June and July

It's been an interesting summer so far and I thought it was time to share a couple pictures. The Blue Prince has been very busy the last few weeks working a side job in the evenings so we could save up for our Uruguay trip/ new arrival. It has been a lot of hard work and late nights but hopefully will be worth it. He is done for now and it is great having him home in the evenings. Here are some pictures I took of Bella playing with Papi on her bike, one night after he got home for work. (I realized after I took them that there was a large fingerprint smudge on the lens) Having Papi work extra was hard on Bella as she is such a Papi's girl and many nights he wasn't home before her bedtime. This threw off our sleeping routine as she started climbing into our bed in the middle of the night, and getting up at 6:30am so she could see him before he left for work.





We managed to squeeze in a couple fun family activities over the weekends. Some friends of mine invited us over to participate in a children's circus. All the kids dressed up and performed circus acts. Bella did an acrobatics routine with Papi and rode a play pony blindfolded (her crown fell down over her eyes).



Caitlin sent us some free Real Salt Lake Soccer tickets for The Blue Prince's birthday. Being for the same night as the above mentioned circus, we got there a little late, but we had a good time. Bella enjoyed climbing and swinging on the handrails and cheered with the crowd when our team made a goal.




For the Fourth of July we spent the day in Brigham City with my mom, sister and Grandma. Grandma got out the baby pool, and Bella spent the day running around the yard, playing with Barbies and eating junk food. At night we went to the park to watch the fireworks. Bella again ran around, danced to the music and took advantage of Grandma's willingness to hand out candy. She ran around so much that she ended up exhausting herself and fell asleep 10 mins before the fireworks started. Even with all the booming going on around her she didn't stir a bit, and slept all the way home in the car.

Our church sponsored a day at Lagoon on the 10th and provided us with free entrance passes (rides were extra). This actually worked out perfect as I am too big to go on rides and the Blue Prince isn't much of a roller coaster fan. We just bought a ride pass for Bella and let her at it. She is now big enough to go on the kiddie rides by herself and she had a grand time. She still struggles a bit with the concept of taking turns and waiting in line but all in all she did well. She even had her first cotton candy.

So anyway, that's the highlights of what we have been up to. Just enjoying the summer and trying to make the most of our time together.

boring folk

People keep calling and asking what we have been up to and my answer recently has been "not much". Lots of work, a conference last week for me, and not much drama. The only recent crisis has been big medical problems and surgery with The Blue Prince's dad which have crystallized our plans and priorities to try and make a trip back down to Uruguay in November. I'm trying not to worry about the logistics of international travel with a 6 week old and a 2 1/2 year old yet, but it should be an adventure. At least the airline prices have come down somewhat, can you even make plane reservations for an unborn child?

Anyway, I also recently discovered that we have not downloaded any pictures from our camera since before Easter. Not that there were many pictures on the camera since we have chronically forgotten to bring it for most recent outings and get togethers. These are some pictures that I took yesterday and today of Bella and my garden. I am unnaturally obsessed/proud of my little garden boxes and due to a combination of warm weather, good planting soil and lots of rain everything is taking off amazingly. I am getting little tomatoes and squashes that I didn't get till the middle of summer last year. I also planted lettuce and spinach which has produced enough to keep us and all our neighbors in daily salads.

I am using a modified Square Foot Garden method and while it is somewhat hard to tell from this picture, I have Lettuce, peas, Swiss chard, 4 squash plants (Uruguayan Zapallitos), some cucumber seedlings and strawberries in this box. I already harvested a radish section, and replaced it with more Swiss chard.

In this box I have 5 different types of tomato plants, tarragon, oregano, 3 types of basil, 2 peppers, 1 onion, peas on the trellis, another squash (Zapallito), a couple cabbage plants that never formed heads and two cucumber plants hiding in the back.

This is a picture of Bella, that I took yesterday, she found some stickers and decided to decorate her face. It made me laugh.

Here is an updated picture of Bella in her lovely pink hat. She found it when we were shopping at old navy a couple weeks ago and papi and I couldn't say no. She has started into the phase of wanting to pick everything, especially what she wears. The only way I got her into pajamas last night was by letting her pick between the Tinkerbell shirt (the one with the small fairy on the front or the tiger shirt (it had stripes). I seem to have less fights if I let her pick dresses, hence the pink princess dress today. And so it starts, curse you Disney and your princess marketing skills.

As for the status of the unborn, it seems that according to the first ultrasound we are having another Girl. Everything appears to be moving along in a healthy normal manner and I am feeling fairly good. The feet swelling has started, which is somewhat concerning as it is only June. It is going to be a long summer.

New Poll

My sister keeps teasing that I need to add some sort of countdown widget for the coming of our new baby. I have generally been ambivalent about them in the past but as I try to be as user friendly as possible, here is your opportunity to let your feelings be known. You can find the poll on the left hand column of the page. If you have additional feelings on the topic that you feel are not adequately addressed by the poll feel free to add a comment.

Funny Naked Monkey

I have been chastised for the month long gaps in my blogging. The days are galloping by with little distinction between one day to the next and one week to the next but I did want to share with the interested what is going on in our household.
Bella continues to be a funny, busy little kid. If possible she has become more agile and active than ever. She has learned to use things such as the laundry basket or Papi's lunch cooler as footstools to reach previously unreachable heights. Here is one of her most recent discoveries (the washing machine).

She has also figured out that she can climb out of her crib and so we have been forced to move her into a toddler bed a little earlier than we had planned. She can now open bedroom and bathroom doors often greeting Papi or me with a cheerful "hola" or "peek-a-boo" when we are in the shower. At night I am often woken by the sound of little hands fumbling with the doorknob and little feet scuttling across the floor, dragging her blanket behind her, till she can sneak into our bed to cuddle with Papi. The other day we went to wake her up from her afternoon nap and found the following scene:

Hence the naked part of the post. She finds it hilarious to jump out of the bathtub and streak into the living room wearing nothing but a smile. Last night she refused to leave her footy pajamas on and stripped off her diaper after I put her down to sleep, of course she woke up at 2 AM soaking wet and crying. I think it may be time to try potty training (most of the time she is stripping off her diaper it is because it is wet) but I don't think she has figured out she can do something to prevent walking around in a wet diaper. Since this is my first attempt at potty training any advice on how to get started would be appreciated.

In other news, for those who have not heard, we are expecting a new baby in the end of September. We are very excited by the prospect of another child but it has defiantly increased the stress level in the household. The Blue Prince is crushingly busy with work and school, extra jobs when he can get them and church callings. With this pregnancy my energy has plummeted and my nausea is just starting to recede to the point where I can enter in the kitchen let alone cook and clean there. The plague of colds and viruses have been cycling through the house with waves of ear infections, vomiting, eye infections and breathing issues leading to a miserable kid and parents. The weather has been cold, grey and snowy further discouraging the desire to emerge and be social. Um, so yeah we have been hibernating and will be very pleased with the real start of Spring and the uplift it brings.

Dancing with Papi or Conecting with her inner Latin rhythm

Bella loves to dance, at home, in the car or at church whenever she hears music you see her bending her knees or swaying to the music. This is a trait I wholly attribute to her Papi and she has a willing partner when she wants to get down.

Happy 2nd Birthday Bella

Bella in her new jumper dress made by Bubbie Ishi.

So my little one turned 2 this week, and it has been a week full of celebrations with various family members and friends. Starting off last weekend my dad came to visit to celebrate with both Bella and her aunt Emily. My dad subscribes to a very simple school of kid gift giving : take the kid to the store and whatever toy they stick to and refuse to release is the winner. Which is fine if you don't mind the tantrum that comes when you get ready to pay. Bella is the type who knows her mind and she did not want to release her baby doll to anyone especially not the stranger at the cash register. So yes, Bella got another baby doll, with a bottle and a stroller, thus feeding into her newest obsession with anything baby related.

The next celebration was at her daycare/school where they threw her a little party on Wednesday and I brought cupcakes. I of course forgot my camera (I was walking out the door that day with a tray of cupcakes, a package of diapers and Bella's blanket so the camera oversight is not too surprising). These pictures are from the teacher from a card she sent home a couple days later. I have to say I love her new day care, they are fantastic. Bella loves to go and the little touches like sending home pictures of what she does during the day are wonderful.

On Bella's actual birthday, we didn't do much. We had a play date with her friend Ella but since it was a school night for Papi we mostly just ate cake and gave her our present. On Friday Grandma came to visit and took us out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. The sweet old Chinese man who runs the place told my husband that he looked like Barack Obama. When he found out that Bella was having a birthday he brought her a box of Chinese pretzel sticks which were surprisingly flavorful. They are called Pretz, and we will have to look for them next time we go to the oriental market.

Being a general slacker mom and knowing that she is still to young to demand a birthday party, we decided just to invite a couple friends over last night, eat more cake and call it good. The other big barrier to hosting an actual child focused party is the space limitation at our house. We can fit one extra family comfortably and sometimes stretch it to two but beyond that we run out of sitting space and plates and things and it stops being fun. We decided to invite our two Argentinean family friends, they had actually never met each other but got along fabulously.

Here are some pictures of Bella and her cake. She wasn't sure about blowing out the candle and got a little grumpy at that point. She got a lot happier when she realized it meant she got to eat more cake.

Ariel, Andrea and Bella's friend little Ada. She was crawling around under our feet all evening.

Mario and Marcella, and their kids Francisco and Kaprielle also joined us. The kids were a little bored with the conversation but happily played Wii all evening.

And Bella did a good job of entertaining herself and everyone else. She found Marcella's glasses laying on the couch and decided to play movie star. Man I love this kid. Happy Birthday Baby.

Christmas Winter Wonderland

Here are our pictures from Christmas.
Bella and Papi trimming our little Christmas tree. It's fun that she is getting to an age that she can somewhat participate in the festivities.




We spent Christmas in Brigham City at Grandma's house. Christmas came in the middle of a week that we all spent sick. Bella got sick first the weekend before (while we were visiting family in Southern Utah) and of course she passed it to me a couple days latter. Deviating from the usual course of things the Blue Prince managed to avoid this round of the Plague. His foreign immune system usually catches whatever is going around the house and gives him a worse version of it. Anyway I was the one sick on Christmas which turned out to be fairly good timing since I had my mom around to take care of me and aunties to keep track of Bella.


This is Bella opening gifts Christmas morning. Santa got her a little red wagon and a stuffed monkey that she loves to pull around giving rides to. She got a little miffed the other day when I wouldn't let her take the wagon in the car to daycare.


A couple family shots


We have been getting a ton of snow for the last couple of weeks. This is the view of my mom's back yard Christmas morning. We decided to take Bella outside to play.

She liked the icicles that Papi let her take off the roof. Mom forgot to bring her gloves so she is wearing a pair of socks on her hands for mittens.

She wasn't crazy about the whole walking in snow part. (She is actually standing in a snow bank here)

Her favorite was of course Grandma's swing. Tears were shed when she was forced to come inside when her fingers were turning into Popsicles. The impromptu gloves didn't last too long.

Finally an update

As many of you have undoubtedly noticed, it has been quite a while since I've updated my blog. The main reason is that the mother board on my laptop died and so I was virtually computerless for several weeks. I did get a new computer for Christmas (thanks Dad) but since then I have been working on other computer projects and unfortunately this blog has taken somewhat of a backseat to those. I did want to share some recent pictures we had taken as a family. Those of you that are family members who would like copies please let me know which ones you would like and what sizes.

An actual family portrait. We went primarily to get pictures of Bella but figured that we would try a family shot while we were at it.

This is probably my favorite picture of her out of the bunch. As Aunt Caitlin pointed out, she looks so sweet and innocent with her "who me?" face, and then you look closer and realize she is strangling the stuffed puppy.

Halloweenish type activities

We started our Halloween festivities a couple weeks early this year with a trip to Lagoon. My mom gave us some free tickets from her work at the beginning of the summer but there was always something going on that prevented us from going. Finally, knowing they were expiring the end of October, we decided to just pick-up and go on a Friday afternoon.


Bella seemed to enjoy all the rides and movement. She drove her boat all by herself and didn't even try to lean over and play in the water. There was of course a fit after each ride stopped as it blew her little 20 month old mind that we would put her in a toy to play for 2-3 minutes only to tear her away when she was just getting the hang of it.


She clambered all over her train seat and tried to climb into the ones in front of us. Did I mention she answers better to the name "Monkey" than her own.



Here are Mommy and Bella bugs. Buggy is another of her nicknames, given by a doctor in the ER during our first visit when he mentioned that she was such a "happy and active little bug" in spite of being covered as she was in full body hives.



The Blue Prince hanging out in his shackles. He keeps complaining that living here (or my cooking) is making him fat. We keep reassuring him that he is fine but I think I will make a copy of this as photographic proof the next time he brings up the subject. :)



For her actual Halloween costume Bella was dressed as a Fairy princess/Butterfly. Mostly butterfly as she refused to keep the princess crown on her head longer than 3 seconds. She thought it was a game and would joyfully pull it off and try to put it on my head or on Papi's. She is pictured here with Aunt Emily who is of course dressed as Sarah Palin. I think she pulled it off quite well.


Here is the back view of Bella's Costume. She tolerated the wings well but didn't really understand that they stuck out farther than her body and so they would occasionally get mangled or knock things over when Bella tried to squeeze into small spaces.



She learned to say the phrase "trick or treat" quite clearly and would say it all the way up to the doorway, she would give a little knock on the door, and then would go suddenly silent the moment someone answered. She really liked her "Pumpkin" or "Box" as she calls it. She became quite adept at picking out her treat and putting it inside the hole. We stopped by my grandmother's house to show her off and of course she got several pieces of candy for her box. While we were chatting in the next room she snuck off and figured out where Grandma had stashed the candy bowl and helped herself to a couple more pieces before she got caught.

I guess that's what Halloween is all about, to see how much candy loot you can collect before some responsible adult puts a kibosh on all the fun.

Videos, get your videos here

I have stored up several videos from the last month or so and decided to put them all out for your viewing pleasure at once.

This first one is from our San Diego trip, playing on the beach with Papi. Sorry about the dizzying camera action half way through. The incoming wave was soaking me as I was recording.

This one is a video I affectionately call "Ping". It's for all those individuals who love baby laughter. No one can make Bella laugh like her papi.

This is a video I took a couple weeks ago when Bella was helping me harvest the green tomatoes from our tomato plants. Apparently she found a little green hard tomato and decided that it was a ball. She spent the next half an hour playing catch with herself, throwing the "tomato ball" across the courtyard and chasing after it. What can I say, the kid needs more playmates.

Bella is fascinated with animals and animal sounds recently. When aunt Caitie was here for a visit she found several leaves outside and decided to fashion wings. Here is Bella's birdy impression.