Bella's Blessing Day

Bella's blessing day was perfect! We got some pictures of her bracelets-from her Grandma Carolyn, her adorable shoes her dad bought for her, and of course the gorgeous dress and headband her Aunt Kirsten had made for her. She looked like the little angel she is. She is really an amazing baby. She sleeps a lot, and through a lot of noise, she eats well, and just has a very happy and contented personality. Miguel and I don't know how we are so lucky, but we know we are really blessed to have her as part of our family.

Her dad even bought her little socks with big ruffles. After the blessing, Miguel sat down and told me they almost dropped her. I was pretty surprised. It's a good thing I didn't know about it until after the fact. The blessing was wonderful and as I was listening, I was impressed with the fact that so many men loved her and were there just because they knew how important and special she was. Then I realized that there were more women there for Bella than men and then I thought about all of the people who loved her but didn't make it to the blessing.
She has so many people in Chile who love her and then I started thinking about how many people in heaven love Bella and I was just astounded. We all have so many people who love and support us and I know it was Heavenly Father's wisdom to bless us with families who love us and support us. I know life would be so much harder without families.





Here's a picture of Bella so you can see her beautiful dress. It was like a miniature wedding dress. She moves her hands in the cutest poses. I know I take a lot of pictures, but I think she is always adorable. Even when I change her diapers, I think about how cute her little body is.









This is the picture of Bella with her aunts and her grandma. Such pretty women! She is so lucky to have so many people who love her so much!




Here's her Aunt Debbi, Uncle Bill, Cody, and Taylor who came to support and love her on her big day!








Her Grandma Carolyn made her this gorgeous pink blanket that we used for her blessing day. She is so sweet and Grandpa Lynn carried Bella around during our Owen family reunion. She is so loved.





Grandma Pat and Grandpa Roger were so excited to be there! She looks so cute with them.






Arvid and Ginny are my adopted grandparents and they have been so sweet and supportive. They were dancing all night at our wedding! We were so happy that they could make it to Bella's blessing. They gave Bella this beautiful blanket.






My cousin Brandon came to the blessing too! It was so fun to have him there. He is so sweet to come and support us!







Here's my roommate from Utah State, Heidi, and her cute family. She is the amazing one who takes the great pictures of my kids! I just love her and her family.







This is our bishop. He is really a great man. We love Bishop Silva. It was really sweet of him to stop by on his busy Sunday afternoon!






These are our friends, the Williams. Curt had a great time playing with the kids and they just loved Bella. They both kept touching her and kissing her. It was really cute.






This is our amazing friend Helena. She is always doing nice things for us. Curt absolutely loves her son Eli. He even includes Eli in our prayers at night.







Our family picture. Curt had to put his vest on because earlier that day he did a Superman move and ripped all of the buttons off the front of his shirt. Again, when you look at him he looks so cute and innocent....




Here's Bella with Grandma and Grandpa Folkersen. She really loves them a lot. I guess it's because they love her so much too. She is awfully spoiled at Grandma's house. I don't think she ever gets put down. There is usually an aunt or two waiting for a turn to hold her.

Boys are crazy!!

I know that looking at these adorable pictures of Curt, you probably think, crazy, no...never, not him!
My cute friend Helena and her son Eli came over to blow bubbles with Curt one day when I was very pregnant and she got these great shots of him.
I am still very emotional from his disappearing act yesterday morning. We were all ready for church and so Miguel left and I was putting Bella in her car seat and putting snacks in the bag for Curt when I heard him open the front door and let Jackie out. I was just going to throw everything in the bag and then follow him out, but when I got outside he and Jackie were no where in sight. I grabbed Bella in her car seat and went for pre-church run in all directions looking for Curt and Jackie and calling out for them.
I called Miguel and let him know that Curt had walked out the door, which had been left unlocked, and now was missing. He left church and came back home to help find him. My neighbor saw me running around frantically and asked what was wrong, so she parked her car and helped look for him. I had run through our condos three times and couldn't see or hear them anywhere, as I was coming back toward the front of the condos, I saw some people crossing the street-busy 7th west where people drive about 50mph, with my son in their arms. I was so relieved.
They told me how he had come with them but when they started walking away from a little white dog he got upset. So what I think happened was that Jackie decided to make a run for it and Curt chased her all the way across the street and through the neighborhood on the other side. I'm sure he was calling out to her the whole time, A-ee, A-ee. She has since been banished to the deck-again, because it is harder for Curt to let her outside since the sliding glass door is one he has not Houdini'ed out of yet. We are thinking that it is time to buy different doorknobs and then buy the child proof handles.
I've talked to him several times since the incident telling him how we don't go outside without mommy or daddy and if Jackie gets out do we chase her? Every time he tells me, yes, he should go get Jackie, so I know he has not learned anything from the experience.

I love this picture of him with his friend Eli. They both love to swing a lot and they thought it was great when they were facing each other.
Again, don't let the adorable face fool you, lurking underneath is a trouble maker just itching to sneak outside without his parents and chase the dog across the busy street.
I do love him more than I ever thought I could, especially now that he is talking and has so much personality. He is so sweet and he loves to clean up. He does things that he thinks will help me and generally they do.
Yesterday he sang Happy Birthday to all of his plastic animals he was taking a nap with. We had to sing happy birthday twice to the elephant because that is his favorite. When he says elephant it sounds like he's saying animal.
Another favorite thing of his is 'going beep-beep' in the car which means before or after we go somewhere he gets to climb into my seat and honk the horn.
I know he won't be doing all of these adorable things too much longer. The other day I asked him to bring me some wipes for Bella and he did- he got them out of his changing table drawer which is as tall as his head. I couldn't believe he really did it. He is so amazing. My own little superhero.
This picture is from the library when we went to see a puppet show. He is so adorable-when he isn't causing trouble.....

One Month Later....

I can't believe Bella is already a month old. Time seems to be flying by. Life is definately busier with two kids.
I have made sure to take a picture of Bella each Sunday. This photo is also our first family photo taken on Bella's first Sunday when she was just 1 day old.





In this photo Bella is one week old and she is wearing a sweater because she has a crazy mom who thinks babies are eternally cold. Much to my surprise sometimes Bella has little beads of sweat on her forehead.
Curt is such a ham, but I have to say that I totally enjoy most of his silliness. He definitely keeps me entertained and it seems like whenever he sees that he's made me smile or laugh, he keeps going. Thank heaven for two year olds. He also likes to help me. He'll bring me Bella's binkie, but sometimes in his mouth. One time he sucked on a binkie until we got to the swings and then he finally gave it up- Luckily we have 3, so Bella had a binkie too.


Here's Bella at 2 weeks old. She grew so much that week. This dress is newborn size and now it barely covers her backside.




This is Bella's 4 week picture. The 3 week old pictures are the ones my friend Heidi took of Bella with Miguel. The hat is still a little too big, but it looked really cute on her. She has recently been making eye contact. It's cute when Curt will talk and then Isabella will look around until she finds him.
She holds her head up really well and she has been doing it for a few weeks now. She seems to be growing up faster than Curt did.

This is Bella's 5 week old picture. It is the same dress that she wore in the 1 week photo, but it fits a little better now.
Isabella's eyes are still dark and Miguel and I keep going back and forth on what color they will be. They are dark blue on the edge but inside they look like they will be brown.
She is so funny because she doesn't like to go to sleep. When I finally get her to sleep she usually wakes up when I try to lay her in her bed, but if I hold her or sleep next to her, she sleeps for a long time. I guess she knows that princesses deserve special treatment.
Bella's first month has been pretty eventful. We've been to the pool, the zoo, a movie, a puppet show at the library and to Wheeler Farm several times. I don't think we took Curt out in public when he was just one month old.

My awesome friend, old roommate Heidi Barrow took these adorable pictures of Bella when she was 3 weeks old. I wanted pictures of her in her dad's arm to show how small she is. Heidi is also going to take pictures of Bella when she is about 2 months old like she did for Curt. They are still my favorite pictures of him. I will be sure to put them up. Heidi is a professional, and what I really love is that she gives me the images on a disk so I can make as many prints as I want, so if any of you are interested, let me know and I will get you her phone number.

Welcome Baby Isabella!

Isabella arrived on Saturday, May 2nd at 8:02pm. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and she was 21 inches long. When she was first born I thought she looked just like Curt. As I kept looking at her, I think she looks more like my family than like Miguel's. Miguel even agrees that Bella looks like me. I think it is only fair since Curt looked just like his dad. She is already the sweetest little princess we've ever met. She is currently sleeping on her daddy's shoulder. I think she has him wrapped around her little finger, just like she should.



Curt just loves her. He walks around and tells us when she cries and lets us know that she is "My baby" He will always give her kisses and touch her cheek. Last night he read her some stories. I think she is lucky to have such a sweet big brother. He was really excited because she gave him a new pack of animals as a gift.








Isabella got this cute headband and we just had to put it on. It is about as big as her head, but it looked really adorable on her. She is just so tiny. I forgot how little babies are. It is so fun just to watch her sleep. She is so peaceful.












Isabella has such soft hair. I just loved watching her sleep in her tiny hospital bed. She is so much fun.











Here's Bella with her Aunt Missy. This is a rare photo of Bella with her eyes open. She just loved watching Missy. I think she looks a lot like her Aunt.












Here's the proud parents and our little angel. We tried to get a family photo, but Curt was not wanting to cooperate. So we settled for happy parents and beautiful baby.

A Few of Our Favorite Things

We went to the mall this week and Curt had a blast. That is thanks mostly to his really cool older cousin Tyler. Tyler let Curt hold his finger instead of holding mine-what's cooler than walking around the mall with your cousin? Then Tyler rode the carousel with Curt-about 7 times. And if that alone didn't make it the best day at the mall ever, Tyler even rode the escalator with Curt-again and again and again. He was absolutely in heaven. And of course I was really happy because I didn't have to ride the carousel-Tammy was actually holding Curt because she is an awesome aunt, and I got to sit and eat a cheese dog on a stick. One of my favorite unhealthy foods!
On the way home he fell asleep and had chocolate smeared all over his face from the treat his Aunt Tammy gave him as he got into the car. I have to say he is a pretty lucky little boy.
This picture is sideways-again I am very technologically challenged, but it is one of my favorites. It shows how deep his love of animals is. A few weeks ago Curt and Miguel were sick so they stayed home from church and this is what I came home to. I had even put Curt in the tub before I left, so I knew he was clean and he just really wanted to wear his pajamas that have lions and elephants and snakes and rhinos and giraffes on them. But apparently he opened his bottom drawer, where we are storing his 12 month old clothes and found his pajama bottoms that have lizards and frogs on them. So he was not content until he could wear both. Who can say that animal print doesn't go with animal print?
This is us at the Draper temple open house. It was really beautiful. At first, Curt was amazing. We walked by the baptismal font and I told him about being baptized and how you go all the way under the water and then afterward he reinacted it for me and even when he looked at a picture of the font he reminded me of how we get baptized. As the tour went on, Curt ran under the ropes to the roped off section and even banged on the stained glass windows. Needless to say, I was beyond mildly embarrassed, but he did learn about the baptismal font, so it wasn't a total loss.
Notice how there are not many pictures of me pregnant, and now I feel like I'm about twice the size I was in this photo....



Curt is absolutely crazy about his animals. He has a collection of more than 30 that he will name and then show it to me for me to name it. Then he will tell me about it-like if it has a tail or paws. He does not take a bath unless all of his animals take a bath with him. He then lines them up along the side of the tub while he points out which ones have spots and so on. Just yesterday he was getting frustrated when he was putting them in the tub and I realized that he needed them to be on their sides. The turtles who can't be on their sides had to be flipped on their backs. I guess he doesn't think they will get clean if they stand up... He always makes sure the animals are facing the same direction. One day in church he spent the entire hour of sacrament trying to get his animals to line up in a circle around some crackers. Since we were sitting on a padded bench, it was very difficult. Man, he has a lot of patience!
I just had to throw in this picture because sometimes I get thinking that he is so big and responsible and he can do so much that he couldn't before. This is all true, but just like before, he still knows how to make big messes and apparently it is still just as enjoyable for him. What a crazy little guy. I'm glad we have him around to keep our sense of humor in check.
Miguel bought him a keyboard and he loves to turn it on and pound on the keys. He also walks around the house playing the recorder, which naturally makes such a lovely sound, but when a two year old blows as hard as he can into it, it is even more wonderful than you can imagine!

Life as we know it...

It has been a really long time since I've updated my blog, so here's what's new:
I am 31 weeks, so I have 9 weeks left until May 7th. I don't know if my doctor will recommend waiting until the due date and since he told me at my last appointment that Bella's head was big, I don't know that I will be wanting to wait longer than necessary either.
I am unfortunately at the point where I wake up and can't get back to sleep because both of my hips are sore from all the extra weight.
The good news is that Curt is absolutely awesome! He is the sweetest little boy ever and I think he will be a great big brother.
Whenever I talk about the baby and point to my belly, he will show me his belly. I'm not sure if he thinks he has a baby in his belly or if he just thinks I'm crazy to think I have a baby in mine. He is so happy and loves to play with Jackie. He is always lining up his little animals. He has about 20 of them and they all have to be facing the same way. It has been good to help him with talking because he loves to tell me which animal it is and what it says and point out the tail or paw and since his speech is not his strongest area, this is good for us.
Today I went to lay down for a nap and Curt came to find me. He saw me in bed and climbed in bed next to me, laid his head on Miguel's pillow and pulled the covers up to his chin. It was so cute. Then he left and got some books and brought them back to bed and read stories to me. It was so funny. If I didn't look at the picture or comment on his book he would get upset and say, Mama! Mama! and then start telling me about the picture again.
As I am writing this, he is bringing in his animals and laying them on the bed. He brings them one at time, so it's a slow process. He really loves his animals. They get a daily bath right along with him.
Curt has also decided that he likes to walk up and down our scary stairs by himself which is a miracle. I've been worried about how I would carry Curt and Bella up the stairs at the same time, but Curt solved the problem for me. I've been realizing how big he is and how much fun he is to play with and I'm a little nervous because I think I've forgotten how much work new little babies are. I am really lucky to have such good help. Miguel and Curt will both be great.

Our Last Week in Chile

The day we left, Miguel's Uncle Juano decided the baby chicks were old enough for Curt to hold. I thought he was going to be ecstatic. Well, I stand corrected. He did love petting all of the other chickens and going in the hen house with Tio Juano, but when Miguel got out one baby chick for Curt to hold, he just started crying. I'm not sure if he just wanted both of the babies, or if he wanted the mom. Crazy. I can't believe he can pet the chickens on the head. I never dared to, I guess getting pecked at is more than I'm willing to risk, but Curt is much more daring than I am.

Tio Juano refused to let us take a picture of him with Curt, so I settled for this picture where you can see his profile and the back of Curt's head. He was so cute with Curt. He would just let him follow him around and Curt was in heaven. He was also very concerned with Curt's happiness. When I would be willing to let Curt cry, he would make sure Curt got whatever he wanted so he was happy.




This is the great photo of Curt and Miguel with the chick. It should have been such a happy moment for Curt and you can see his tears. Miguel was so frustrated, he just told me to take the picture quick.













Here is the photo of Miguel's Aunt Silvia that we took the night before we left. She loved Curt and she was really cute to play with him all the time. Sometimes he would walk around looking for her to play with. She played soccer with him and she gave him the farm animals for Christmas, which were probably his favorite gift.





This picture was taken the same night, Wednesday, December 30th, and Curt is mimicking his Tio Titi. He would do this everytime Romina would sing. He was enchanted by her voice. It was really sweet. Titi loved playing with Curt and sometimes it was a little too much for Curt, but he loved all of the attention.
We went to the Santiago zoo on the 30th. Pato drove us to the zoo and then we rode a little tram up to the entrance. Then we spent a few hours looking at all of the animals. This picture is of us looking face to face with the giraffes. It was cool how close we were to all of the animals. It seemed like if we reached out, we could touch them. Curt and I are wearing our obvious matching tourist hats embroidered with Chile on the front. Miguel told us we looked good, so we went with it. I was surprised how much Curt actually liked his hat. It must be this new hat craze thing. He loved the giraffes, and the zebra, but his favorite were the turtles. He stood in front of the window to their terrarium for 10 minutes. Miguel and I had both walked to a sitting spot, but he didn't want to come with us. They were really big turtles.
The zoo had a ton of steps and is on a hill, so we did a lot of walking and when we were really tired, we sat down and had ice cream and water-both big treats for me... and as we were watching the pigeons, we noticed one had a string tied to its leg and it was limping. Miguel caught the pigeon and went to the lady with the little treat shop and asked for some scissors, we then spent the next 10 or 15 minutes trying to cut the string from the pigeon's leg. It had been on for so long it was like part of its leg. Anyway, we took a picture of Curt next to it. Miguel was really happy to have saved the pigeon. We saw it later and it was still limping, but we decided we must have helped somehow. Then we had to start home and we walked to the metro and it was far away. This time Curt sat on my lap, so I got to sit on the bench which was nice, but he kept touching other people because the metro was crowded so they had to be so close to us.
On the 28-29 we went to the mountains and stayed with Pato's wife's aunt. They have a really nice cabin and they also had this little cabin that we got to stay in. The night we got there we had cheese and crackers and it was the best food I'd had-I don't know what kind of cheese it was, but I wish I could get some more. I absolutely loved it. Pato's aunt's husband is German and he speaks German, Spanish and English, but I still had a hard time understanding him because he had such a thick accent. They were really nice to invite us to stay with them and Curt loved all of the space they had to run around on.

December 27th we spent the evening visiting family. We visited some of Miguel's other uncles and we stopped to see his grandma too. We had gone to the beach on the 26th and we stayed overnight at a hotel which was right on the beach. This is a picture of Curt by our hotel room window. It was beautiful and we were so close to the beach that Curt loved it.

The next picture is of Curt playing on the beach and you can see our hotel in the background- it is the Gran Hotel. I don't know if Gran is something in Spanish or if they just didn't get the spelling quite right for Grand.
We stayed at the beach for a while and when I saw Curt pick up a cigarette butt and bring it to his mouth, I was ready to go. I guess it is hard to go to places like a beach where you don't know what you will find when you have such a little one with you. Luckily I was close enough to grab it from him before it touched his face.
Curt was much more daring with the ocean. He would play on the wet sand and we would walk around and when a wave came in we would run back to the dry sand. Most of the time we made it without getting wet, but the ocean got us a few times.
When we got up that morning Miguel decided to go running on the beach. When Curt saw him, he tried to follow him, but Miguel had no clue Curt wanted to be with him, so we just had to wave when Miguel ran by. It was cute to see Curt run after him, unfortunately Miguel was too fast for me to get them in the same picture.
On the 26th we were driving down the coast of Chile and we stopped in San Antonio. This is the same place where I was bitten by a sea lion last time. We kept our distance this time. This is a picture of Miguel and Curt on our boat ride we took. It was about 20 minutes and I think Curt was a little bored. It was really nice though. We watched birds on the water and then they would disappear under the water and Curt would say uh-oh and lift up his hands and then we would see the bird reappear and Curt thought it was a great game. He was also fascinated by a cat that was playing on the rocks by the pier.

Earlier in the day we stopped at another beach that has black sand. I know you probably can't tell by the picture, but the sand is the color of asphalt. Curt had fallen asleep in the car and I woke him up to play in the sand. He immediately laid down in the sand and reappeared with this lovely mustache/beard. Then he continued to lift his shirt and throw sand on his belly. He is a total sand baby. He was so happy at the beach. It was fun just to watch him. It makes me wish we were a little closer to a beach so he could spend more time there.
On Christmas we went to Miguel's sister-in-law's sister's house. They had made some American food and it was a real treat-I had fluffy white dinner rolls and she even had some funeral potatoes. Then for dessert there were cinnamon rolls. She told me that the cinnamon in Chile is not a flavorful as it is in America, so she brought back a few containers of cinnamon with her. Romina and Benjamin took Curt to the neighborhood playground and he played on the slide, the teeter-totter and the swings. He loved playing with his cousins. They lived in a gated community so it was a really nice and clean place.
On Christmas we had lunch with Miguel's dad. Here is a picture of us on Christmas. The tree in the corner has a dead snake wrapped around it and money tucked between the snake and the tree. Curt was unfortunately really interested in it. Miguel's dad had seen how much Curt loves hats and he let Curt play with his Chilean hat. Curt had a great time. We had turkey.





This is a picture of Curt after he had opened all of his gifts-sometime between midnight and 1:30am. He was so tired! He just wanted to go to bed, but he did enjoy ripping the wrapping paper and seeing what was inside. He spent time playing with all of his toys. He got two stuffed animals-a penguin and a Shrek. He liked the penguin, but he hit Shrek in the mouth and said, no no!
At midnight, we heard Santa yelling ho, ho, ho! and so we (mothers and children) went out in the street to see his sleigh. We ended up walking around the corner and I asked Curt where Santa was and this picture was his response----
Then after a few minutes we saw that other people already had gifts from Santa and that he had come and gone and we had missed him, so we went back home and opened all of the presents he had left under the tree.
I thought it was a little funny because the presents had tags on them that said who they were from-I guess kids don't read tags anyway.
This is a picture from Monday. We spent the day with Titi and Betzy. Titi built this little house for Romina. Curt absolutely loved it. He looks so cute in the little window and he would keep peeking out at us. We had lots of fruit for lunch-watermelon, peaches, bananas, and cherries. And for lunch we had a spinach/egg/cheese mixture-it was really good. Betzy did our wash for us while we watched a movie and Curt took a long and much needed nap. We ended up spending the entire day with them and that night Romina sang to Curt and he put his hands on his cheeks and just stared at her while she sang. It was really cute. We had a really great time.
For those of you who don't know, Miguel is still spending his last week in Chile. I am really hoping he makes it home this week. Curt and I miss him a lot.