Emily Prego (21 weeks )

We were looking at pictures of Emily pregnant with Luke and at 21 weeks she looks exactly the same. What a beautiful mom! Luke and I LOVE you very much!!!

Oh my dear Emily!

As you all know we are moving pretty soon to TX. I'm already putting all of our books into boxes and I came across these two newspapers. This is what it says:

"It had never happened, not once since the Thurston High School tennis courts were built in 1989. Year after year, the Thruston girls team lost to Sheldon. Then on Tuesday, the streak ended."

Emily went to Thruston and was on the tennis team that year. I miss playing tennis with my wife and hopefully once she has Sam we will play again.

I hope you can see her now on this one. Doesn't she have a beautiful smile : )

And I also found this one and thought it was cool.

I also found a random newspaper and I went through every single page trying to find something about Emily or something!!!!, didn't find a thing! Later I asked Emily why she keeps that newspaper and she said that it was Jan 1 2000! Hahahaha. I guess kids thought it was cool that it was the year 2000! All I remember about the year 2000 is that some people thought it was the end of the world..... glad to still be alive!

Meet Sam!

So here are two names that we are thinking. Samuel Benson Darquea or Logan Benson Darquea. I like "Sam" way better than Samuel but Emily doesn't want any more short names, so we are almost 100% sure that his name will be Samuel Benson Darquea and everyone can call him SAM. We also like Logan but starts with an 'L' and Emily doesn't like that.

Any way here is another picture of our little Sam. We love you Sam and we are so excited for your arrival! Can't wait to hold you in my arms and give you tons tons of love. We'll teach Luke how to say your name and since he is pretty smart he'll know it even before you get here. Luke is so good with babies, you don't worry!

It's time for an update : )

So we had our ultrasound appointment today and we found out the gender of our second baby. We were so excited to see it's little body on the screen. We have it all in video but it's hard to see the 'full' baby! You have to have pretty good imagination! With Luke's video it was so easy to see his kicking legs and still people couldn't see it. Any way this baby was a little, tiny turkey :) It was rolled up like a little ball with it's knees and feet up his face and facing Emma's spine. (Can you picture that). It was hard to get to see it fully. We don't have a picture of it's profile but all we know is that the heart is perfect, kidneys are working and that choroid plexus in the brain are the right size. We got to see the stomach and the bladder with fluid which is totally normal. We also saw the cerebellum, the spine, the placenta(perfect condition and super attached to the uterus) and the GENDER! Although that was hard to get a good picture of as well! The little booger had it's hands down covering it's privates while we were trying to get a good look... It didn't help that the umbilical cord was right in the way too! I was happy that the Dr. took the time to explain what we were looking at, but it was even better that both of us understood what it was. We also learned why Emily doesn't show! We learned that the cervix is just really far back, so the baby likes to sink into it an stays really far back in her abdomen.

Our baby!

Hand and 5 little fingers!

Gender

We are so excited to have another BOY (just in case you couldn't tell from the picture). We don't have a name yet. This baby will be born Nov 3rd! We are so excited : )

I have two Emilys in my life!

The older Luke gets the more he looks like Emily. This is such an Emily look! I love it!

Update on my Internship!

Hey, so you might be wondering what Emily has been up to and why she has not written a blog post in such a long time! (I thank Francisco for being such a good blogger and keeping it updated for our few faithful readers.)

Well, along with being pregnant and the joys that come with that, I have been spending my time learning the skills of a dietitian.

I started in January driving up to Salt Lake every day to the South Main WIC clinic. This rotation was 1 month long. WIC is "Women, Infants, and Children" and is a government supplemental nutrition program. While I was at WIC, I shadowed several dietitians, counseled clients on how to improve their diets using the foods that WIC gives them, and created several handouts and bulletin boards for nutrition education. I also taught a breastfeeding class!

Overall, I LOVED working at the WIC clinic. I loved the people I worked with, I loved the work I did, and I liked having the strict schedule of clients regularly coming in. We were always busy doing things that were fun! I could definitely see myself working at a WIC clinic in the future.

Next, I went to the Nebo School District in Spanish Fork. This rotation is 13 weeks and I am still here! It has been a ridiculously long time to spend in one rotation, but I have been trying to stay busy.

Some things I have done while here:
- Promoted National School Breakfast Week at a junior high where we played games, won prizes, and had music. It was pretty fun. Our school might be featured in the National School Nutrition Association Magazine next month-- we'll see! This was also featured in the Spanish Fork Net, a local (and very small) TV network.

This is one of the posters I made to advertise breakfast week. (The national theme was breakfast detectives and so we made it pink panther breakfast detectives because their mascot is the panther!)
The second picture is me and Alice, the lunch clerk who helped me pull this off! We are behind the mystery fruit booth where they had to guess what the fruit was. We had dates, mango, papaya, coconut, and Asian pears.

- I've done quite a few studies in the cafeterias looking at acceptability of the food. Those have been fun.
- My favorite part has been the child nutrition education segment of this rotation. I planned with teachers from all different grades to come and teach a nutrition lesson to their class(es). I LOVE teaching. especially nutrition. I thought I would like teaching elementary school best, but I found out that I really liked teaching the high school kids! Of course the elementary kids are ADORABLE and so sweet, but I think if I had to do this long term, all their comments and stories and questions would just drive me a little crazy. When I was with the high schoolers, I felt like I could be more myself. I could joke with them, be a little sarcastic with them, and really relate with them. It was nice to be respected as a professional and yet not feel like I was so much older than them.

So, I totally learned something new about myself! I would rather work with highschoolers than with elementary schoolers. (and the middle schoolers were the hardest!) Who woulda guessed? I could see myself working for a school district teaching nutrition classes to each grade level. That would be super fun!

Overall with this rotation, I haven't found a love for school nutrition or food service. Sure, it's a worthy cause to work on and always changing, but the atmosphere is just a little too laid back for me. It has taught me a lot though. I've learned that I DO NOT want to sit at a desk for all or most of the day. I hate that. I like to be with people and hopefully TEACHING people something. I feel a lot more comfortable discussing nutrition with people now.

Anyway, this internship has been fun. I'm excited to see more aspects of dietetics. Next is a long term care facility, an inpatient hospital, and a diabetes center! Fun stuff!

Arizona Trip!

My aunt, Ivan and Aprilee

Luke and I went to Arizona for my cousin's sealing. As a missionary in Colombia I used to tell some of the people I taught that if they got married in the temple I would come (at that time I didn't know I'll be living so far away). My cousin Ivan, his wife Aprilee and their 3 children were sealed for all time and eternity. Temple marriage, I believe, to be very sacred. I felt a great need to go. It was a beautiful sealing and it was touching to see how each child was sealed to them. I'm so happy for them, so happy to see how they live the gospel.

I can sincerely tell you that the 10.5 hour trip was WAY worth it. The Mesa temple is beautiful inside and I was able to feel a spirit of peace and happiness. I even remembered my own sealing and missed my sweet Emma even more.

The trip wasn't bad at all. Luke is just the perfect baby! Seriously he didn't cry once! My aunt Jacqueline and cousin Michelle came with us. Michelle did an awesome job entertaining him and she even taught him where his eyes are. My aunt Jacqueline can talk for ever and ever. I learned so much about my grandparents, how they met, how they raised their children, how they died, etc, etc, etc. It was very, very good.

Michelle was so good to him!

We had fun in Arizona, we even went to the pool because it was 99 degrees! Luke thinks he is a big boy and didn't want me to hold him. He would go underneath the water completely and I will have to take him out and he would just start laughing... what a turkey!

A quick update of Luke.

~ Knows how to turn on the laptop.

~ Knows how to plug in the mouse and the charging cord.

~ Knows how to put my phone to charge.

~ Knows where his belly button and his eyes are.

~ Knows what "zapatos" means. (shoes)

~ Knows what "vamos a orar" means and folds his arms. (It is so sweet to watch him do it). (Let's pray)

~ Knows what "siéntate" means and he sits.
~ Knows "Que hace el leon?" and he roars! (What does a lion say?)

~ When we say "ojitos" (little eyes), he starts blinking like crazy. I know it sounds really silly but it is so cute to watch.

~ Loves beans with rice. Seriously I need to take a picture of his face after he's done eating.

~ He speaks more Spanish than English I believe, in fact I don't think that he knows any commands in English. I seriously want him to speak Spanish. I know that he will pick up on English really fast. Being bi-lingual is a huge advantage and me being from Ecuador I have no excuse not to teach him.

Let's just say... we are going to have more pumpkins!!!! : )

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!