Summer Recap Part 1

Well, Summer is definitely not over here. Still 88 degrees, though the humidity is going down. Here's some of the highlights of our summer not yet blogged about.

We took a trip to CA from July 28- Aug 4 for my friend Eddie's wedding. We stayed a week with my parents. Believe it or not TSA was actually quite kind since they saw that I was flying alone w/ 2 kids. Who knew they could be so nice and helpful?!

One of the first things we did as soon as we landed in LA was eat at the newly opened Cafe Rio in Manhattan Beach.
Yes, I am beaming in this picture. I love me some Cafe Rio. One of my top all time favorite restaurants!

Then we visited los abuelos en Carson. As a little girl I loved playing in their backyard, complete w/ a flower garden, guava, banana, avocado, and citrus trees. I probably forgot something...


I felt quite wistful watching Azure play around in that backyard thinking about how similar I looked at her age with blonde ringlets in that very same place.
As I entered my abuelo's study, I literally felt my heart turn as I saw these pictures:

This is my great grandmother Maria Alicia Gregoire and my great grandfather Franco Emilio Lamadrid.

Though, I'm pretty sure I'm not named after her, my middle name is Marie and I'd like to think that I was. I don't know much about her but, I love her so much. I can see a resemblance between us and I love it. I look forward to meeting her :)

Vince got to meet his Aunt Tally and Uncle Angel for the first time!

More Recommendations

I am on a roll w/ these. I found this site a few months ago and it is now a part of my routine to scour the recipes when it's time for me to menu plan.

I just made this the other night and oh my goodness, delicious!

Disappointed

I subscribe to Bath and Body Works emails b/c I like their lotions. But, when this popped into my inbox a few weeks ago, I furrowed my brow with a face of disgust and disappointment. It looked like a Victoria Secret ad.

I just wrote them an email explaining my disappointment in choosing this picture to advertise their new line. I originally just deleted the email, but, after going to the mall Saturday and seeing this picture plastered all over their store and then receiving another email from them with the same picture on it, I decided to DO something about it. So, I wrote them an email.

If you feel so inclined to do the same, you can here.

* I should add that the reason this is so disappointing is b/c B&BW up to this point has not had scandalous advertisements such as these. So, I feel like this will be the norm now for them. That makes me sad. Sad and then angry.

I believe that we can make a difference by doing small things like writing emails. In so doing, I feel that I am doing my part to strengthen and protect the family.

"We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."

I Recommend...

... listening to the Mormon Channel.

This has been a great multi-tasker for me. While nursing Vince or straightening up around the house I've been listening to the live radio station, the scriptures, General Conference talks, and they even have the Ensign articles on there!

It's a lot easier to do this on an iPod Touch. Charles just got one for his rotations. I've also just listened on the computer and turn the volume up really loud.

We Recommend

I've realized you can incorporate almost anything into a celebration when you think about it. Last night Charles and I watched Bella, one of our favorites. We just got it for *free through Swaptree. You should definitely check it out. We've traded in the most ridiculous movies for awesome movies. For example- a friend of ours gave Azure all her kids' old movies. One of them was Air Buddies. Of course, we did not want this movie so we traded it for Bella. Score!

After watching it, I thought, "This movie is about the sanctity of life, which the Proclamation speaks of. We just celebrated and didn't even know it!"

"We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God's eternal plan."

*You have to pay to ship the item you're exchanging. This could be as little as $1.

Celebrate good times, come on!

15 years ago this month The Family Proclamation was issued by President Hinckley and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in the General Relief Society Meeting. So, there is a celebration! How fun huh?

Click here for some posts about it. Here's one of my favorites.

Last week Charles and I were discussing the goals that we have for our family. I've mentioned before that our goal is to have an intentional family. That concept comes from this book.

We don't have TV in our home. It's more of a circumstance than a choice. When we moved here we hooked up the cable to our TV and...nothing. Not even local channels, everything was fuzzy. Didn't matter, we don't like TV anyways, except for BYU games. And I like the Food Network. Not sure we'll even have TV in the future.

But, something that Charles and I both love is the internet. We don't waste hours watching TV, but we sure do waste a lot of time on the internet. It's so bittersweet. We live far from friends and family so we like "staying in touch" through Facebook and reading blogs to know about things like the Family Proclamation Celebration. However, being on it at the expense of spending time together, was affecting our family goals. We had made attempts in the past to "limit" our time somehow but, had failed. With Charles being in school it was too hard. He needed to be on the computer to study and what not. With him gone at school and studying, I was also on the internet a lot.

Two weeks ago Charles finished his coursework for Pharmacy school! Hooray! No more classes! He wouldn't need to be on the computer as much to study. He had the fabulous idea that when he got home from work or his rotations that we would not get on the computer. We would wait until the kids were asleep. Both of their bedtimes is around 8-9pm so we'd have about 2-3 hrs at night to surf the web. Plenty of time.

We are 2 days into our goal and it has been wonderful. Tuesday was one of my favorite days in a long time! Charles came home so excited about working in the ER. It was so fun to see him so excited to learn and enjoying the beginnings of his career. We made dinner together. We cleaned up together. All 4 of us went running together with our new jogging stroller. It was a day of family work and togetherness and not until after we had put the kids to bed did we get on the computer. Some of you might already do this, we are a little slow :)

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to limit my time during the day when I'm here w/ the kids. Sometimes writing an email or reading a blog serves as a small break for me and refreshes my "adult mind" and gives me ideas of how we can play together. The main goal of this is to be together as a family when Charles gets home and focus on each other, all 4 of us.

Though we made this goal before finding out about the Family Proclamation Celebration, we are now following through with it, with the proclamation in mind. I wanted to write about this to inspire others to do something too. If you decide to do something, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it!

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

Chubba is (almost) 7 months

Vince is finally sleeping through the night again as of last week. Praise the Lord! You know, it's amazing how much nicer of a person I am when I don't get woken up in the middle of the night. It changes my attitude drastically! I don't know how people go months and even years without getting a good nights sleep. I would die. Seriously. Gratefully the Lord has blessed me w/ 2 children who are good sleepers and who only vary in that every once in awhile. Because of this I know we'll have at least one more :)
So, what was the trick? Giving him his own room! We only have 2 bedrooms so we had to get creative. After lots of prayers and racking my brain the thought: Put him in the laundry room came to my mind. Brilliant! His pack and play fits perfectly in there. Now his little squeaks and squeals don't wake us up, as cute as they are. I think one of the reasons he was waking up was b/c he sensed me near and could actually see me 5 ft away, so naturally he just wanted to nurse. We're back to 11 hrs straight again. Hallelujah!

Last Friday, a week from 7 months, he weighed 18 lbs and was 27 inches. Azure weighed 14 lbs at her 6 month visit! I love having a chunky baby. I think the extra 4 lbs are in his thighs :) He still has yet to get up on his knees but, I think it's b/c of the extra weight he's carrying around.

Some random things he does:

• Stretches out his hand, looks at it intensely and opens and closes his fist like Spiderman. Cracks me up!
• Sweats profusely. This one is definitely a boy. Every time I nurse him, his head just beads w/ sweat, even when the air is on and he only wears onesies pretty much everyday. Azure never sweated (<- is that a word?) like this.
• Babbling mostly "Dada" and "Baba". I've heard "Mama" once or twice but, not consistently.
• His nick name of Chubbalub Bear and Chubbs has morphed into just Chubba.

Our schedule as of late has been bath around 7:30pm, asleep between 8 or 9pm and waking up at 7 or 8am. Two hours after waking up for the day he gets tired again so I usually try to put him down for a morning nap. However, he usually wakes up when I'm transferring him into the pack and play and then won't go back to sleep. Most of the time he won't nap at all during the day. But, I won't complain since he sleeps so well at night again!

He's also been eating solids twice a day now for the past few weeks. Him and Azure have been playing together and keeping each other entertained and it's so nice. I thought it would take longer for them to play together but, they already have for the past little while.

My heart turns to mush when I see these two like this!

First time eating sweet potatoes. He loves to watch the ceiling fan go around!

Being as cute as possible!

My heart strings get pulled in a million different directions when he flashes me this flirtatious smile. Look out girls :0 He and his Daddy sure have me hooked!