Parties, parties everywhere!

August is a super busy time for birthdays on the Barber side of the family - we have Cameron (our nephew) on the 6th, Ethan on the 12th, Chris on the 17th and Grandma Barber on the 25th.

This year was a little extra hectic with celebrating Liam's first birthday  (Liam is our friends Zaianne and Tom's sweet little boy) and Eva's 6 month birthday on the 19th as well!

Our first weekend in August started out with 2 parties - Liam's first birthday party on the 4th and Cameron's 2nd birthday on the 5th. We then had a week off before being hit with a triple birthday party for Chris, Ethan and Eva! Somehow we managed to survive all of this partying :)

All of the birthday boys and the half birthday girl received lots of nice gifts and were able to celebrate with friends and family!

Please enjoy the pictures.

Young love - Eva and Liam

Ethan teaching Liam how to play!

Cousin love

More cousin love

Eva in her conductor's hat and Grandpa Barber

So many choices

6 month old princess with Aunt Jen (yes there are 2 Jennifer Barbers in the family!)

Thomas cupcakes - please excuse the melting buttercream frosting!

Watch out, Ethan!

Eva and Grandpa Kuo

Ethan loves Molly

Ethan - 3 years!

My firstborn is 3! Well, he turned 3 exactly 3 weeks ago, so this is just a quick recap.

In the past year, the most exciting thing that happened was becoming a big brother! Ethan loves Eva, and Eva loves him back :) There has been surprisingly little sibling rivalry. We have been completely done potty training (both during the day and at night) since shortly after Eva was born. He is also sleeping in his own bed at night, although he likes to come in to mommy and daddy's room for a snuggle in the morning.

Ethan is all done with daycare now - the past year he had been going 2 days a week, and going to my parents the other 3 days. Now that he's 3, he'll be starting preschool! He is very excited about going to "big boy school" and I'm sure he'll do well. I will miss all the little arts and crafts projects that he brings home, but at least we still have Home Depot and Lowe's arts and crafts to go to!

Ethan is still super skinny - the little guy only weighs 29 pounds! He wears anything from 18 month to 2T clothes. He does love eating all sorts of things - his favorites are any sort of fruit, anything that can be dipped in ketchup and quinoa (yes, a little strange for a 3 year old!). He loves helping me in the kitchen by getting the appropriate appliance out of the cabinets, retrieving various ingredients and levelling flour.

I can't wait to see what this next year will bring!

Sibling love

Riding the mechanical horse at Meijer

Arts and Crafts at Lowe's

Birthday boy at 5:23pm

Birthday cake - Ethan insisted on pink frosting with blue and green sprinkles

Thai Pesto Pasta

2 days, 2 posts??? Yikes!

Anyways, I made a tasty dinner last night and I thought I'd share it with all of you.

I'd like to think I'm a decent cook, but with 2 kids and a husband, following recipes is just sooo much easier than making things up on the fly. Plus recipes make it easier when I'm writing up that grocery list! Yesterday was different though...all day I was thinking about pasta. And Thai food, how much I miss it and how I can't have some of my favorites because of the coconut milk that is used (Eva is highly sensitive to certain foods in my diet). I didn't particularly feel like making a Thai veggie curry, my usual stand by Thai dish, so my mind started wandering...what could I make with the stuff I have in the house...then it struck me - Thai pesto!

I knew I had Thai curry paste in the house (pantry staple) and my parents have a healthy supply of Thai basil. Thus this recipe was born.

Thai Pesto

• half jar of Thai curry paste (I used Thai Kitchen red curry paste, use more or less based on your preference)
• large handful of Thai basil
• large handful of cilantro
• vegetable oil

Puree all the ingredients together in a food processor with enough vegetable oil to reach your desired consistency. Toss with pasta. I used a curly shaped pasta (not fusilli, but similar), but I think this would be tasty with rice pasta. I also quartered a bunch of cherry tomatoes to put in the pasta, but you can add whatever mix ins you'd like.

The pesto itself smelled very potent, but ended up being relatively mild. I think next time I'll be doubling the basil and cilantro used. All in all, this was a tasty, delicious and easy dinner!

The First Bargain post!

I love a good deal and I love coupons. Think Extreme Couponing, but less psychotic (none of that turning your kids' room into a cereal warehouse business here, dumpster diving for coupons). I have reasonable stockpiles of toothpaste, shampoo/conditioner, cereal, pasta, etc. 


As some of you already know, I have a love for Target. I even went the morning I had Eva (maybe that is why she loves going there with me)! It is easy to save money at Target - they let you combine store coupons with manufacturer's coupons and when you stack that on top of a sale...well, you get the picture.

Here's today's haul...

This trip was split into 2 transactions to minimize out of pocket expenses.

Transaction #1
-3 Dove shampoos at $2.99 each
-1 Dove conditioner at $2.99 each

• Used 1 $3/2 Dove hair care coupon (from the Sunday inserts a few weeks ago) and 1 $1.50/2 coupon (from the Dove website, if I had a second newspaper coupon, this would've been a better deal) for a final price of $7.46 for 4 shampoos/conditioners

-Extra 5 cents off for bringing my own bag :)
-Total after coupons and tax: $7.93, purchasing 4 Dove hair products generated a $5 gift card making an okay sale into a good deal!

I took that $5 gift card to roll into my second transaction (since these generated gift cards have to be used on a future transaction, which I think is silly, but whatever).

Transaction #2
-1 Method kitchen cleaner, lemon verbena scent at $2.99 

• Used $1/1 Target coupon and $1/1 mf (manufacturer) coupon for a final price of 99 cents

-1 Method Mickey Mouse soap at $3.49 

• Used $1/1 Target coupon and $.75/1 mf coupon for a final price of $1.74

-2 boxes of Quaker bars at $2 each 

• Used $1/2 Target coupon and $1/2 mf coupon for a final price of $2, or $1 per box

-1 2-pack of contact lens solution at $3.84 

• Used $1/1 Target coupon for a final price of $2.84 

-Extra 5 cents off for bringing my own bag, even though the cashier did just put everything into the same bag from transaction 1.
-Random side note: the cashier tried telling me that hand soap wasn't a personal care item and that the store coupon wouldn't work...even though hand soap IS a personal care item and the coupon did work in the end. Stand up for yourself!
-Total after coupons, tax and $5 gift card from the first transaction: $3.06

Total out of pocket - $10.99

All in all, a good trip :) Let me know if you have any questions!

5 months old!

Baby girl is 5 months old now :) We've had a month full of cuddles, screeching (in a good way) and adventures.


Weight - somewhere in the neighborhood of 13lbs
Clothes - we're still wearing 3 month clothes, I think we'll get at least another month's worth out of this size
Diapers - we haven't been in disposables for over a month now - we're fulltime in cloth diapers at the moment
Sleep - still sleeping through the night :) What's the secret? Swaddling! We reswaddled her around 3 months, and since then, she's been sleeping like a champ. A few days ago we tried unswaddling her, but that was a no-go. 
Eating - Still nursing :) I like to feed her about every 3 hours (6x a day). My parents babysat last night and gave her a 4oz bottle. She drank it all, but cried the whole time (she hadn't had a bottle in over a month). We'll start solid food soon!
Likes - bath time, sitting up like a big girl, smiling, visiting people, peekaboo, hair accessories (ok, so this is a mommy thing, but with all this gorgeous hair, it's hard to resist!), shoving her fingers in her mouth
Dislikes - prolonged tummy time, not being the center of attention (hasn't changed from last month!)
New tricks - Eva learned to roll from her back to her front shortly after 4 months - in fact, these days, if you set her down on her back, she'll almost always promptly roll to her belly! She's also in the habit of barrel rolling across the family room - if I set her down while I wash dishes and come back 5 minutes later, she's half way across the room! She's also sitting independently very nicely - she can sit for several minutes, look up and down, side to side, and correct herself if she doesn't tip too far :) 


We still don't have an established nap routine, and I know I say we'll work on it, so we'll work on it! We'll also work on holding things!


And pictures :)

Pool time with Ethan

Saucer time!

Bedhead and fingers - a classic combination

a bow and fingers - yet another combination

5 months old!

Monthly sibling picture

Sitting up just like a big girl!

Red, White and Cute!

The prettiest little girl in the world wishes everyone a happy and safe 4th of July!

4 months old!

My pretty little Eva is now 4 months old! Or technically 4.5 months old as of this blog post. She's grown so much already and her personality is shining through. She's a happy, chatty, chubby baby!


Weight - 12 pounds, 5oz (20%), I find this small because Eva looks so adorably chubby :)
Clothes - still holding strong in 3 month clothes. 6 month clothes are still too big for this little princess!
Diapers - size 2 disposeables (really should be size 1, but I don't want to buy any more disposeables since we're nearly full time in cloth) and the smallest setting for cloth
Sleep - has been sleeping through the night for over a month now - we have our last feeding around 9/9:30pm, then she goes down until 6am the next morning. Sometimes Eva will cry in the middle of the night, but we just give her a pacifier and things quiet down. We don't have much of a napping schedule yet though.
Eating - I nurse Eva every 3 hours. We don't really do bottles (average about once a month) because the nursing is going so well. Last time she had a bottle, it was 3oz, but now she's bigger, I should probably be giving her 4oz. We have not started solids yet. 
Likes - swings, smiling, shoving her fist in her mouth, mommy, Ethan, hugs, kisses
Dislikes - prolonged tummy time, not being the center of attention
New tricks - Eva FINALLY rolled over the day before her 4 month birthday! She doesn't do it super often, but I think it's because she has trouble getting her fat arm underneath her big head (which measured at the 75th percentile!). She can "sit" sometimes, and by sitting I mean she can balance herself for a few seconds. She also LOVES talking with you and will happily talk the day away!


I think this upcoming month we'll be working on the rolling, sitting and maybe establishing more of a daytime routine!


And for the best part of these monthly posts, pictures!

Pigtails! My little girly has enough hair for pigtails!

Getting better with tummy time

Monthly picture (I couldn't get this picture to flip for the blog)

Monthly sibling picture

Swinging after playing in the kiddie pool