Revolutionizing the Barber Home

I'm sorry for any messed up organization to this post. I can't seem to get things right these days on Blogger.
Anyway, the pictures below will explain the title, but... do any of you see anything interesting above??? Oh, I don't know... Maybe the fact that Andrew is SMILING while he's walking through the sand on the beach!!! Whoo-hoo! Monday was a big day for us. If you didn't know, Andrew HATED the sand for about 8 months. He screamed when we went anywhere near the beach and didn't even want to walk on playgrounds with sand. Weird, huh? Anyway, something changed and Monday he was building sand castles!

Now for the explaination of the title... We are now night showerers! While this may not seem too extreme for some (ok, most) of you, this is big for this family. We love it! Here are some before and after shots of me one morning. There are only 6.5 minutes between the two pictures! Isn't that awesome?! I never thought I could shower at night because of my hair. Seriously, look at the "before" picture... Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (left if you're blind and you can't tell.) What would you do with that in the morning? We decided to give night showering a shot while we were in Idyllwild and we haven't looked back! It's opened up a whole new world for us! Gabe gets to work earlier, Andrew doesn't tear apart the bathroom while we're both getting ready, Andrew and I can get out of the house at a decent hour now. Wow!

October Post

Here's a post of some random things from October along with a little bit of what's going on these days... Here's Andrew playing a game at the Harvest Festival at EV Free on Halloween.

Gabe with Elmo.

Andrew has been doing my exercises with me lately.

This was a few days before Halloween when Andrew was wearing his costume just for fun. Although Elmo did not actually make anything happen this time, he did pee for the first time in the potty last Wednesday morning... yet to be repeated, but it provided much needed inspiration for his parents who were beginning to lose patience. Andrew was pretty excited too.

We went to a park with crazy static electricity. I went down the slide and look at my hair! (I don't typically style it like this.)

Isn't this a funny picture?

Here's Andrew reading to Annie the scarecrow. He was "showing her" the pictures. He read to her for several minutes that night.

Sad news: For those of you who have been waiting for us to try Andrew on wheat again, wait no more... He barfed all over and hives covered his face and torso. Gabe and I decided we probably won't try anything new until just before kindergarden. Poor little guy. He's doing much better now, though. Gabe's and my stomachs are still pretty nasty though. (It was a LOT of barf.)

Left: This is something that happens fairly often in our house. Andrew loves to do these hand motions while NONNIE sings the song so he calls her several times a week.
Right: Andrew hugging Annie, who he named by the way. (Andrew had no idea I was recording this. It was so cute.)

Left: Andrew reading to Annie.
Right: Gabe and Andrew had a fun day at home a couple weeks ago. He goes SO crazy when Gabe gets him all wound up!

Idyllwild

We went away to Idyllwild last weekend with the Encarnacion family. We had a blast! See below for why...

Little Zack the happy moose.

Gabe somehow kept 3 boys under 2.5 years old entertained with what I'm pretty sure was a book of art.

Us old folk weren't the only ones who needed a break and some time to relax.

This was the painting that was on the wall in the basement billiards room. I think it was called, "Horseplay." What do you think of it???

We decided to widdle our own marshmallow skewers. Allie started getting pretty serious about it (as you can see here) so then it was made into a competition. Although I'm still not sure of the winner, my Gabe did say that holding his was a "massage for your hands". I don't think that any of us could beat that.Why this vacation was so awesome:
1. Andrew loves each member of the Encarnacion family so much, it's ridiculous.
2. Gabe and I think they're okay too.
3. The kids had a BLAST together.
4. Us adults were able to hang out WITHOUT kids during naptimes and after hours (bedtime). We never get to do that anymore!
5. We rented a HUGE house...
6. with bathrooms...
7. and a kitchen...
8. and a playground in the backyard.
9. We didn't need to go anywhere. (Unlike if we had gone to Paris, for example.)
10. There was a pool table downstairs... which I think that we all enjoyed except perhaps my Gabe... and I quote, "This 8-ball is ruining my life!"
11. It was less than 2 hours away.
12. We were only without electricity for 4 hours one night.
13. We could mix and match kids. There were 4 adults and 3 kids. Someone was always there to watch some of the kids.

I strongly advise ALL young families to try a vacation like this. It was inexpensive (especially since we still owe the Encarnacions money for the house) and a ton of fun and seriously relaxing even with kids around. Has anyone else done this? Where'd you go?