take a walk

I love taking walks with this guy....

he loves to explore...

this is just beyond the barbwire fence north of our house. from here we can walk to the turkey buildings...

the river if we wanted to...

if I wanted to pass out & have to call someone to pick us up.

we don't go very far because our exploratory journeys usually take place during one of isabella's naps or later in the day if daddy gets home early so he can stay with her {but her monitor works really good so no worries}. she's not walking yet & she weighs about 30 lbs... I can barely keep up with D, much less carrying 30lbs of cute baby. besides, I enjoy the walk as much ad D does.

I love this tree.

 I know it's dead but it looks pretty cool. struck by lightning I assume?!

down this hill there's usually some cows to the north, a creek tho the west and the hwy to south.

so we head south, out of the "woods" & into a field. 

during this whole time what's his favorite thing to look for?

lizards? snakes? grasshoppers? nope.

lady bugs.

he's got jars of them.

in my house.

he's discovered that they like tomato plants & sunflowers so I've had to teach him how to walk around the plants in the garden, not just straight through them.

then we go east, up the hill

& head home sweet home... 

going up that hill is exhausting by the way. thank God for "look there's a lady bug!" breaks ;)

Billy

this is me & my younger brother Billy after his 5th grade graduation.

Saturday May 21st @ 4pm we went to Bud Walton Arena at the University of Arkansas

along with about a million other people it felt like

to watch him graduate from High School!!

me, Billy, & our mom

I still can't believe he actually made it ;) lol

we got some really good pics

with Douglas 

with abuelita

with Mathew, I'll tell you why he's laughing in a min.

with his sweetheart, Erin. isn't she cute?!!

but it's me. & Billy. & when we get together, we tend to laugh at everything, & everyone.

no one is excluded from our fun making. including abuelita.

our mom

or even billy. this next pic explains why Mathew was cracking up in the other one. as I took the picture, he grabbed billy's butt. Billy's face is priceless.

gotta love billy.

this is me & my younger brother Billy after his high school graduation.

Cool

"his name is Cool, & he's beautiful." - Douglas

happy family right?! well, afterward Mathew & I got into a huge snowball fight. mathew put snow down the back of my pants while I was bending over. then he knocked me down and dragged me on my back so that the snow would pile into my pants. I didn't do anything to deserve it! nothing I didn't throw snow balls in his face. I didn't knock his sun glasses down and lose them in the snow. I didn't knock him down & rub snow in his face. none of that ;)

who's got the coolest mom?!

my kids do!

{it's an airplane!}

=)

thanks youtube!

{dog ~ airplane}


and Sasha {here or here} for the inspiration

"busy, busy, busy"

I've been busy.
on June 13th (a Sunday) my brother came to stay with us for the 2nd weekend in a row.
I love my brother.
He left on Thursday June 17th because he had to work.
Friday, June 18th (The day Toy Story 3 came out) I got a phone call from my mother in law, her words were: "Mathew hurt his back really, really bad we need you to bring the Tahoe". I'm told it's not in me to panic so I just say, "ok I'll be right there" and head that way.
He reinjured a disk in his back that he hurt last year.
but more about that later.
right now i want to talk about me.
maybe even whine a little bit.
notice the day of the day Billy was here, June 13th.
Mathew has been living on the couch since June 18th.
Billy came back to spend time with him so he wouldn't get bored out of his mind Sunday June 20 through Wednesday June 23rd.
He came back again yesterday, Sunday June 27th.
He'll be here til Thursday July 1st!!!
Mathew is still hurt.
I haven't had the house to myself (with just the kids) in 15 days.
Things aren't looking up for me.
I don't know if I'll survive.
I did get to go to Arkansas to visit my family & Plato's Closet (with Billy) this last Saturday.
But I can't seem to keep up with the housework.
I live in my kitchen.
So, at fore mentioned Plato's Closet I bought myself this magnet for my fridge.
I deserved it.
it makes me smile.
I love it.

please take it seriously.
I'm begging.
although there is no point.
someone wants to eat something every second of every day.
Today alone I cooked a dozen eggs.
a few slices of bacon. I don't cook bacon so it was the microwave kind (maybe one day I'll tell you the story of why I don't cook bacon. It involves pig nipples and almost getting knocked down with a pig belly)
4 pieces of toast.
I cut up a very large (and very sweet and perfect) watermelon into small squares
I made a lasagna (I'll do a tutorial on it because it's amazing as well)
an apple pie (I'll do a tutorial on it too because it's perfect)
I put together 1 peanut butter & Jelly sandwhich
I served 4 plates of HOT apple pie al a mode
prepared 6 bottles
I think that's it
my poor kitchen
someone...
please...
call for help....


ps i think we might finally go watch Toy Story 3 tomorrow. We'll see... maybe

infant potty training

This week me & Douglas are going to start potty training Isabella. Yes she is not even 2 months old but she is holding her head up very well, even scooting a little bit when I lay her on her belly, and I can usually tell when she is going poop.

If you don't know about infant potty training, you should. Have you ever wondered what people in other parts of the world do with their babies? The ones with babies strapped to their backs, I mean they don't just let them poop on them do they? I didn't learn about infant potty training until Douglas was around 9 months old. I wish I would have known about it sooner. My main source was "To Train Up A Child" by Michael & Debi Pearl. They also have a website, www.nogreaterjoy.org, where I also did some research. Now I don't agree with all of their teachings or everything they believe but when I hear something like this or like what "On Becoming Baby Wise" teaches I can't help but wonder why I hadn't thought of it myself. Why this kind of thing isn't common knowledge. It just makes sense. I think, "Duh!" With the help of Baby Wise now with Isabella when she gets tired I go put her down in her crib or playpen. I can walk away and she goes to sleep with virtually no fussing or crying. She just tries to go to sleep on her own. With Douglas we can be almost anywhere, I can take him aside, tell him it's nap time & that he needs to try and go to sleep & he will. It's awesome! It took a little bit of work but it was definitely worth the effort! It's so nice to not have to worry about fit throwing, crankyness, or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, they aren't perfect and things still happen. (tired kids are cranky kids) But knowing what to expect for the most part is so nice and I can enjoy my kids so much better, and so can everyone else. Don't you just hate it when you can't/don't want to hang out with a friend because you don't want to be around their kids. It's sad isn't it?

Here's an excerpt from one of the articles I read prior to starting with Douglas:

"Starting a habit is so much easier than breaking one. As adults, we have the will power and the understanding to change a habit. Yet, even so we find it difficult to go against a habit and are always tempted to fall back to the former ways. Think how hard it would be for a two-year-old to break a lifelong habit. It was okay for two years to soil a daily diaper or two or three, and suddenly their parents are looking down at them and saying, "Stop going in your diaper; I want you to teeter over this great big hole that if you are not careful you might fall into and get flushed down." I can easily see why an untrained child would be afraid and fight against it." {via nogreaterjoy.org} Now that you read that aren't you thinking, "well that makes sense, I never thought about it that way?!" That's what I thought.

In chapter 11 of To Train Up A Child entitled "Potty Untraining" Michael Pearl begins with a section called "no more diapers":

"On a missionary trip to Central America, we were amazed by the practice of the primitive Maya Indians in not diapering their babies prior to stuffing them into a carrying pouch. Their infants were all potty trained. After experimenting on our own, and after further observation, we discovered that infants are born with an aversion to going in their "nests". Parents "untrain" them by forcing them to become accustomed to going in their clothes a child instinctively protests a bowel movement. He kicks, stiffens, and complains. Being sensitive to the warning signs (after having changed 17,316 diapers with the first three), my wife tried it on our new arrivals. When she sensed that the child was about to "go", she would go to the toilet and place the bare infant against her bare legs in a spread-leg sitting position. Dribbling a little stream of warm water over the child's private parts helped provoke the start of an impending "tinkle". As the child began urinating, she would say, "pee pee". On other occasions, if she missed the signs and a bowel movement was in progress, she would rush the child to the bathroom to finish on the toilet, while occasionally saying, "do do". Even if the child was through with his elimination, she still set him on the pot in order to reinforce the training. He came to identify the sound with the muscle function. Our children became so well trained to the voice command that we had to be careful not to say the words at the wrong time. We could be bragging to our neighbor, say the magic words, and induce a release."

To me this made so much sense, and even if it didn't work what could it hurt? I was determined to try it! Guess what, Douglas learned in about 3 or 4 days what if felt like to poop and what he needed to do when he felt he needed to go. If I though he needed to go I would put him on the toilet and say "try and go potty" and he would strain. He still does that when I think he needs to try. Like before we go to the store, or I have him try before his bath, or before bed. The rest of the time he lets me know when he's gotta poop (for the most part) and I try and ask him frequently if he's gotta pee. He's doing pretty good and getting better. I believe that maybe if I had started trying to train him earlier he might already be potty trained.

On their website they also make the comment that "It is more the parent being trained than the baby. You just have to be consistent in "your" training." It just takes you paying attention to your child and "going with your gut"


Another thing to understand is that it's not a discipline thing. When they have an accident it's okay. All you're doing is trying to start the habit early and get them comfortable with sitting on an uncomfortable place for someone so small. Here's are links to other articles they have on the subject on their site: ("potty training answered", "baby-potty-training","one-more-time" )

There is also another website I kinda liked called diaperfreebaby.org. This is the page on their website I got some of my info from. I'm not crazy about their site, but they do have some good info, they are just a little "earthy" for me. I guess earthy would be the word lol. I believe we'll be practicing what they refer to as

{Part-time EC
Part-time EC'ers are generally committed to practicing EC consistently, but not necessarily round-the-clock. They practice EC to whatever extent they feel able to accommodate, and they and baby benefit by remaining aware of elimination.

Part-time EC'ers may use diaper backup but also employ some "diaper-free" periods, perhaps once a day or several times a week or whenever they feel they are in a situation which will allow them to enjoy a stress-free, enjoyable bonding experience - for instance, in a carpet-free part of the house or outdoors. Even by just catching some catches every day, parent and baby can remain remarkably aware of elimination and patterns.

Part-timers may begin to practice EC on a more full-time basis when baby is older and going longer between elimination, signaling more overtly to be taken to the potty, or showing signs of approaching toilet independence.}  {via}

I guess we'll see how Isabella does and I'll keep you updated. 

good night

this is kind of boring but I'm up so this is what you get. 


I had a good night so far. Get this, BOTH kids were in bed, in their own rooms, fast asleep, by 10:30pm. The last couple of days have been late days up with Isabella, and Douglas was up until midnight the night before because he had a hard time falling asleep for some odd reason. I was so happy that I was finally going to make it to bed before midnight! I went to "Mathew's bathroom", the one with the stand up shower, and walked to the hamper. There I stepped in cold water that soaked through my socks. I got aggravated but threw a dirty towel on it and let it go. I jumped in the shower real quick... A shower is supposed to be relaxing, specially after a day of "bouncing", climbing, and sliding, but my shower didn't last long enough to be relaxing. My hot water didn't last because it was after Douglas' bath & Mathew's shower. Also because all I was thinking about the whole time was just getting to bed. After my shower I got dressed in the bathroom because Mathew was already asleep and  I didn't want to disturb him. I put my glasses on and then went to the other bathroom, my bathroom, the tub only bathroom, or as Douglas likes to call it, "Douglas' bathroom". I needed to brush my teeth, get deodorant and lotion on and everything before bed. When I put lotion on I usually start like in my temple area, last night I did the same thing except I found my glasses there. I went into shock, it was like I didn't realize what happened. lol then I cleaned my glasses up and went to bed. Mathew was in the middle of the bed, not really a big deal, I don't take up a lot of room but the position he was in was weird, he was on his stomach with his left foot stretched out to edge of the bed on his side but his elbow is almost to the edge of the bed on the other side, my side. I slipped into bed, my back toward him which means his elbow was right in the middle of my back. NOT comfortable at all. So I asked him for some room. In his sleep he says "Emma, there is plenty of room". I contemplated going to get the camera to show him proof tomorrow when he's conscious but instead I turned around to face him and laid in the shape of an S so that his elbow didn't even touch me. Despite the cool shower, the lotion, and the elbow I think I was out in about 30 seconds. That was all that mattered; that's what made it, like I said, a good night.

home

warning: this is a long one, with lots of pictures

I'm not sure if you've heard about tropical storm Agatha. I don't like it very much. It hit El Salvador, Guatemala, & Honduras. If you know anything about those countries you know that they are like their own little community. They are even working on getting something passed to where you can go back and forth to all 3 countries without a visa or passport. (That would be awesome for missionaries!)

The tiniest of those countries is El Salvador. El Salvador is about the size of New Jersey & as of 2009 approximately 6.2 million people live there. {via wikipedia/ElSalvador}

That is where I was born. Where my family is from... where everyone in my family besides my brother was born. It's not my "home", not it the way most people think of home. When I was 2 my mom moved to California from El Salvador and left me with my grandma. She wanted a better life for me, for us. (wow did I get that & then some! I'm so grateful to her) She would send us money & other things, lets just say I was the only 3 year old in El Salvador with some pretty cool Reeboks. She got settled in & when I was almost 5 she sent for me. I flew to LAX. I didn't have to go through the hard time of walking and riding in a vehicle to the US like most immigrants from there do. A lot of them die. According to the US Border Patrol, 1,954 people died crossing the US-Mexico border between the years 1998-2004. In the fiscal year ending September 29, 2004, 460 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2005, more than 500 died across the entire U.S.-Mexico border. The number of yearly border crossing deaths has doubled since 1995. Yet the statistics cited by scholars and the media are merely the number of known deaths and do not include those who have never been found, grossly underestimating the actual number of migrants that have died attempting unauthorized border crossings. {via-wikipedia} I hadn't been to El Salvador since. My mom still hasn't been back. But in September 2008 Mathew & I made a trip. I had to go in order to be able to get my residency ( I have the best lawyer for that by the way & I did end up getting it! I am now a resident with a green card! praise the Lord!). All the news about these countries makes me ache. Stories titled " tropical storm leaves six dead in El Salvador" and "Agatha leaves 82 dead in Guatemala, El Salvador". There are some disaster relief efforts, but have you seen the pictures of the sink hole in Guatemala City? Could you imagine?! Like I said, it's not "my home", but it is. I dug up our pictures. I haven't shared these because we use a disposable camera.We weren't sure what to expect there & didn't want to risk losing our digital camera. Mathew had never been out of the country & neither had I. My scanner is broken so I just took pictures of the pictures. These aren't that great, but with some editing I made it work

This is my uncle Nelson and his family. His wife Flor and his kids are Nelson (junior), the oldest, then Ronald, and Fabiola aka Fabi. They are who showed us around & picked us up at the airport, while we were in San Salvador.

This is the view from our hotel. It was right in down town San Salvador. That mountain right behind the billboard isn't a mountain, it's a volcano. It's dormant though.

we could also walk to Burger King if we wanted to

while we were there we grew attached to my family

Mathew grew specially attached to the kids.

one in particular!

I'm pretty sure he took this picture

In town everything was very nice and looked a like some place here. But out in the "country" we saw a lot of shacks where people lived and women were washing their laundry in the river... I hate laundry anyway. I couldn't imagine washing it in the river. I'm so thankful I have a washing machine. We didn't get any pictures of all that, I'm not sure why, but I found this on flickr and it's what we saw a lot of

El Salvador is so beautiful, yet most of the people there live in poverty. no, it's beyond poverty. Flickr has some really neat pictures of all of it.

we went to Puerto La Libertad and the fish market there

in the big metal bowl to the left of this picture are sea turtle eggs

look at that huge fish!

sting rays

this guy! this guy broke my heart. he'd been out fishing ALL morning and he only caught a couple of things. this fish he said was called the devil fish and you can only eat a certain part of it. meaning he probably wasn't going to get any money for it :( his shirt was full of holes & i just wanted to take him home with us & make everything all better. 

The beaches there are beautiful. We didn't go to one of the nicest ones but we still loved it.

and there he goes with Fabi again... I can't wait to see what he'll be like with Isabella when she gets older

have you ever thought about smuggling children into the country? My husband has.

Our trip made us appreciative of what we have... then we forgot about it & went back to our day to day. I'm going to frame some of these and maybe I won't take things for granted as much. I thank my God for giving my mom the courage to come to this country. For allowing us to be here & have a good life. Now I can give my children even more. We hope to go back and visit again, maybe once our kids are older so they can go too & see how lucky they were to be born in United States.