For family members on Grandma Belcher's side

Beth Mitchell (August 14, 1927 - December 12, 2008)

Beth W. Mitchell, age 80, passed away on December 12, 2008 at the Orchard Park Care Center in Orem, Utah. She was born to Samuel LeRoy and Annie Margaret Gillen Williams on August 14, 1927 in Murray, Utah.
She married Albert Wilford Mitchell on March 19, 1947 in Sandy, Utah and they were later sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on March 19, 1957. They are the parents of four children; Dale, Dean, David and Joyce.
Beth was a devoted loving wife and mother and she enjoyed spending time with her family. She was active in the LDS Church and served as a Relief Society teacher, Secretary, on the Old Folks Committee, ward baptism coordinator and was a great ward greeter.
She is survived by her husband of 62 years, the love of her life, Albert and three sons; Dale (Karren), Dean (Gaylene), David (Renee), daughter; Joyce ( Russell) Baum, 15 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, brother; Don (Elaine) Williams. Preceded in death by her parents, brothers; Elmo Williams, Rex Williams, Roy Williams, sisters; Eva Belcher, Ella Broadhurst, and Elda Johnson and daughter-in-law Susan Mitchell.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. in the Lehi Stake Center, 200 North Center. Friends and family may call Monday evening from 6-8:00 p.m. at Wing Mortuary, 118 East Main, Lehi, Ut. and one hour prior to services at the Stake Center on Tuesday. Interment, Lehi City Cemetery. Online guest book at wingmortuary. com.
The family would like to thank the wonderful staff at Orchard Park Care Center for all their loving care.

Help! My 14 month old has surpassed me in technology!

Tell me if I'm going crazy, or do the kids pick up on technology at much younger ages these days?

I'm still in shock after witnessing Baby Monkey walk over to my DVD collection, pull out a DVD, then carry it over to the DVD player where he pushes the button to open it. After that, he deposits the DVD in the open tray, surveys it to make sure it's in correctly, and then oh-so-carefully pushes the button to close it. Then he looks at me as if to say "Yay, we're going to watch a movie!"

Leo is a witness to this, so I know I'm not hallucinating.

Next thing I know, he'll be using a handheld GPS system to find me if he ever gets lost in a store. Forget about ME using one to keep track of HIM, I'm sure he'll be much more proficient in using it, so it'll be him trying to keep track of me.

Favorite Christmas Tradition

Every year during Relief Society or other social gathering, the question is inevitably asked:

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

In past years, I had never really been able to come up with an answer that was completely satisfying to me. Yes, my family has abelskeivers every Christmas morning. Abelskeivers are Swedish fried pancake balls (basically), which requires the use of a special cast-iron pan specifically made for this purose. A Norwegian friend of mine says that they are not actually Swedish, but from another Scandanavian country. Anyhow. Yes it is yummy, but it's not particularly something that I look back upon with nostalgia...especially not in past years when I can just feel the vegetable oil that the pancakes are fried in cruising through my veins and clogging my arteries. Yeah, I'm a romantic.

Another tradition I would mention was the filling of the Dutch wooden shoes with candy by Santa Claus....although again, no nostalgia for this one, it just meant more candy! We're not even Dutch, for goodness' sake!

Or something that I would mention was the placing of straw in a manger for every act of service performed during the month of December and then placing the baby Jesus (one of my sisters' dolls) in the manger on Christmas Eve. This one came the closest of the past three of being a tradition I could look back upon with fondness since it encouraged selflessness, service and charity, plus it focused on spiritual matters rather than our stomaches.

But while I was decorating the Christmas tree, I finally came up with MY answer to the question, "What is your favorite Christmas tradition?"

Christmas ornaments.

I have a Christmas ornament from every single year of my life from my mom and my Grandma Belcher (until she passed away, que en paz descansa), usually signifying something that I started that year, or accomplished or had an interest in. Of course I have the obligatory "Baby's First Christmas" (one of the few ornaments that rats in our attic didn't destroy about 15 years ago). For several years I have mostly penguin ornaments as I was completely obsessed with penguins. When I started to play the flute, I have ornaments of angels playing the flute. Same with the tuba. I got an ornament of a car (a classic cadillac to be exact) the year I got my driver's license. When I turned 16, I got an ornament of a mouse sitting on a makeup bag, signifying me getting ready for my dates (although admittedly, I did not do well in the makeup department OR the dates department, but I was finally allowed to!).

When Leo came for his first Christmas, he got an ornament from my Grandma. We started getting joint ornaments once we got married, usually with Mexican themes since we were living in Mexico. Let's see what we get this year!

It makes putting up the Christmas tree a fun and nostalgic ride. It also refreshes my memory as to when certain events happened, since I have a notoriously bad memory when it comes to past events in my own life (but ask me the year that the cartoon Steamboat Willie featuring Micky Mouse was released? No problem! 1928)

In the meantime, I just wanted to share this with you, and I must get back to shopping for Tiago's ornament for this year! What shall it be?

My quote of the day :)

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
- Augusten Burroughs

Hallelujah!

After spending many frustrated hours at my laptop, cursing it and wishing it would run faster, Leo and I decided to get a new laptop! I spent many hours researching and comparing, and finally settling on a Toshiba that I bought through the Costco.com website.

So what does that mean to all of you, my non-loyal followers? :) I can blog again, or, I feel that the time invested in updating my blog is finally less than or equal to the benefits of you all knowing the latest ins and outs of my life. Woo hoo!

Perhaps I shall do as my friend Janelle does, she has a set time twice a week to sit down and update her blog with the latest of the last few days. Or do you still do that? I haven't found that it was worth turning on my laptop and screaming at it to do anything other than pay my bills and occasionally check my email. I would also occasionally check my voicemail, too, (we have Vonage which allows for my voicemail to be sent to me via email), so if you have called me recently and I didn't call you back, that's why.

Anyhow, with this new laptop has also come ample opportunity to waste time playing the new games (Bejeweled, anyone?) and checking out the cool features (oooh look! An integrated webcam, I can put my makeup on while checking my email!)

With that said, I had better go and be busy so I can have something to show for my 8 hours at home with the baby. That's easier said than done, I know....but Leo already thinks I have it easy being at home with the baby (before you all attack him, he DOES realize how much work I have to do around here, picking up suit coats and ties...), but sometimes I wish I could trade in the monooooootoooony and repetition for something that actually SHOWS that I am making progress! What's the point of doing laundry if it's all going to get dirty again....oh, right...clean clothes to wear and we don't like to smell dirty...

Hasta la vista, baby!

Oh Happy Day!

So my post-pregnancy jeans finally gave up the ghost and I don't feel like going to the Gap and spending $60 on another pair of "fat" jeans...

I tried on the jeans I was wearing when I got pregnant with Tiago...and they fit!!!!! Whoo hoo!

Not to say that it looks pretty, I still have a slight muffin top, but at least it's bigger than a BIG muffin top and legs that won't even fit into the jeans!

Alter-egos

Well, as I write, Leo should be waiting at the gate in Seoul, Korea for his return flight home. He leaves midnight Utah time and doesn't get in to Salt Lake until 4pm tomorrow afternoon...he's going to be tiiiirrrrred! After all the Japanese and Korean food he has had this week, he says that he is craving Mexican food.

What not to name your child
So get this. I'm watching the news this morning and one of the news reporter's name was Nineveh. Yup. Nineveh as in the city that Jonas in the Bible was commanded to go to and preach repentance, and he didn't want to go because he thought they were past repentance. What kind of person names their daughter after a sinful city? Maybe I should just name my next two kids Sodom and Gomorrah. To Nineveh's credit, they did repent and the Lord saved the city. But still!

My latest goal for this year
Start swimming again, (on a semi-competitive level?) - I really miss my swim team and water polo workouts from high school. Strange how I would miss the workouts that would be so tough that I would sometimes start dry heaving at the side of the pool. Is it possible to be addicted to chlorine? :) Maybe that's why I like to clean, the smell of chlorine in some of the cleaning products, hahaha. I need a coach, though to set up workouts and push me through them, I'm not likely to push myself hard enough to start dry heaving after my workouts! I heard that there is a Masters team (www.usms.org) in South Jordan, but I still need to verify the info first before I join.

Is there a need to protect our identities?
What do you think? As much as I like to share, I do realize that too much information could be dangerous. I mean, I just shared the fact with y'all that Leo is gone, where he is, when he's coming back, I've got pictures of my house posted on this blog and of Tiago. Hmm, perhaps this is the Spirit telling me to be careful and take precautions for the safety of myself and my family!

SO! I need to come up with alter-egos for Dear Hubby and Angel Child. My name will be Carmelita, as that was my Spanish name in college. Any ideas? I would use Guapo for Dear Hubby's alter-ego name...but my friend "Gabriela" already uses that for her husband. Perhaps I could have Dear Hubby be named from now EL Guapo, like in Three Amigos...what about Angel Child?

As for now I think the changing names and identifying information should be sufficient for now. To make the blog private and invitation only is too much of a hassel for others in my mind and also limits the possibility that old friends can stumbly upon my blog accidentally.

Good night for now! Still recovering from the cold...and if I go to sleep sooner, then it will SEEM like Dear Hubby is coming home quicker!

Well, this sucks.

Hi! I'm finally back after an unexplicable absence from blogging, lots has been going on....

Why I haven't been on to blog

1. We had the deadline to close on our house pushed back several times at Fannie Mae's whim, thus driving us to insanity. We did some time in a nice, padded room...just kidding, but buying a house is not for the faint of heart!

2. We were staying with some friends for a couple of weeks that did have internet, but my laptop wouldn't work with their wireless...so I found better things to do, like shopping! There's nothing like retail therapy that makes things seem so much better, especially when you're at Target! I missed being able to browse stores and go shopping while I was in Mexico. It's just not the same.

3. We moved into our house and had the usual things to do when moving in like changing light bulbs for energy efficient ones, ridding the carpet of the previous owners' dog hair, installing the garage door opener (more on that later!), and now the guest bathroom toilet is broken...but hey! At least we have a house and $30,000 of automatic equity (it was a foreclosure so we bought it for less than market value).

4. My parents came into town to help us unpack. There is where the garage door opener comes in. Leo, with my dad's help...installed the whole thing! 10 hours after starting, the unit was up and running, and it will not budge, it is so securely fastened to the ceiling...the house could fall down in an earthquake, and the opener will still be standing. Now, I am perfectly aware of the unlogical premise of the last sentence...that if the house falls, that the opener will be still standing. Garage doors openers don't stand, silly! :)
This is absolutely amazing if you know Leo...he's good at the handy stuff once he's figured it out, he's just never learned how to do it all since labor in Mexico is so cheap, it's just cheaper to hire somebody than go through all the trouble of buying your own tools and figuring it out.

4. Leo turned 30 and I planned a party for him. I also bought tickets to the American Idols concert and went to the grocery store and bought every single variety of root beer that I could find in the store. Surprisingly, there are a lot! There's even a ginger root beer with antioxidants. Leo loves root beer, by the way. Most Mexicans don't like it, since to them it tastes like cough medicine (oh! Where can I get THAT kind of cough medicine? Sounds yummy!)

And reason #5 why I haven't blogged for a while

Quite frankly, when I've got a lake a 1/2 mile from my house and 35 miles of trails just out my front door...being on the internet to blog seems less appealing than a nice walk. Unless it's more than 90 degrees out, which it is b/c it's summer. So I stay inside and vacuum the dog hairs out of the carpet! Leo is allergic to dogs, dog hairs, and thus our house, so this is priority.

Leo update

Right now at the time of this writing, Leo is in Seoul, Korea sightseeing in the city. He's been gone since last Sunday, he had to go to Japan and Korea to lead some academies and trainings. So the Korea office today planned for a guide to take him around and show him some of the sights of Seoul. He'll be back on Saturday, which due to the time difference, he will arrive here at the same time on Saturday that he left Korea. He leaves Korea at 3pm Saturday, and arrives here in Salt Lake at 3:45pm the same day. Bizzarro!

He's got my camera b/c he couldn't find the battery to his. Let's hope he takes lots of good pictures! Leo having my camera also explains why I am not posting any new pics on here!

He's got jet lag like you wouldn't believe. When he calls me at 3:30pm here, he's just getting out of bed the next DAY there.

Next month he is supposed to go to Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Phillippines. Then he's supposed to visit India, Ecuador, Peru, and various cities in the US, plus some other countries before the end of the year. HellllllOOOOO SkyMiles! SkyMiles will be the proud sponsor of my trip to Cancun in October this year. Yes, Leo has to go to Cancun for work in October, for WORK, dag-nabbit! Where can I find a job like this? Oh yeah, I have it already...it's called being the wife of the guy who travels and getting to use his SkyMiles to tag along on some of his trips and play while he's working. I much prefer that.

Tiago update

Still the most adorable, cute baby EVER! He's 10 months now, has one tooth, can officially crawl (instead of doing belly flops a la 1980s breakdancing), and even pulls himself up to standing from sitting!

He claps hands whenever I say "Yay!" or whenever he hears clapping on TV. Or even if I'm trying to show him a new trick (let's wave bye bye, Tiago!), he claps and smiles as if to say "Good job Mommy, you can wave your hands!"

He also likes to point his finger and touch it to my finger, just like in ET...."ET phone home"

He's also proficient in pulling all the DVDs off the shelf (if I don't see him in time to say NO!), and screaming high-pitched gibberish when I'm out shopping with him. People seem to find that cute, but they don't think it's cute when I do it. Not that I've done it. I just don't imagine that a 26 year old woman screaming high-pitched gibberish is very cute...it's rather disturbing, like the Joker in The Dark Knight.

He's figured out how to blow raspberries on my arm while I'm holding him. Unfortunately he's not always successful and sometimes just ends up spitting on it.

When he is in his stroller and he's tired, he'll prop both of his feet up on top of the stroller tray...just like I did when I was his age...my mom has pictures of me with my feet in the air, flashing my tights-clad diaper...scandalous!

Anyhow, it's time for me to end this blog. I am tired. I am sick of having "me" time, I want Leo back so we can have some "family" time. I am tired of retail therapy that will supposedly make the time go by faster. It doesn't. It just gives me a million things to see that I would like to buy but shouldn't, or I'm constantly running to the back of each store to use the bathrooms. I am also sick with the cold, so is Tiago. It's also 12:39 AM on Friday morning so it's safe to say that my thinking is no longer clear. It's also messed up with cold medicine and having talked to a baby all week who just blows raspberries and gibberish in response along with his angelic smile.

G'night y'all!

I'm baaaaack!

Yes, it's been a long time since I blogged, but I'm back now!



Lots has happened since I last posted. Leo and I FINALLY closed on the house! There were a couple of bumps in the road (mostly Fannie Mae jerking us around, we had everything they had asked for, and then some...but then they would come back with more conditions and asking for more money).



While we were waiting to close on the house, we stayed with some friends of ours, the Woodburys. While they did have the internet, my computer wouldn't connect to their wireless. Then came moving into the house and settling in!



Then Leo turned 30! So I planned a surprise party and took him to the American Idols concert for his birthday.


(NOTE: THIS WAS A DRAFT THAT WAS SAVED AND THEN PUBLISHED ON 12/09/08)

A vote of no confidence?

Tell me, what is this supposed to say about my shopping cart driving skills?

Memorial Day Weekend!

Wow, this is the first time in a couple of years that I get to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. First off, thank you to all the troops who are serving our country. My grandfather was a WWII Air Force pilot, so we used to go visit his grave every Memorial Day to pay our respects. He died in 1973 in a car accident, so I never got to know him, but from the stories I have heard, I have a great legacy to live up to.

Leo, Tiago and I are going to Chehalis, Washington tonight for Memorial Day weekend. Chehalis is about 1/2 way between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, about 20 minutes from Olympia and it's a beautiful place. My sister-in-law, Lili lives there with her husband, Mike and their son Christian who is 5 months younger than Tiago.

I'm excited to go meet Christian!!! He was born February 20 of 2008, which puts him at 5 months and 3 days younger than Tiago. The pictures I have seen of him are adorable, and I can't wait for him and Tiago to start being able to play together, and fight together (just like my cousin Meghan and I did when we were little), go on their missions together, go to college together...etc.

Happy Memorial Day to all of you, and be safe! It's a time for vacation, true, but lets not forget (hence the name Memorial) our veterans and troops!

Product Endorsement...Warm Delights Minis

No, I am not getting paid for this...although, all of you who blog regularly are probably aware of sites out there that you can sign up with, receive blogging "assignments" to blog about a certain topic or product for a certain number of words, and receive payment for that blog upon verification. I don't do that.

BUT! I bought something yummy and wonderful from the store last night...Betty Crocker Warm Delights Minis. I saw it in three flavors, Molten Chocolate Cake, Molten Caramel Cake and Raspberry Decadence.

It's cake mix and the topping (fudge, caramel or raspberry) in a plastic container. You dump out the cake mix, mix in 1 Tb plus 1tsp water, stir together, squeeze the fudge over the top and put in the microwave for 30 seconds, let sit for a couple of minutes to cool and voila! You have freshly "baked" cake in a portion-controlled container ready to eat!

The best part is, only 150 calories per container!

Prep time: About 2 minutes
Cook time: 30 seconds plus 2 minutes to cool
Ready to eat in about 5 minutes!

It was $1.92 at WalMart and each container comes with a 75 cents off coupon for two more Warm Delights Minis (each one come in a pack of two, so you would get 4 portions)

I was left wanting more at the end....but makes me wonder, if that much was 150 calories...how many calories are in the slices of cake I would normally cut myself?!?!?! Wow, no wonder why Americans are so overweight in general. We have lost sight of what a portion really is.

Bottom line: Yummy, although with a little prep, and a great tool to learn (or remember!) what a true portion really is!

Weekly update

Leo comes home today!!! It's been 9 days since he left, and while taking care of Tiago was just fine, I don't sleep as well without Leo at home, so I am tired. I don't usually get dark circles under my eyes, but I do now, and my eyes are puffy...which almost never happens!

As for me this week, I spent more time at the gym, trying to work off the baby weight and trying to log in 10,000 steps per day, which is impossible unless I go to the gym or walk to WalMart and then go up and down every single aisle (which gets expensive as you see stuff you want to buy). I've also logged many, many hours watching Home Garden TV, better known as HGTV. I've been getting many ideas of how I want to decorate the interior of my house once we get in!

As I posted before, I spent this week looking up and researching washers/dryers and refrigerators...oh and garage door openers, too. I think I have narrowed it down to a select few. But I am noticing that the washers and dryers are less expensive online, as well as the garage door openers.

Do any of you have experience purchasing appliances online? Of course, I know to research the store selling it to make sure it's real, using my credit card to purchase it for added protection, etc. It's just that even with the 10% off coupons I find for many of the brick and mortar stores, it's still cheaper online (sometimes no sales tax and free shipping).

Tiago has discovered that the crib bumpers are movable, and so in the mornings when I am trying to catch a few more zzz's, I'll look over and he's pulling up the bottom of the bumper so he can look at me through the bars of the crib, then he flashes me his 100 watt smile when I look at him, so it's impossible to ignore him and try to go back to sleep. We are in a 1 bedroom apartment for the time being until we close on the house, that's why he's in our room.

Leo reports that in the middle of the night once, Tiago woke up and started crying...so Leo tried to let him cry it out (BAD IDEA if you are sharing the room with the baby!!!

But he said that Tiago was crying, and he apparently remembered that he could see us if he lifted up the crib bumper, so he did and looked to see if Daddy was going to take care of him. Daddy pretended to be asleep so that he wouldn't encourage Tiago, but then he moved...and Tiago, while holding up the bumper with one hand, started banging on the crib bars with the other while screaming. There was NO way to ignore him after that! Leo said that it reminded him of people in jail banging on the bars of their cells...is that how babies feel? :)

Tiago's favorite tricks:

• Eating his socks. If the socks are on his feet, he takes them off and eats them.
• Opening and closing his hands to say Hi or Bye bye (takes a little bit of coaching)
• Clapping his hands together after waving (probably because I clap after he waves back to me, to praise him)
• Saying "bah bah bah", blowing raspberries (especially while I am feeding him food, much to my chagrin), screaming high pitched noises just for the heck of it.
• Rolling all over the floor, especially to the coffee table or the wall, and then using his feet to push off to another location
• Repositioning himself in his crib...I'll put him down for his nap, and find him a few minutes later on the other side of the crib, facing the other direction...

Of course I know these things are not unique to Tiago....just as my ferret Bueller's antics were not unique to him, but to all ferrets. But that doesn't change the fact that I find them endearing. :)

Speaking of Bueller, he's still in Mexico with our friend Joan. Leo supposed started the paperwork process to import him to the US this week...he had tried to start it before, but the stupid government agency never answers their phone! Hopefully the proces will be complete in time for when Leo's family comes in August so they can bring our first-born "child" with them. :)

More pictures of Tiago!!!

Leo Tiago Espinosa 7.5 months old

Here are more pictures of my adorable, sweet baby! He's finally learning the tricks so that he can start crawling. He's proficient at rolling around on the floor to get where he wants, and pushing himself backwards from room to room...but he hasn't quite gotten the hang of moving forward.


These pictures were taken for Mother's day presents for my mom and mother-in-law. I thought that taking the pictures on Wednesday, I'd get and mail them on Thursday...nooooooo...it takes about 2 weeks to get pictures. I did not know that. Oh well, so I sent some picture frames to my mother-in-law for the pictures that will be coming later. The actual pictures I am sending to my mom and MIL are not posted on here, so if they see this blog, the surprise will not be ruined!

This is one of my favorite pictures, it fills me with such joy looking at this little face.

Tiago's photogenic, which I suppose comes from Leo and I...we've both been told that we're extremely photogenic. Too bad I don't look like my pictures in real life.

Quote about Mothers

A friend of mine posted this on her blog after reading it on another friend's blog. I like it.

Like those "noble and great" women who came before us, we cannot be ordinary women. We cannot be women who seem too much like women of the world. We must speak up for righteousness without apology. We, like Mary, Eve, Sarah, and Emma, are unique. We have ripples to make and water to share. Given our eternal heritage, we must remember how powerfully our simple, righteous actions can ripple through the hearts and homes of those around us. We have such a great opportunity to do so much good, and, most important, we know where and how to "draw water out of the wells of salvation."
---Virginia U. Jensen

Happy Late Mother's Day!

TOOLS!

I wasn't kidding when a few blogs ago, I said to look out for me wearing a tool belt, or maybe that was in an email I sent out to everybody announcing the house.

SO! I may have been a bit premature, we don't actually HAVE the house yet, we just have an accepted offer and we're just waiting on the bank (our bank and the bank that owns the house) to finalize everything. But we know we're going to be approved for the mortgage because we got a preapproval letter from our lender before starting our house shopping. A MUST, why go house shopping, fall in love with a house, only to find out you don't qualify? Plus, you are so much more attractive to sellers when you place a bid, because they know that you are serious!

Anyhow, I digress. The house is in move-in condition, but of course we want to put our touches on it, install new flooring, light fixtures, paint, etc.

To that end, I just bought my first set of power tools! I am now the proud owner of a jigsaw, a 1/3 sheet sander, a cordless screwdriver and a power drill! Black and Decker, 4 piece set from WalMart for $45! Individually, the tools would have been $70. The price is right, the quality is right and now I can begin to tackle my home projects (or at least using the power screwdriver to put together my IKEA furniture or putting up blinds/curtains and what not!)

Brain...blowing...gasket

Sheesh-ka-bobah as my mom would say. What a week.

Leo's been in Mexico for a seminar and the Mexico Convention since last Friday and won't get back until Sunday. I've actually been managing quite well, Tiago being a good baby makes it all easier.

This week we had to do the home inspection, which, thankfully turned up nothing serious about the house. All I have to do is replace the hinges on the garage door leading into the kitchen and service the furnace. Whoo hoo! I used the time while the inspector was there to measure all the spaces and windows so I could start shopping around.

Temporary paper blinds have been bought...hopefully they STAY temporary and don't become permanent! They won't...I won't let it. Necessary window coverings....check.

THEN came what's making my mind blow a gasket. Buying appliances for the house. The stove, microwave and dishwasher are included, we've got to get the fridge, washer and dryer.

Which washer/dryer/refrigerator is right for us? Do I want a front loader or a top loader? Do I go for the matching dryer or do I get a better-rated dryer, even if it doesn't match the washer? Which brands are the most reliable, which models? At which price point does the price I am willing to pay meet the quality I am looking for? Do I want bottom freezer or top freezer or side by side or counter-depth, with ice maker or no? Which ones have the best reviews and once I find the ones with the good review, how come I can't find them in the stores? Which stores have the best prices? What kinds of rebates or coupons can I find to save money? If Lowe's offer to match any competitor's price plus 10%...etc? What about the outlets?

You get the idea.

So! I'm also trying to take at least 10,000 steps each day as part of my weight loss (and general health and improvement of lifestyle). I bought a pedometer on Monday after my Weight Watchers meeting (cool, it was marked down to 7.99 from 24.99 and it only speaks Spanish...it tells you how many steps you've taken, in Spanish, when you push a button!), but I've only managed 3,000, 5,000 or about 7,000 steps each day until today. Because I needed to take my mind off this, I walked to WalMart and then went to the gym, and I'm at 11,000 steps for the day!

So that's all, I'm feeling better and ready to go back to working finding appliances!

Or maybe I'll just try to find a campground on the beach in California for our vacation in July....shoulda done this sooner... :S

We got it!!!

We got the house we were looking at! The house that you'll see just below! It's in South Jordan, Utah and in the Daybreak community!

This was the first house we had put an offer on, and thank goodness the bank accepted it! I had had a good feeling about this house, though, it just felt like it was supposed to belong to us but I also knew there were other homes out there in case we didn't get this one.

Since it was a foreclosure, we couldn't negotiate the price of the house down too much, we could only have the bank pay for our closing costs (which they accepted!), and a non-profit organization is going to pay for our down payment (first time home buyers...it's kinda handy)!!!

It's not officially ours yet, we still have to sign our lives away on the dotted lines of the contract....

So now it's off to Lowe's, Home Depot, and IKEA to get idea and stuff to decorate the house to our liking!

If you are in the area and like painting and laying tile and laminate/hardwood floors, or finishing basements let me know...I could use your help! Haha :)

House Hunting!

Well, since coming back, Leo and I have been looking for a house! We are looking for a home in the Daybreak area of South Jordan.

Daybreak is a master-planned community that is built to take advantage of renewable sources of energy, to be environmentally conscious and also to stand out visually from other communities in Utah. All of the homes are designed to have the garages in the back (I HATE how garages are the main focal points of many homes here), with exteriors designed after classic styles, like Cape Code, Nantucket, Victorian, English romantic, Tudor, Farmhouse, etc.

So with a home purchase in Daybreak, we also get access to TONS of community activites, churches, stores and even a temple within walking distance, 35 miles of walking/jogging trails, an 85-acre lake with free sailboat, paddleboat, and kayak rentals for residents (and fishing, too).
That's just the beginning. So anyhow, Leo and I made an offer on a cute house, 3 bed 2.5 baths with basement...we will find out tomorrow if we got it or not. It is a foreclosure, but since almost ALL the homes in Daybreak are 2006 or newer, and there are strict community rules for the exterior appearances, it wasn't trashed like you hear of in other foreclosures. It's actually in move-in condition, we will just have to do our painting after we get our stuff in.

So here I have posted some pictures of the place...

The exterior of the house, obviously. We love the front porch (another feature at Daybreak, the great majority of the homes have front porches, to encourage sociality and also as a natural neighborhood watch). We obviously would have to do some landscaping here, but my brother-in-law Jake can help as he is a landscape architect (uhhh...Jake, can you help us with this?)

Looking from the living room into the dining room/kitchen area. I love the exposed brick wall in the dining room, and the red wall with the side buffet table is pretty cute!

And of course I love the black.

I'm not so sure about the dual colors on the cabinets, but that can be fixed! But overall, I think it has promise and it is a fairly blank slate that will allow me to do what I want with it

(Helloooo IKEA Design Center!!!!)

Shameless posting of Tiago pics

I thought I'd take this opportunity to shamelessly post some pictures of Tiago, these are mostly for the benefit of my family members. :)

Thank you Grandma Nelson for making this Monkey nap mat for me! I love playing on it and wrapping myself up in it!

He likes to lay underneath the coffee table in our apartment and talk to the bottom of the table and use the legs to push himself around.

Thank goodness one of his favorite "blankets" is actually a cloth diaper (and VERY replaceable if we were to ever lose it!) And also want to thank Aunt Meghan and Diego for the cute clothes! Both the pants and shirt are inherited from Diego!

Tiago napping. This picture is to show Kristin Harris how cute he looks in the green onesie she got for him!!!

One of Tiago's first flights

Finally! I got the internet working on my laptop again, it's time to get a new laptop, perhaps we shall do so soon. HOWEVER! There is MUCH to update you all on, as I haven't posted regularly since...oooh, before our move back to Utah!

So, I just wanted a special blog just so I could post a picture of one of Tiago's first flights. If I would have been sane (long story on that if you really wanna know) when Tiago had his first flight, I would have taken pictures, but I didn't, so here goes.

This was on our flight back to Utah from Mexico and I've included a Sky Magazine just for show. :)

David Archuleta sighting at the DMV?

Well, we are back in Utah, and it´s been quite busy as you may have figured...no posts in the last couple of weeks!

Anyhow yesterday we finally got our beloved Sonny back from the dealership where he was being stored for the past two years! He´s our 2006 Scion tC, by the way.

So we were at the DMV, and I had to leave to hurry and find a Fed Ex/Kinko´s to print out our insurance card, leaving Leo with the baby at the DMV to wait in line.

So anyhow, while I was gone, Leo was sitting in the waiting area and a middle-aged woman walked past him, stopped, looked at him funny and then kept going. Then she turned around and looked at him again.

Leo in his mind: "Okaaaaay"
Middle-aged woman: I just had to come back and take another look, I thought you were David Archuleta and then I had to tell myself "David Archuleta doesn´t have a baby!" So then I knew you weren´t him, but you look a lot like him!
Leo: "Uh, thanks!"

So, look here in this post for a photo of David Archuleta...do you think my almost 30-year old husband looks like a 17 year old wannabe pop star from season 7 of American Idol? And yes, Leo is channeling his inner Zoolander for the picture. :)

Happy Easter!

Today was extremely tiring for me! I spent most of the day yesterday cooking and getting ready for the Easter dinner today. I wanted to have a huge spread of food and invite Leo's family over for dinner because they had just gotten home from Washington yesterday and I was sure they wouldn't want to cook. And it's also traditional in my family to have a big Easter dinner, every excuse we have to eat, we use!

SO! Yesterday I made:

• Carrot cake (and it turned out!!!! I had to kind of guestimate the adaptions to the recipe for high altitute, we're over 7500 feet here...) The first time I tried to make carrot cake here, I didn't know the tricks to make my oven work, or how to adjust recipes for high altitudes or adjust cooking times/temps and the result was a burned mass on the outside, and barely cooked enough on the inside...blech! But it still tasted good...hahaha
• My aunt's Refrigerator rolls (didn't turn out, it was too cold and the rolls didn't rise enough so they came out kind of dense), my aunt is still the undisputed queen of these rolls!
• Since I can't find the canned French's Fried Onions, I had to make my own fried onions so I started by marinating the onion rings in ranch dressing.
• Pineapple sauce for the ham - since I couldn't find crushed pineapple, I had to have Leo crush it for me.

Today I made the:

• Potatoes and Onions with the Lipton's Onion soup mix. These are SO easy and SO yummy!
• Mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow fluff mixed in - this reminded me of the candied yams my grandma used to make and she'd put in miniature marshmallows. I had a jar of marshmallow fluff that somebody had given me that was set to expire so I thought "What the heck?!" Sooooo yummy!
• The ham - Costco makes it easy! One minute to make the glaze, heat up the ham, put the glaze on and voila!
• The green bean casserole. Since I could not find canned green beans, I had to buy the green beans, steam them and then make the casserole. Even yummier than my mom's (sorry Mom!)
• The fried onion rings for the green bean casserole topping - since they had to marinate overnight, I fried them today in a bran/flour breading.

When writing down the dinner menu, it doesn't seem like that much work, and I knew it would be a lot of work because I do this every Thanksgiving and Easter, it was fun and I'm glad almost everything turned out!

SO! Dinner was a hit, my in-laws gave me permission to marry Leo (a family joke every time I cook something that turns out really yummy)

So that was happy...I was tired and took a much-needed nap after dinner.

Tiago ate green beans for the first time today! He's getting much more coordinated than before, he's reaching for toys now and he can pass toys from one hand to the other and back again. It's exciting to see him grow and progress, I just can't get enough of him!

Leo left tonight for Spain. He's got 13 hour flight (or something like that) straight to Paris, then he has a two hour layover in Paris, and then a two hour flight to Barcelona, Spain. He'll be back next Sunday... :(

He really did not want to go, I think I was more excited for him to go to Barcelona than he was! I did some research and gave him a list of some places that he had to go try and visit this week! It's our goal to move to Barcelona sometime in the next 5 years as General Manager of the office there, once Leo gets his MBA. Becoming a GM or a VP is the next step up for Leo from where he is now.

Well, this has been a long post, so long for now!

Tiago's first time in the pool!

Today we took Tiago down to the pool for his first time swimming! He looked soooo cute in his little bathing suit and he had lots of fun splashing around in the water! Here are some pictures of his first time swimming! And we realized today just HOW much water a diaper could hold! Sheesh!
















"What do you mean I can't mix florals and stripes?"

















"I'm looking good! See, I've even got the underwear-showing-underneath-my-baggy-pants-look rocking!"

















"Do you think the ladies will go for the Buddha look when I'm older?"




"Daddy, THIS is how you play in the pool! You splash and get water in your face!"

Leo comes home today!

Leo is coming home today from Colombia! This is the first time he has been gone for so long since the birth of Tiago...10 days! We didn't get to talk much while he was down there because international rates from hotel phones are notoriously expensive! And he stinks at writing emails!

He called me for 10 minutes from Cali, Colombia where he was on Friday to Sunday, and he checked his hotel bill and saw that that phone call had cost the company $90 DOLLARS! So needless to say, we didn't talk much.

Vonage has a worldwide plan that we will probably get that includes free calls to 60 countries for free (well, $40 a month but that beats $90 for 10 minutes!)

I'm excited to see him again and I can't wait to go pick him up from the airport!

March Madness

Well, I'm sitting here posting stuff to craigslist.com in Mexico City for sale. We're trying to sell most of our big stuff to either repurchase in the US or buy something else that we like better. We don't want to have to deal with the risks of things breaking or getting damaged, and we don't like waiting for forever to get our stuff, either! So the less we have, the better it will be!

Anyhow, so I was looking at the news and I saw headlines about the annual college basketball event called March Madness.

Many offices, friends, networks, wards, whatever...participate and gamble in filling out brackets that list each of the beginning games, then it is your job to guess who is going to win each, who will be paired up for the next game, who will win that one and so forth until you pick the national champion. You are only given the pairings of the first game, it is up to you to determine which teams lose and which teams move on from there on out.

Lots of skill, thought, technique and knowledge goes into picking the winner of each bracket. It helps to be on top of sports news and know the coachs' styles and each team's strengths and weaknesses. If you are the person that wins the bracket, many times you win a prize. If you've gambled on it, you could win lots of money.

About 7 years ago while I was at BYU (yikes! Has it been that long?!?!?!), my home teacher was a guy named Chris Seifert who wrote for the BYU newspaper's sports section. He was truly a humble guy, but he proud of his Nebraska heritage. He said that in Nebraska, there's nothing to do except farm corn or play sports (and I would rather play sports than farm corn!), so you can't help but get into sports if you're a Nebraskan.

Anyhow, Chris and his roommates decided to organize a March Madness bracket selection for the BYU 149th ward. There was no charge to enter, this was purely for fun.

Each person who wanted to participate was given a sheet with the intial games and then we were to fill out the rest according to how we thought the playoffs would go. Many guys I knew spent hours filling out that sheet, analyzing the facts and weighing their opinions.

I on the other hand, picked my teams according to the limited knowledge I had. I also knew that sometimes the underdog is determined to be the top dog, so sometimes the lower seeds would beat the higher seeds. I also picked some teams because I liked their names. I didn't pick the winner, though so my technique must not have worked so well. I think I spent maybe an hour on it and I handed my sheet in to Chris and forgot about it.

Chris and his roommates kept track of everybody's results and at the end of March Madness, when the National College Basketball Champion was crowned, they tallied up the results. I'm not sure how the tallying worked but they had it down.

One night a few days after the end of March Madness, I got a knock on my door. Sports-writer Chris Seifert was standing at my door with a sheepish look on his face and a super-jumbo sized box of Whoppers in his hand.

I had won! Unbelievably, I with my almost random manner of picking my teams had bested all of the sports "experts" in my ward! Chris was a wonderful sport and he said that the prize was a box of whoppers for the person who committed the whopping feat of winning (yeah, corny but so what?)

So it just goes to show...you can't always trust the experts in stuff as volatile as the stock market, or March madness!

Grandma Belcher's Funeral

Grandma Belcher's funeral was the first event of the new year, unfortunately. But she was ready to go and we are all glad that she's where she's been wanting to go for many years. It was on the 3rd of January and we had the services at the Heil Building in Huntington Beach. This was my first funeral and it wasn't as sad as I thought it would be.


I had had a difficult time making it to California for the funeral. For several days I was trying to find a way to get a notorized letter giving Leo's permission for me to travel alone with Tiago, but we found out on Saturday the 29th of December, there was no way I could get a letter on Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday (because Monday and Tuesday were New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and nobody would be in the office), and then I had to leave on Wednesday. So I had to leave Tiago with Leo and have Leo, Denhi and his family help take care of him.


I was to leave on Wednesday morning around 8:30 and arrive in the early afternoon, in time to meet with all the other grandchildren at Grandma's house to pick out stuff that we wanted to keep. However, after waiting in line for what seemed like forever, I got up to the ticket counter and the agent pointed out that I didn't have my passport with me, I had grabbed Tiago's. My blood went cold as I realized I wouldn't make the flight. I called Leo and had him rush down to the airport (I had taken a taxi b/c we didn't want to wake Tiago up at 5:30 in the morning). But he didn't make it in time and I had to fly on standby to Atlanta and then fly standby from Atlanta to LA, thank goodness I made it onto the first flight from each place, but I still didn't get into California until around 11:00 at night.


The funeral itself was nice, I got to see some family that I hadn't gotten to see at Thanksgiving, like Staci, Jason and the kids, and they could all see that I was recovering from the depression I had gone through in November. I also got to see Lisi and Jake again which was nice because now that Lisi's married, I'm not going to see them as often!

Dad, Mom, Me, Lisi and Jake

My cousin Staci and Jason Kling with their kids Aubri, Avah, Grant and Lexi

I had always wanted to play the piano for my grandma's funeral, because it was on her piano that I learned how to play the hymns. I would pass hours playing most of the hymns in the hymnbook in order, never realizing that I was building up a skill that would come in handy for me. So for the viewing, I sat at the piano and played comforting hymns.


Grandma looked beautiful in the casket. She looked peaceful and happier than she'd been in years. She was no longer in pain and she was finally reunited with her husband, a day she'd been waiting for for 35 years. She had been a widow longer than she had been married.


As I was playing the piano, Lexi (Staci's daughter) asked my mom to go up with her to look at Grandma. She's about 4 years old at this time and when they got to the front and saw Grandma's torso in the half-open casket, she asked my mom in her loud, cartoonish voice "What happened to Grandma's legs?" So that made my mom laugh, and of course I did too when she told me the story.


After the viewing, we went in for the funeral and I played the piano for the services. Lisi sang "I Believe" by Kory Kunz and I played a piano arrangement of "Families Can Be Together Forever." Because we can. It was Grandma who I remember most teaching me about the Plan of Salvation, showing me the diagram and explaining what happens to us. She would do this and tell me that she would be with Grandpa Belcher again in the next life. I wanted to play that song as a testimony and also as a thank-you to Grandma. In a way, I also wanted to remind my inactive cousins that there is a plan, that the Church is true and why won't they come back?


After the services were over, we drove to Westminster Memorial to hold the graveside service for Grandma. Dad dedicated the grave and then we were free to mingle and share memories of Grandma. Lisi couldn't stop crying, she was very affected by Grandma's death. I on the other hand, had prepared myself for a while that this was going to happen. I am going to miss her, but I am also happy for her because I know that she wasn't living a full happy life the way she was for the past couple of years after her stroke. I'm so glad she is finally with her husband again, and I can't wait to see her again.


We went back to the Heil building where my cousin Lindsay's boyfriend, JJ had catered lunch for us. He is the owner of El Azteca restaurant on Main Street in Garden Grove, with all of its Elvis memorabilia. So it was after lunch when we took advantage of the majority of the family being together to take pictures. Todd was the only grandchild that couldn't make it down, he is a manager at Best Buy in Fort Collins, Colorado, and of course New Year's is one of their busiest times so he couldn't make it. It was also during this lunch while we were pigging out on Joy Cook's delicious carrot cake (she says she used Grandma's recipe, Grandma was famous for her carrot cake, but it wasn't Grandma's recipe...oh well!) and cheesecake, that I found out about the challenge that Aunt Sheila, Meghan, Staci, Amanda and a couple of Aunt Sheila's friends had set up. Each person contributed $50 to a pot and whoever loses the largest percentage of body weight by June 1st will get all the money. I intend to win. So I didn't have the cheesecake at the funeral. :)


So are some more pictures we took.

My cousin Meghan, Dave and Diego Bautista. Diego is about 17 months here.

Uh, this is everybody! Family and extended family

Aunt Sheila and my Mom

New Beginnings

Well, here I am at the beginning of a new project. I learned through a friend, Janelle Nutter who had in turn learned from a friend of hers, that online blogs can be published into a book. So this friend of hers decided to publish one book every year and use the blogs from that year as a sort of family history.



I thought this sounded like a great idea, keeping family history while keeping family and friends informed of our lives at the same time! I know that many aren't going to follow our lives through the blog, it is more for us and posterity than it is for anybody else! This is my second attempt at blogging, the first time, I tried to set up a blog on myspace.com but it didn't work out too well because not all my family and friends had a myspace account, so it didn't get out to as many people as I had hoped, besides I became disenchanted with the whole myspace experience, too many viruses and hackers made it extremely inconvenient to say the least.

I decided to call it Monkey business because that was a nickname that Leo had come up with for me, "Monkey" and then I really liked the Paul Frank Julius monkey clothes, and it just sort of morphed into a symbol for the family. Also, at every Family Home Evening, after the opening prayer, we conduct "Monkey Business," coordinating our weeks and discussing what's going on in our lives. So it seemed an appropriate title.


At the time of this writing, Tiago will be turning 6 months in 3 days, Leo is in Colombia for work and I am at home, writing this! I am currently doing a cleanse to help jump start a healthier lifestyle for myself and my family! We are in Mexico City, and we are moving back to Utah next month because of Leo's promotion to Field Development International Director of 4Life Research.

As part of this post, I decided to include pictures that I took of Tiago on Friday the 7th of March. I decided to strip Tiago down to his diaper and put a towel to cover his car seat (we don't have a high chair yet!). I was feeding him chayote (a squash) and rice cereal, but he decided he'd rather explore his feet and blow bubbles in his food than eat it.