Cousin Time

We missed out seeing Kevin's cousin, Kelly and her family, over Christmas so we planned a special get together so we could catch up with each other after the New Year.  Their family lives in San Antonio, and they were super nice to offer to drive up to us, and meet at the Oasis.  We really love their family and have always seemed to mesh really well with them, so I definitely enjoy and appreciate every time we get to be together.  Here we all are...

Ryan, Kelly, Brittany, Rodney, Kellie, Kevin, and Jake

The moment we drove up to the Oasis, Jake started commenting on how "cool" it was and was very excited to go exploring around the restaurant.  There's a bridge connecting the parking garage with restaurant and shops and Jake was super excited about crossing it.  Here's Jake and Kevin on the bridge...

I don't really know what to say about this last shot, except there is this weird looking thing outside the restaurant, and here are the guys checking it out...

9 years

Kevin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary on January 3.  I generally keep the content of this blog focused around Jake and our family as a whole, but I think it's important for our kids to know how important Kevin and I's relationship is.  In fact, without our love and relationship, there truly is no family, so I definitely think it's something to be acknowledged and celebrated. 

 

I am so blessed to be in a marriage with someone who loves and supports me through everything.  Kevin is patient and he's the best listener.  Kevin is my biggest encourager, and has a strength of showering me with verbal praise and affection.  He's a very attentive and active father.  He is so good engaging Jake and spending quality time with him.  He is very creative and imaginative; way more then me, and these strengths add a lot to who Jake is.  Jake (and all of Jake's friends) adore him, and it's easy to see the reason is due to the personal attention and easy manner he has with them.  I'm also really proud of the role he has a a teacher, coach, and church youth volunteer.  Children are so important to me, and I firmly believe every child is a gift from God and deserves love and support regardless of age, behavior, or circumstance.  Kevin has devoted his career to guiding young people and helping them grow intellectually, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually.  Public education gets such negative attention, but I'm proud that Kevin is a teacher and a coach in the public school system. He is a good, effective teacher, and I am certain his students and players' lives are positively impacted by his presence. 

 

I can hardly believe we've been married for 9 years and been together for over 12.  It does not feel that long, and I'm excited to venture into the future with him.  I love you so much, honey.  Happy 9 years! 

Kevin and I actually went on a date to celebrate 9 years!  It was a wonderful evening.
 Here we are before we headed out. 

Other birthday celebrations

We seem to have several friends who also celebrate birthdays around the start of the new year, which means lots of fun celebrating.  We helped celebrate Eliza's 2nd birthday Veggie Tale style.  Here's a hilarious picture of the kids.  5 of the 8 of them are 2 or under which explains the chaos (notice how Jake is doing his best to be perfectly posed, though)...

We also celebrated Aiden's 4th birthday with a fireman birthday party.  A real firetruck and fireman came to his house to help us all celebrate.  Here's Jake in front of the truck...


The kids were even offered rides on the truck!  The first trip the fireman took, Jake DID NOT want to go.  In fact, he stuck to his guns and stayed with me at the house while all the other kids took off on the truck.  I'm not sure what made him nervous of the whole thing, but he insisted he'd rather stay back.  Then again, when the party was about to end, the fireman offered another ride.  At first, Jake stated he didn't want to go, then at the last minute he agreed he would ride along with me.  I was so glad he did because it's probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, plus he had a great time and was so proud of himself.  It was a little dark to get a great picture of the ride, but here he is on a real firetruck!

Here are all the junior fireman.  What a fun afternoon!

Jake turns 4!

Jake turned 4 on January 2.  I can hardly believe it.  I LOVED age 3 and I'm certain I'll also love 4.  This stage of childhood is so great, and I'm blessed to be home to see it on a daily basis.  We started Jake's birthday off with a special breakfast.  This year I surprised him with mini pancake funny guys.  He was excited about the surprise and seemed to love the pancakes...

Here's all our pancake guys...

I found UT football guys at Terra Toys and it was the perfect gift for Jake.  For months, he's been using many different small objects like marbles or parts to other games to play football with them.  Now he actually has the real football players.  He immediately wanted to set it all up and begin playing...

Here are Jake and Daddy working on some plays...

Jake had already had birthday cakes with each set of grandparents and will have his special UT basketball birthday celebration at the start of February, so we all decided to stick to what he truly loves the best; ice cream!  We put his candles right into the ice cream container while we sang happy birthday.  Here's our big 4-year-old...

Once I've officially caught up on posts, I plan to post a special Jake post of all the things I want to remember about him at this age, so stayed tuned!

Happy New Year!

This New Year's Eve, we celebrated with a two-part night with some great friends.  Part 1 of the night was a family celebration at our house with the kids.  We counted down the New Year at 8 pm instead of 12 with the kids.  We brought in the kids' New Year with a dance party.  It was actually great fun.  We turned on some music and all busted a move until the clock struck 8:00 pm.  Here's Jake ringing it in...

Here are the kiddos lined in a row: London, Eliza, and Jake...

Although this isn't the best quality picture, I have to include it.  Jake took a picture of us as the kids' night was ending.  Here are all the Mommies and Daddies (and the blur of Eliza's head, and London in the middle)...

Once we got the kids to bed, some very nice grandparents took the night watch so the adults could enjoy a nice dinner out.  After dinner, we headed to the Pimentels for games, fun conversation, milk and cookies!  Guess our party wasn't all that different from the kids' verson ;-)

Birthday celebrating begins

This year, Jake opted out of having a birthday party to instead take two of his favorite people, Cohen and Nicolas, to a UT basketball game.  Because of this plan, we requested that our families celebrate his birthday while we were visiting over the holiday break.  At my parents', he got his very own cool ocean sealife cake.  Here's the candle blow-out...

and the noise maker blowing.  No birthday is complete without some fun noisemakers!

More Christmas fun

The day after Christmas we headed to my parents' for our Christmastime with them.  Jake arrived to a lot of Christmas gifts and surprises.  Here's just a little peek of the cool new things he got. Here he is rocking out on his new guitar equipped with cool shades and a mic...

He's definitely ready for music and performance time because he also got this cool microphone...

And here he is combining the two for the perfect sound...

Christmas Day 2012

Christmas Day 2012 brought us a wonderful white Christmas.  The kids started the morning seeing what Santa brought.  Jake got just what he asked for from Santa: "a blue kitchen"...

We ate breakfast, opened presents, and the kids spent the morning playing with all their new goodies.  One of Channing's surprises from Santa was her very own Hello Kitty hair dryer.  Here she is trying it out...

About mid-morning the snow started falling.  It kept falling, and falling, and falling, until finally later in the afternoon it stopped and the kids were able to go out exploring in the Winter Wonderland.  Here are the boys all bundled up...

And here's Channning (Campbell stayed safely and smartly in someone's arms on the porch)...

Within 3 minutes of being outside, Channing plopped on the ground and began making a snow angel.  It was so unexpected and super cute.  Cassy immediately wondered how she knew to do that; I guess Channing has a snow angel instinct...

Here's our handsome and happy boy enjoying the white Christmas...

And here are the guys in the midst of the snow...

Unfortunately, the snow kept us from enjoying the next family gathering we call Barr Christmas, but instead it allowed us a nice, relaxing day and night together all to ourselves.  All together a great Christmas Day!

Getting started on family fun

We headed to Gainesville first to start the family fun.  There's a couple of Christmas family gatherings on Kevin's family's side that we only sometimes get to attend, so it's fun when we are able to make it.  One is a Christmas Eve brunch with extended family on Carla's side of the family.  Brunch might be my favorite meal (if it actually counts as one), so I'm always excited for the food and the family.  Here's a picture of our family...

And here's a picture of most everyone who attended; four generations of family represented...

Later on that day we had some relaxing time, Jake and his cousins got to play, and we did family stockings.  I had to take this next picture because Jake's reaction was priceless.  He was opening up the stocking and was SO excited to get these underwear.  He literally pumped his arm and exclaimed "Yessss!!"  I've never seen such a reaction when it comes to underwear, especially when it's in the midst of other fun toys, but I'm happy Jake seems to still like the simpler things...

Here's Jake and Cohen with their matching bears that also came from Lawson stocking stuffers.  Jake especially liked his and slept with it that night...

It was then time for pj's and bedtime in preparation for Santa.  Here are these two handsome boys in their Christmas pjs...

Here are 3 of the 4 cousins getting Santa's milk and cookies ready (Campbell was already asleep by this point)...

And finally the four parents (Chad, Cassy, Kevin and I) took turns reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" before the kids headed to bed.

Another fun thing we did in Christmas Eve evening was have a Christmas story children's play.  I really wish I had pictures, because it was ADORABLE, but I was one of the "directors", so I didn't have a chance.  We dressed the kids up and they acted out the story of Jesus' birth while it was being read.  Jake was Joseph, Campbell was Mary, Cohen was a wiseman, and Channing was the angel.  They did surprisingly well being that there wasn'tr really any practice due to limited attention spans.  Jake was a specially good Joseph and did great tending to the baby doll Jesus.  It was a fun activity and an important reminder of what this time is really about.

Our own little celebration

Before we headed out of town to visit our families, we spent a day enjoying the Christmas holiday with just the 3 of us.  The day started with a special Christmas breakfast; Christmas tree french toast...

Here's a close-up.  I'm just a little proud of my creation...

We all headed to Main Event to enjoy some family bowling and glow golf.  Here's Jake with his ball....he's quite the bowler, even though this shot makes his ball look gigantic...

After eating at a favorite of Jake's, Double Dave's, and heading home for a little afternoon rest, we opened presents.  Here's Jake's big present, although it doesn't look too big in the picture.  We decided to surprise him with a swing set for the backyard.  I think it's great timing before the baby comes to have something to keep him entertained outside without us always having to go into the front.  Now, it's just a matter of both the weather and Kevin's schedule cooperating so it can be built...

We all love looking at Christmas lights, so after dinner we loaded up to see all the wonderful displays.  We're fortunate to have many great ones nearby.  It was a really nice night, and we got out of the car several times to get a better look at all the decor.  Here's Jake  in front of a couple displays.  These are examples of his goofy grin while trying desparately to keep his eyes open.  His eyes are SUPER sensitive to the camera flash, so it's really hard to capture a good picture of him if the lighting requires a flash.  He's a trooper and does his best to keep them open...

Finally, Jake and Daddy.  It was a wonderful, fun family day and a great way to start of our Christmas celebrations!

Silly Christmas Fun

 First of all, thank you, Amanda, for making the simple suggestion of switching to Firefox from Internet Explorer.  What a simple solution I didn't even try.  Now we're back in business!  The last week of preschool before Christmas break Jake brought home lots of Christmas goodies.  He loved bringing everything home, dumping it all out and seeing what special treats he got.  He also loved taking one of the bags, wearing it as a hat, and being a super silly boy.  Here's the silly guy...

An unwanted delay

We had a great Christmas and New Years, and I diligently went through all my pictures, picked my favorites, and decided on blog post titles .  I was super excited to get caught upon my blog, then I went to upload the pictures and the drop-down box to locate the jpg files isn't coming up on blogger.  I have no idea why or what to do, so I'm delayed in getting my posts out.  If anyone has any helpful suggestions, I welcome them.  Otherwise, I'm waiting for the drop-down to magically reappear.  Hope to re-enter blogging soon.  Happy New Year!