One of Anna's very favorite things

I am not sure if it's due to the fact that she had the undivided attention of 5 adults for the first 3 years of life, or if it's just her personality...but Anna would much rather be hanging out and participating in an adult conversation than hanging out with a group of kids...anytime. This can be a frustrating attribute, at times, because she needs to play with the kids and some adult conversations are not for 10 year old ears. But I try my best to compromise and let her hang with me when appropriate.

So...needless to say, one of her very favorite things is to go to work with Daddy. This usually happens about twice a year. She gets to sit at her own desk, they give her real work, but most importantly she is surrounded by a group of adults who talk to her and treat her as if she is one of them for the day.

And today, eventhough it is a rare casual day at Daddy's office, she is dressed to the hilt and on her way. (if you know Anna...then you know that the outfit is just as important as the activity)

As much as she is a Mama's girl...this girl really loves her Daddy. Getting to spend a day with him without sharing time with Alex is a big treat!

Hope and pray that you have a blessed day!

Time flies....

...when you're having fun! I can't believe that it has been almost 3 months since I last published a blog post.

We have been busy...end of school, vacation to the beach, volleyball, birthday, trip to OK, and lots of swimming and playing with friends and family! My camera was MIA for about a month and a half, so my pictures of the last couple of months are limited. However, I do have some shots of one of the most important events of the summer so far....Alex's 8th Birthday! I am still trying to reconcile in my mind that fact that my "baby" is 8. How could this be possible? :) He had a super fun Super Mario party with his buddies from school.

Blowing out the candles on his cookie "cake" (he doesn't like cake!)

A game to see who could find the most coins in about 3 minutes. There were 144 coins scattered across the back yard.

A fun morning celebration with Mommy and Anna (poor Daddy had been gone to work for a couple of hours before the kids woke up!)

In other summer fun news...the kids have been building forts, sleeping on pallets, playing lots of make believe and much more! Here are some quick pics of some of their creations...

I hope that you are having a fun summer!!

I love my family...

A few weeks ago, while Ryan and family were home for Spring Break, we decided to have pictures made of the whole crew....all 15 of us. When did we become a family of 15? Wow...that is a lot of people. Precious people, though, and we managed to have fun while taking pictures. Well, some of us did. If you look closely in the last picture, you will see one sweet little girl who was not thinking that this was a good idea. :)

I love this picture...look below to see what they were laughing (and recovering) from.

This was probably not such a good idea!

Sweet boys...who are way outnumbered by the girls.

The princesses.

My favorite people in the whole, wide world...

I hope your family is as fun as mine,

She might even be...

....a ROCK STAR!! :) I am not biased at all...not one bit!

Anna was invited to speak at the National Sales Conference for HealthPoint, on behalf of JDRF. So, yesterday afternoon we left school early and headed over to her "speaking engagement". She had written her own speech just the day before and did a phenomenal job in front of ~200 HealthPoint associates. Can you imagine speaking in front of that many adults when you were 10? Not me! I'm just a tad proud of her ;)!

Video below...

Last night, after Anna spoke, the HealthPoint team was participating in a big fundraising/teambuilding bowling event. Over 150 people bowled for 1 hour with 50 cents for every pin knocked down going to JDRF!

I am excited to hear how much they raised.

Thanks for letting me brag a little today...

Real-time Blogging...SNOW!

I very rarely blog in real-time. Meaning that the events and associated pictures in my posts normally take place days or weeks before I get around to talking about them. Well, not today!!

I have seen more snow this winter than I can remember in my entire childhood. It is just so beautiful. I would guess that we are now up to 5 inches. Truly jaw-dropping in this part of the world.

I'll let the pictures do the talking for what has been happening at our house this morning...

Blessings for a warm and cozy day,

10 words

During the Christmas season, I found 3 identical notes hidden around the house. She never gave one directly to me, but instead put them in places she knew I would find them...under my pillow, in my makeup drawer, etc. They were all addressed to me...not Santa, not God, not Dad, not Mom and Dad....just Mom.

There are no words to explain the feelings upon reading her notes. Oh how I wish and PRAY that I could do something. I love her so much. Please join me in praying for a cure.

Yes, we went again!

So, the pre-Christmas surprise I mentioned at the end of the last post was....a trip to Disney.

We took the kids out of school the week before Christmas break, essentially giving them 3 weeks off (they loved that!!), and headed to Orlando.

We truly cherish this time together as a family, it is such a total blessing! We are mindful and thankful that we have had this opportunity. A few reasons why we go....

There's this-

And this-

And this-

And this-

And, one of my personal favorites, this- hee hee!!

A few highlights from this trip....

Meeting Tinkerbell at 12:40 a.m.!!

I introduce to you Captain Frances Goldstealer...

The classic Anna and Indian picture, taken on every trip.

Candlelight Processional- an amazing WORSHIP service at Epcot, no joke!!

Cinderella's Castle- all dressed up for Christmas

We had a great trip and it was a wonderful start to our Christmas break! We got back just in time for our school Christmas parties and a week off before Christmas day. More on Christmas festivities coming soon!

Blessings on a great week ahead!

A little behind...

So, it seems that blogging has fallen to the bottom of the priority list. Probably because we have been busy having way too much fun!! To get caught up, I am going to start with Thanksgiving...

It was our year for Thanksgiving with the Barkers. Because Mindy and Shannon live far away, they typically only come for Christmas. So, we had a quiet but fun couple of days with Grandma and Papa. We decided to pretend that they were coming from afar and have them spend the night the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The kids thought it was great!! They are spoiled and have no idea what it is like to have grandparents that don't live close :).

A Pilgrim Family

Games with Grandparents

Almost ready for Thanksgiving dinner...

We hope Grandma and Papa had as much fun as we did!

Mom came home from a week in Andrews the Friday after Thanksgiving....we took some time to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere downtown and to play a few intense games of Boggle ;)

Next up....a pre-Christmas surprise!

Hallelujah Harvest 2009

This year we held our 4th annual Barker Family Hallelujah Harvest. For a little background....after many years of being a Halloween hater and dreading the night, I decided to do something about it. Starting in 2006, each year we have invited all of our close friends and family (and whoever they wanted to bring) over to our house for a yummy dinner, hayride, backyard big screen movie and more! This year about 40 of our closest friends came over to enjoy the fun. We had a blast! I did not get any pictures of the whole group this year :( BUT I did get plenty of my sweet peas. Let's see if you can figure out who they are dressed as...

Alex and his buddy, Case



Trick or Treating- for some reason this year the kids acted as if it was a race. They were literally running down the street...trying to be the first back to the hayride.

Please remember...next year...same day, same place, same time. You're invited!