Exciting Day

Well here's one way I never thought I'd see my mom. If you look closely, you can see Andrew looking out of his window checking the side of his truck. The things a grandma will do for her grandchildren! :) (By the way, this was at Knott's Berry Farm today.)

Mom and Andrew being silly.

This is Andrew playing "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night" on both the guitar and guitar tuner. (taken this morning) Can you catch the melody?... I can't either.

Lastly, I'm only one month away from my due date!!! 29 days left and counting! If I had to predict (which perhaps I don't) when she'll be born, my guess would be March 17th, St. Patty's Day, also Sera Sage's b-day (Flo's oldest daughter). 5 days late seems about right to me. We'll see!!! I had 2 strong (braxton-hicks) contractions last night. It was pretty exciting! I never had a single contraction with Andrew so this is all new to me. I can't wait!

I'm 29?!!!

This was the sunset that Gabe and I got to enjoy the day after my birthday. He took me out for sourdough bread bowls and clam chowder in Newport. It's the first time we've been to the beach alone since Andrew was born. It was so nice. We really missed it!

We are now both less than one year away from our 30's!!! Gabe made me an amazing dinner and dessert- all from scratch. This is the coconut cake that was yummalicious! He also made me chicken kiev for dinner. That husband of mine is a great cook!

This was at The Coffee Bean on the morning of my birthday. I think Andrew looks so much like Gabe here. He's so cute! ("He" meaning Gabe and Andrew.)

Once again, like father, like son.

For my birthday/baby shower, a few of my friends took me out for tea at a place in San Juan Capistrano. It was so pretty and girly and just the perfect was for me to spend my birthday afternoon!

A Fun Saturday

Every Saturday morning is Gabe's sleep-in day so Andrew and I always try to have a special morning. We began yesterday with a tea party. We had huckleberry tea with Dumbo (whose tea was quite hot) and Daisy (who kept trying to drink others' tea).

Next, we went to one of the trails that I used to run on. We saw roosters and chickens, chipmunks, dogs, and horses. Here are some more pics of our walk...This is Andrew, our little dinosaur. He has to do breathing treatments with the nebulizer twice a day for now. Although it's quite loud, he thinks it's pretty cool because of the dinosaur mask. Every once in a while, he'll randomly growl like a dinosaur while he's using it. It took me a while to get used to him using this (it's just so sad to me), but it doesn't bother him and it has helped his breathing a lot.

Then, we went to Newport with Cam and Janelle for brunch and some play time on the beach.

Here's Uncle Cam teaching Andrew how to throw mud in the water... very important to know how to do.

Did any of the rest of you realize how big pelicans are? These ones were about the size of geese. It was down right shocking!

Cute Stories

Two nights ago, when we checked on Andrew before going to bed, this is what we found. He was sound asleep like this. A night or two before that, he started frantically crying in the middle of the night. I went in there and he had completely mummified himself in his sheets. It literally took me about 2 minutes to unwrap him!

Some of my friends (Allie and Flo) have inspired me to tell you about some of the funny things Andrew does, so here goes...

Andrew on Prayer: There are about 100 great Andrew prayer stories so I'll try to limit myself here.

* We were at the train station watching the choo-choo's go by when a voice came over the loud speaker: "This is the first call for the Amtrack northbound. It will be on track 1 and arriving on time. Thank you." Andrew then shouted out, "Amen!"

* Andrew usually prays for our breakfast. We usually help him out a little, but this is about how it goes on a typical morning:
Cheri: Dear God
Andrew: Dear God
C: Thank You
A: Thank You
[pause]
A: [As fast as he can spit it all out] for Aunt Allie, Josh, baby Zach, uh... uh... uh... Uncle Gabe, babies, Andrew, Daddy, Mommy, hot oatmeal, uh... uh... uh... Aunt Allie, Josh, baby Zach"
[that's our queue to wrap it up.]
C: In Jesus' name
A: Amen!
[pause]
A: pray for Aunt Amy!!!

Andrew on worship:
We were at winter retreat with 400 youth. The bands they have there are great... and very loud. Andrew loves it. He'll dance to the music and even catch on to some of the words. One night, they had just finished a song so it went from loud to very quiet and Andrew started shouting, "E-I-E-I-O! E-I-E-I-O!" I don't think he gets it.

Andrew on fast food:
The only fast food place Andrew has ever been to is In-N-Out. One day, though, we needed a wireless connection and we knew that McDonalds had one so we went there during a road trip. We told Andrew where we were going and the whole time we were there, he kept saying "Old McDonald farm E-I-E-I-O" It took us slower folk a while to catch on to his connection.

I'll try to post new stories as they happen. :)

For those of you... who are waiting to hear my post, "Cheri's up on her soap box again" (a VERY political and angry post about emergency rooms today), I'm very sorry to tell you that it was sensored into oblivion. Gabe proofread it for me and told me not to publish it until he got home. After rereading it the next day, I could understand why. I had some venting to do, I did it, and I feel much better now.

The Happy-Hap's Around the Barber Home

This is Gabe and I outside the CIA... in Napa, that is. We went by Mike and Leila's to leave Andrew with them for two fun-filled nights while we went for a romantic (as seen above) getaway to Napa.

As you look at my belly here, there are probably a few things going through your mind:

#1: Why Napa, the wine capital of the world (or at least they think so)? I know I'm not supposed to be drinking alcohol, but we don't like wine anyway... which begs the question, why Napa? We went to a time share presentation (didn't purchase anything), and got 2 free nights at a resort in Napa... that's why Napa.

#2: Why aren't you bigger? (EVERYONE is asking me this) Becuz God made this baby little.

As mentioned earlier, Nonnie and Papa had tons of fun with Andrew. It snowed at their house every day (I think) that we were "there". Andrew thought that was awesome... so did I. We got to drive home through a lot of snow and even though it makes me a little nervous since we aren't used to it, it was so beautiful!

I just think that our son is ridiculous at times. He was riding this with 4 stuffed animals this morning and I thought it was adorable.

New thing for today: Pockets! Who knew?!

Autopia: Andrew's first driving lesson from dad. Although he could barely see above the wheel, he seemed to do all right. (Although Gabe was a little hesitant to hand over the driver's license they give you after the ride.)

All of us on Andrew's fav ride- Dumbo!

Why is pointing in a picture supposed to be cool?... And why has my son already learned how to do it?

Baby Ticker

A few of my pregnant friends have had these pregnancy counters on their blogs and I've been wanting to put one on mine, but I haven't really had time until now.

Holy Shnikies! 63 days? For any of you who are considering adding this to your blog, please be sure to add it in the first trimester when it's still giving you 3-digit numbers. How can I possibly only have 63 days remaining of having a 1-child family? 63 days left until no sleep? 63 days left of sanity?

On the other hand, I am quite proud of myself for figuring out how to put it on my blog. I am not good with computer stuff and it wasn't working the way that it seemed like it should so I had to add the program to my template. Who knew Cheri could do that? Sure, now it seems easy, but I'm one of those people who get scared I'm going to ruin everything if I mess with something on a computer that I don't know... So, I'm proud of myself for trying and succeeding.

I am proud and freaked out now. Good night.

Wink Wink

Well, things are FINALLY slowing down for us around here. All of our bodies are tired and worn out and responding the way they always do under those conditions... We're all sick. I'm happy to be home with a MUCH less busy schedule, though. I just thought some of you might enjoy watching this random clip of Andrew "winking" at us.

Andrew's 2nd Birthday Party, Fresno, and Denmark

Last Sunday night, we celebrated Andrew's 2nd birthday with his two buddies, Noah and Josh. As you can see, we had a train theme and all the boys loved it. We got Andrew the train table you see in the background and Josh let us use his train set for the big night.

The boys played with the trains for pretty much the whole night.

Then, the boys took a break and the adults played.

We went to Fresno about a week ago to celebrate Christmas with my two sisters and their families. It was a ton of fun watching the kids play together and enjoy each other so much. Here is Nathan taking some pictures of Andrew. Surprisingly, his pictures turned out fairly good.

Andrew and Annalise are the closest in age and LOVE playing together. They are adorable to watch. Andrew still misses her a lot.

I just had my 10th high school reunion. Although I didn't go, it got me back in touch with several friends. Missy is on the left and Hanne (from Denmark) is on the right. We got to spend some time together in Huntington Beach last week catching up. It was so nice to see old friends. I haven't kept in touch with anyone from high school so it was nice to talk with someone who knew me back then.
I can't believe Andrew has played by himself long enough for me to do this post. Wow! Okay. Now he just got into the DVD's... gotta go.

Merry Christmas

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1169340377

A couple disclaimers about this link:
- I realize that they gave me (Gabe) a girl's elf body. haha.
- The far right is an ultrasound photo of a baby's face. but i was too lazy to scan an actual picture of our girl, so this one is just some random pic off the internet...

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?