Happy Birthday to Gabey!!!

Today is Gabe's birthday and I haven't even seen him yet! He went away last night for a last minute solitude retreat in Idyllwild. That gave me all last night and this morning to think about what a wonderful husband I have... not just that he's a good husband, but that he's an awesome person. Even if he weren't my husband, I would think, "wow, that Gabe-guy is really cool. I should get to know him more... then maybe marry him..." okay. It's tough to look at him not thru wife's eyes, but I think you'd all agree. Gabe is awesome... and he's got a nice booty! (Shout out to our fantasy football competitors. They have to agree.)

Happy Birthday Gabe!!!

ps This picture is from 2000 (or 1999.)

Tweet! Tweet!

For those of you who are on the edge of your seats because you think that I'm about to tell about some facinating new birds in my neighborhood, please put your excitement on hold. This post is not that post.

That birdie is ME! I'm nesting! How cute is that?! I never really went through that classic "nesting" stage when I was pregnant with Andrew, but I totally am now.

Besides all of the normal end of the day/week clean up tonight, I've also:

* put new pegs in the kitchen shelves so that they're not all hanging on by 2 broken pegs

* fixed the wiring for our suround sound finally

* hung up a fall wreath I made a week or two ago

* baked 3 loaves of banana bread

* cleaned out the freezer

* cleaned out the baking shelf in the pantry

I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but that was basically my night thus far. I've been this way for the last couple of days. I've always had "conquering Rome" time where I run around the house like a crazy lady and get stuff done, but the funniest things are coming to my mind now... things I would usually ask Gabe to do (like changing light bulbs), and I feel the need to do them right away. It can't wait until he gets home. (I'm sure he doesn't mind too much.)

On another note, I have been hearing the most random noises outside tonight. It's been going on for about 30 minutes now and all of the sounds seem like they're traveling from somewhat of a distance. Can anyone connect these sounds for me???

1. A country music/Mariachi band (yes, you read it right.)

2. Girls screaming their heads off like they're on roller coasters. (Knott's Scary Farm???)

3. Fireworks (probably Disneyland... not too much in question here, but still weird to be going on at the same time.)

4. Sirens (!)

Explain to me what I'm listening to. (Think of this as a riddle... but it's not...)

Who Are They???

If you want to see some REALLY old skool pics of Gabe and I (I didn't even recognize myself in one of them), click here and check out my friend, Flo's, blog... Don't ask about the last shot. I honestly have no idea.

It's a... Girl!!!

On Thursday afternoon, giddy with excitement, Gabe and I went to the doctor's office for my ultrasound. That was exactly 5 months before the due date of our little daughter! We're so excited that Andrew will be a big brother to a sister. He's excited too. If you ask him if the baby is a boy or a girl, he says, "girl!"

The baby is healthy and getting more and more active... or at least I'm feeling her more often now. I have two favorite parts of pregnancy. One is feeling the baby move and the other is the pregnant belly! I love my pregnant belly!

On a different note, Andrew (pictured here at Ruby's on the pier for lunch out with his great grand parents), is a total 2-yr-old (even though he technically has a couple months left.) He is hilarious and does the funniest, cutest things... but every once in a while, we see bizzaro-Andrew who comes out from hiding and goes psycho. Our latest temper tantrum almost made me cry out of frustration. I always let him pick out his shoes before we leave to go somewhere. He handed me his flip-flops yesterday. Okie-dokie. No problem. Once I got them on, he looked and said, "no", and handed me socks and his Vans. All right. We've all done that before. Try on a pair and realize they just don't go. Fine. I switched the shoes for him. He then said, "no" and handed me the flip-flops again. I told him that I wouldn't switch them again. Anyway, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I came to the realization that he wanted to wear both pairs at the same time. WHAT?! Okay, even if I were going to give in (which I wouldn't), it would have been impossible for me to!!! What are you supposed to do with such a unreasonable, illogical little person?! (It turns out you let them scream and cry for about 10 minutes and hold back your own tears until they finally regain composure and are ready to leave with only the Vans on.)

We got to see our grandparents (actually Gabe's) this past Monday for the whole day. It was awesome! They were staying on Balboa Island so we played around there all day and got a couple Heart Championship games in as well!

Gram Barb was so excited about taking Andrew on the carosel on the peninsula. They were so cute together! Andrew loves his great grandparents!

Would You Care For a Spot of Tea?

This is probably the most random Andrew post I've ever done...

So... Our son has a British accent. As mentioned in the last post, Andrew is REALLY into Thomas. For those of you who don't know about this series, it's British. (So it's either not supposed to be funny or it's British "humor".) Anyway, the kids who sing the songs all have British accents. The main song starts off saying, "They're 2, they're 4 they're 6, they're 8." The only part he knows is to shout, "eight!", but he doesn't pronounce it, "ate." He says, "ite!" Next thing I know, he'll be asking, "Mother, might I have a crumpet with my afternoon milk?"

Below is a craft that Andrew and I did yesterday after collecting some leaves in the yard. I got the idea from my friend, Carolyn, and her daughter who did the same thing and put it on their blog. Click here to see their beauties. I'm not completely sure what Andrew and I did wrong...

This is Andrew's first boquet he's ever made to put in a vase. The weeds- I mean- flowers weren't quite long enough to stick up out of the top.
My husband and son, the gamers.

This is one of cousin Nathan's sweatshirts. It turned out to be WAY too small (which is why Andrew's face looks a little red) so this was the only time he got to wear it, but he LOVED it.
Andrew's first haircut!... This is not a typo. His hair was finally long enough to cut (about a week ago) after only 21 months of working on it. He actually didn't mind it at all and talks about it all the time now.
His first time meeting the real life animals.

One of his first piggy-back rides.
His eyes are turning green... at least sometimes. Other times they're still as blue as the sky.

Botus the Tank Engine

Andrew is inlove with trains right now, especially Thomas. As you can see below, he has some trouble saying it, though. (Note to Nonnie and Papa: does this sound familiar??? "Wassus")

On another note, here's our next kid! What do you think? Girl? Boy? Place your votes now! We're hoping to find out in a couple of weeks!

Things That Make Me Smile

Look closely. Do you see it? There's a leaf in there that is starting to change colors! Yesterday morning, I sat down for breakfast, looked out the window, and smiled. It's fall!!! I LOVE fall. That came as a shock to most of you when taking my quiz a while back so let me give you a few reasons why it's (by far) my favorite season.

1. Christmas is right around the corner!

2. Fall gives me a reason to decorate my house and I love doing that! I start as close to Oct. 1st as I can and the weekend after Thanksgiving, I switch everything out for Christmas.

3. Thanksgiving and Christmas give me warm fuzzies.

4. I love the smell of cinnamon, apples, nutmeg, etc.

5. The weather finally gives up and allows some clouds and cooler temps.

6. Trees and parks are beautiful!

7. School starts and I love to see and hear kids walking home from school, playing football in the streets, and moms calling kids in for dinner.

8. Baseball is FINALLY over! Bleh!

9. I can get away with singing more Christmas songs in my house. Sometimes they even get stuck in Gabe's head and I hear him humming a wonderful tune without me!

10. It seems like there should be an even 10... Aha! I love winter meals and I can finally start using the oven again and the stove more. (Soup, bread, baked chicken, and cookies!, etc)

I love when Andrew wears our things. This is one of Gabe's hats. I think Andrew actually looks really good in it and it matches what he's wearing.
I told Andrew to go put some shoes on so we could go outside. He did just as I asked and he knew just how funny he was. Look how hard he's laughing! He is getting sillier and sillier! I just love the age he's at so much!

He's a Mover and a Shaker!

I only caught the end of this on film, but Andrew was moving the tee-pee all over the house, I'm guessing trying to find the best home for it.

In case you're wondering...

1. I skipped out on blogging for a month due to busyness.

2. Pics have been few and far between because only one of our computers likes videos (so it can be hard to access the pics too) and that computer is now back at hp getting revived... hopefully!

3. I'm trying to do the new video upload on blogspot. I hope it works! (Then the computer won't actually know that I'm working with videos on it! Shhhhhh... It'll be our little secret.)

4. As of a few months ago, I stopped blogging every event that happened to or around the Barber home. It is sad, but it got to be too stressful for me to keep up with during busy times. Why stress over blogging???

New Driver, New Car

Andrew loves our new Kia Rondo. So do we! We've owned it for 2 weeks now and it's already been camping once!
This was after its first bath.

New Stuff...

Okay... so it's been a while...

Vegtables: LOVE them again!!! Yippee!!! During the first 12 weeks of my pregnancy, the thought of veggies made me want to puke, but I'm back to loving them. In fact, I just ate a salad for an afternoon snack. Usually I would talk myself out of all of the chopping for just ONE salad for ONE person, so this time I talked myself into it by saying I could make as much as I wanted and store it in the fridge to eat whenever! YUM!

Hedecocopitedada: Andrew is learning more and more words. It's so cute! I love listening to him! The best is when he tries to say words longer than 2 syllables... like "helicopter". He starts with the right sound, but then just keeps going with random syllables. It makes me laugh.

Gabe's working on his placenta: They say pregnant women are exhausted for the first 13 weeks becuz their bodies are building the placenta for the baby. (It's hard work!) Anyway, I think Gabe is pregnant. He's been as tired as I was during my 13 week building project. (Maybe he's just catching up on the sleep he lost due to my previous 13 weeks...)

Faux date night: Gabe has tonight off work. Yay! We're having dinner, "going" to a game, and all without needing a babysitter. (Bedtime kicks off our evening.)

This Was Fun...

A week and a half ago, my car was on, "Pimp My Ride". Did you see it? Actually, this makeover was thanks to a woman thinking her stale red light was green. Funny how colors make such a big difference sometimes, huh? Anyway, here are some of the exciting shots...
Thankfully, Andrew and I were both totally fine (and the little baby too!). I had some soreness in my back and neck, but not too bad all things considered. Andrew slept through the whole event. He woke up briefly during impact and then nodded right back off. (At first I thought he was knocked unconcious!) Gabe says that Andrew sleeping through something like that says a lot about my driving. Ha, ha.
I consider it a bad thing when there is a box of "extra" parts sitting in your front passenger seat.So the Camry was totalled. Here's what we're looking at now... it's not a minivan, it's not a SUV, it's not a crossover, it's a... a... well, it's a Kia Rondo. What do you think?

Seconds, Anyone?

We watched the first part of this video and figured Andrew was ready to be a big brother, so we went ahead and decided to have another one. Then, we watched the end of the video and realized we might need to work with him a bit on the whole being gentle thing.

Oh well, it's too late now...our second baby is due March 12th, 2008! We'll just have to teach him not to throw real babies, I guess. :)

Andrew's Favorite Meal

Spaghetti!!!

Ever since Nonna was here, Andrew and I have been getting out the guitar almost every day and both of us practice. Andrew seems to be learning faster than I am, though. At one point during his "song", he even "changes chords". Watch closely!

Videos and Pictures!

Our YUPPY (Young Urban Professional Something Something) son.If you can explain this, I'd greatly appreciate it. (Yes, those are cups from the kitchen.)


Hammy smile.
We finally saved the crust from Andrew's special bread so that he can feed the ducks himself. (He tries to eat the other bread.) He loved it!
This is a pic to make Nonna and Papa proud. Andrew is digging into an In-and-Out burger.
This is the first out food that Andrew has ever eaten. We called their customer service line to find out the allergy info and determined he could eat a plain burger protein-style (wrapped in lettuce) with fries. First he would only eat the fries. Then he moved on to the lettuce. Before we knew it, he finished off the whole burger! He's hooked!


This is Andrew's toddler bed. He thinks it's pretty cool, but not cool enough to sleep on yet.
Little man puckering up for a kiss.
A few weeks ago, Carolyn, and her daughter, Lauren, came over for the day. I hardly ever get to see Carolyn anymore so it was AWESOME to spend a whole day together. Here are the two kids playing by the pool.
Aren't they adorable?!
I love this pic of Andrew just because he looks like a Baywatch lifeguard. Watch out David Hasselhoff! (Okay, I was going to put a picture of Hasselhoff here, but ewwwwwwwwwwwwww! I guess I'll at least put the link. Scroll down a bit on the page.)



This is special for Papa. He remembers JUST who you are! Don't you worry.



I think Andrew gets a little too excited and wants to skip right to the end sometimes.



Gabe and I have discussed that people pretend to talk like babies and say cute made-up words, but "real" baby "made-up" words are the best! This is "Elmo."


"Water."

We just got back from our all-church summer retreat. We had a lot of fun. We had an ongoing contest throughout the whole retreat. All 5 teams that lost had to do a punishment made up by the winning team. They chose butt-writing this sentence: "Boo hoo. We lost a lot to the ultimate Victors [the winner's team name] :) !" I think I actually left some of the sentence out, but if you're wondering what "butt-writing" is (like I was), watch this clip. It was unanimous that Norman (above) was the best writer. :)

More on Sylvester

2 Things I appreciate about this book:

1. Vocabulary- As my big sis, Sara, pointed out in her comment on my last Sylvester post, she has an excellent vocab... Could it be from this book???

Excerpt #1: "The lion... went away confused, perplexed, puzzled, and bewildered." Wow. How many times do you read words like that in a children's book?

Excerpt #2: "You can imagine the scene that followed- the embraces, the kisses, the questions, the answers, the loving looks, and the fond exclamations!" Isn't that better than, "They were happy to see each other and gave each other a big hug"?

I've learned with Andrew that you always have to be expanding their vocab. I caught myself once about to call the coffee table, "the table where your toys are" because he didn't know the word, "coffee table", but then I realized that's how he learned the words he does know. He didn't know any words in the beginning. That's why I love this book. It teaches Andrew new words and reminds me of words that I should be using more often around him.

2. Donkeys- "While popular in Cantonese cuisine, they are not often found in Washington DC!" Just kidding... But if any of you can tell me where that quote comes from, I'll be quite proud of you! Anyway, donkeys never get written about. Why not? What's wrong with donkeys? Is it because of the sad, depressed picture that A. A. Milne gives us with Eeyore? Poor donkeys. Sylvester is really paving the way for them! Donkeys of the world, unite under your four-legged leader, Sylvester!!!

I realize that I haven't even told you the plot of the book, but I will soon. Stay tuned!

Not My iPod!

Today during Gabe's sermon, he brought up "going the second mile", etc. I thought it was an interesting conversation between him and the congregation...

Gabe: What does Jesus say to do when someone slaps you?
Congregation: Turn the other cheek.
Gabe: What does Jesus say to do when someone makes you carry their things for one mile?
Cong.: Go another mile.
Gabe: So if someone were to steal your iPod, what do you do?
Cong.: [Pause]
Gabe: Give them your laptop!
Cong.: (Horrific gasps and cries) Not my iPod! But I NEED my laptop!

Interesting when put into modern terms, isn't it???

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

I have been wanting to do a whole series of posts on this book so here's the first...

Although my family had this book while I was growing up, I rarely remember reading it. I'm not sure if it was too long for me to listen to, too long for my mom to read to me, or too many big words for my sister, Sara, to pronounce. Either which way, it's now one of Andrew's favorite books and I love it. I appreciate for so many reasons so I wanted to tell all of you why... Also some random things about it.

Reason #1: There is an advertisement on the last page in the book. Below is a picture of the page before the advertisement... We'll call this exhibit A.

Did you notice what it says? It reads, "Please turn the page." How polite! (Warning: I got out my soapbox and am currently climbing up...) In today's advertising, they try to "trick" us into wanting their product. "Sure," they say, "they may not be hungry... But what if we show them our big cheesy burrito at 10pm during their favorite TV show and remind them that we're open late? Then they'll be hungry!" My response: "Thank you for fattening us up! Heaven forbid I forget my 4th meal!" From my sales days, I know that you're supposed to fill the customer's need with your product... and if they don't have that need, you create one. Welcome to America, land of consummerism!Reason #2: First of all, I'm not entirely sure what's up with the scary little black (sorry, african-american) blob. Is he a monster? A strange sea creature? A mix between a bear and a hippo? More importantly, I think it's so cute that they put an expiration date- which is a good thing, being the date is 5 days before my 27-year-old sister's birthdate! I just think that advertising was so cute and innocent back in the day. Wasn't life so much simpler then???

Happy Father's Day, Gabey!!!

Happy Father's Day, Gabe!!!

You are such an amazing Dad. I am so blessed that you are my son's father.

Andrew loves you and so do I!

Happy Father's Day also to all 3 grandpas!

(Sorry I couldn't rotate this. It was read-only.)

Happy Father's Day!