Back to School

After a whole two week break we are back to school. As I wrote last year, we love shopping for a 1st day outfit and this year we splurged. They got to go to a store in the mall! It's a trendy little place called Justice. It's rediculously priced and I had a hard time. But, I had enough in the budget and the girls loved it.

Mardi has simple taste and is kind of picky. She only found a shirt she liked. The pants we had bought already. She was awfully warm on her first day back though!

Keddi and Tersa have the most expensive tastes. But Tersa found her shirt on a clearance rack that was seriously marked down so I let the price of her sweats "go." And then there's Keddi. She got one of the highest prices on both shirt and skirt. And she was probably the most excited. Starting first grade also allowed for a new backpack and I couldn't have done better in my choice for her. She was pink from head to toe.

Mardi had a dificult transition with the lunch hour in first grade. So, Shinara and I went to the school and watched. Keddi did great. She wasn't too worried or bothered about anything. I'll visit again on Friday and one day next week just to make sure she is getting enough time to eat.

So, Tersa has started Junior High, Keddi stayed for the entire day, and Mardi had to start fresh in a new classroom because we switched tracks this year. But, it looks good so far!

Hades has frozen over

For any of you who have been waiting for Hades to freeze over or for pigs to fly for something to happen, you might want to be on the look out! It would appear that just such a thing has happened because...we have a dog!

We have been holding the girls off for years because we felt strongly that a dog could only be accommodated if we had a backyard. Here's the story. I was driving home from dropping Keddi off at school on Aug. 7th. I saw an animal cross the street in front of me and was sure that someone was chasing the little thing but didn't see anyone. When I stopped at the corner of our street, the dog ran over to me. I picked it up, parked the van and went in to get the Build-a-Bear leashes that the girls have. I put them around the dog and Shinara and I sat in the front yard for about 20-30 minutes. I was sure someone was looking right then. Well, at dinner time that night, I wondered allowed how we could check if she had a chip in her because she did not have a collar. Mardi has read many books and said I could take her to a vet. The next afternoon I did and found she had one. I left her at the vet and they tried to contact the owners. Her name was Savanah and she'd been missing since December of 06'. Obviously someone had been taking care of her. The original owners could not be contacted so, we were told we could take her home and adopt her if we wished. Here's the weird part, Joel said it was o.k! So we are dealing with crate and house training (and the fact that she is in heat!!!) and I am not ready for it. But she really is a good dog. About four years old and appears to be a Yorkshire Terrier. And it looks like she will be ours.


Introducing Angie. (before her grooming, and after)

Tersa and Mrs. Vega

This is Tersa and her Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Vega. Mardi had her and now Keddi has too. Lots changed over the years for Ms. Vega but she still teaches Kindergarten and has for many, many years. On Tersa's last day of Elementary School, I took a picture of them again. It gave me an appreciation for teachers and the changes they see throughout their careers. Teaching gets harder and harder because of parent and student attitudes. They deal with alot.

Thanks to Ms. Vega! And perhaps she will have the last Barber girl before we end up moving from this house, who knows!

Keddi finishes Kindergarten

My third "baby" has gotten through kindergarten with flying colors. She was a good girl all year and I was complimented several times by different parents how sweet and nice she was to their children. We are making a track change next year so that she can have a great 1st Grade experience and some parents said their children were dissappointed that she would not be in their class. She is learning to read and recognize words and loves the idea thouroughly. She is interested in how things are spelled and has memorized a few of her favorites (little, for example). Shinara has caught the bug and whenever she spells a word for you it is spelled "hijk."

We attended an end of the year party in her class the afternoon before the last day of school. The last day was only a half day and she was in class for only 1 1/2 hours. They showed us a journal they'd kept and performed a song for us. We had pizza and cookies too. Shinara can't wait for school!

New Look

I have been experimenting with the look of the blog. Fall is coming and I love the fall colors. I like small changes and usually I change furniture around often and linens in the bathrooms and on beds to accomodate seasons. Well, our small home doesn't allow for many changes so I am going to change my blog. So don't think you have gone to the wrong place just because it is a different color. I am still going to look for other backgrounds to use, so there may be another change soon. We'll see.

5th Grade Talent Show

It wasn't just for 5th Graders, it was mostly for kids in the choir. Tersa stopped doing choir and had joined the drum club but was told by the choir teacher that she couldn't perform unless she came to choir. I would have gone in to talk with her but there were only two or three more choir practices and Tersa didn't want me to. So, she chose her song and on the day of auditions she was informed that if she didn't have a kareokee (sp?) version of her song, she couldn't perform. I was livid. But again, Tersa didn't want me to go in. She decided it was fine to just participate in a play someone had written. She had been told she would have one of the main 5 girls parts and ended up with one word and a run across stage. (Don't get me started about the music teacher! It has been a common problem through the years and not just for us!) But as part of the play, the girls all got on stage and performed a bit of the "Thriller" video. Tersa is in the striped shirt kind of in the middle. I didn't take any pictures of her playing her drum because we were on the opposite side of the room and the lighting is so awful for taking pictures anyway! My little camera just can't cut it.

Tersa's Last week of Elementary School

The girls last week of school ended on Aug. 10th. It was a week filled with stuff.
Tersa had a 5th grade Promotion ceremony in which they sang a song, saw video that included baby pictures, kindergarten age and 5th grade pictures of all the children whose parents sent in pictures and they received certificates. Tersa received her certificate from both the Principal, Mrs. Karout and the Vice-principal, Mr. Westwood.

These are some of Tersa's friends. (Left to right) Kylie, Cassidy and Rachel.

Job Change

I don't think we told anyone about the job change that Joel just had. He has been happy at Helm and Associates but had reached a bit of a stand still. He has always wanted to be able to try cases in court and was approached a month or so ago by a guy that works for Nationwide. We decided it would be a good change and it will give him the opportunity to take a case from begining to end. Plus, it will probably require less of his time. Not right now though. The other lawyer in the office has been working 100 cases on his own until they finally hired Joel. So, he has only been able to do what was absolutely necessary on each. So, Joel will have to spend a few months just getting his files in order and "cleaned up". Then we might be seeing him home earlier every day! This will be quite welcome by all!
Lots has been happening and I have pictures to post, but things have been very busy so I will get to it! Tune in soon!

Barber M&M's

Joel's sister Lindsay found a website where you can "Simpsonize" yourself. I don't care much for the Simpsons show but spent time doing all six of us. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to save the pictures where I could retrieve them and so when I came across a site that one could make themselves into M&M's I decided to go that route. That too was a pain, but I got it done. The girls made most of the choices, but since I wanted it to kind of look like them, I nixed pink hair and a different color for every option! Have a go at guessing who is who. Joel is a freebie for everyone...unless you aren't sure! (It was the girls who decided their dad was a brown. I haven't asked him what he would have chosen. Any thoughts?)

Shinara Lucy Barber

Shinara's birthday is in July but I waited to get her portrait done at the same time as the family ones. So, here she is...4 years old...still has her curls...and chubby cheeks!

Family Picture time

Well, here we are again. it's been another year, the girls have gotten bigger and they still look so much alike it's uncanny!
Let me explain the shirts. If you can see pink, those people have their shirt on backwards! These are shirts we wore to the Lorenc Family Reunion this year. Our family crest is on the back and I wanted it included in the picture because it is the reason we wore them for this years picture. But, some of the shirts looked noticably wrong turned around so, after trying them all, only half of us ended up wearing them that way.

Payten Riley Wilson

Mandy had her baby girl on July 5th. She looks just like the brother just older than her. (Connor) We are hoping she will outgrow that! Just Kidding!!! Connor and Braeden both are good looking kids. She's a sweet baby and not terribly fussy. Connor decided that it's not so bad having a sister in the house and my girls love having a new baby to hold! (Especially Tersa and as you can see, Keddi.)

Rain

So, it's been raining. Off and on all last week and this week. And I love it! I don't remember it ever raining quite this often and so much each time. Now don't start envisioning the flooding scenes from the news, although because we don't get much rain we are prone to some wicked flash floods. Not only have we gotten the rain but because it has been going on for a while, it has also cooled down. On Wednesday it got down to 79 degrees so I turned off the air and opened the windows for a while to air out the house and to better hear and smell the rain. Unfortunately our house doesn't have good air flow and after a couple of hours, it wasn't comfortable without the air conditioning. It put me in a festive mood though and if you got close enough to the outside of our house, you would have heard Christmas music issuing from it!

I figured our rainy days were over when I took the girls to the bus stop yesturday because there was not a cloud around. But in the afternoon I heard rumbling and pitter patters. Shinara asked if she could go out in the rain with her umbrella so I let her. She didn't appreciate the rain bouncing up on her from the ground and that her feet were wet in her sandals. So in less than a minute of being outside she wanted to go in. I opened the garage halfway and set up a chair to sit and watch the rain. It was a great lament of mine, at that moment, not to have a covered porch with a swing to watch the rain from.