November and December 2015

Bela's Four Month pictures

Bow and dress made by Mama Abue

In a dress I wore when I was a baby!

Dulce the hair model

Five month pictures aka Thanksgiving Day 

Sweet baby kisses 

Audrey's getting ready to have her own little girl in three weeks!

Bela's Christmas Photo Shoot

Ward Christmas dinner

Please excuse the absence of Dulce in pictures!  She is not a fan of them.  But if you'd like to see some of the back of her head I have plenty of those!

Bela turns 3 months

It happened a couple of weeks ago... but here are some pics of my now 3 month old!

Bela LOVES chewing/sucking on her hands/my arm/finger/hand.  She's a happy baby.  She ate 9 ounces in a three hour period last night!  She still has trouble going to bed before midnight.... even if I keep her up during the day so we are still working on that!  She LOVES being with Dulce and other kids and is overall very pleasant and we love her so much!

I also started making some turbans for the girls.  The ones Dulce's size will end up being gifts (let me know if you're interested!) because she refuses to wear them!  Bela doesn't have much of a choice at this point ;)

Dulce is into Doc McStuffins, Fly Guy, and playdough.  She's very particular about what she wears.  She has little tantrums (yes, she's two) but if I let her scream for a minute and then suggest to do something else she usually gets over it.  Sometimes if I offer her a hug (which sometimes she likes after a tantrum) but she doesn't want it she will say in Spanish "No hugs! No moms! No (whatever she sees) windows! No house! No beds! No floors!"  It's kinda funny...

Mario is still having fun golfing and just signed up for a tournament on the 24th.  He also is making me a new blog!  I got back into running (thanks to Mario watching the kiddos!) and run on average 6 miles a day.  I joined a health group and lost 6% of my body weight in 6 weeks!  (Well, almost!  We have 10 days left.)

We had fun with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Earnshaw and wish we lived closer to all our loved ones on the east coast!

Fall has definitely reached Provo!  The mornings are nice 40 degree weather and then the hottest it gets is usually around 70.  Perfect park/running weather.  We're taking advantage of fresh produce from farmers markets.  Dulce is going to be a Care Bear for Halloween (I hope she doesn't change her mind since we already bought her costume...) And Bela is going to be a little bear or maybe a skeleton.  We have a couple of Halloween options for her :)  Mario said he will be a Care Bear too and I hope Dulce doesn't forget he agreed to that because I would love to see Mario as a Care Bear!

Bela's Blessing

Today our little baby girl was blessed at church.  We are grateful for the family and friends who came for the blessing: Mario's parents and sisters (from AL and L.A.), my aunt Melissa, Audrey, Lindsay and her family, my cousin Emily and her husband, Zach, Rachel, Kelly, Sarah, Stephen and Mark.

After sacrament meeting we took some pictures.  It was beautiful weather and was the first day I noticed a hint of fall in the air.

Bela's abuela bought her a precious dress and made a matching little hat/bonnet (not pictured).

Some things Mario remembers from the blessing are:
- to learn from her mother
- to be a light unto this generation
- to have a desire to be baptized and to keep making covenants
- to know that our Heavenly Father will always help her

One moment I'll always remember from the blessing day is me feeling nervous because Bela was tired and due to eat soon and I didn't want her crying during the blessing.  I leaned over and whispered to Mario, "I'm worried."  And Mario responded, "Yes, and you always will be."  Made me laugh!  He knows me so well.  And puts up with me.  And loves me :)

August 2015

What a fun month we've had!  Let me share some quick pics

BYU Farmers' Market

The whole fam damily at a birthday party

Bela is doing great!  She is normally so happy and smiley when she's awake.  Her sleeping schedule is not awesome, but we are working on it!

Snuggly baby! I can't get enough!

Bela had her two month appointment and we also got her ears pierced this week.  Surprisingly, the ear piercing was a lot more traumatic than the shots.

She is still nursing well, but I had to start supplementing with formula because she had gone from 50th-something percentile in weight to 11th.  She's much happier now that she's not hungry!  I was so fixated on the idea that "my body will make exactly what my baby needs," that I didn't really consider/refused to believe that not getting enough food could be a reason why she was crying a lot a couple of weeks ago.  Sorry, Bela!

Headed to the park

Lounging

Nakey time!

Dulce is a great big sister and a very active and smart two and a half year old.  I have to share these little segments of Dulce reading to Bela.  It was her idea.

As caring as she is though, if she's on the bed while I am feeding Bela, and Bela's head is within kicking distance, it will get kicked.  It's been proven every time.  Dulce kinda is unaware of what's around her.  She bumps into a lot of stuff and falls more than I thought a close to three year old would.

Dulce is REALLY into pretending.  At least half the day is her saying "Vamos a pretender que..." (let's pretend that) and then she assigns all the family a role to play.  I thought the funniest was when she said she was Agnes and Bela was Kyle (from Despicable me).

Kyle (left) is Gru's "dog."

She likes going to the rec center, building block towers, watching Peppa Pig and having me or Mario tells her stories about Alabama (you'll find out why next month!)  She also always wants to sleep with us.  I bought Lucky Charms that she can have if and only if she sleeps in her bed all night without crying.  It sometimes works but she's not always easily bribed!  She can now saw a hard C sound as well as the hard G sound and will often give me examples of how she said things before versus how she says them now.  For example she will say things like: "antes decia 'dolf' y ahora puedo decir 'golf!'' ("Before I said "dolf" but now I can say "golf!'")

#modelstatus

Napping with a balloon

Lindsay and her family moved back to Utah recently and we had a great time having them over (as well as my brother, Sam, and cousin, Maddy) this past Sunday.

Chow time!

I also wanted to share one of my favorite summer recipes that I this past week.  It's an avocado black bean salad.  We ate it with tortilla chips and and some leftover rotisserie chicken from Costco.

7 Peaks Carnival, Dr. Seuss party, Xactware party and more!

Between not getting a ton of sleep at night and Bela having to nurse frequently, I haven't been getting out much with the kids.  Last weekend I went to the baby shower of my dear friend Rebecca, but that was just with Bela who slept the whole time.

Rebecca's baby will be here any day!  

Anyways, I thought I would post about this weekend where we actually DID go out quite a bit (either as a family or just me and the two girls) and had some fun!

On Thursday evening we went to a wedding reception that was a little over an hour away in Bountiful.  We didn't stay more than an hour and a half but it was a beautiful evening with a beautiful couple.  Dulce liked the mariachi they had there (the wife is from Mexico) except the trumpet player was too loud for her liking.  They had a sit down dinner, but the only thing that was wheat and dairy free were the vegetables, which I guess is a blessing in disguise!  After the dinner there was dancing, but that's when we headed back.

Friday morning I took my two girls to the University Mall so Dulce could play in the tree playhouse.  But sadly, it was under construction.  Dulce didn't seem too upset.  We went and looked at the My Little Pony stuff (which she's way into now) at the Build-A-Bear store.  We also went into H&M and Forever XXI and I tried some things on.  Then we went and looked around Tai Pan Trading Co.  I was so impressed that there were no incidents.  Dulce has really matured these past 5 anda half weeks.  She walked almost the whole time by herself (even though before Bela, I would always push her around in the stroller whenever we went to the mall) and never complained once.  We went right after Bela had fallen asleep, and she stayed asleep the whole time.  Dulce fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep as I carried her inside and put her in her bed.  I don't know when's the last time that happened!

Frolicking in the mall

After she woke up, we went to a carnival they had at 7 Peaks.  It was small, but perfect for Dulce.  She loved the Princess Castle bouncy house.  She also went on a little train ride, a boat ride, and a spaceship ride.  All the rides had really hot seats since it was like 1 pm when we went, but luckily I had a backup outfit incase of any diaper explosions (for Bela) and so she could just sit on that.

Princess bouncy house

Choo! Choo!

That evening I took them to a Dr. Seuss party at Barnes and Nobles while Mario went to the temple.  Honestly, it was kinda lame.  They started late and then read a book to everyone.  Apparently, they found a Dr. Seuss book that he had written but not published before he passed away.  (It's called something like "What Kind of Pet Would you Get.")  I always wonder when books get published by an author who has already passed away - "Did they actually want that published."  I feel like maybe if they go through the time of writing a book and then NOT publishing it, there might be a reason!  Anyways, after the book reading, that there was a balloon animal station, a face painting station, and a coloring station.  Dulce asked for a pink "kitty cat" (I didn't even know she knew how to say that!) at the balloon station and for a white kitty cat at the face painting station.  Near the end of it, I had to nurse Bela.  We found a little corner and it wasn't too awkward.  Not for me at least....

Getting your face painting requires you to be very still and serious!

On Saturday, we went as a family to the Farmers' Marker and got some delicious peaches and cherries.  After Dulce played for a bit on the playground, we came home so Mario and her could head out to watch some golf tournament in Lehi.  (Have I mentioned Mario's really into golf?  He is.)  Later that evening we all went to a party that Xactware (the company Mario works for) put on at 7 Peaks.  I mostly sat and nursed and held Bela, but it was still nice to go as a family.

At the playground after buying peaches and cherries at the Farmers' Market

Enjoying the party :)  And you can't really tell, but Mario and Dulce are there in the background

Another favorite moment of mine from this weekend:

An awake Bela cuddling with papa bear :) awwww