How grateful we are!

I just finished going through our finances and I'm happy to see the blessings of Heavenly Father in our lives. I almost can't believe the numbers that I'm seeing. I'm grateful for all the grants, scholarships, and the opportunity to attend Brigham Young University (BYU). I'm grateful for the tithe payers that made possible the excellent inexpensive schooling that Emily and I have received. With both of our bachelors in science (BS) and Emily's $7500 internship by the time I start dental school we would only have close to a $3000 debt all together. I appreciate Emily helping me live a frugal life and a life within our means. We don't have fancy cars (nor a car payment), or cool phones or texting for that matter, but we do have peace of mind. Especially that neither of us is working (Emily is working for free), I can definitely see the blessings of tithing. We have everything that we need and some of the things we want, but keeping everything in perspective has been crucial. For some people paying 10% of their income might be hard or almost impossible, but for us it has been proven to be a blessing beyond measure. We don't feel poor at all, but rich in blessings. We are very happy!

Let him be little!!

Luke is pretty smart! No that I want to brag or anything... maybe just a little. Bye bye sippy cups and diapers!

Just kidding, he is still using diapers, it is a work on process though. Since he was a little sick we didn't work on it. He really doesn't like his sippy cup now. He wants a glass so we've been giving him a plastic glass and he does pretty well.

Here is a video that my cousin Steph, who lives in Miami, shared with me. I really liked this video.

Luke is growing so fast and I want him to be little for a little longer at least. I love him so much and I feel so blessed that I can be his dad.

Here is a video of Luke saying no!

Why is it so hard......

to go to school when this little guy is at the window!!!!

I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be with him 24/7! I'll admit that sometimes I can get tired, but I love him! My time as a stay home dad is running out. I'll miss it.

I'm also sooo VERY proud of my wife and all her hard work. I am glad that she is doing her internship. If you think about it... being a new mom and finishing her Bachelors in Science (BS) degree was tough, but she did it! Way to go baby! I love you forever!

Dental School Journey

Who knew that applying to dental school would be so expensive, time consuming, stressful and expensive, did I mention that already! Well it is!!!! So far I've spent $4500-$5000 in this entire process. This includes applications fees, prep course for the DAT, registration for the DAT, flights, car rental, applications fee, etc, etc, etc. I'm super glad is almost over....almost...

I applied to 11 schools, got interviewed at 7 and got accepted into all of them. When applying I was considered a Utah resident (Utah doesn't have a dental school). That means that it doesn't matter where I go I'll be paying out state tuition which is usually $20,000 more per year . People made fun of me for applying to Baylor and Houston since they don't take a lot of people out of state. In fact, Houston only took 2 out of state students last year and Baylor only 5. I thought it was worth the change since tuition + living expenses is so much less for both schools, and it was only $170 more to apply.

Here is a list of the dental schools I interviewed at and the TOTAL cost for 4 years.

1) Baylor $165,776 (incl. scholarship for $50000, because I'll be paying in state)

2) Houston $233,044

3) Iowa $247,336 (includes a $60000 scholarship)

4) Oklahoma $360,000

5) Louisville $319,304

6) Maryland $372,856

7) Nova $389,376

I don't know why I keep going back and forward between Baylor and Houston!! I really like Houston and their new building, everything is going to be new!! I really liked the atmosphere there and how friendly students and faculty were. It is though $67,268 more expensive than Baylor.

Baylor is an amazing school as well, the only thing that bothers me a little is that they do all their LAB work (pretty much all of it), and that is really time consuming. I don't know if it's worth it to do all your lab work since dentist always send everything(crowns, bridges, etc) to a lab. Having Emily and Luke is a huge blessing to me, and I want to make sure I have enough time for them.

Seriously I don't know!!! It really boils to do I want to pay $67,268 for someone to do my lab work so that I can spend more time with family, or do I suck it up and endure 2 years of brutal lab work (That's why their labs are open 24/7 for no reason). Also the facilities are going to be way nicer at Houston. Baylor does all their lab work in the basement (no windows), Houston does them on the 3rd floor (with windows!) in their NEW building.

Wherever we end up going, I just want to say that I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for this blessing, my wife for her support and my little Luke for the inspiration, motivation he gives me.

I really don't know where to go, I will sure appreciate your comments about the schools, the city, whatever you know about Dallas or Houston.

School web sites.

http://www.db.uth.tmc.edu/ (Houston)

http://bcd.tamhsc.edu/ (Baylor in Dallas)

Cookie dough .... Anyone?

I can totally blame it on our oven! LOL

I am not a good baker at all! I mean how hard can it be to follow a 'simple' recipe, right? I have experience following recipes since I've taken Organic chemistry lab, but these cookies were something else!

I tried to make delicious chocolate chip cookies for Emily for Valentine's day and they just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. Burned on the bottom and gooey inside!

Anyway.... I'll keep trying.

From right to left: 1st batch, 2nd batch, etc

deliciously uncooked! These cookies are great for milk shakes!

Luke and I visited Emily at work with flower and balloons. I tied the balloons to his wrist, it was so cute (sorry no picture on that). Afterwards We went to Tucanos for Emily's birthday. We ate so good. I love their fried bananas!

My little man

Next project: cheese cake

Interesting things about Luke.

1)He is not afraid of using the big toilet. He has gone number 2 twice this last week.

2)When he wakes up from a nap he sticks his fingers in his mouth, so I usually tell him "No en la boca" which means "not in your mouth". I thought he understood what I meant but he proved me wrong. The other day he had one of Emily's shoes in his mouth and of course I told him "no en la boca", he dropped the shoe and stuck his fingers in his mouth!! So I put it to the test and said again "no en la boca" and each time he will smile and stick his fingers in his mouth.

3) He is a little monkey. He can climb on everything!!! Nothing is safe on top of the table anymore. Is there such a thing as baby proof for chairs? Anyway.. he knows how to pull the chair out and climb on it to use the laptop! (I have a video on this, but I'm not planning to spent an hour uploading a 20 second video here)

4) He is really good at eating on his own. He wouldn't have it any other way.

It is so annoying to upload pictures... it takes for ever!!! I even resized them all! Why is the blog so slow???

Trial and error! ; )

"Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again."

Potty training is going great! We've had too many accidents to even keep track (he's only 13 months) but I'm happy to say that all of them have been on the kitchen floor. I usually use chairs to block the entry to the carpet area (living room, stairs, etc). Luke thinks we are playing some sort of game where he is constantly trying to escape (with his butt naked I might add...) to the carpet area. I guess he doesn't like to pee on the floor because he slips and can't get back up. I am proud to announce that he has recognized when he needs to pee and doesn't feel like slipping on his own pee ; (. He's told me twice so far when he needs to pee. He started stomping his foot like crazy so I placed him on the potty and he went! You should've seen how happy I was and how intrigued Luke seemed to be. I praised him soooo much! Ohhh he is such a good little boy. I've also noticed that he doesn't really care if he has a diaper on so he won't tell me. Since I have to memorize tons of new words each week for anatomy it's hard to always keep an eye on him. I usually have him without a diaper the entire morning, while I'm preparing breakfast, doing dishes ( we don't have a dish washer so it takes for ever), and Luke is either eating, coloring or trying to escape.

As I was writing this post he was without a diaper and I noticed he was pushing! So I placed him on the potty and he went number 2 for the FIRST time!!!!! I am thrilled.

Here are some pictures, enjoy!

Being a little bit shy

Giving us his best rear view

Coloring

Coloring again

Just went number 2!

I'm trying to potty train him because all of my siblings and including myself were potty trained before 18 months, so I know it is doable. We'll see how it goes.

Next post...Emma's birthday!

Happy 50th Birthday Gramma!

Luke is QUITE the artist, don't you think???

Happy Birthday Ma! We love you so so much. We dedicate this post to you and your love and all that makes you, "you"!
We love your laugh.
We love your smile.
We love your sense of humor!
We love your style.
We love your need for new pictures!

We love your cooking skills.

We love your love!

We love your dedication to us.

We love your grace.

We love your spontaneity.

and here are some extra random pictures that I accidentally uploaded and decided to leve on because I know you love pictures of Luke!

A few updates.

Luke is 13 months and growing. Today we went to the playground and he loved it. He was all over the place, he even went down the slide ALL by himself.

Emily is doing her internship and she is loving it. This Friday is her last day up in the WIC clinic up in Salt Lake after a long month (thank goodness because it is a lot of driving). Her next rotation is in Springville, Nebo district (only 6 min away!! hurray!).

Luke has been coloring so much lately. He has a pretty good grip with crayons, sharpie, etc! We don't have any piece of art from him on our walls yet. He is also really good with baby spoons and forks since he feeds himself. I also started potty training Luke and it lasted one day! LOL

He likes sitting on his new potty since it has the cushy seat and all. We were reading books for about 30 minutes and nothing..... but guess what, as soon as I stood up he went number 1 on the kitchen's floor. I'll keep trying, but I won't stress about it. I know he's only 13 months. Any suggestions????Oh I almost forgot, he knows how to flush the real toilet!

A funny note is that I've been noticing that Luke likes to baby-sit. He sits on top of babies when ever he has a chance to, it is funny (sorry, no pictures yet) .

Luke's favorite vegetables are broccoli with a little bit of butter and corn.

I'm enjoying being with Luke 24/7 and I'm also taking an anatomy class before I start dental school on August 16th. This week in anatomy we'll be working with real cadavers. I'm learning all the muscles and all that good stuff.

Emma's b-day is almost here. What should I do this year.....?

I know this post is all over the place, I just wrote whatever came to mind as you can probably tell.

Chao! Y por favor si leen esto comenten. jaja

I just thought this was hilarious!

A few weeks ago Emily and I went to Divine comedy @ BYU. It was so much fun. This is one of the videos they showed with all the inside jokes (mormons, BYU, etc). Check it out!

I love Luke! I love playing with him!

This post is all about LUKE, and you have grandma K to blame for; so if you don't like reading about babies this is not your post ; )

Luke 1 year. He is still a drooler.

I love him so much!

These pictures are after a bath. He always makes me chase him to get him dressed.

After the battle and a little bribe to let him use my phone I have him all dressed up.

Luke's 1st b-day morning. Although I don't think he liked the way we sung, I'm pretty sure he'll love this video when he's older. I grateful for technology these days allowing us to treasure sweet moments like this one. Luke's 1st b-day video. (Blogger just takes forever!)

Here is another video of Luke walking. He loves mandarins, so of course he walked! And if you didn't have enough, here is another one!

Here is ANOTHER video of me playing with Luke. He loves to be chased! I know I make funny noises but I don't care, I think he enjoys that the most!

Here is Luke thinking that his bowl is some sort of helmet. I laughed at his silliness and then he started laughing with me.

And of course all this joy wouldn't be possible without the love of my life, Emily!
Next post will be about our lovely winter!!!




PS: Uploading videos to the blog is a nightmare. I tried to do it 4 different times. From now on I'll just use facebook for videos.