Happy 1st Birthday Andrew!!!

Happy Birthday to our little Andrew!

It's amazing to see how much Andrew has changed in just 12 months. Praise the Lord! He is still healthy and a very happy little boy. We are more blessed by him than I could have ever imagined.

The strangest thought I had today was at 9:15 a.m. ... I remembered that exactly 1 year ago at that time, we still didn't know if he was going to be a boy or a girl. I can't imagine having a little girl. I love my Andrew!

I picked out some pictures (approximately one per month) from the past year. Enjoy!!!

This last picture was taken tonight as just the three of us celebrated his birthday together. (I'll post some pics from the party soon!)

Gabe's Answers

1. I was born 20 minutes outside of: Colville, WA...tricked a few of you with spokane...

2. I've never had a Mohawk...but the flat top and "step" were quite popular in elementary school...and tiger stripes was nice in college, except they made my mom cry

3. Cheri & I met in the same WOW group (orientation for college)...awwww, how cute

4. The primary ethnicity of our church is Taiwanese

5. My current ringtone is Final Countdown...although I do appreciate how many people think I'm too cheap to buy a ringtone...nice

6. I had surgery on my left wrist...and i have the frankestein scar to prove it

7. Toughest question by far, since the Office, Scrubs, Arrested Development, & the Simpsons are the four best TV shows ever...but if I had to rank them, they'd go: 1) Arrested Dev. 2)Scrubs 3) The Office 4)The Simpsons...but I might actually have to put Lost ahead of the Office and Simpsons, but i decided to stick with the whole comedy theme for this...

8.The historical figure I'd most like to meet (besides Jesus) is: Baby Jesus. (j/k - small group inside joke). The correct answer is Alexander the Great. Dude, I'm sorry, but anybody who can conquer almost the entire known world by their 25th bday is worth talking to...as long as i have diplomatic immunity or something. seriously, that's some stinkin impressive tyrrany! k, enough historical nerd-dom...

9. Coke wins in a landslide...not even close...seriously...the only thing Pepsi has going for it is that it makes mountain dew...and i guess the fact that they have p-diddy in their commercials...but that's seriously it...

10. Some people said that as a pastor my favorite christmas song should be silent night, and it might be if i hadn't heard it 3 billion times...seriously, my wife has been listening to christmas music nonstop for like 2 months...i love the silence between the songs...sorry to disappoint... and allie knows that i really don't like the chipmunks!

The Answers: Part 2

Here are the remaining answers to questions 6-10:

6. Fashion:
I think it'd be great to go back to the 80's styles! My frizzy, curly hair would be awesome, I wouldn't have to match any of my clothes, I could wear leg warmers over the heals of my keds, and I could wear frosty pink lipstick!

7. Singer:
Flo Paris- hands down. Duh! If anyone tries to disagree, I'm more than willing to step outside and settle the matter. (Never heard her? Click here.)

8. Baseball game:
I think this was my trickiest question. Those of you who know me probably picked "0" as the answer, but those of you who know me really well chose "7" (the correct answer). Although I hate just about everything about baseball, I love the junk food at the games. It takes me approximately 7 innings to eat all of the nachos, popcorn, and ice cream sandwiches I can. When we're done singing, "Take me out to the ballgame", I always lean over to Gabe and say, "Oh. It looks like this game is going into extra innings. Do you want to stay?"

9. Furthest distance ever run:
I haven't run a marathon (26.2) YET. The correct answer is 15 miles. I left planning to go about 6 miles. I ended up going 15. It was awesome!

10. I most closely associate myself with:
IDEALIST. This was another tough one becuz I am an optomist, perfectionist, idealist, and a proud nerd, but above all, I am an idealist. I not only see the best in people and things, but I also hope and believe the best in people, things, and situations. It's a nice way to live.

The Answers Part 1

Here are the correct answers... the ones you meant to put for questions 1-5:

1. My favorite class in college:
I found differential equations interesting and fun, but nothing more. Physical Chemistry was the most challenging class I took and thus awesome, but not my all-time fav. I never even took bowling... that class is left for speech communication majors (right Gabe?). Public Speaking, on the other hand, was an awesome class. I LOVE speaking about things I'm passionate about, especially in front of large crowds. In the class, I got to not only share about the amazing world of chemistry, but more importantly, I got to share my faith with MANY people. That's a good subject for another post though. Anyway, congrats to those of you who chose public speaking.

2. My favorite ethnic food:
Mmmmmmmmmmmm... garlic- I mean- Italian food...

3. Church:
FEFCF- First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton (our old church)
ECCU- Evangelical Christian Credit Union
H2O- Water
EFCOC- Evangelical Formaosan Church of Orange County (Formosa is the isle of Taiwan)

4. Movie quote:
This one is a tough one. "orange mocha frapaccinos" from Zoolander and "have you seen the toilets here? They're gi-normous!" from ELF are both great, but not fav's. "I hated her so much... flames on the side of my face... breathing... heaving breaths..." as spoken by Mrs. White in Clue is my all-time fav, but "Yeah. I stabbed a man in the heart" as spoken by Brick on Anchorman makes me laugh SO hard too. I probably shouldn't have put them both as choices. An extra half point to those of you who chose Brick's line! (I hope to have made some of your days just a little brighter.)

5. TV quote:
Although Arrested Development is my favorite show and most of my favorite lines are from it, the two lines I put on my quiz as choices from this show were incorrect. ("THIS one had a yellow bowtie on it!" and "I've made a HUGE mistake." Sorry to Buster and GOB.) The other two quotes were both from Family Guy. "Click click bloody click pancakes" was great by Stewie, but the correct answer was, "Hmmmmm... I'll take a 'Z'... hmmmm... and a 'q'... another 'q'... ummmmm... I'll take a third 'q'... and a batman symbol" as spoken by Peter when choosing letters for the final round of Wheel of Fortune.

Take the Cheri Challenge!

Create your own friendquiz here

Take the Gabe Challenge

Create your own friendquiz here

Merry Christmas Time!

We had our friends, Gabe and Allie and Joshua, over last week and got into the Christmas spirit.
Look at their cute little Santa!
Where'd Andrew go??? By the way, I LOVE these jamies and socks from his Nonnie. He looks like a little candy cane running around the house. He can also be found at night-time Christmas parties wearing them! :)
Why can't he look normal in pictures??? Crazy hubby!

Mama's Cooking

It turns out that I'm an amazing cook. I make a mean sweet potato and an incredible rice cake with grape jelly. I would offer to post the recipies, but I think I just did.
Here's the meal that he didn't eat... Roasted (yummy!) veggies and rice from last night's dinner. He was careful not to accidently eat any of these veggies. (I thought it was funny that although these pictures were taken at the same time, he has completely different foods on his face than he does on his table.)

Bleh!!!... Literally...

This is a picture from the highlight of our week... the night before we all came down with the stomach flu. YUCK!!! So our house is a disasterous mess, there's a ton of laundry waiting (ewwww!), and we all have some MAJOR catching up to do from this past week. On the brighter side, we each took turns, which I've always thanked God for. Even before we had Andrew, only Gabe or I would be sick at a time. Isn't that a nice blessing from God? I don't think any of us (especially Andrew) could have taken the other two of us throwing-up at the same time. So, tonight the chicken noodle soup and saltines were on the table for yet another night and we are thanking God that we are on the other side now.

Gobble! Gobble!

I'm starting to enjoy Thanksgiving more and more every year... the food and the holiday itself. I never really liked the meal before, but now it's incredible! I think becoming a Christian has made me appreciate the holiday more than before. I am very thankful for my salvation and for all of the ways God has blessed me and I'm thankful for all of who God is. That's a whole lot crammed into one sentence... Whew!Mmmmmmm... Pumpkin cake. We had our friends, Cameron and Janelle, over for the holiday. We had a lot of fun cooking, watching football, eating, playing games. (Imagine Iff- with all characters from The Office... a little embarassing, but a lot of fun). Andrew LOVES Janelle. It's crazy. He even gets jealous when Cam has his arm around her! He follows her all over the house and he'll even leave me to go to Janelle. (For those of you who haven't been around Andrew lately, that's amazing.) In this pic, he left me so he could go see what she was doing in the kitchen. He's so funny!
This isn't from T-Day itself, but I thought I'd throw it in becuz it's so darn cute! :)

A Whole Mess of Trouble

It was sometime in the past week that my little baby became a toddler. He gets into EVERYTHING now. I have to admit that we find it pretty cute right now. Plus, it does keep him occupied.Gabe is only spotting Andrew here. He had already begun his ascent when we found him. He climbed from his fire truck to the sub woofer to the shelves in no time at all. We have to watch him all the time now, making sure that he's not climbing up anything.
Gabe told Andrew he was allowed to lick his bowl after dinner one night.
What a mess!

Good thing bath time was just around the corner!

Parrots III

This afternoon, I heard some crazy parrot noises so I looked out the window and saw what I'm pretty sure was somewhere between 50 and 100 parrots. They all came to rest in this big tree right outside our house. It's hard to tell what are leftover leaves from summer and what are parrots, but look closely. (You can also click the photo to enlarge it.) For those of you who don't believe me, ask Janelle who was there to witness the whole thing. She stood at the sliding door for almost 10 minutes watching, facinated. It really is amazing. It's not just me! If you don't believe me, come to visit at about 4pm. See you here!

Cheri Did WHAT?!

Well here's a post most of you would never think you'd read about on this blog... Last night was our church's Thanksgiving Day celebration. It was a fun evening of eating (even a turkey this year!), singing, dancing, and a comedy act. The whole thing was great... Where's the excitement??? Read on...

At the end of the comedy act (the last part of the evening), the two women performing sang a song in Taiwanese and then the same song in Mandarin. Afterwards, they realized that they never translated it into English so they called me up to see if I understood what they had said. I acted like I had no idea what was going on (even though I did) and was very hesitant to go up on stage. I'll write the rest of the script. I'll just write the other languages in English letters (Sorry to any of my Taiwanese friends for my poor translating.)...

Alice: Cheri, how are you?
Cheri: Wa how. (I'm well.)
Alice: Did you understand what we said?
Cheri: Wa dong. (I understood.)
A: You understood that?
C: Shur. (Yes)
A: Wow.
C: Wa hui chung. (I can sing it.)
A: You can?
C: Shur. (Yes)
C: [To the tune of Oh My Darlin' Clemintine.]
Li sheen Yaesu (Come to believe in Jesus)
Li sheen Yaesu
Li sheen Yaesu shien tsai (Come to believe in Jesus right now)
Shien tsai li sheen Yaesu
Li sheen Yaesu shien tsai
A: Wow!
C: Wa hui chung tai wan oi (I can sing it in Taiwanese.)
A: You can?!
C: Shur. (Yes)
Li sheen Yazo
Li sheen Yazo
Li sheen Yazo hen tsai
Hen tsai li sheen Yazo
Li sheen Yazo hen tsai

Everyone was cracking up and/or cheering by the end. It was so much fun trying to speak their languages and letting them laugh at/with me. :) I was very nervous about the singing being most of you know my voice, but it went very well. Praise God! I love our church. It's such a blessing being there. This Thanksgiving, I thank God for them so much!

Shout Out to My Husband!

I'd just like to give a shout out to the best husband in the world (in my humble opinion), Mr. Gabe Barber. Every Friday, Gabe, Andrew, and I all run 3 miles together. Now, if you remember from a previous post, this does not fit one of the 2 cases when Gabe runs. He has done this for a month and a half now and I'm really impressed. What a stud!

Beautiful Day at the Park

We took Andrew to the park the other day to feed the ducks and play on the toys. He loved the time there... Although some of the ducks were freakishly weird looking. It seems like Craig Park always has your typical park ducks, but then they get a new shipment in each season of some strange, scary-looking duck. This one is black with green legs and only semi-webbed feet. I'm surprised I haven't had any nightmares yet.
The day was absolutely beautiful. It was a perfect fall afternoon- crisp, cool air, clouds, and an amazing sunset. Praise God! Many of you would probably never guess that fall is actually my favorite season. If I had to guess my own favorite season, I would first guess summer then winter, then spring, then fall. I'm an extremist (hence the summer and winter first) and I love the sun (hence the spring and then fall), but I'd be wrong. I love fall colors and leaves and the air and the thought that Christmas is right around the corner and tons of other things too. I am loving the weather now that it's cooling down (allbeit only a few degrees) and the leaves are starting to fall. I'll try to post some pics soon of where I run. It's awesome right now.

Fres-no? Fres-yes!

I just got back yesterday from a few days up visiting my family in Fresno. I got to stay with my little sis, Joleen, and her family. I wasn't able to spend much time with my older sister, Sara, due to a late-breaking stomach flu incident in the Edwards' home. :( Joleen and I always laugh because we always end up with the same shoes, shirts, etc. This time, our sons had almost identical outfits! After the pictures were taken, we realized we were wearing almost matching outfits too!There aren't too many years in a man's life when their mom can dress them up. We must take advantage of these precious years!... and take lots of pictures! Brayden was a pumpkin for Halloween this year and I think Andrew only tried to take one bite out of the oversized squash.
Andrew the tiger back in his cage, where he belongs!... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Andrew and my mom had a fun time making faces at each other through the glass door. It was hilarious to watch.
I thought this was a cute shot of my nephew. Isn't he a sweetie? 2 months, 15 lbs, and he's already rolling over!!! Go Brayden!

Hungy Andrew

Andrew is starting to eat some real food now. Despite what I wrote below, he is fairly happy during mealtime and is still eating quite a bit.He doesn't really enjoy the real food and often the food makes him gag and sometimes even throw-up, but he keeps on trying. Any suggestions out there on how to prevent gagging???
It was about 85 degrees today... November!!! I can't wait to go to Fresno tomorrow and see some good ol' fashioned fog... That still exists, right?

397 Miles Left

They say running shoes should last for 300-400 miles so I figure after my 3-mile run this morning, these shoes should have a max of 397 left to go. Where will they take me??? I've been really blessed- and impressed- with how many of you have been interested in my training so I will try to do a few more updates on it. I'm at 18 miles a week right now, which is a nice place to be. I feel good while running, but I know I should be getting faster. That's an exciting thought. I know I can get much faster than I am currently, but I'm already enjoying myself. I'm looking into some races in the meantime and I'll keep you posted on when they are... I love new running shoes...

More Halloween Pics

Here are some more pictures from the carnival. Andrew wasn't overly excited about the whole thing... buy he sure did look cute! :)

Andrew always screams and cries when he first sees Amy. Then after a couple of minutes apart, they can't be separated. He loves snuggling with her!

Happy Halloween!!!

Here's my little tiger with my birthday boy! We had a fun day yesterday celebrating Andrew's first Halloween and Gabe's 28th birthday. I have more pics, but I can't get them on this post for some reason. Sorry guys. I'll try to post more soon. Aren't they cute though? It was quite warm at the carnival we were at so Andrew's costume was slowly coming off. He loved to play with the costume off, but we're still not sure if he liked wearing it or not. I also took my tiger for a run yesterday morning. It was so cute seeing him in the stroller all dressed up!