Merry Christmas!

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

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

 

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

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

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Ivey is here!

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!

 

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

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!!