Jacob's first haircut

Becky and I gave Jacob his first haircut on Wednesday! He is so CUTE! You all know how he looked before, with that LONG hair... it even started to get curly on the ends... but it was just too much, such a mess. Just like his big brother's was! Here is Jacob after we cut it. Becky held and I cut. I was so afraid I would butcher it but it turned out really cute. Not perfect, but good enough! Now it's not in his eyes when it's wet! It was about 4 inches long (on top) when I pulled it straight. I cut off about 2 inches, I would say. Sorry that it is hard to see in the pictures... it's the best I could do. Here is a before shot and then a bunch of after shots... along with some random cute ones of the kids.

New Look!

Thanks to Cat (Bergeron) Potter, I was able to change my font color so my blog doesn't look nasty! For some reason I totally couldn't remember how to do it. Anyways, Kaylee told me today that my background was deleted so I needed to chose a new one... hence the font color issue.

HELP! How do I change the font color!?!?

Learning experience

Jacob is such a spoiled baby! It's true, and taking him to CA just made it worse because he was never on his own! His sleep schedule has been all messed up lately and I am trying to get it back to normal. So, the only way to do that, let him cry it out in his crib so he learns I am not going to rock him to sleep anymore. Saturday night I put Jax to bed first. Then after a while I put Jake down in his crib and he was quiet... for a while. Eventually he started crying... and it didn't stop. I felt bad because Luis and I didn't know how Jax could sleep through that, but Jax wasn't making a sound. After about 45 minutes of Jake crying, we all of a sudden heard Jax scream at the top of his lungs, the most frustrated scream I have ever heard! (About 5 minutes before that Luis made a comment like "I wonder if Jax ever gets frustrated when the baby cries and he can't sleep") I guess Jax wanted to make it clear for is. So I immediately ran upstairs and apologized to Jax and took Jacob out of the room. I put him in the playpen in our room and he rolled over and fell almost right to sleep!!! (what the heck?) Luis thinks maybe he was too cold in his room or something but we aren't sure. We checked the A/C and it wasn't blowing into his crib. Anyways, it was an exhausting night. My allergies have been really bad cuz I didn't take my pills at all while I was in CA and it totally caught up with me now that I am back! Today is the first day I am actually feeling better.

Also, I am so thankful that Becky is ok! She is coming home tomorrow from BYU-I. On Saturday she was driving from Rexburg to Utah to stay with some friends and she lost control of the Rodeo and it flipped 3 times (or so I've been told). Thank goodness she was wearing her seatbelt, Silvia all she had was a scratch on her hand. They are trying to figure out what happened to the car to make it swerve out of control... they think maybe something wasn't right with the tires that Becky just had repaired. We should find out more today. Either way, the Lord was definitely watching out for her! We love you Becky!

Pictures

I sent out emails with all the pictures I took from my visit and the wedding. Here are a few of my favorites. It was wonderful! I really like Ricky! I think he and Aubry are a great match! I am so excited for them! All this wedding stuff makes me remember mine and I love it! It's been so fun to be here and to get to help out!

Wedding Day!

Let me back up... Yesterday was very busy, we started out putting together Elyse's wedding announcements (cutting the picture, tying ribbon, all that good stuff!). Then, Jen and I watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days while ironing table cloths. It was a nightmare and those wrinkles aren't completely gone, but it's the best we could do with a cheap iron and no starch! Grandma Doty took a few to iron and I'll bet hers are completely crease-less!!! I don't even want to compare. Then we worked on centerpieces. They are very pretty. We all pitched in... but Maurya stopped almost immediately cuz she kept breaking flowers... it was pretty funny. I tied purple ribbon around the vases and they have pink and white flower inside. It looks great. We had Arby's for lunch... another thing I wanted during my visit. No Arby's in McAllen and I totally miss it! It was delicious! Now I just need See's candy and I am all set! Aubry is lending me her camera since mine is lost at home and broken anyways! I will upload some pictures on Sunday.

Today, we woke up pretty early, thanks to Jacob. We have just been getting ready, hair, eyebrows, all the little thigns. Aubry is at the salon right now getting her hair done. Poor Jacob has a major cowlick from going to bed with wet hair and I really hope I can get it out before pictures, so far no luck! I am really missing Jackson and Luis. I wish they were here with me. Everyone misses them as well. The sealing is at 1pm and then the reception is at 6. I am very excited to see Kaylee and Derek and the kids and also Mel and Dan. It has been fun hanging out with Maurya and the girls and Danny got here late last night. I wish you were here, Mom! And all the rest of the family! I am so thankful Luis bought me tickets! Now to go finish getting ready.

I'm in San Diego!

After a nightmare of traveling, I am finally enjoying my family in San Diego! I am so thankful to Luis for buying me the tickets! It turned out not to be a surprise to Aubry, she had seen a text message I sent Elyse and guessed that I was coming. I thought my plane from San Antonio left at 4 on Monday but it actually left at 6pm. So Luis and I left McAllen around 9:30 and got to San Antonio way too early! So Jacob and I got to spend some quality time together in the airport. Then my flight was delayed about 2 hours. So I missed my connecting flight that would have gotten me to San Diego on Monday night. I got a hotel voucher and spent the night in Pheonix. It was a little miserable with a lot of little things that I won't go into detail about. We left on the earliest flight to San Diego and got here at 9am Tuesday! I am thankful to be here safe and sound! Elyse picked me up from the airport and we stopped for breakfast at a pancake house. Then we went back to her apartment and hung out and worked on her wedding plans. Justin brought us In-n-Out for lunch and I thought I was ordering a hamburger but I actually ordered a double double. (It's sad that I mixed up the combo numbers... considering there are only 3 choices...) It was great and now another thing on my list of to-dos in CA is to get See's Candies... ok, off to the temple, will post again soon!

Homemade baby food

Silvia and I made Jacob some baby food today! I buy the Beechnut brand for 48 cents for a jar of level 2. Well, peaches were on sale for 48 cents a pound and they were so ripe and good! So we got about 3 pounds and blended it up. We put it in little baggies and froze it. Since I didn't store it in jars I don't know exactly how many it would have filled, but it looked like it could have filled up 20 jars! An amazing amount of money saved! And it was fun... can't wait to make another kind soon!

Jackson's full body tan!

I was going to try and turn on my camera to see if it works, but now I can't even find it. The cleaning lady was here today, so she probably put it up on some shelf somewhere.

Jackson was badly in need of a haircut, especially with it being so hot. So I decided today was the day. This afternoon he had an accident so I was going to give him a bath. I decided I'd cut his hair before so I wouldn't have to do it twice. I cut it outside since Irene was cleaning inside. He was naked because he had had an accident. So while Luis and I cut his hair he got a nice little tan! Actually I was trying to block the sun with my body so he wouldn't get burned! It was VERY hot today. The reason I wanted to find my camera is because I cut it way to short. I got out the clippers and started buzzing. I looked down and realized I had forgot to put a little shield thing on the clippers... so I was buzzing it without any cover on it! It was so short he looked like he had a bald stripe across his head. I freaked and called Luis... Like he could fix it! He found a #1 and did the rest of his head with that. It looks fine but it is just SO short! We keep calling him our little Mexican because he looks just like all the little Mexican boys that run around the neighborhood!

If anyone has a good roll recipe please email it to me. I am making rolls for our Teacher Appreciation dinner for Primary tomorrow! If I chicken out I might just go buy them... more than likely considering we have a huge budget!

So I forgot to mention... you know how Jackson was so scared during the fireworks.. He was so scared he peed (how the heck is that spelled?) on Luis' lap! It was hilarious! Haha!

Last night, Jax was playing on his castle outside and I let him take of his socks so he could climb up the slide. Becky's german shephard, Cindy, stole one of Jackson's socks. I told him to go get it back from her (I was holding Jake so I couldn't)... but of course, it was a lost cause. She would not let go of that sock. So, first she was licking it, then she started tearing it with her teeth... THEN I looked over and saw her swallow the sock whole! She kept gulping and I thought she was going to choke and die right in front of me. It took her at least 5 swallows to get it down! I was cracking up b/c it was such a shocking thing for me to see. I have heard of dogs eating things whole, and I guess a sock really isn't that big, but it was still so funny to see! Someone is going to have a surprise when they pick up dog poo from the yard. Thankfully... that's not my job! :) Now Jax has an unpaired sock! I should have given the other to Alsatian just to be fair, haha! Didn't think of that till now, although seeing the choking hazard it was for Cindy that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Alsatian is a trouble maker though, so maybe I'd be doing Silvia and Lew a favor! (Just kidding, guys... If I kill off any of the animals it will be that wretched bird, Sabrina!)

We had a fun fourth of July. Well, a fun third of July! Saturday night we went over to our good friend's the Lyons. We had pizza and the kids played in the pool for a while. They bought some fireworks and we watched from the driveway. Jackson was so scared! We knew he would be... from last year, but Luis held him and he eventually settled down. It turns out while we were doing fireworks in the street, we had an awesome view of the fireworks show the city was doing! A perfect view! It was so much fun! I have been so desperate to hang out with friends lately, so this was a life-saver for me. I feel like such a castaway since moving out to the Silvia and Lew's house! It is so far from my friends and it feels like such a chore to go into town! So I really enjoyed hanging out! And it was good for Jackson to burn some energy with their 5 kids. The only downside... my feet were eaten up by mesquitos... not fun.

So Jackson ruined my experiment. Lately, Jake has been waking up at 4-6am needing to eat. So he gets a bottle and goes back to bed. It's frustrating because he has always slept through the night! Jackson never woke up like this. But when I go get him out of his crib I can hear his little tummy growling. Poor thing. So I am officially feeding him solids now. I tried to do an experiment, like I said, last night. I fed him a bowl of rice cereal with pears at 8 followed by almost 8 oz of mild. I put pants on him so he wouldn't be cold from the A/C. I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn't wake up early. Well... around 6 Jax comes into my room! I hear his tummy growling and so I get him a poptart :) and juice and we sat on the kitchen floor together while he ate. It was a cute moment, but annoying that it was happening at 6am! When I put him back to bed, Jake was awake... RUINED EXPERIMENT. I don't know if Jax woke up Jake or if Jake woke up Jax. I guess we will try again tonight!

Ok, there is a houseful of people downstairs that I need to go hang out with while learning how to make pazole (a mexican soup). The Hernandez family... and extended family... is here. Yay! I get to practice my spanish!

Well, still no news about the job yet... still waiting for that phone call.

Lately, I have loved cooking homemade soups. I made a homemade chicken noodle soup a few weeks ago and Luis loved it! So I made it again tonight! It's one of the few things that I actually enjoy cooking! And a few weeks ago Mom told me about Goodhousekeeping's Amazing Soup Diet to help Luis lose weight. I really enjoyed making that as well! Probably because it really doesn't take that much talent! And it's healthy! Jackson loves soup also! He does make funny faces at the carrots though :) If you have any good soup recipes, please send them to me!

The bad news... I think our camera is officially dead. Not just batteries, the whole camera. We have known for a while that it was going out. It was acting all funny and turning off at random times and the buttons don't work all the time and the lens freaks out and goes on the fritz every now and then. The camera is over 6 years old. Luis got it when he got home from his mission. Is that a good life expectancy for a camera? It was a Sony Cybershot. Well, the next camera we get will probably be a nice one like Megan's... just not so advanced. Maybe I will copy Alan's Christmas present for Liz last year and get Luis the one he wants this year. If he's a good boy, of course! This just means that you guys won't get to see many pictures of my beautiful boys! I will keep trying to use the camera, but no promises, it is seriously messed up.

I made a discovery tonight. Jackson goes to bed 100x better if he plays with Luis for a while before bed. I think having some Daddy time calms him down and makes him feel satisfied enough to go to bed without a fight. Luis is so cute with the boys! He is such a good Daddy. Jax and Jake just love him and I see a long future of wrestling and bruises and fun for Luis and his boys!

Made-up apple crisp recipe results

Ok, Megan brought to my attention that the 2 videos are the same. My bad. I will try and fix that this afternoon.

So, I got an apple crisp recipe from Food Network. It sounded pretty similar to Grandma's. Problem #1- we had no brown sugar... so I decided to use regular sugar instead :) Problem #2- we had no cinnimon, only cinnimon sugar. So I used that. I found out after it was in the oven, when Silvia woke up, that we did have both brown sugar and cinnimon. One was in food storage the other was in a cupboard that I totally forgot about. So I sprinkled it with real cinnimon when it got out of the oven. We used Silvia's canned apples and it turned out ok, but you can definitely tell the difference. Nothing beats fresh Granny Smith!

Anyways, Megan called me halfway through my culinary disaster with Grandma's recipe so I combined what I had already done with Grandma's. Like I said, it turned out fine, we all ate it and enjoyed it. BUT... we all knew it wasn't "just right"!

I posted 2 videos. Jackson and I have been reading Dr. Seuss' ABC book lately. He loves it and he is getting really good at saying letters. Some are hard for him like G, H, and J... I didn't have very much time on my camera left so they are short, but the other video is of Jackson saying "snack". It is so cute how he says it. It's not even a word, just a sound really, but that's the best he can do apparantly. It took a while for me to figure out what he was trying to say... I always ask if he wants a snack before bed and finally realized that this "word" means snack! You may even hear Jake talking in the background... if you are lucky! We made it through our hurricane of course! Just some heavy rain and wind. Some areas of town have flooded streets, but as far as I know, it's nothing serious. Some people lost power, but it's back up tonight... we didn't. Ok, enjoy the videos. I am off to make apple crisp. I was going to call Grandma for her recipe, but I don't want to bother her on the vacation... and I don't know if she is in Canada... out of country calls and what-not! Don't be jealous of my delicious dessert tonight!