Signs of the Times

So we are getting thru each day with a sigh.....(deep breath in, deep breath out...), and some tears, and some laughter. Each day brings new challenges and joys. Olivia continues to amaze us with her beautiful acceptance of her new brother and Finn continues to grow fatter and happier with each passing moment....I know that some day we will look back at these days with tears in our eyes and warmth in our hearts....

...right now.. I would love a beer ( that's out cuz of nursing...hahahaha!) .. and a giant dark chocolate candy bar. ( which is also out cuz Finn seems to be very sensitive chocolate...cue the projectile vomiting! )

Here are some pics from passing moments in the last couple of weeks....the one thing I hadn't really planned on was the the increase in laundry....WOW!! Good thing we have a great clothesline and the wonderful California sunshine to save on energy costs.:-)

xoxoxo

Twinkle, Twinkle...

Olivia completely blew us away a couple of weeks ago by singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all the way through!!! I have been trying to get it on video for weeks and finally was able to get it all except for one little part at the end when she decides it's time to perform her "fake" cough. Anyway, it's pretty cute.. .enjoy!! ( just pause the music on our blog on the right hand column so you can hear her perform.. :-)

xoxo

Happy 4th of July!

Happy "belated" Fourth of July! Olivia was soooo not into having her new brother sit next to her... I totally had to bribe her with a cookie. hahahahaha! We stayed home and BBQ'd with my mom and James... then our neighbors down the street put on their annual fireworks show from 9-11pm... the dog hated it.. she hid in the bathtub for 3 hours.. poor thing...

by-the-way this occurred to me today....

Holy crap! I have 2 kids!!

Aghhhhh!

A Birth Story

So many of you know that my first birth with Olivia was "challenging" to say the least. She was posterior, meaning she was coming out face up instead of face down which allowed for 4 hours of pushing... ai, yi, yi! That was only the topper to a labor that was about 4 days long... :-( I was really hoping and praying that this birth would be different.

This birth was sooooo different.

I started having contractions around 4pm on Friday afternoon... by 8 pm they were every 4 minutes apart. At 10pm I decided to try and get some sleep ( I was putting off going to the hospital until I absolutely had to)..by 11:30 my contractions varied from 2 minutes apart to 5 min apart....It was then that I decided I needed drugs. :-)

After we got to the hospital, they checked me and I was about 2 cent. dilated... not great , but something. The midwife said that I could have my epidural when I reached 3 cent. .... Whoppee! I decided to get up and walk the halls to get things going...I did that for about 1 hour or so.. came back and I had progressed to 3 cent. They took me right into an labor and delivery room and gave me my epidural....ahhhhhh...relief. That was around 4 am. I was so relaxed I took about a 4-5 hour nap.. on and off. They checked me at 11 am and I was 6 cent. dilated but the midwife noticed that not all of my water was broken so they did that for me ... :-) By 12:30 pm I was ready to push.... 45 minutes later , Finn was born at 1:16 pm.

It was so nice to have a "non" dramatic delivery. My mom and mother-in-law were able to be present for the birth this time and that made it all the more special too..

So there it is... :-)

Introducing...

On Saturday , June 28th at 1:16 pm our son ... Finn David Barber was born! He is perfect in every way... he weighed 8lbs 12 ounces and is 19 3/4 inches long... :-) We are so blessed to have him in our lives. More to come later about his birth story... Here are some pics!!

xoxo
Chad, Melissa, and big sister Olivia

Take cover, she's going to blow!!

Ok, it's pretty ridiculous how big my belly is... I have no idea how there is any room in there for the little one to move around but last night he/she was doing a pretty good jig in there...

Here is a good Olivia quote for the day:

me: " Olivia , would you like to hold the new baby?"

Olivia: " Yes, but baby need bath first".

There you have it.

xoxoxo

Time for guesses...

Ok..so as I am going thru false labor , etc..etc.. all you Barber blog readers need to step-up and make some guesses about this new little one....

Will it be a boy or girl?
What day will he/she be born?
How much will he/she weigh?

MOST IMPORTANTLY.... How long will my labor be? Hahahahaha!

I'm just curious about what ya'll think!

xoxoxo

False Labor is no fun...

So after suffering last night for about 3 hours with pretty intense contractions, I fell asleep and slept pretty well until Olivia woke us up at 5:30 am ( very early for her...her usual wake up time is 6:30). This morning it is like nothing ever happened.

Very frustrating.....

Oh well... it will all happen when it is supposed to... it's actually very nice to be home and playing with Olivia.

On another note....Chad started teaching this morning! He is teaching a 6 week Developmental Biology summer class at UCLA. Today is his first day so actually it is a VERY good thing that I did not go into labor last night... :-) I know that he is going to do really well..

xoxoxoxo

Labor Pains!

So, I'm not "officially" in labor yet , but I'm definitely having contractions that "hurt" , they just aren't consistent ... after my first labor experience with Olivia, I will definitely NOT be going to the hospital until they are regular or my water breaks...

It's very exciting that pretty soon we will have new little "barber" in the house..

We'll keep ya posted...

xoxox

Chad's Big Day!

So I'm finally posting about Chad's graduation and the party we had to celebrate!! He was involved in two separate graduation ceremonies... the first one was his Doctoral Hooding Ceremony and the second was his departmental graduation. Both of the ceremonies were awesome. I really enjoyed the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony because it was held in Royce Hall at UCLA which is really beautiful. ( I think that they usually hold music or theatre type events there). They called each student up on stage and "hooded" them with the correct color hood ( in his case, Navy Blue and Gold). Very cool.... The ceremony for his department was also very nice and much more informal. The coolest part was that because he had already participated in the hooding ceremony he sat on the the stage with the other professors and when his name was called they personally read his Dissertation Topic , etc..etc... It was also nice because Olivia ( along with 10 other family members) was able to attend and see her daddy graduate.

Later that day, after the departmental graduation, we held a HUGE party in our backyard to celebrate. I think we ended up with about 70 people or so... !!!! It was a luau theme and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves...

(pause)... I'm having a contraction as I write... ai, yi, yi.

Anyway, I was REALLY happy that we made it through all the festivities without me going into labor or having a newborn around. It was a great celebration for my loving husband who worked for so long on a HUGE accomplishment.

He now has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology... what a stud!!

xoxox

38 weeks

The baby is now the size of a leek and about 6 1/2 pounds..(according to babycenter.com). The baby "feels" like it is about the size of a pumpkin and weighs about 9 pounds...but who knows. :-) It's hard to believe I am almost to the end of this journey...it has gone by in a flash.

Today is my last day of work until November.. Hurray! It will be nice to be home full time with Olivia and the new baby..

Here is a picture of a "leek". Doesn't seem quite big enough to me ...ha!

xoxo

Say "Cheese"!

Here are some pics for free...she tries to say "cheese" for the camera and always squints up her eyes in the process.. pretty funny. The pic of her holding the cucumber and lemon is special cuz we grew both of those in our garden... she was pretty proud to be holding them....

xoxoxo

Ahhhh...toddlerhood.

Last night Chad and I decided to head to the mall near our house because on Wednesday evenings they have a Farmer's Market and live music.. very fun. I also had to pick a little something up in the mall. Olivia was in a great mood and was immediately thrilled by the bit fountain outside the mall entrance. We let her throw a penny into and she could not have been happier.....Then the evening proceeded something like this:

5:30 Walk throught the mall to the store..Olivia first wants to walk, then be held, then walk, then be held, etc.etc....

6:00 Go to a restaurant for dinner...Olivia colors her picture ( crayons graciously provided by the restaurant) in about 5.2 seconds, then she stands up in the booth and tries to touch the man's head who is sitting behind us. ( Have a quick chat about privacy and personal space). Bread arrives....quiet for about 2 minutes. Then meal arrives...she proceeds to try and then spit out the trout we ordered ( well at least she tried it). Eats broccoli and mashed potatoes instead...after eating for 5 minutes decides it's time to let everyone know how loud she can be...( this is "new" for her )..Chad is mortified..(Have a quick chat about "inside" voices),then we quickly finish dinner and pay the bill. Olivia waves bye-bye to everybody around us and people look very relieved that we are leaving.

6:45 Walk thru the farmer's market..buy some honey.. Olivia decides the honey bear is now her best friend...let's "him" sit next to her while she proceeds to dance precociously to the live music that is playing.

7:15 head home... Olivia is busy chatting in the back seat about her evening.. apparently she is quite content with what she has experienced. We are pooped.

The crazy thing is.... We are about to start the process all over again with a new one!!! Aghhh...are we nuts?

xoxoxo

My shower!

On May 17th, my mom and sister threw me a great shower at a little tea room in Pasadena, CA. It was wonderful... or I should say AWESOME! The food was unbelievable and the company was even better. Thank-you to all who came and shared in my special day...we got some much needed items for the new baby including a really cool new stroller that allows Olivia to hop on and off the back easily... it is made by a company called Joovy. The color "orange" seemed to be the theme of the day as the baby got an orange teddy bear, we got a new orange and black diaper bag, and the stroller is orange and black... super cool!!!

xoxo

Breakfast Companion

Olivia has a new friend she likes to eat breakfast with... his name is Henry. He really likes blueberry belgium waffles.

xoxoxo

Woos and Woes

This past weekend was filled with "Woo-Hoo's"! On Friday Chad defended his dissertation to a crowd of about 70 people... Amazing! He was poised and confident and I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about... :-) He has a couple of revisions to do and then it will go off for binding to be put into the UCLA library. :-) We took him out to dinner that night and then he promptly fell asleep at around 8:30 pm out of pure exhaustion..

Saturday my family threw me a small baby shower at a lovely tea house in Pasadena. There were just 11 of us but it was perfect. My mom and sister really did a nice job .. the food was awesome and I got some really nice things. It was really fun opening gifts this time around because I didn't register for anything so I had absolutely no idea what the gifts were. So fun... as soon as I download pics I will post them. :-)

On Sunday we went to church to hear my brother-in-law preach.. it was really nice to hear him speak and to watch how enthusiastic he is about God's word. We all went out to eat afterwards to do a little late Mother's day celebrating and then my mom, Chad's mom, Jen, my sister, and I all went to get pedicures and manicures. I seriously hadn't had one in like 6 months... pathetic.

On to the woe's ( which really aren't that bad):

1. It's frickin hot!
2. I'm pretty much uncomfortable all the time..just feeling really heavy and things just feel smushed inside...*sigh*
3. I'm ready to be done with work..( outside the home that is)..but I still have 3 more weeks. My brain loves the stimulation but my body is just miserable getting up and down all day long, etc.etc.
4. I'm running on little sleep...I get about 2 hour stretches at night between bathroom visits..but I know it is God's way of making me ready for the little one..amazing.

Those woes aren't too bad...the baby is now the size of a cantalope. Feels bigger than that.. but we'll see. I'm really hoping that it doesn't turn out to be as big as Olivia was at birth ( 8 pounds 15 ounces)...but 2nd babies are usually bigger. *sigh*.

8 months and counting...

Here is my 8 month pic...as Chad puts it " you now look like you've swallowed a whole watermelon". Hmmmm... I'll have to think about that one. I think I just look tired...it's amazing how different pregnancy is when you don't have ample time to just lay down and take a rest once in a while....the baby moves CONSTANTLY ( just like Olivia did ) and has been having the hiccups a lot lately. My new "craving" is crunching on crushed ice ( I'm sure my dentist would disapprove). I'm officially 33 weeks pregnant and most people I talk to think I won't last 'till June 27th.. but we'll see about that.

xoxoxo

Happy Day!

Yesterday Chad officially turned in the written copy of his doctoral dissertation (about 180 pages ) for his 5 committee members to read. He orally defends his dissertation next Friday May 16th at 1 pm... :-) He has worked soooooo hard over the last 6 years on experiments, papers, and classes to get to this point. If you have a chance please either email him or phone him some congratulations... he sooooooo deserves it.

By-the-way... today he took Olivia to Disneyland to celebrate! How's that for feeling happy and relaxed!

xoxoxo

Catching up on the days news...

Olivia feels it is important to be current on her knowledge of world events.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Chad's cousin Ana to answer the following questions!!! So here goes:

Five things on my To-Do List:

1. Finish some crocheting for two baby gifts I am working on
2. Take-out of storage and wash all my 0-3 month baby clothes...:-)
3. Change out some pics of Olivia in frames that are through out the house
4. Pay some bills
5. Fold laundry

Five Favorite Snacks!

1. Potato Chips (preferably with toasted onion dip)
2. Watermelon
3. Chocolate covered pretzels
4. a juicy orange
5. yogurt with granola

Five things I would do if I were a Billionaire:

1. Pay off all debt ( school loans, house payment)
2. Buy my mom a house
3. Buy my dad his 1957 corevette
4. Travel
5. Put away enough money so my kids would never have to worry

Five Bad Habits:

1. I bite my nails... :-(
2. I should exercise more..
3. Not drinking enough water..( that's a good one Ana)
4. Impatience
5. Leaving lights on in rooms I'm not using..

Five Places I have lived:

1. Katy, Texas
2. Bakersfield, California
3. Palm Springs, California
4. Fullerton, California
5. Encino, California

Five Jobs I've had:

1. Cashier-Pharmacy
2. Student Assistant-Extended Education CSUF
3. Researcher- Nursing Home
4. Summer camp Counseller
5. Audiolgist

I want to know more about: ( This means you are tagged)

1. Heather
2. Jenni Smith
3. Robyn
4. Dani
5. Vanessa

xoxoxoxoxoxo