This is Great...

My friend, Gabe (not husband), found this. HA!

Elephants and Oakes

I'd like to tell you about 2 dreams...

The first is Andrew's first dream that he remembered (and told me about.) This morning, the washing machine was on the spin cycle and was shaking our whole apartment, a common occurrence in this home. Andrew jumped to his feet and looked at the front door exclaiming, "Mommy! Open the door so the elephant can come in!" Needless to say, I was a little confused. He then proceeded to tell me about what I can only conclude was a dream he had. He insisted that an elephant came into our house, Andrew waved good-bye to all of us, he climbed aboard the animal, and they went to Ralph's Grocery store. We spent the rest of the morning entertaining elephants that kept coming to the front door.

On to the second dream... This one was mine and may not be that funny to anyone except Josh and Flo. I had a dream that they were billionaires who lived in a HUGE modern-looking mansion with a gigantic pool. They had body guards (although it was unclear why. I'm also not sure how they made their billions.) and personal trainers. Their big purchase was about a thousand pool toys. The bummer for Flo was that she had to deflate these toys every night. Thankfully, she had a servant who blew up the toys each morning.

Just One Inch Please!

So I've never really been huge on drinking caffeine. I get a little crazy when I have it (not all in a good way) and for those of you who don't know me well, I don't need any help with that. But, I've been really tired lately and so I thought that I'd try having a little coffee. By a little, I mean an inch. After 1 inch of coffee, I was feeling really good: awake, alert, even happier. So I thought to myself, "if one inch is good, imagine what two inches could do..." So that day, I had an inch in the morning, and then I had another inch in the afternoon. Wow. I felt good. On the way to our friends' house (Gabe and Allie), I was considering if caffeine fell under the classification of a drug for me. I was feeling SO good. I was wide awake and jumpy and excited- just like Cheri used to be. I decided it wasn't a drug since it didn't alter my reasoning nor did it kill any brain cells. Yay coffee! We dropped off the kids and went out to dinner. I kept telling Gabe how good I felt. Nothing could slow me down! About half-way thru dinner, Gabe looked at me and said, "you're shaking, Cheri". Well, I'm back down to 1 inch, but at least I now know my limit!

Andrew and I had a blueberry pancake picnic in our house Saturday morning. It was yummy, sticky, and fun!

Last Saturday, Josh and Zach came over and we went to a fun park with fountains not far from here. They had a blast. We had to borrow their car to fit all the car seats, but it was fun! Look how wet Josh got compared to the other boys. He was definitely the bravest.

The following are some goofy pics of Andrew. Believe it or not, most of these are different animals.

I've Been Meaning to Tell You...

People keep telling me how much Keira looks like Andrew so I thought I'd see what you all have to say about it. I have to say that I thought they did until I started looking back at pics of Andrew at 5 months. The pic right below is Andrew and below that is a pic as close as I could find for Keira.

This is crazy. Below are my niece, Annalise, and nephew, Nathan. As I was looking for pics of Andrew from 2 years ago, I happened upon these photos. Keira was seriously wearing THIS outfit as I looked at Annalise's picture. The shirt Nathan has on is one that Andrew wears all the time right now. Whoa! The only bummer is that you can't see their faces. You'll just have to take my word for it that they're cuties!

Remember how I told you that Keira is a Daddy's girl? Here's proof... This is a pic of her looking at Gabe...

and this is her looking at me...

As GOB would say, "C'mon!"

In other news, I still have a lovely LG Chocolate cell phone. I would have to pay $20 to exchange it for another phone, it turns out and who wants to pay for a free phone? It was the sexiest one there anyway. :)

Jamaican me crazy mon!

Because of the man shown above, Gabe and I are HUGE Jamaican fans now. The 100m winner, Usain Bolt, is awesome. I don't personally know any Jamaicans, but he totally fits their stereotype - "Don't worry. Be happy, mon." If you didn't get a chance to see it, watch it on nbc.com, but be sure to watch the entire clip. Be sure to notice him at about 80m - he breaks the world record after showboating to the finish line! His mom is awesome, too...what exactly is she doing to the people standing around her? So is the man who got second - he's from Trinidad, and he celebrates almost as hard as Bolt.

It may be because it was shown so late, but Gabe and I were laughing so hard, we were crying as we watched it.

Numbers

2 interesting sets of numbers...

Gabe and I just got new cell phones. We checked our last phones to see how many calls we made over the past 2 years and how many minutes total we had talked...

• Number of calls:
• Gabe: 4401
• Cheri: 4205
• Number of hours:
• Gabe: 141
• Cheri: 268

And there you have it folks. Wow. I'm impressed. For those of you who are counting, that's over 11 days on the phone. Snap!

(A side note about the phones... I am thoroughly unimpressed with LG's Chocolate phone. I'm going to go exchange it this afternoon. My husband, obviously, disagrees.)

On to the next set of numbers...

My husband, the stud, proved doctors wrong!!! Last year, in October, he had his cholesterol checked and the doc wanted to put him on medication for high cholesterol. (At the time it was 219. Normal range is 160-240) Gabe opted not to take med's. Since then, he's been working out regularly (except just after Keira was born) and we've totally changed our diet. Since Keira was born, I (in addition to Andrew) can't have milk or eggs, so we all just made a big change together and... Gabe's cholesterol level dropped to 180!!! I'm so proud of him!

An Andrew Post

Last Sunday, my friend Amy (Noah and Abigail's mom) gave Andrew some practice chop sticks. They are really cool and work surprisingly well. Andrew caught on right away. He wanted to use them as soon as he could so I told him he could use them that night at dinner... well, as it turns out, we were having nachos for dinner Sunday night. My guess is that Andrew is one of the few people in this world who has used chop sticks for nachos.

The next morning, I made pancakes for him and guess which utensil he chose! Isn't that awesome?!
On a different note, I finally broke down and spent oodles of money on rice flour, potato starch, xanthum gum, etc to start making special breads and stuff for Andrew. It has been great so far. We've made pancakes (replacements: soy milk for milk, egg replacement for eggs, and rice flour for wheat flour), bread, and blueberry crisp. All have turned out really well. It's been a huge blessing to Andrew and our pocketbook (in the long run). Thanks to Flo who's blog encouraged me to do it (finally)!

Here's a cute Andrew story: At the YMCA the other day, the kids made pinatas (as seen above). They had to be at least 5 years old to participate in the craft. One of the babysitters asked Andrew how old he was.
A: 2
babysitter #1: how old?
A: 2
[babysitter #1 got babysitter #2 to ask him]
b#2: Andrew, how old are you?
A: 2
b#2: are you sure? how old are you?
A: 7
b#2: i don't think you're 7. how old are you?
A: 5
So, he got to make the craft. I guess he finally answered correctly.

Andrew told us he needed some time alone in the bathroom. This is what I came back to. In other bathroom news, Andrew has been fully potty trained for a while now. He only wears a diaper when he sleeps since he can't quite make it through sleeping yet. We're so proud of him!

Here's Andrew with Keira in his tub. They thought it was great to be in the bath together. Andrew was cracking her up!

A couple more stories:

Andrew and I were talking about Zach the other day when I asked him if he liked Zach. He replied, "Oh I love Zach real much."

Andrew has recently decided that he wants to be a daddy. He comforted me by saying he'd like to wait a little while before becoming a dad, but that he'd like to have one child and he wants it to be a girl named Cat. This morning Gabe asked Andrew what kind of dad he wanted to be. Andrew replied, "Brown shirt and white shorts"... exactly what Gabe was wearing.

Songs and Parties

A few shots from our most recent photo shoot with Keira. She was all dressed up for Joshua's birthday party.

Here are the kids at the party: Josh, Zach, Keira, and AndrewGabe had his hands full.

It was so nice having Gabe home again. Both of the kids missed him so much. We were also very tired. This is the three of them snuggling in the hallway... I'm not sure how we ended up there.

The first video below: I love it when Andrew talks like this. He just cracks me up. If you can't understand him, he's saying, "That's not the problem." I'm not actually sure what he was talking about, but it was funny.
The next video is Andrew singing the Thomas and Friends song. He starts sounding like a broken record sometimes and you have to get him back on track.

She's Up on Her Soapbox Again???

Ok. Same book. This time, I am frustrated and annoyed!

The author, Shane Claiborne, is a pacifist. He thinks that everybody, but in particular, all Christians, should also be pacifists. He goes on and on about the kind of world this ought to be- one where people don't go to war and kill each other and one where people don't retaliate violence with more violence. He appeals to your emotions and talks about sending your son to kill someone else's son in Iraq whose family is also a wonderful family. I have one thing to say to Shane... DUH!!! Who in their right mind WANTS their son to die? Who wants an innocent Iraqi to die? No one (in their right mind) wants that. Do I think that war is the best option if I were given a choice? Absolutely not! Am I pro-war? NO! BUT... (here we go) please don't present something that is not a valid option and expect me to take it seriously! I am SICK of people saying that they have a better way to resolve world conflict and they have solutions to other mega-problems such as healthcare in the US! I don't care if you have a solution! How are you going to get us there?! If you can't get us from point A to point B, then don't wave point B in my face and tell me what I should believe. I may be an idealist, but at some point you have to remember when and where you live.

Now, if any of you out there have a great plan, let me know and maybe we can set up an appointment with the President. I'm sure he'd be happy to hear it.

[Cheri steps down.]

Missionaries, I guess...

Gabe got back from AZ late Friday night and had an awesome time. He stayed with the Maycumbers, a missionary family in Flagstaff. The whole time leading up to the trip, during it, and listening to Gabe afterwards, I kept thinking what a neat ministry the Maycumbers have. How unique! They're missionaries, but live in America. They minister to Native Americans who have left the reservations so the kids are more or less "second generation" Native Americans. As I talked with Gabe about what the family did to minister to the people there in Flagstaff, I kept getting excited, thinking about what a special ministry they have and how lucky they are.

And that's when Gabe said it... "It's pretty much the same as us." What? We're not missionaries. We still live in America and we just happen to minister to Taiwanese people who have moved away from Taiwan... Huh. That sounds familiar.

I gained a whole new excitement for the ministry that Gabe and I are in. I feel very special and blessed to be where we are right now. Not many people get to experience what we do. I feel like I have gained a whole new perspective on our ministry as well.

Praise God for our church, our calling, and His blessings!