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.

Our First Week in Chile

Here we are at the airport. We left Utah at 11am and then we flew to Atlanta. We had a few hours layover in Atlanta and that is where Miguel and Curt discovered the best way to travel. Curt looks like he didn't like it, but when we started walking he would get Miguel to stop and he would climb on his bag and wouldn't get off until we stopped. As you can imagine, we got a lot of looks as we passed people, but most of them smiled at our ingenuity.

Our flight landed in Chile in the morning and Curt woke up when we were leaving the airplane. He had big crusties in his eyes and it turned out he had conjunctivitis(again). Miguel's brother Pato and sister Mary picked us up at the airport and we went to Miguel's mom's house. Their dog had 7 puppies and Curt was in heaven! He was happiest when he had at least 3 dogs in his lap or arms, but was always trying to get all of the dogs with him. Then he would pick a puppy up and carry it over to its mom. It was really cute to see him playing with the puppies. His cousin Antonia has a tricycle which Curt loved to drive.

Then we took lots of pictures with family. This is a picture of Curt with his Aunt Mary and his cousin Antonia. They were really cute with him and whenever they saw me they would kiss my belly and say hello to baby Isabella. Antonia cried when we were leaving. Curt was really upset and tried to get her to stop by hugging her, kissing her and smiling at her. It didn't work because she was really sad that she wouldn't see Curt again for a few years.



This is a picture of Curt and his dad with his Uncle Pato, his cousin Nicole, his cousin Patito and of course, Antonia again. It was really warm in Chile. It was summer time there. We had lots of delicious fruit.

This is Curt riding the super cool trike that his cousin Antonia had. He has hated the trikes we've tried to get him to ride here, so I don't know what magic that trike held, but he even tried to use the pedals. I was pretty amazed and of course he had an audience of aunts, uncles and cousins who thought everything he did was amazing. He was always the star in Chile.


We also have a picture of Curt with his Uncle Titi and Aunt Betzy and cousins Romina and Benjamin. They came to see us later that night. Curt loved it when Romina sang church songs. He would just stare at her and the first time he heard her sing, he started to sing with her. It was really cute. He loved playing with his Uncle Titi, but sometimes Titi liked to play longer than Curt could handle it. Betzy is pregnant- I think she is about 2 months behind me....




The next day we woke up and had breakfast and then we went out to see Tio Juano's (Uncle John's) little farm. Curt absolutely loved the chickens! He took a picture with Miguel holding a small chicken. Miguel's Aunt Silvia is in the background. Curt later walked into the chicken coop and the chickens went crazy. Then one flew out of the door and just barely cleared Curt's head. I think it scared him as much as it scared me. Then we were ready to go back inside.



Later that day, we went to Miguel's Aunt Magaly's house. She cut Miguel's hair and Curt's too. Curt was the best he has ever been when getting his hair cut. He even kept the gown on the entire time. I think it helped that Miguel made faces with him in the mirror. We had lots of fun visiting with Curt's cousins. They shared some cookies with Curt. Miguel said they were his favorite when he was little. Apparently they were Curt's favorite too because he took them all out of the bowl on the table and kept them in his hands-Maybe we were eating too many of them...

Then we went to visit Miguel's grandma on his dad's side of the family. He called her Mamita (little mom) and this is a picture of Curt, Miguel, Mamita and Tia Margarita and Antonia (of course). Miguel's Aunt Margarita speaks English fluently, so it was a nice change to be able to explain myself clearly when we visited.

This is Curt asleep in Miguel's arms on the metro. We went to downtown Santiago and it was a long ride. Curt wanted to hold onto the railings by himself and he also tried standing up, but you can see how it all ended....

These are the pictures of Curt at the beach on Sunday. We went with Miguel's mom and brothers and sisters and their families. Curt absolutely loved the sand. He hated the ocean, but loved the sand. His Aunt Mary gave him the sand toys and he immediately dumped the sand all over himself. He just couldn't get enough of it. He then began to eat the sand. He would lick the sand off of his fingers. I tried and tried to stop him, but he still consumed a lot of sand. I think this was the highlight of his first week in Chile. He would have been happy to have stayed at the beach for the rest of the trip.

The Hat Craze!!!

So Curt's Aunt Tammy and Aunt Becky went to Disneyland and Tammy brought back a pirate Mickey Mouse ears hat. She sings "Yo-Ho" and then the hat always seems to fall off. Curt thinks it is the funniest thing in the world. Then he puts it on his head and dances around and when it falls off he will sit and laugh and laugh. He also loves to try and put it on Tammy's dog, Romeo who is thankfully faster than Curt.
He loves Mickey and when he sees something that is Mickey Mouse he'll say, "mi mo" which is his way of saying Mickey Mouse. The hat craze does not stop at the Mickey ears though. Miguel has a black hat he wears to dance the cueca in and Curt puts it on and walks around the house, he can barely see under the brim. It's so cute. He has turned into a little ham lately. If I laugh at something he will do it repeatedly and then laugh with me. We also have a straw cowboy hat that he is fond of wearing. What a cutie. He also loves the snow and I know he is disappointed we don't have any yet, but whenever he sees some on t.v. or in pictures he yells, "no!" I always try to figure out what is wrong and then clue in that he actually said 'snow' not 'no.'
















I just realized that with all the talk about him loving the slide by our house and playing out doors, we had never included a picture:
This is Curt going down his favorite slide with Miguel watching him. He tries to walk up the slide when he's done going down.











This is Curt's oh-so tricky handstand. Wow! He's almost ready for the summersault....












And this one is of Curt after rolling down the hill. It wasn't too big, but it is pretty steep and you can imagine with Curt's size, he got going pretty quick. But he was not afraid... He's a little too much like his dad in that way.









Sorry for the sideways picture-I'm still not so tech- savvy....
Curt is hopefully learning how to treat his dog. Lately he loves to spend time with Jackie and he has been sitting by her and holding her, gently petting her. Jackie likes this too.
Jackie had a check up and I love her doctor! The whole time he examined her he was telling her how pretty she was and what gorgeous eyes she had and then he told her her nose was a little long and asked if she had been telling some lies. I thought he was great. If he saw people, I would totally choose him for my doctor. As it is Jack was less than impressed with him. I guess she's a little harder to please than I am....


Baby Update









We had an ultrasound 2 weeks ago and we found out that I am almost 18 weeks along, so I missed a whole month of being pregnant! Or at least knowing about it.... Since I was 16 weeks at my ultrasound appointment, we found out that we are going to have a little girl! Miguel is really excited. We're thinking about names and so far we both like Isabelle or Isabella, but we're just getting started on that whole process. But for now baby Isabelle is due on May 7th.

Here's Our Favorites!

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween Curt was Frankenstein. He was not a fan of the costume because it went over his head, but after he realized that he got candy going from house to house. He was so excited. A few people let him pick out his own candy and he thought that was pretty cool. Then he got to pass out candy at Grandma's house and I think he liked that just as much as getting the candy. He would take a little bag of m&ms and place it carefully in each child's bucket. Then some teenagers came by and they had pillowcases instead of buckets and he just was not sure about putting the candy inside the pillowcases.

When we went to our ward trunk or treat everyone was giving out lots of extra candy, so they would hold the buckets out and let the kids take more than one treat. Curt quickly picked up on that and would grab as many as he could the first time.

I gave Curt a Pez dispenser that was a duck and I had him make the duck sound before I would give him a Pez. He says gack, gack. It's cute. Then he loves to hear the rooster that lives next to our church. He always does a sharp intake of breath imitating the rooster crow. Just this week he started making the sound of a monkey-ah, ah.


Miguel bought a new motorcycle and Curt absolutely loves it. He says, "Dada go. Vroom, vroom." He sits on the motorcycle and tries to rev the engine. It is really cute that he loves it so much.
We are planning to go to Chile for Christmas. I am excited for Curt to meet his family, but a little sad to not spend the holidays with mine. I can't complain though because Miguel spends every holiday with my family and is very happy and positive about it. It will be summer there, so maybe we will get to spend some time by the beach. Maybe I will finally get past the sick stage of pregnancy so that I will actually be able to enjoy the Chilean food this time. I had my first doctor appointment last Friday and the doctor thinks I may be more than 10 weeks along. He guessed somewhere between 12-14. So this week I am having an ultrasound to find out exactly how far along I am. But either way, I should be getting close to the point where I'm not so sensitive or sick. Hopefully I will have more good news soon!

The Big News

I have some wonderful news....I'm pregnant! We are expecting our little miracle around the end of May or beginning of June. I'm not feeling so great, but Miguel and Curt have been angels. Miguel has been doing the dishes and any other 'too smelly' jobs. When I told Curt about us having a new baby, he pointed to the picture of him as a baby and I suppose that is as close as we can get to an explanation right now. I think he will be an awesome big brother. He will be really excited to have a little friend to play with (eventually).
Recently Curt has discovered his belly button and mine too. He is so interested in everything right now. He loves to sneak up behind me when I'm cleaning something from the floor and pull up my shirt and give me a raspberry on my side. Then we both laugh hysterically. He is pretty cute.
He loves Miguel's motorcycle. He points to it and says, "Vroom vroom." Then he'll say Dada, go, vroom vroom. It is cute to see how his language is developing. He knows that Miguel will take him to the park and let Curt climb up the slide, the wrong way, and then slide down. When Miguel walks in the door, Curt runs up to him and says, "Go, go!" and leads Miguel over to the park. They play for about 45 minutes every night. Sometimes he will go sit in his little car, which is a stroller and say, "Go, vroom vroom."
Curt heard a rooster last Sunday and since then, he has been trying to make that noise. He sucks in air and that is his closest attempt. We listen to primary music as we drive home and his favorite song is 'If You're Happy and You Know It.' One day we listened to it 5 times in a row because he would cry when it ended. He likes to blink his eyes, although he often just squints, he touches his toes and he tries to snap his fingers, but he always claps when it's over. Yesterday he did the popcorn actions to 'Popcorn Popping On the Apricot Tree." He gets just as excited as we do when he learns something new.
participant. Curt loved the whole show. He was either clapping or dancing, moving his head to the music the entire night. Miguel thinks he is really trying to show his Chilean side. Here are some pictures from that night. Miguel danced with Grace and some other lady We went to the Chilean Independence Day celebration in September and Miguel was a huge danced with Curt. He was happy to go with her though. I guess he is a bit of a showman, just like his dad. The whole night was pretty long and very loud for Tammy, Becky, Lini, Sammy, Grace and me, but Curt was having such a great time. He was not ready to go when we left.

It's been a while....

OK, so I really don't have a good excuse, but I was pretty sure the weekly thing wouldn't happen. Anyways, life is busy-as usual. School started on the 25th of August and I have 28 students in my class this year. It's really different compared to my 19 I had most of last year. They are really cute though. I do love teaching third graders. I would include a picture, but I think it is illegal or something....

This is a picture of Curt and his cousin Lini reading a book together. Curt loves reading time. He will go get a book and bring it over and then back up until he is placed in my lap...
Curt has been so adorable lately. He waves bye-bye to everything and everyone. Before he goes to bed at night he waves bye-bye to the fish, Jackie and anything else that is close to living. He knows and uses the signs for all done, more, sorry(it's not correct, but it works), and he folds his arms to pray by bringing his fists up to his chin. When I tell him to fold his arms for a prayer, he will start to say his own little prayer which I'm sure only Heavenly Father can understand. It's really sweet.

He has also taken up cleaning lately. He found the broom and dust pan and got really excited. He started sweeping the floor and then he would grab the dust pan and scrape it along the floor. It is really amazing to me what he learns. He is totally a little sponge.



We go on walks with Eli and Helena and here is Curt patiently or impatiently waiting for me to start the walk. Then after the walk he showed Eli the really cool balloon he got on our anniversary. Miguel told me he bought flowers for me, but the balloon was for Curt.










This is Curt playing with his favorite new toy. His dad put together this car track with a gas station and ticket counter.

To sum it all up, life is great for us, busy, but great. Curt is the cutest person I have ever met. It makes me sad to leave him in the morning to go to work. Especially now that he will come out and wave at me and want a few more hugs before I go. I think this is my favorite age of Curt so far. He is just so much fun to watch and be around. Today we went to a barbeque with Miguel's friend and some cats wandered into his house and Curt was in heaven. We spent the evening chasing the cats, one at a cricket while we were following it, the other climbed a tree. There were dandilions in the yard that were big and white and seedy. I taught Curt how to blow the seeds to make more dandylions, I think he may have actually put the dandylion in his mouth before he blew, but it was a learning experience for both of us.
I will attempt to update this blog more often-notice how there are no promises, but I will do my best. Love you all!
Shannon