Tony Romo Spotted in Wentzville, MO!!!

If you're wondering why Tony Romo didn't show up for the Cowboy's game against Washington, it's because he was dining at the Applebee's in lovely Wentzville, MO!

Seems Missourians don't find the Dallas Cowboys as important as many of us former Texans! Since the losing St. Louis Rams were playing at the same time as the Cowboys, we didn't get the game at home. (Yes, we're paying $99 for NFL ticket next year!) So, we get this great idea that we'll go watch the game at Applebees and Paul Barry would wear his new Romo jersey he received from my sister for Christmas. So, the 3 of us load up and proudly head to Applebees with plans of taking pictures for our blog site. How funny would it be to post pictures of Paul in his Romo jersey and say he was spotted at Applebee's with a woman who's not Jessica Simpson???? (Just older, fatter, less endowed, etc, etc, etc. Plus, this woman would have had a 10 year old with her, drinking milkshakes!)

We thought it would be funny at the time, but after the Cowboys began losing and Tony Romo continued to prove why Jessica's not good for him, Paul Barry was too embarassed to even go to the bathroom and wouldn't let us take any pictures. In fact, we had to quickly run from the restaurant with bags over our heads when we were ready to leave!

Paul Barry now says if the Cowboys lose their first playoff game he's going to burn the jersey in the front yard. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Texas, Our Texas, All Hail The Mighty State!

The alarm was set for 4:15 Saturday morning, pre Christmas. Paul Barry told the troops we need to be on the road by 5:30 since we have a long drive ahead. We made it out of the driveway by about 6:00. Not too bad.

Two hours later, we've managed to blow up the portable DVD player. Lucky for us we let Yulia open some of her gifts early, one of them a Leapster Learning System. 12 hours later we arrived in Texas, just as the batteries were running out on the Leapster!

We had quite a visit in Texas. We're using several blogs to tell you about our visit:

First stop was to our friend's annual Christmas get-together. All 5 of us(we're missing one regular) were proud Kangaroo graduates in 1978. We're planning a big 50th birthday celebration in a couple of years!
My friend Jennifer(speech queen) always graces us with her presence on holidays. She's become a holiday staple in the Barry/Burnette house.

Some of our best friends, this is Albert(Bubba) and our goddaughter, Gracie.

Had time for a last-minute speech queen meeting. Paige Preston and Summer Mittig, with speech princess Maggie Mittig. Cuestas, Bedeiree and queen bee Susan Schaetti were unable to attend.

Our two goddaughters Katie and Anna were our last stop before heading back to Missouri.

Kitty's Birthday/Christmas

Kitty(Bobby) celebrated her 88th birthday on Christmas Eve! She's in pretty good health. Has been living in an assisted living, but plans to return home with a caregiver in February. Yulia had called her Babushka(grandmother) for the longest time, but has now resorted to a more comfortable Bobby. That's fine with Kitty since she grew up as Kitty Bob!


Yulia and mom helped Bobby with her world famous cheese soup Christmas Day. She's not too willing to give out the recipe. Just a little bit of this and a little bit of that until it tastes right! For those of us who aren't quite Martha Stewarts, those kind of recipes can be very frustrating! Other family members were asking me if I "got the recipe?" That would be a no.

Yulia jammin' in her jammies from Aunt Teesie.

We got to spend two full days with Colyn. It was great since we didn't get to see much of her Thanksgiving. Jon was in New York(poor thing).

Burnette Christmas

Continuing our trek across the state of Texas, we landed in Celina Christmas night.

Julie and Yulia!

Courtney up front, with Debbie's step-son Troy in the background with his girlfriend.

(Thank you for turning your head to the right! I still don't know how to turn pictures right-side up) Troy's football team won state the Saturday before Christmas and Uncle Larry hand-decorated a Celina sweatshirt for Yulia. There are little sequins glued around the "Celina Bobcats" lettering.

There's not much to do in Celina and Yulia and Uncle Larry spent much of the morning after Christmas waiting for the trash truck! No, really Larry had told Yulia they had to wait outside to help the trashmen. We're happy Uncle Larry could teach our child about the finer things in life.

Before leaving Texas, we were able to have dinner with Aunt Fern. She's Daddy's last living sibling. Debbie, Kevin and I had a great visit.

Back to Missourri

After traveling 12 hours to and from Texas, we were readyTO BE BACK HOME for Santa's visit on Sunday morning, December 30th. A friend asked Yulia what she wanted Santa to bring her and she said, "Colyn." Colyn couldn't make it, since she's off snow skiing.

For those of you who look closely, you can see Santa brought Yulia some of the presents she received at the shower a year and a half ago! There were just so many toys when she first arrived from Russia, we didn't want to overwhelm her. But, after overwhelming her with our many present-opening events in Texas and Oklahoma, we decided to throw everything at her on "our" Christmas morning.

Pop in his Tigger hat!

A Hannah Montana cordless microphone which doesn't work!

Dancing in her new robe!

Like all of us, Kozmo is ready to doff the Christmas attire and get back to our normal routine!

Yulia has come up with several sayings as of late:

1. Drive, drive, drive.(Wonder why)

2. No school, no church. Football, yes.(Wonder why)

Happy 2008! Love, The Barrys!

TURTLE-MAKIN'

An annual tradition in the Barry Household is the making of the world famous "turtles." Pop had a new daughter to train this year. Colyn's ears must have been burning all the way back in Texas because she called us during the turtle-making process! We had to promise her we'd bring her some turtles when we're back in Texas for Christmas!



Here are Pop and Yulia heating up the caramel. There was still snow left on our porch, so we didn't even have to use the freezer to chill the candy!




The next night Mom and Yulia made chocolate covered pretzels. Mom forgot some of the pretzels were in the outdoor "snow freezer" and left them out all night. They were certainly frozen, and a bit wet. We'll just have to eat those ourselves.


We're headed to Texas Saturday to celebrate Christmas. Wishing everyone a safe and Merry Christmas!

Love, The Barrys

First Christmas

We're having such a blast with Yulia as she celebrates her first Christmas:

- She loves to sing Christmas carols. Gets about 20% of the words, but gets the points across.

- Just like her Mom, she's quite the tamborine player. Our small group at church went Christmas caroling Sunday night and she was jammin'.

- She loves to get Christmas cards in the mail. My aunts and several friends have sent Christmas cards addressed to her or with her name on them and she was so excited. Tore them right out of the envelope(and in half) and placed them firmly on the refrigerator for display.

- She's beginning to get the Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday Jesus thing! She says "Merry Christmas" all the time. Every baby that she says sees, it's "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus."

- Part of her homework tonight was to list things she likes about Christmas:
1. Christmas trees.
2. Ornaments on the trees
3. Snow
4. Candy(She and Pop have been making the world famous "Paul Barry Turtles." Pictures to follow!)
5. Church
6. Coca-cola(in the Santa bottle from Wally World)
7. Pepsi(Very big in Russia)
8. Santa
9. Fruits
***Wonder how this list will change by next year as she becomes more worldly???

- Things she doesn't like:
1. Cheese
2. Spankings


For those of you wondering, she was able to spell about 20% of the words on her likes/dislikes list. She's really coming along in school, although they're currently in the process of testing her for academics, intelligence and social preparation.

For all you speechies out there, she's beginning to put together 2-3 word utterances. She's having trouble with the "me, you and I" concept. Uses gestures and other non verbal speech to communicate when she can't "get" the word.

We received an e mail from her teacher tonight saying she was very proud when Yulia told a friend in class today, "That's not funny!" That's the longest phrase the teacher has heard her use.

Will close for now, Love Karen

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

They said it was going to snow, and it did! We got about 6 inches from midnight Friday through midnight Sunday. These 2 Texas and a Russian were very excited to get out and play.

Yulia was right at home in the snow. She's seen it before, or course. Kozmo hadn't, and was trying to eat the snow.

Hoping it would snow, we bought a sled the day before and Yulia and the neighbor's 2 year old had a great time sliding down the hill.

Kozmo likes catching the frisbee in the snow!

We went out sledding several times over the weekend. Pop has found the freezing snow makes for a very good ice chest. He just puts his beers into the snow out on the deck and they're ice cold in minutes!

Pop also found the weather quite frosty when using his new snow shovel to clear the sidewalks and driveway!

Why I'm Not a Member of the Portrait Club!

This is a very special Christmas to us, being Yulia's first holiday. So, I'm holding you, all of my friends and family, responsible for not telling me to avoid JCP's Portrait Studio.

From previous posts, you know I wasn't very happy with the picture color and quality. Well, imagine my unhappiness when I went to pick up the picture Christmas cards Friday and our personal information was NOT ON THE CARDS!

Long story: After our first exciting visit to JCP, I got home and realized temp worker #1 hadn't asked what I wanted on the Christmas cards. I phoned her and asked her to add "Love, The Barrys, 2007." That was December 3rd.

Yesterday, December 14, we went to pick up the cards and temp worker #2 couldn't figure out why we had ordered 755 Christmas cards! After I told her we didn't have that many friends and family, we realized the personalized information wasn't on ANY of the cards. No problem, temp worker #2 says, "You can just get one of those gel pens and write whatever you want on the cards." Well, what a great idea. WHY DON'T I KNIT MATCHING SWEATERS FOR MY ENTIRE FAMILY WHILE I'M AT IT! I have so much time on my hands. The reason one purchases these personalized cards is so that one will not have to write on them....one by one. Long story short, temp worker #2 attempts to tell Karen Barry that she can't do anything about this because she can't "find her manager." After some boisterious demands, which sent Yulia hiding under the counter, temp worker #2 did manage to find the store manager, Lance.

I must say, Lance did meet my needs. I received all 755 cards for free, so now we're in search of "one of those gel pens" that will show up on our cards. So, when you receive our Trailer Trash cards, you'll know why. In fact, you'll probably be getting them next year since we have so many of them and we can just write what we want every year. If anyone would like some extra cards, let us know. You can use these. They're not personalized and the picture of Yulia's not that great, so no one will know it's not your child. Let us know if we can be of assistance.

*P.S. It's snowing today. Very pretty. We're supposed to get 4-6 inches. We'll have to take some pictures. Wonder where we'll have them developed?

NOTES TO SELF

#1 - Don't pay lots o' money to sit "front row Joe" at "The Nutcracker!" Yulia was bored after the first 30 minutes. Silly me to think this was a great idea to experience the Christmas season. After all, ballet has no dialogue, so I thought it would be a great idea. Ha!

Below is Yulia's favorite part of "The Nutcracker." Meeting Santa! Oh, another favorite part...she got to wear her Christmas dress!


#2 - Don't volunteer to be an angel during the church's live nativity scene when it's really cold. Did I mention the performance was outside? Did I mention the temperature was in the lower 30s with sleet falling? Did I mention I was harking the herald while standing on an uncovered platform without my head covered?

Paul and Yulia were shepherds. Instead of abiding in the fields, they were keeping a watch over their flocks while standing under the manger scene. At least their heads were kept dry.

Before we headed outside, this shepherd used his cell phone to participate in a conference call.

#3 - Good job getting the "Happy Birthday Jesus" message across to Yulia. We've been singing Happy Birthday Jesus to teach her the meaning of all this madness. I think she gets it for the most part now. Problem is with all our gifts under the tree, she thinks it's everyone's birthday. Happy Birthday Colyn, Jon, Debbie, etc. She looks really confused when I say, "No, it's Merry Christmas" to everyone. Just "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. Can't figure out why she's confused!!! Did I mention Kitty(Babushka's) birthday is Christmas Eve??? That adds to the confusion.

#4 - Be better prepared for snow days. We had ice this past Monday and school was cancelled. After watching two movies, addressing Christmas cards(I'll be mailing them soon), wrapping some gifts and working a puzzle, I wondered what we were going to do with the other 8-10 hours of the day until Pop got home.

#5 - Why did I agree to work 4 days a week? I'm tired.

#6 - Don't expect the 16 year-olds working at the YMCA to teach your 10 year old Russian born daughter to swim in 7 quick lessons! "What? You're telling me my athletic, water-loving child has to take the class again? Can't believe it. Did I mention I taught swimming lessons in the 1970s at the germ-infested Weatherford Municipal Pool? Back in the day, I could have taught her to swim in 5 quick(and cheaper) lessons! We just did things so much better back then. Yes, she'd probably be on the swim team if I had been teaching her!" Her teacher just looked at me and I could tell he was thinking, "Whatever lady. See you after the first of the year."

#7 - Silly me! Thinkings JCP would meet my photography needs. They did not. Problem is, we don't have a lot of options here in lovely Wentzville.

#8 - Maybe Paul and I will open a photography studio/swimming class business!

#9 - This adoption is one of the best things we've ever done. Also, one of the hardest. I told Colyn the other day I don't remember things being so hard when SHE was 10, but we're having a wild, hilarious time.

#10 - Looking forward to Christmas! We're probably going to drive to Texas Saturday and be at Kitty's house through Christmas night. Then we'll head to Debbie's house for the rest of the week. We'll get to see Colyn, but not Jon. He and Ashley are headed to New York for the holidays. Not sure how long we'll be able to stay. Paul may have to come back for work. If so, Yulia, Kozmo and I may drive back by ourselves.

#11 - It's hard to keep this blog updated on a weekly basis. If we don't meet again until 2008, have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Birthday! (Whatever the case may be.)

PEEKCHERS!

We have a new word at the Barry home. It's peekchers! Yes, the word "peekchers" has replaced the word "cheeken". (Although cheeken comes in a close 2nd.)

We had Yulia's picture taken in her Christmas dress Monday. You have never seen such an excited child as Yulia when she put on this fancy dress. We took some pictures at the house before heading out. Although the dress looks turquoise, it is not. It is black on top with a hunter green skirt. I would like to say that they got the color shades better at Penney's Portrait Studio, but they did not! Oh well, what's another couple hundred bucks when you've already spent thousands? Yulia had so much fun getting all dressed up and getting her hair done. And, she thought posing was just the cat's meow! We had a wardrobe change for the picture and of course she had to change back into the party dress to leave the store. You just never know who'll see you when you're leaving Penney's in the dark of night with bitter cold temperatures. (Glad she liked the dress because it took 2 visits to actually purchase it. Seems the first visit she threw a bit of a fit when she couldn't get the red dress she liked and would have to go with Mom's choice for green. So, we had to use that as a learning experience and just walk out of the store although we had shopped for 5-6 hours filling our cart with other items.) She'll get to wear the dress again Saturday when we see "The Nutcracker." I'll probably have to hide the dress to keep her from wearing it to school and swimming.

When we said prayers the night of the pictures, Yulia wouldn't let us forget that she was thankful for "peekchers!" Thankful for Mom and Pop or Kozmo? No! How about Colyn, Jon or Kitty Babushka?? No, just the "peekchers."

We're really having a fun time with Yulia as we decorate for Christmas:

1. Anytime she sees Christmas lights she says, "Trick or Treat!"

2. In an effort to teach her that this isn't another random, candy giveaway holiday, we tried to get her to sing "Happy Birthday Jesus" instead. That didn't work. She now sings Happy Birthday and inserts her own name. Seems she feels it's time to celebrate HER birthday instead. Oh well, we'll keep working on it. She just may get the Christmas picture or peekcher this weekend when we 3 take part in our church's Living Nativity Scene(outside in 30 degree weather)!!! Now, that will be some cold shepherds in the fields that night!

Stay Unstressed Everyone

(because we certainly aren't)

Love, The Barrys

DAY AT THE DENTIST

Yulia's oral surgery went very well today. It was basically a "non event." They pulled 2 permanent and 2 baby teeth and did 5-6 fillings. She was very excited about the fact that her face was numb, something she'd never experienced before.

Mom was hoping to get a nap this afternoon, thinking Yulia would be down and out, but she was happily watching "Hannah Montana" and "Cheetah Girls" and singing along. Mom had to stay awake to make sure she stayed somewhat quiet.

She had so much energy by evening that we went ahead and finished the Christmas decorations. She still wasn't ready for her bedtime, but we sure were;)

Have a great weekend and GO COWBOYS!

BARRY THANKSGIVING WITH THE BARRYS

We spent Thanksgiving in Texas with family and friends.

We flew in late Tuesday and picked up Kitty at her assisted living Wednesday.

Yulia was thrilled to finally meet her Babushka Kitty!

And her Brat Jon!

On Thanksgiving Day, we had snow at Kitty's house in Arlington. If you look closely, you can see the flakes On Yulia's chest and in Mom's hair. This is Yulia's cousin, Laura.

And, you can't have a trip to Texas without visiting our great friends Thresa and Albert. This is Yulia with their daughter Gracie, who's a year younger than Yulia. BFF!

BARRY'S THANKSGIVING WITH THE BURNETTES

On the second leg of our trip, Yulia got to see her Sistra Colyn, again! It's been two years since they first met when Yulia was visiting Texas. Yulia hugged and hugged her Sistra and was so excited. Colyn has a new BFF!





Yulia also got to see her cousins, Courtney and Julie. She had met them once before in Galveston!

Yulia got to see her cousin Troy(Debbie's step-son) participate in an area football playoff game. She loved the cold weather, bands and cheerleaders. But most of all, she loved Troy's X-Box! So much for Mom and Pop's hopes to keep her away from video games for as long as possible.

Colyn, Yulia and Britney(Debbie's step-daughter)

A quick speech queen meeting one day at lunch. Fellow speech queens Bedeiree and Cuestas! Cuestas' twins Noah and Jonah were there as well. Ms. Sarah Bedeir was on hand, but not up for pictures that day!

Also had a quick, literal run-through, of Arlington Rehab. It was so great to see everyone there. There's no place on earth like ARH!
Had a great visit to Texas, although it was great to be back HOME in Missouri. We now understand why people don't like traveling during the holidays! We'll be back home for Christmas though!

Yulia has oral surgery Thursday to have 5 teeth pulled and 8 fillings. Should be an interesting day! We'll keep everyone posted.

Love to all, Karen, Paul and Yulia

Meet Me in St. Louey, Louey!

We've had a lot of requests for pictures of our new house and pictures of Yulia's room. Since many of you furnished Yulia's room and the clothes in her closet, we thought we'd oblige. The first picture is obviously of the front of our house. Our bedroom on the bottom right, piano/sitting room on the bottom left and Yulia's room upstairs. We live at the end of a culdesac and love our neighbors! You can see one of the trees we've planted out front and the lawn we've recently installed. Also, notice the woods behind our house. Some of those creatures who live in the woods have been invading Kozmo's doghouse on cold nights and she's none too pleased! We were told we had to have a 3 car garage for winters here. Not looking foward to whether or not that holds true!







Here's a picture of the gorgeous view from our deck. If you haven't joined us for a glass of wine on the veranda, you'll have to soon!

This is Yulia's quilt, which many of you helped pay for! She just loves it! You can see the new curtains Pop hung over the weekend. (Of course, Yulia and Sponge Bob never miss a photo-op.)

Here's a better view of the curtains.(And Yulia taking advantage of another photo-op) Pop painted the walls "ballerina pink." I think we've about finished with the room. Over her bed, we hung the Y U L I A letters, but they didn't show up in the pictures. I think I'm going to put hot pink polka dots on each of the letters and that will bring them out better.

And below, here's another gorgeous picture of the fall foliage. I drive this road to work every morning and one day it was so pretty I just had to stop and take a picture. A big change from Texas!

Hope everyone has a great week and a safe Thanksgiving!

Love, Karen, Paul and Yulia

Slowing Things Down a Bit!

We've tried to slow things down a bit this week. We learned from our mistakes lastweek that just like all the adoption paperwork told us, Yulia will get easily overstimulated! Of course, Mom and Pop are easily overstimulated and TIRED as well!

Big news this week was our trip to the oral surgeon. Yulia is going to have oral surgery the Thursday after Thanksgiving. Her mouth seems to be her biggest problem. She'll be put under general anesthesia and have at least 3 teeth pulled and at least 5 cavities filled. The general dentist doesn't want her to have a bad experience in his chair since she wouldn't be able to communicate pain or they couldn't explain the processes to her. So, we're just going to knock her out! Of course, Mom is a little worried about this because we don't know what her reaction will be to anesthesia and we'll have a hard time explaining the process to her. We're going to use the two Russian girls at church to try and explain the process without scaring her.

Of course, Mom and Pop love to be knocked out and drugged up, but it's a little different when it's your child!



Yulia continues to make good progress at school and socially. Some things we've learned about her:

1. She loves to eat.(She's still partial to fruit, meat and potatoes, but is venturing out every now and then. Seems to be taking a shine to spicy food!)
2. She loves to go to the Sonic.(Wonder why????)
3. She loves to eat.(She loves "cheeeeken") Any time she sees a KFC ad on television or the bird- word is mentioned, she jumps to attention. Paul thinks she'll love Thanksgiving. We're just going to tell her it's a big cheeeeken.
4. She is happy 97% of the time and loves life.
5. She loves to eat.
6. No problem getting her to bed. But, she's up with the chickens(or cheeeekens....ready to go and expects everyone else to be right there with her.)
7. She loves to eat.
8. She loves to go shopping(Especially Target. Wonder why???)
9. She loves to eat.
10.She's very hard headed and set in her ways.
11.She loves to eat.
12.She loves people and thinks everyone loves her.
13.She loves to eat.
14.She loves to sing and dance. The movie o' the week is "Annie." She'll just break into song at any time singing "Tomorrow, Tomorrow..." Of course, Mom sings right a long.
15.She loves to eat.
16. She's learning the abc's, days of the week and months by song. Thanks to Paige Preston and her mom for the month song. If you'd like to hear it in person, just give us a call and she'll be happy to share. She's not shy AT ALL!
17. She loves to eat.
18. She loves to go to church. (There are 3 girls there who speak Russian)
19.She loves to eat.
20.She continues to be VERY MUCH into fashion and how her hair looks. Sometims she looks at Mom like, "You're going to wear that?" and Mom has given up trying to dress her because she's got her own fashion-sense. Of course, Mom does require that things match before leaving the house.(Yulia often has to be reminded that Mom was "best dressed" in high school and has to live up to that prestigious title)
21.She loves to eat.
22.She loves company, so anytime anyone would like to visit us in lovely Missouri, COME ON UP!!!
23.She loves to eat.
24.She loves to cheer AGAINST the Longhorns and the Dallas Cowboys.(Yes, we're thinking of sending her back to Russia!). She just loves to mess with our heads. If we cheer, she boos and vice-versa.
25.She loves to eat.
26.She can't believe that Kitty Babuska is Paul's mom. It's very difficult for her to understand that Pop actually has a mom! She'll get to meet her Thanksgiving!

Pop and Mom are doing well. Pop continues to work too many hours at work and home. He's currently doing the garage in true Paul Barry(anal) style. Our neighbor is going to start work on finishing out our basement soon. Mom is now working 4 days a week which is exhausting, but she was getting bored otherwise. Working 4 days a week is stressful when you're trying to get all of those trips in to go to Sonic and Target!

Hope everyone has a lovely week,

Love, Karen, Paul and Yulia