Merry Christmas!

For Andrew's birthday (I will post soon from his birthday), my in-laws got Andrew some dress-up scarves. We've been having so much fun with them. Here are some characters from Jesus' birthday story. Above, Andrew is one of the Magi carrying gold.

This is a photo even to make Pastor Gabe proud: The Magi is giving his gift to Jesus. Please note that Jesus is about 9 months old, not a newborn. (EFCOC knows what I'm talking about!) Andrew's favorite part was dressing Keira up as Jesus.

MaryShepherd-boy

Santa Claus at the North Pole.

Yummy chocolate soy milk!

Our little snow bunny. (Just without the snow.)
Keira getting me all ready for the ball.

Andrew got everything ready for Santa tonight, including his letter for him:
(By the way, this is Andrew "dressed-up" as a snowman. Look at the snowman on his shirt if you're curious about any of his outfit.)

Dear Santa and Reindeer,

Thanks for coming to our house. It's raining outside. The reindeer won't get wet, but Santa will. Here's a towel for Santa to dry off because Santa will get pretty wet outside.

Here is some of my milk for you because I can only have soy milk and not cow's milk and Santa is like me. Santa is pretty big, but cow's milk is pretty big too. (editor's note: Santa ended up getting cow's milk.)

Thank you for the presents for me and Mei-Mei. We hope you had a good trip to our house. Have a good trip home.

Merry Christmas!

Love, Andrew

Night-time Feeding Problems

Here's another good sleep-deprived story. (I'm still waking up 1-2 times a night to feed Keira.)

Last night, as I was tucking Keira in, I thought of how cute she was, dressed in pink in her crib. She sleeps with two dolls, both dressed in pink too. I said good-night and soon after, went to bed. I got up, hours later to nurse her when I heard her cry. I went to pick her up, but on accident I picked up the doll's legs. "oops," I thought to myself, "that's her legs." So then I gingerly picked up the doll's body, just like you'd pick up a baby. "wow," I thought, "she's much lighter than I remember her being." Then I heard Keira say, "Mooooom!" at which point I woke up a little more and saw her sitting up next to the edge of the crib and noticed myself picking up a doll... oops.

Rock the House!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Moose

(stock moose photo)

Last night, all 4 of us were on our way home from a party pretty late. (Well, it was 7:30, but that is past the kids' bedtime.) It was dark and things were pretty quiet in the car. Gabe and I were talking up front and hadn't heard anything from either of the kids for 15-20 minutes. Out of the blue Andrew said, "Does anyone here see a moose?... anyone?... anyone?" I turned to look at him behind me and found something like the picture above. Andrew then exclaimed, "Mommy sees a moose! Yay!"

Keira had here 9 month appointment today. She's not actually 9 months just yet, but this was the only time available so...
She's healthy and doing all the things a little 9-month-old baby should. She's cruising along furniture and people, crawling the big-girl way, and "talking" more and more every day. She just started sitting herself up from a laying down position, which is very helpful for me. I think she'll be standing on her own pretty soon too. She's eating pretty well and likes to eat finger foods. Keira is a fun and funny little girl. She loves her daddy and big brother. She cries if Gabe walks past her without picking her up. Keira and Andrew play games together and can be left unsupervised together for short periods of time, which is another big blessing. They love each other more than I had ever imagined and it's a greater blessing than I thought it would be. Keira is a huge blessing to our family. I was wondering when I wouldn't be able to remember life without her and I think I'm there. I looked at pictures not long ago from our trip to New Zealand. There was a pic of Gabe, Andrew, and I and I wrote under it, "our family picture". I laughed because of how funny it seemed to have a "family" pic without Keira in it. It's official. She's part of the Barber fam. We love her so much!
As for the stats...
height: 29.25 inches (95 percentile)
weight: 16 lbs. 13.5 oz. (25 percentile)
(This explains why her pants always fall off!)

Even though this pic is blurry, I think she looks so cute! (We were putting our Christmas stuff up!)

A post on our Turkey Trot to follow soon!

My Family

(This picture is not posed.)

Yes, those are potholders on his feet.
Above: Entering Disneyland
Below: Leaving Disneyland

I'm starting to think Gabe and Pluto might be related...
On another note, if you have a baby who (for no reason) is afraid of dogs, it may not be a good idea to introduce her to a 6-ft. dog.

My kiddos.

Can you see Andrew's writing below mine? It's actually pretty impressive to me. (You can click on the pic to enlarge it.)

Scrunchy Face

She's the cutest hillbilly I've ever seen!

This is one of her funny faces that she does all the time now to make us laugh. Actually this face and the one above it are her two main silly faces. She does them constantly and I laugh every time.

Keira pulled herself up for the first time on 10/26. I can totally see her as a little toddler. She's so cute! This is a pic from the first day I found her standing up in her crib. I heard her squealing for joy repeatedly and much crazier than normal so I knew something was up. Then, I heard her start crying hysterically. I think she stood up and got really excited because of her new trick. Then, she freaked out when she realized she didn't know how to get down. (She's starting to catch on now.)

Here are some pics from Heritage Park in Cerritos the day before the fires. We haven't gone out since then except to the grocery store. It's been too smokey and "ashy" for us to feel comfortable letting the kids out. Today was the first day I've seen kids outside so I think tomorrow may be a good day to get back out.

I'm really proud of Andrew for doing this. He's not much of a risk-taker and he had never done this before. He had no help and caught on pretty quick.

These pics are from a week ago Monday in Newport. Andrew has completely forgotten his sand-fear and digs his hands and feet right in!

This was Keira's first time to play in the sand. She seemed to enjoy it, but wasn't going crazy over it.

A Disneyland smile.

Here's Keira standing up and then trying to climb up onto Andrew's bed.

Here are some of Keira's (and Gabe's) new sounds.

Interesting book display.

The "Trip" to the Mountains

This weekend was our trip to Big Bear with Gabe, Allie, and their family. Here's a pic of their family in the mountains.

Here's a shot of our fam. (Keira was napping.)

Gabe and Andrew telling stories around the campfire.

Andrew eating marshmallows while sitting on a log.

Gabe and I viewing the beautiful stars after the kids were in bed. What a beautiful trip!

Okay, okay. You got me. Was it that obvious? :) The first pic was from our Idyllwild trip with the Encarnacions last year. We were set to leave Saturday morning, but Gabe came down with what we thought was the stomach flu. (We're now fairly certain it was food poisoning.) Either way, it was nasty, so we stayed home. Andrew was very sad so today we "went to the mountains" in our house today. After all of the effort I went through to get it to feel like time in the woods, Andrew said, "And can we go to the mountains now?" Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Super Grover and Princess Keira

This is our little Super Grover.

Here's the princess.

This is Andrew flying like Super Grover. I think it looks more like he's saying, "Boo!" It has to be one of the funniest pics we have of him.

Here are a couple of funny shots of Andrew's toys mid-play session. I'm not sure what kind of parade Squirt is leading, but it was a little freaky to witness. They are lined up just perfectly. Odd.

This, I believe, is art. (Be sure to notice the clown nose on top of the monitor.)

Andrew explaining acute angles.

Gabe's parents came down the week before Halloween. Leila helped me make Andrew's costume. We had a lot of fun putting it together.

Winter clothes!!! Yippee! It got "cold" (about 70 degrees) for a few days. Now it's warm again, but it's supposed to cool off again on Sunday... I hope so! I love fall!

Laundry can be fun.