a home classroom, how to manage a schedule with Anna home during Daniel's school time (we'll see, won't we?!), how the spelling and reading curriculum works, how to build a character notebook, and many other things. I really enjoyed getting to meet other new moms and dads; and lots of the returning parents were there later in the week and were very encouraging. The presenters were all very encouraging, motivating, and interesting but honest about the hard parts of homeschooling as well. This model seems like a great balance between traditional 5-day school and pure homeschooling for our family. I'm sure we will find out soon enough!! School starts August 21st - pray for us!!!

House Guests!

2008-08-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Barrettworld Resort is now open for business! Last weekend, we hosted my parents (aka Grammie and Papa Ray) AND Belle, the infamous white lab. We had a great time with them, complete with date night with my sister & Kevin and friends Angela & Halim. We managed to cram our big egos into a friend's mini-van so we could all ride in style. I think Kevin just wanted to save money on gas, but it sure was convienent!

This week my fried Jen and her 4 kids joined us! All of the kids really play well together, so it was a blast for all of us! Here are Madison & Anna, who took turns doing each other's hair:

I borrowed my sisters huge inflatable water slide, which the kids loved!

We also spent time at the Shadowglen pool, where big boy Caleb (5) went down one of the big waterslides!!

We also had a great dinner at Phil's Ice House (followed, of course, with Amy's Ice Cream with rainbow sprinkles) and the mandatory superfun lunch at Chick-fil-A. Superdave helped too - here he is reading to the kids:

The first night of trying to settle all the kids down was a little rough (especially for Jen, who ended up with all 4 of her kids in one room). Here are the precious non-sleepers:

The next day we played them hard and didn't give naps, so they passed out much earlier!! Jen & I even got to have one of our famous "planning" sessions! We get some ideas going, but end up having a great time in the process. Here is one of our prize-winning collaborations from our women's retreat:

Can't wait for them to visit again!!

Guest room is vacant...now taking reservations!!

Exploring Day

2008-07-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

Recently, Daniel found a present in his closet from Uncle Dan that hadn't been used yet. It was a Explorer Trek Pak belt with tools (bug tweezers, magnifying glass, you get the picture). He paired it with a ranger vest that Mimi and Pawpaw brought back from a trip to Yellowstone a few years back. So cute! We set out today to explore the lake nearest to us, but it was big-time raining when we got to the entrance. Plan B was to visit a park across town near my sister's last house. I managed to get there with only a few turnarounds! It wasn't raining, but it was crazy muggy. We hiked around on the trails there, then sat down to enjoy a quick snack. We found our first victim, um... I mean specimen - a grasshopper! We managed to catch him with the net and put him in the bug jar to examine him. We did release him back into the wild, did a bit more exploring, and then got caught in a pretty good rainshower. We managed to make it back in the car before the downpour started! Daniel thought it was cool that God let us get back in our car before the big rain came - so sweet. Hopefully, he'll want to keep exploring!!

Adventure Day

2008-07-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

The kids love all the fun new stuff we get to do here in Austin. Our latest adventure included a trip to Radijazz, which is a huge indoor playscape with this big riverscape, a huge volcano with a foam block pit and a big climbing playground. My sister was the official photographer for the outing, so I'll post photos once I get from her. I think the kids ran, jumped, and rolled for 2 hours straight!

Leslie took Halle home for a nap, and I took the 3 cousins for pink Sprites (cherry Sprite from Sonic) and to get Daniel a haircut (he has Kindergarten Camp next week!). We have a great Toys R Us near us with a Cool Cuts for Kids inside! I managed to get the three preschoolers past ALL the toys and into the studio, where they had tons of kid-friendly video game stations and toys. The girls played with plastic zoo animals while Daniel played a Nemo game during his haircut. We managed to leave the toy store with only 2 balls and a $4.32 pricetag!

We finished up the evening having dinner with my sister's family, complete with boys wrestling match. This game involves Uncle Kevin, Dave, and Daniel as well as all of our couch cushions. Daniel's getting much better at this and really looks forward to it. He's getting pretty tough, even when he gets hurt. I love that he has great men in his life that can teach him how and when to be rough!! Definitely not a good mommy role. In Peck tradition, you have to name your moves, which Daniel LOVES. If you take the two small cushions and use them at the same time on either side of your opponent, you yell "Sandwich Shop!" as you make your move. Fireball, tornado, and Special Delivery are Daniel's favorites. Too nuts!! The little girls played a little; their favorite move is to run into the cushion and fall down while Uncle Kevin holds it up (can't remember the name). Wow, I've got to get the video camera out next time!!

While the cat's away...

2008-07-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

...the mice will play!! While my sister was on her mission trip, my brother-in-law Kevin took on some home improvements! Leslie has no clue that her sweet husband ripped up the carpet in 2 downstairs rooms and replaced them with hardwood floors!! They look awesome and she is going to LOVE it!! He also had a guy come to put up a rock border in the front & back beds.

This superdad even made signs!!

Here's Ellie with painted fingers and toes to show mommy at the airport!

you might be getting old when...

2008-07-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

... the arrival of this baby is one of the highlights of my week! Moving to a new house has meant lots of new purchases - but a new washer was definitely not in the plan, or the budget! My old washer (which was generously donated to us by my parents when we got married 10 years ago and was well used at that time) had a small leak in Granbury. By the time it arrived in Austin, the small leak turned into a HUGE one! Nothing like breaking in your new house with a watery mess. :) AND if you are familiar with how my husband works, there was some serious washer research going on: best brands, front load vs top load, cycle features, energy savers....you get the picture. We finally found a good match and ordered through a good friend with a great discount! The first washer arrived Tuesday, but had a huge dent on the front. Sadly, I watched them haul it back on the truck and took another couple of loads over to my sisters house. It felt like the old college days!! Finally, the delivery guys called this morning at 6:20am!! We were the first delivery on the list and by 7:30, it was hooked up and ready to go!!!!

Betty Crocker and the Rock Band

2008-07-17T15:46:00.001-07:00

I put my best Stay-at-home-mom hat on today and decided to make some cute bug cakes to have as a treat after nap time. I have a fun mold with ladybugs, butterflies, dragonflies, and bees. I made up the cake mix and baked up some yummy bugs! It was a small miracle that all 4 kids were down for a nap at the same time!! I woke up the big kids at 5 for their yummy bug party. I brushed on a pink glaze and let them decorate with sprinkles. As you can see from the pictures, my big event was VERY short lived - I barely got a picture of the cakes before they were gone!!!

They quickly moved onto the next activity, which was rock band. Daniel took his role very seriously, while the girls were more concerned with changing imaginary batteries in their instruments. Halle & I enjoyed the show - maybe she's using the brush as a microphone?!

They've now moved on to playing Dora - with Halle as Swiper!! Never a dull moment...

A day with 4 kids!

2008-07-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

While my sister is gone on a mission trip, I'm helping take care of my 2 beautiful nieces. Ellie (3) plays really well with my 2, so it's a blast!! Halle is 10 months and is one of the happiest babies on the planet. Leslie did a great job lining up help, meals, carpool to get Ellie to school, etc. On Monday, it was just the 4 kids and me! I needed to drop off a form at Daniel's school (guilty of procrastination!), so I loaded up the gang and set out. Daniel told me it was his lucky day, because he got to sit in the front seat while the girls took the back. We found that our school commute is going to be around 40 minutes - praise the Lord that we only go twice a week! We made it there safely, dropped off the forms, said hi and made introductions and headed out. We quickly made it to Barton Creek Mall, for some chick-fil-a and playscape (so I thought). We had a great lunch, successful potty break, and set off to play. I quickly figured out that playscapes are not mandatory at Austin-area malls like they are in Dallas/Ft. Worth! We made it down to Nordstrom's, where they had a Nemo/Marlin/Dorrie aquarium in the kid shoe department, then walked through Build-a-Bear, and made a final stop at the candy store. We loaded up and headed home without major meltdowns, tantrums, or scenes!! We had a great time. :)

Cousin Photos

2008-07-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

Click here for a look at my photo album of recent cousin pics:

Cousins

i know this cool putt putt place...

2008-07-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

One of our inside jokes from our honeymoon is the phrase "i know this cool putt putt place..." although I can't remember the rest of the story. Last Thursday, we took more time off from unpacking to have a little family fun. We found Putt N Funn Zone nearby and practically had the place to ourselves! The kids had fun playing the preschool version of mini golf, which is really no rules and no order. Daniel did really well and seemed to catch on really quickly. We both took turns in the go carts, which the kids loved! We played video games, ate pizza, watched the batting cages, and had a great evening!

The party continues

2008-07-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

Nothing like celebrating Independence Day all weekend! Saturday morning we joined great friends from StoneWater Church in the annual parade. We hand out 5000 bottles of water and info about our church. This was one of the first events that kicked off the church 3 years ago!

After the parade, Mom and I cleaned up and headed back to town. My high school choir director Duncan MacMahon (aka Mac) is retiring and one of my fellow classmates helped put together an alumni concert in his honor. I didn't get to sing, but really enjoyed the afternoon. It was also a great time to see old friends and catch up! GHS will not be the same without you, Mac!

We then switched gears again and headed out to the Riemondi's Triple Joy Ranch just outside of town for some Stewmondi fun! My family (the Stewarts) grew up with the Riemondis - we lived down the street from them, rode the bus together, and went on crazy Delta-kid vacations together. They have a beautiful place with lots of toys! Here is my mom and Regina with grandkids.

Newest addition to the fun was Nick's dirt bike. Not to be outdone, eldest brother Wes puts on some boots and takes a ride on the toy. Keldie and Knox look on - Knox was not so sure about the boots!

It's a bad picture, but this is the "bardominium" at the ranch, which has hosted some wonderful parties! Daniel and I learned how to play shuffleboard, which is painted on the smooth garage floor! We had a blast - thanks everyone for a wonderful weekend!

Country Style 4th

2008-07-09T01:25:00.001-07:00

After a few days of living with and among the boxes, we headed back on the road for a little R&R. Our first "vacation" spot? Where better to spend the 4th weekend than Granbury, TX?! We opted out of the traffic that goes with Granbury-proper fireworks and spent the evening on the rocky beach of the Brazos River with our wonderful friends!

Bailey loved swim time in the river and playing with the kids. She was a little skittish around the fireworks, but mostly wanted to fetch them. We managed to keep her away from them. More about our sweet dog soon...

Yes, we did let our children play with fire. Here, Justin Sprayberry and I help the kids with sparklers. Moments later, many of these same children decide they are afraid of sparklers. It was a hoot!

A family moment on the beach.

Daniel's photo shoot

2008-07-09T01:16:00.000-07:00

I was going through the pictures from my camera over the past couple of weeks and found these! Daniel loves to grab the camera and have fun with it! ;) Here is a photo shoot of 2 of his favorite things - his sister and his cars (not necessarily in that order). As I clicked through the photos, I found a series of pictures like this one:

Anna was photographed holding each car in the line up! She is usually never this agreeable when Mommy is on the other side of the camera. Too cute!

A final closeup I couldn't resist:

Moving In

2008-07-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

We made it! It's now been over a week, but for those who have been holding your breath, you can let it out slowly.

Our moving crew definitely added to the adventure. To make a very long story short-ish, the guys started loading up the truck, van, and trailer at 8:30ish Monday morning. It was apparent that the truck was too small and that another trailer would be needed. Eventually, the lead moving dude Sgt. Murphy (not his real name) left to pick up another trailer from the local U-Haul and promises to return soon with lunch for his two guys who are left behind to finish loading. Fast forward to noon, when the majority of our stuff was loaded onto the existing truck and trailer. No Sgt. Murphy, no trailer, no lunch - Dave finally heads out with kids and moving dudes, who he feeds at Chicken E in Glen Rose! I follow soon after the house is clean. My dad goes by our house at 5 pm, to find the rest of our stuff STILL SITTING ON OUR DRIVEWAY! Sgt Murphy finally makes it to our house by 5:30 with van and trailer and heads out. The truck with most of our stuff arrives at our house in Austin by 6 and is unloaded by 7ish. The moving dudes are still hanging out, with no food and no money, so they chill with us and eat pizza! Poor guys!! Sgt. Murphy finally shows up at 9:30ish, where the final stuff makes it inside the house. More drama ensues, but I did promise the short version. I think they left our street around midnight. AAGH!!

We did have a very warm welcome to our neighborhood (Shadowglen), where my sister and several other Austin Stone Church families live. Our moving dudes told Dave they had never seen so many people show up to say hi to someone moving in. :) Many came and brought kids; it was fortunate that we were able to find the princess dress up clothes right away!

My sister blogged about it already - you can click here to see the pictures she has. I was a little distracted!! I did manage to grab a couple from the next day:

Moving Day Eve

2008-06-29T23:41:00.001-07:00

The movers are scheduled to come tomorrow morning - I can't believe it is finally here! We had a wonderful weekend with family and friends and lots of good time to enjoy all that God has blessed us with here. Here are a couple of typical scenes during the season of packing here:

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic as I prepare to once again leave my hometown. Here are just a few of the things that make Granbury special (in no particular order):

(sorry - no picture) - Papa Ray & Grammie's house. Free babysitting, need I say more?! Better than cable! And always had snacks!!

Jen's mobile party unit. Without a doubt, when the silver sequoia was there, you knew there would be a party! Always kid friendly and ready for any minor emergency!!

Brawner Intermediate School, aka StoneWater Church! I'm still amazed at the transformation that we make weekly. I'm more amazed when I think about the transformation done in people's lives each week that can't be seen - thanks to the ministry done through the members and leaders there. Sounds cheesy and churchy, but it is 100% true. Happened to me!

Best chicken enchiladas in town are at Mi Familia! Great sopapillas too!

One of our first things we did after we moved to Granbury was attend a StoneWater service at the Driftwood Theater. I vividly remember meeting people in the lobby and talking with Jeremy and Joey on the front steps. We also met here before we left on a 10 day mission trip to Mexico.

Kid friendly and FREE - the Hood County Library. Daniel and Anna LOVE this place! They even have Captain Underpants and Backyardigans books here!

During the week, the magic happens here at the church office! I still remember getting nervous and excited for my very first staff meeting, which was then held at Jeremy's house. We graduated to our first office within a year and outgrew that one quickly (my office was also the break room). We moved into our current location, after a quick cosmetic makeover (thanks Heather!), and have loved our wonderful space. My kids enjoyed this place too! Daniel has discovered he shares his daddy's love for the white board!

This place is a God-send! A grocery store INSIDE our housing development! The prices were a little higher and the selection was a bit limited , but the service was unbeatable. The checker would see me coming with 2 kids and a basket full of food and call for carry out! And they really did bag all my stuff and carry it to the car for me. Small town luxury, for sure! Don't you love the golf cart, too? :)

Last but not least, one of the best things to hit Granbury is Starbucks! You'll notice the lights are off and the furniture is chained up. My dear accountability partners and I saw this scene too many times!! Lots of fun and meaningful conversations were had in and around this place. :)

Firehouse fun

2008-06-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

We had a blast today at one of our favorite playgroups - the Pecan Firehouse. This year's tour was cut short, but the kids had a great time exploring the trucks and looking around the fire house.
Our dear friends the Sprayberrys were there. I couldn't resist the picture with Daniel and the twins - priceless!

trip to fossil rim

2008-06-22T01:19:00.000-07:00

Mom & Dad took the kids to Fossil Rim on Friday while Dave & I packed. They had a BLAST! If you've never been, you should make plans. It is an awesome experience and is just outside of Granbury in Glen Rose.

Daniel feeds a deer

Anna checks out the aoudad sheep

The kids loved the petting zoo

Anna did NOT like the ostrich, who was VERY hungry and came right up to the windows. I have to admit, I don't blame her! They are a bit scary!! Traffic jam

giraffes weren't very hungry, but at least made an appearance

Making progress

2008-06-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

We are definitely making progress here at the Barrett homestead. Half of the garage is filled with boxes of our stuff. Who knew we had SO MUCH STUFF?!! We sent a truckload of stuff to a yard sale today and we have other plans for another pickup truckload. :) Kids seem to be handling everything well. We have packed up about half of their stuff, so there is definitely still stuff to play with!

Huge thanks to mom and dad for watching kids for us during the past couple of days! We made tons of progress during their retreat to Stewart World. (Watch for my posting on their trip to Fossil Rim!).

We are set to close on our Austin house next Friday and will move stuff the following week. Not much action on our house here; the market is definitely not working in our favor! But we are confident that everything will work out - God has wonderful plans for us and will take care of it all (in His time). We sold our Richardson home in 8 days, so our current situation seems like an eternity! Quick lesson learned: don't use the self cleaning cycle on your oven when you KNOW there are people coming to look at the house! We definitely had an interesting smell going on today. :) DUH.

We appreciate your prayers as we continue through this crazy time. This whole turn of events has really taken us by surprise. God has blessed us with so much here in Granbury in just a short time; we were definitely not LOOKING to leave after only 2 years in our country home. We will always have a strong connection with all of our wonderful friends here! I'm still blown away when all that God has done in the short time we have been here.

However, I seem to have more peace about what lies ahead. When God calls you to something new, even things that are not easy, we are crazy to not follow Him! Experiencing swim lessons with Daniel have helped illustrate that for me. I knew that Daniel had it in him to swim. He had to work really hard to overcome his fears and trust that his teacher would guide him through each lesson. In the end, he could swim and (more importantly) had conquered something huge, and gained confidence to do more in the future. I wouldn't trade that experience for him for anything! Of course I wanted to pull him out of the water when he was frustrated or upset. But his teacher knew what he could do, and patiently worked with him through it. How much more does God care for us?! He knows what He can do through us - we just have to trust and be patient for His guidance and grace!!

So, watch out, Austin - we are on a mission!! :)

Watch out Nemo!

2008-06-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

If you told me this would have happened, I would not have believed you! After 5 days of 30 minute of private swimming lessons, here is a video of Daniel that is just amazing!

Thanks, Mrs. Judy, for a wonderful week! It was definitely a challenge for Daniel, but he worked hard and learned like crazy!!! At the beginning of the week, he would doggy paddle but would not even put his face in the water. Unbelievable!

to my blogging friends

2008-06-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

Just want to give a big shout out to all of my blogging friends out there! I absolutely love to catch up on you & your world when I have a late-night-laptop moment or two!!! I love to read about your lives and see where God has you. I have known many of you for several years and love to see the changes we have all been through - from new haircuts to new babies to new adventures!

I had a wonderful week last week. I spent Tuesday night in Dallas catching up with a wonderful group of women who were my Bible study partners when I first moved to Dallas from College Station. Definitely lots of changes in the past 10 years! I'll probably get this wrong, but we have collectively had 16 babies (2 Barretts, 2 Colbys, 3 Woodards, 3 Lesserts, 3 Woods, 2 Rapps, and 1 Williams) - two of which are still on the way!! We've probably moved at least that many times - we all started fairly central and are now all over the place! We don't get to meet very often, but when we do, we take turns giving the updates and asking the questions that only your close girlfriends can ask! It was so encouraging to hear the changes from the last time we met back in October. It was a great challenge for me to attempt to sum up my life in 3 minutes or less - and hear it viewed from the eyes of Godly women who are not quite so emotionally tied to every detail. They were so excited for our move to Austin (see previous entry if this is news to you) and very encouraging about everything. The entire evening just reinforced the fact that God is always working and has great plans for us. And even though we may sometimes struggle, we can always look back to see His faithfulness.

Dave & I had dinner on Wednesday with our dear friends, Michael and Kelly, just before they moved with their 2 boys to Colorado Springs! We have loved keeping up with them after we left Dallas 2 years ago, and look forward to continuing our relationship!! We had a wonderful dinner and got to talk lots about the many emotions that come with moving. It's never easy to give up what you know and love, everything that is familiar, for things that are different, weird, and crazy! Of course, the alternative (ie telling God "no thanks") seems much more depressing and scary. The transition also shines a light on everything - including things we may be holding onto too tightly. Hmmmm....

So the two evenings, combined with my willingness to face my fears and talk with Dave about everything and then pray over the situation, seemed to be wonderful therapy for me. Don't get me wrong - my eyes still well up with tears when I talk with friends about leaving, when I worship at my wonderful church, when I realize that I will no longer be down the street from world-class (and free) babysitters, and when I sit in my Birthday swing (read that carefully - not my birthday suit!) in my backyard. But the deep-down part of me is now preparing and anticipating the things that are to come.

I can't NOT mention my weekend. My brave friend Jen spoke to our youth girls Friday night about s-e-x and I got to tag along for prayer and moral support. I was so proud of my sweet friend for being real, encouraging, and keeping it holy with the girls there! We had a great Q&A time with the girls and then Jen & I left and celebrated with a quick late-night trip to Sonic. :) I also got to serve my feet off at our Mother Daughter Tea on Sunday afternoon - after hearing my awesome husband deliver an equally awesome message at church on Sunday. This same, remarkable husband also helped load and unload tables and chairs for the tea party after his marathon morning - a true servant. It felt so good to be involved in ministry - talking and sharing with God's beautiful women was a great blessing to me!!

So, to sum up, I'm excited about where I've been, excited about what's going on now, and excited about what's ahead. It's a weird kind of emotional-yet-peaceful excited; it seems to come packed with unexpected and uncontrolled tears and then eventually laughter. But it's undeniably excitement...

mash-bu-huh?!

2008-06-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

I must say, I am impressed at the creative vocabulary (in a good way) of my 3 year old daughter! She frequently comes up with her own words and/or phrase and usually links a game to it (wee-whoa is a game where you bop yourself on the head, say "wee-whoa" and laugh like crazy).

Here's her newest phrase, which comes with its own song. So, if you were wondering what you should say if you accidentally pass gas in front of someone, here it is:

In case you need the translation, she said "mash-ba-fee-duh-non-a-bo" :). Priceless!

What a birthday!

2008-06-02T20:05:00.001-07:00

WOW! We had such a fun day celebrating Daniel and the big number 5! We had his party at Gym Kats in Granbury, a gymnastics center complete with 4 super-bouncy trampolines and a foam block pit with a rope swing and climbing ladder. We were thrilled to have so many of our wonderful friends come to celebrate with us! We even had special appearances by Mimi & PawPaw (all the way from Plano) and my college roomie Sarah and her two sweet boys Tate and Everett (all the way from Temple)!!!

Daniel is into cars - big time! Here's his cake:

Kid magnet: the foam pit! It eats your socks and is SUPER deep!!

Madison and Anna have a jump together

Dale & Andy show no fear as they scale the net!

My friend Sarah and sweet son Everett!

Preschool Graduation

2008-05-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Daniel graduated from preschool last night! It was as cute and goofy as any preschool graduation could be, without any major catastrophes. :)

This is Miss Debbie, the wonderful preschool director, starting off the evening.

This is Daniel's class, the green frogs, singing the Jonah song.

Here's our superstar, accepting his "diploma" from Miss Debbie and his teacher, Mrs. Briggs.

Daniel poses with his teacher, Mrs. Briggs. He was so proud!

Grammie & Papa Ray were there to watch! And if you know anything about growing up as a Stewart, you know Papa Ray was there to give plenty of "no-shame" above the head waves from the audience while Daniel was up on stage!!!

Here is Anna and me with her awesome teachers, Miss Julie and Miss Stacie. They were so wonderful with Anna this year!! We are going to miss them!!!

Grammie and Anna had fun during the punch & cookies reception.

conversation at the donut store

2008-05-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

A loose retelling of the conversation between just-turned-five-year-old Daniel and his daddy in front of the "Super Donut" in Manor, TX:

Daniel: Is this the donut store?
Daddy: It sure is!
Daniel: (reading the sign on the door) Do you spell donut d-o-n-u-t?
Daddy: That's right! Great job!
Daniel: What's the other word?
Daddy: Super. S-u-p-e-r spells super.
Daniel: What does super mean?
Daddy: It means it is great or big or alot.
Daniel: Like Superman?
Daddy: Yes...
Daniel: Wow! So what makes these donuts super?......

Daniel turns 5

2008-05-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Let the parties begin - Daniel is officially 5 years old!

We got the party started at Aunt Leslie's house in Austin. Dave took the birthday boy to Super Donuts (another blog entry altogether - think "Elf" movie) and picked out a special birthday donut with sprinkles. Here he is opening an electronics kit - he LOVED it and continues to prove he IS his father's son!

Aunt Leslie put up the awesome slide in the back and the cousins had a blast! Even my niece Halle had fun!

We pulled the kids away long enough to have cake!

Here are the cousins, Anna and Ellie, who definitely already act like sisters. Dave & I brought back matching dresses for the sweet girls from our anniversary trip. They love to play together - until it's time for a break, of course! Anna sobbed when we got in the truck to head home. She wanted Ellie to come home with us!

change is in the wind

2008-05-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

We have immensely enjoyed our move to Granbury – I can’t believe it’s already been more than 2 years since we’ve left Dallas and moved back to my hometown! Dave has loved the past year working as a pastor for our church and has finally stopped asking what he is going to do when he grows up. I have also loved working with Dave on staff part time and spending lots of time with kids and our wonderful friends here.

However – God has been working on us for several months (and really several years) and it is finally time to answer the next call. We are moving to Austin at the end of June! Dave accepted a job as a pastor at Austin Stone Community Church and will be working with my brother-in-law Kevin, college friend Matt, and lots of other amazing people on staff there. He is really excited about his role – which will be very similar to the operational and directional leadership roles he is doing here in Granbury at StoneWater.

As He always does, God is just putting all the pieces into place one by one. Anna will be in the same preschool class with my niece Ellie and we are planning to send Daniel to Kindergarten at a wonderful school in SW Austin. We went house shopping on Saturday; started at 9am and had an accepted offer on a beautiful home by 6pm that day! It’s a beautiful home and is one street down from my sister in a really great community with a pool, parks, and a golf course! Our wonderful home in Granbury is on the market and we are just waiting for our buyer to come see their new home any day!

We are truly going to miss this wonderful place. We love our home with open space all around, a great driveway for bike and big wheel riding, a creek for throwing rocks, a shady swing, and the river just a few yards away. We love being down the road from Grammie and Poppa Ray and their backyard river, fire pit, trampoline, and hot tub! God has blessed us with unbelievable coworkers and friends; my eyes well up with tears when I think about not getting to see them at church, at the park, at the office, and yes, at the local Wal-Mart! This place will always hold a special place in our lives and we would love for God to bring us back some day.

Our new home!

vacation!

2008-05-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Dave & I just returned from a WONDERFUL vacation to St. John and St. Thomas. I'll have to link to a slideshow later for more pics - here are just a couple of my favorites.

If you're in the vacation market, you MUST consider St. John. It is a beautiful island - one of the US Virgin Islands, so they use the dollar and speak English! They drive on the left side of the road, but Dave was a great driver - no shock, there. We spent a day on a sailboat (visited Jost Van Dyke, a British Virgin Island), did some fly fishing, hiked a national park trail, and ate LOTS of delicious food. The beaches are beautiful and there are lots of them! I could (obviously) go on and on, but I think you get the picture that we had a wonderful time!

God has blessed us with an amazing 10 years of marriage (the cause for the vacation) and we were able to spend some great time talking and reconnecting. We stayed at a B&B with 2 other couples - one on their honeymoon and another who were about to celebrate 40 years of marriage! It was cool to think about how far we've come since the honeymoon and how far to go to 40 years together!! It's been an interesting time but we are blessed to see the evidence of God working in wonderful ways through it all.

i love my kids

2008-05-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

this is my favorite picture (so far!)

the butterfly project

2008-04-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Anna had a butterfly birthday this year! We had a cupcake birthday cake in the shape of a butterfly, butterfly flip flops, butterfly dress-up costume, and butterflies to decorate during the party. (Butterflies rank right up there with ANYTHING Princess in our house!)
Part of Anna's birthday present was the butterfly habitat! We started with an innocent cup with six tiny caterpillars!

Those guys ate and ate and ate! They got huge! Daniel loved to watch them eat - Anna, too, but from a distance!

They finally got full enough and moved into the chrysalis phase. This was obviously not fun for the kids! We did get time to talk about all the changes that God was doing on the inside.

About a week later, we had our first butterfly! They are "painted lady" butterflies. Kids LOVED to watch him fly around and stretch his wings. We also fed them slices of watermelon. Eventually, 4 of the 6 butterflies emerged from their chrysalides. We fed and watched them for over a week. Then, we released them! We thought they might fly right out, but were disappointed when they just sat there!! After an hour or so, one butterfly ventured to the top of the habitat. He finally took off and we followed him to the next lot over. He eventually flew away and the kids waved good-bye!

It was a great experience and we'll probably try it again!!

If you're interested, here's where I ordered the all-inclusive kit from: www.Nature-Gifts.com.

Another flight

2008-04-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

Daniel & Papa Ray had another airplane flight on April 12th. He had a great time - his favorite part was getting to fly through the clouds! They also saw birds flying in the air.
Anna is not so fond of the loud noise when the airplane taxis away!

Cooking class

2008-04-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

From the mouths of babes

2008-04-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

They always say to write this stuff down...

At dinner last week, we served the kids the typical meat, vegetable, and salad with Ranch dressing. Kids were eating well until Anna had more lettuce than dressing. "Can I please have more Ranch dress-up?" she asked sweetly. So cute!

Birthday Recap

2008-04-02T01:42:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how quickly the last 2 weeks have flown by! My sister has beat me to the punch and put some great pics up on her blog. The odds are much better for you to look there than back here. At the present moment, I can't even find my camera! My little shutterbug (Daniel) loves to record movies and take pictures around the house. There's generally at least one that puts me in tears laughing; I love to see life through the lens of a 4 1/2 yr old!

Anna scored big time on birthday presents. There is no doubt that a 3 year old inhabits our house. We have a doll house FULL of cute furniture, princess pop up tens, and dress up costumes galore! And dresses and SHOES, of course!

Anna had a family-only butterfly birthday party, complete with a cupcake-bday cake in the shape of a butterfly! Dave & I got her a butterfly habitat that has been very fun to watch! Since the second week in March, we watched our 6 tiny caterpillars get HUGE, turn into chrysalides, and 3 have turned into butterflies! I MUST take more pics and post soon! Daniel named the first one "polkadots" - very creative for the boy who named his stuffed lamb "lamb" and his stuffed brown bear "brown bear". I had to chuckle when the next butterfly was christened "polkadots Anna" and the next to-be-butterfly was named "polkadots Daniel". Too funny!

On the subject of creative names, Anna received a webkinz for her birthday! It is a cute pink poodle - just right for my little princess. I think the name she created - all by herself - was brilliant! Are you ready? Ruffipanella! (I think there's a taste of Papa Ray-isms in that name. ). They love to logon to the webkinz site and take care of the precious pooch. Daniel is a computer pro - Anna loves to watch and give directions. So fun!

Paw Paw and I also celebrated our birthdays. We blessed him with GPS software for his new GPS to be used this summer on the 4 wheeling in Colorado. My family blessed me with lots of great gifties - including a cute jacket, necklace/earrings, Ft. Worth zoo passes, and an outdoor wooden swing and "seed money" for plants. Thanks again!! We had lots of great meals together and enjoyed spending time with everyone.

Next up in birthday land - Aunt Amy, cousin Ellie, and then Daniel!

Today's the day!

2008-03-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

Definitely lots to post later, but today is Anna's big birthday! Hard to believe she is 3. She is sweet, tall, "well proportioned" (thanks Uncle Kevin), fun, and has a great laugh! Can't wait to have a blast today with our family as we celebrate!

A game my sister & I played with our dad...

2008-03-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

In 5m 43s

Click here to Play

Fun with scooby doo

2008-03-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

We recently checked out a Scooby-Doo book from the Hood County Library. I knew the kids liked Scooby & the gang, but Dave & I had no idea how much they would love this book! By the end of the 2 week check-out period, Daniel & Anna had assigned names to each one in the family. Daniel was Fred, Anna was Daphne (pronounced Daf-fun-nee), Dave was Shaggy, I was Velma (or Vulma, as Anna proudly announced), and of course, Bailey was Scooby -Doo!

The End of an Era

2008-02-24T20:25:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe it's over! Jen Sprayberry, Lisa White, and I have been meeting together after our kids' bedtime to pray, share, and encourage each other for the last 2 years. Between the 3 of us, there are 9 kids, so sometimes that meant we stayed up pretty late! Lisa left for her new home in San Diego last Monday. We'll miss you!!! Check the sidebar for Jen's Blog and Lisa's Blog.

Big News in the Barrett House!

2008-02-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, friends and family, we are nearing another milestone at the Barrett house! Our big girl has started using the potty and wearing her big-girl-princess panties! I'm not sure who is more excited - Anna or Dave & me!!!

California Dreamin'

2008-02-24T19:31:00.000-08:00

Our friends Joey & Lisa White (and their three boys) packed up their house and headed west to San Diego, California! Dave & I were excited to be part of the eventful occasion - I braved Frontier Airlines with Lisa and 3 boys while Dave joined the team of drivers. He and the other guys drove for almost 25 hours to make the 1,300 mile trip!

We did have a great time while we were there. We had some great food (Rubio's - awesome!) and enjoyed Coronado beach and seals at La Jolla. After I left on Wednesday, the guys got in some hiking on Cowles Mountain and did some surfing at Pacific Beach!! They actually did surf!!
Click here to watch Dave surfing!

We're excited for our friends as they reach people for Jesus by starting new churches in San Diego. To read more, here are their blogs:

Joey's Blog

Lisa's Blog

Daniel & Papa Ray: Up, up, and away!

2008-01-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

What started out as a taxi down the runway ended up as Daniel & Papa Ray's first flight!

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon when we strapped Daniel's carseat into Dad's RV-6 so Daniel could take a short taxi with Dad to fill up the plane with gas. Daniel seemed to enjoy himself, so Dad asked if he'd like to go up for a flight. After some talking and Daniel's nod of approval, they were off! They flew by Grammie's office in Weatherford and StoneWater Church (Brawner Intermediate School) before heading back home. After 40 minutes, mommy was ready for the two guys to bring 'er in! They had wonderful landing and both were full of smiles!

Anna and I waited at the airpark (here) and then the hanger for the landing!

Here's the final approach!

Awesome Christmas

2008-01-11T21:22:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone - this Christmas was SO fun! We had a blast in Plano with Mimi, Paw Paw, Aunt Amy, and Uncle Dan! We had a fun birthday party for Uncle Dan and (as usual) hid things all over the house for him!!!

We also had a wonderful time in Granbury! Grammie and Papa Ray had a great time with their 4, yes count them, 4 grandkids. Aunt Leslie and Uncle Kevin brought one of their new toys - Playstation 3 and the game ROCK BAND. We partied like rock stars - well, not really. But we acted like them on the guitar, drums, bass, and mic.

Uncle Dan, Paw Paw, and Dave even managed to spend a little time up at the deer lease. Even though the cows broke some of the equipment, Dave managed to bring home a big buck!

Daniel & Anna really enjoyed everything and were really into the whole Christmas story (both Jesus and Santa). At Grammie's house, we had a chocolate birthday cake! Daniel, Anna, Ellie and Hallie sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blew out the candles! It was so fun to watch them tear into their presents and play with everything at the same time.

Can't wait for next year!

Rocket fun!

2007-11-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

The Barrett men had a blast making a rocket car today. Don't miss the video!

Fun pics!

2007-11-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

Couldn't resist sharing a few more pics with you!

Daniel took this of my sister and I during a laptop hangout session in Austin.

Molly cooked us an incredible meal after the sip & see. Here she is grilling our steaks! Thanks for the support, mom!

Ellie roots for the team. Touchdown! Just needed a few more that Saturday.

Anna had fun dressing up as a princess. Could she be the dish fairy?!

The kids rode the train at Acton Methodist's Lord's Acre. They LOVE this thing!

All smiles!

Another of Daniel's photos. If you know Anna, you'll recognize this face!!!

Halle's Sip & See

2007-11-03T15:01:00.001-07:00

We had a great party for Leslie and Halle down at Leslie's house in Austin! Halle is 7 weeks old here - she seemed to have a great time, although she missed out on the cupcake bar. :)

The guest of honor, complete with ballet shoe booties!

Knox Riemondi enjoys lunch.

Mom and Molly (Leslie's sister-in-law)

The guests of honor!

Leslie and friend Angela pose as Ellie blesses her cupcake!

This is Jack, Leslie's nephew, who is 9 months old. He's such a doll!!

Our cupcake bar, complete with chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet cupcakes, frosting in every color, and tons of toppings! It was so fun!!!

Daniel had fun getting his cupcake JUST right.

Anna and Daniel enjoying their creations!

After the party, the kids enjoyed the warm weather by playing outside on the trampoline. This is their "train"!

Halloween!

2007-11-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

We had a great Halloween this year! Daniel took his first school field trip to a community retirement center with his preschool. Later that evening, the kids suited up for some trick or treating fun. We met up with several families in our neighborhood and filled the pumpkins with candy! Last year Daniel & Anna were both shy about approaching houses and ringing doorbells. This year was completely different - they were both running from house to house with joy!! Grammie and Papa Ray joined us - we all had a blast!!

Fueling up on our pre trick-or-treating dinner.

Pretty pink princess Anna shows us her best princess moves.

Spiderman flexes his muscles.

Our buddy Chris joined in the fun! Need a package, mon?

Daniel, Anna, and our dear friend Spencer the giraffe pose as we wrap up our evening.

Fun with family and friends!

2007-10-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

Barrettworld was wild and crazy this week!

Aunt Leslie came to visit with Halle and Ellie in tow! We visited Grammie at her office, terrorized Target, went to the zoo, made s'mores in Papa Ray's fire pit, met up with Regina, Angela, and Baby Aubree, and just had a great time! Pics and comments to come soon!

We also had another group of special visitors - the Visentines! Michael, Kelly, Andrew and Matthew came out to the country for some R & R! We enjoyed the beatiful Texas fall Saturday with a boat ride to the kids favorite desitnation - McDonalds! We also made smores, but kept it here in the back yard. More pics to come, but here's a fun shot of the kids with the pumpkins they carved. Well, mostly "they" - you know mom and dad were definitely involved in the process!

Big Arrival!

2007-09-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

Halle Elizabeth Peck was born Thursday, September 13th at 3:19pm. She weighs 7 pounds, 9 ounces and is 21 inches long. Leslie is doing great and looking even better; she had a little more than 7 hours of mostly pain-free labor! Kevin is doing great - he is trying to keep up with all the text messages coming his way! Big sister Ellie is doing really well - you will see several pics of us in the waiting room with her. She wasn't excited about seeing mom with stuff in her arm (IV) but loves her baby sister and gave her sweet kisses on her head.

Arriving at the hospital!

Anna and Ellie have a blast coloring in the waiting room.

New family photo: Grammie, Papa Ray, Ellie, Kevin, Leslie, and Halle!

Aunt Suzy with Leslie and new niece Halle!

After Halle was born, we took the kids to the park nearby at Central Market for some playtime and a snack. Here's Ellie!

Daniel & Anna can play together!

Back at the hospital:

Kissing Cousins! Anna gives Halle a low-germ kiss on the head.

Anna and Ellie have a chat on Aunt Leslie's bed.

Doesn't Leslie look great?!