Saturday, January 28, 2012

Loving life!

After school is always nice to spend a little bit of time with Luke and Sam. I love playing with my boys!

Luke building a wall! He loves building stuff


Seriously Sam is a happy boy.

Luke loves roller coasters, we kept playing this for half hour! I was tired!

I wish I could take credit for this, but all goes to Emily, our artist!


This week has been pretty busy at school, but I'm glad that I have an amazing wife that teaches me how to make awesome dinners. This is the recipe of an easy and soooo delicious. I guess I'll spread the love.

Ingredients:
I large frying chicken (at least 3 lbs)
2 Tb minced garlic (Use less with fresh garlic)
2 Tb dried parsley
2 Tb dried oregano
2 Tb salt (I don't think it needs this much salt, WE ONLY USE 3/4 of a Tbs)
1/2 c cooking oil
Pepper to taste

Wash whole chicken and dry welll inside and out with paper towel. Mix all spices and oil together and spread over chicken in side and out. Bake at 400 for 1 hour, basting frequently(we do it every 15 min). Serve over rice. Serve juice from pan over rice.




Seriously it's so good!









Sunday, January 22, 2012

Quick update

Luke has decided to wake up at 3 am to check up on us..... it drives me crazy. He did it like 4 times last week. The worst part is that he wants to watch "Go Diego go" and trust me, it is not exactly what I want to do at 3 am in the morning. On top of everything I wake up with this huge headache and then have to go to go school from 8 am to 4 pm and come home and study some more..... This routine is already wearing on me. Hopefully Luke will go back to his old routine. Needless to say I still love him very much!


Dental school is going great, I think this semester seems that is going to be a bit easier than last one. Now we are drilling on teeth and all that dentistry stuff. This is my first dental cast, I think it looks pretty good. My first try I was too slow that the alginate set before getting the typodont impression, live and learn right?



We got a Book of Mormon for Luke and he loves it! Sorry that the volume on the video is bad. Now that he knows the alphabet he loves to point out his favorite letters. He pretends he can read, it is very cute. He is growing so fast and finally he's fully potty trained except for naps and at night.


The sound is super bad, so you might need to turn up your speakers.
Not only is he getting up early, but he wants to start shaving!


Oh and I almost forgot to mention that Sam is getting his first mandibular tooth! Crazy he's only 3 months!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Pictures for the grandmas!

It really stinks not having family around, especially when I don't have school. Anyway we'll survive I'm sure and here are some pictures of Luke and Sam.


He is always smiling. We have a very happy boy.



2nd semester has started and I have developed the gift to fall asleep within 5 min!

It's hard to take a picture of both of them smiling,

Sam will survive.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Sam the Lamb

So I made a lamb costume for Sam for Halloween. Even though it was in a newborn size, it was ginormous on his little 5lb. body. He did wear the hat and pants for Halloween but the shirt swallowed him whole! We we re a little preoccupied and didn't get adequate pictures of the event. So a few weeks ago, I did a little photo shoot so that we could remember his sweet little costume. He wasn't very happy to have the costume on then or now. I guess it wasn't very comfortable.
King of the bed!


Sweet little tail!


I love the ears!




Here are some pictures of Sam from today! My mom wanted to know what he looks like now so here he is! He is a cutie and loves to smile! He also coos and talks to us a ton! We are still waiting for a giggle, but it is sure to come soon. and Yes, his eyes are still blue. :) We are so proud. haha



Wednesday, January 4, 2012

I cut Luke's hair


My sister in law Sarah showed me how to cut Luke's hair so I did it! I think he looks very handsome. I can't believe how fast this little guy is growing. Today as he was walking  home with Emily from play group Luke noticed the letters that labeled each of the carports, so he starting saying "A e e i i a b" meaning the alphabet. Then he noticed the stop sign had letter on it, then he noticed that all the cars have letters on the license plates; he was so excited to see that letters are everywhere. 




Just like papi he wanted to have gel on his hair. 


Not a great pic, but he is smiling...
                              
Ohh have we mentioned that Sam has a dimple in his right cheek just like mami. It is so cute. 

Monday, January 2, 2012

The Park





Luke loves the park and I love seeing his beautiful smiling face. He is so brave and fearless.... 


Enjoy winter weather in Dallas (We couldn't believe that it is so warm 76°)
Mi preciosa






I guess Sam didn't like the park so much

Gotta love his funny expressions


Mis amores!



Luke making fun of papi. I pretended to be stuck.

Friday, December 23, 2011

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


Okay, so it's actually looked a lot like Christmas for a while now. We were really good at getting the decorations up early; we were just late documenting it on the blog! I love Christmas time for the decorations. It just makes the home feel so cozy and bright. My mom always decorated a ton for Christmas every year. I always thought it was so beautiful as a kid. I loved the lighted garlands, the awesome nativity scene, and of course the tree. I remember we would even "organize" the presents to make it look like there were way more than there actually was. haha Every time a new present was put under the tree, we would have to re-organize them to make them perfect!

This is our fire place! I am so excited to finally have a fireplace and a mantle to decorate for Christmas! I LOVE our stockings. My grandma Betty Lundholm (my mom's mom) has crocheted or knitted (I actually don't really know the difference) stockings for all of her family. Each one is individual and different and the great-grandchildren's stockings even have their initial on theirs. I have received so many compliments on them and I am so proud to say that my Gramma made them. She is so talented! She also always makes blankets for the new great-grand babies. We use both of ours on a daily basis and love them! Thank you Gramma. We love you!



This is our Christmas card this year! It is the first one that we've made. We only send out a few to immediate family, so don't be offended if you didn't get one. No one did. :)


This is on our counter-top dividing the kitchen from the dining room. This is the ginger bread house that Luke calls "casha" (casa). You can see a few of the candies already missing from his snacking. He reminds me of Hansel and Gretel every time he wants a piece of "casha" because he could just keep eating and eating in pure oblivion.


Here is our Christmas tree! I absolutely love it! Another tradition my Gramma started was to buy an ornament for each of her grand children every year. Now that I have a tree of my own, I have 18 very special ornaments given to me by my grandparents. Each is labeled with my name and the year it was given.  Now my mom has started that same tradition with her grandchildren. It is so nice to have a unique and fun Christmas tree rather than just a tree with any old plain ornaments.

I saw something on facebook today that made me laugh. A friend wrote on her status: "Merry Christmas Adam! (the day before Christmas Eve)" haha

So, Merry Christmas Adam!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Our children.


SAM


Francisco: Yesterday as I was folding some of Sam's clothes I was filled with some sadness that he won't wear  some of those clothes anymore. He is finally moving from new born into 0-3month size (about time right?). I guess I felt sad because I'm not getting to spend as much time with him as I did with Luke and he is growing. My baby is growing. At night when I was getting ready to go to bed I felt happy that my clothes had Sam's baby smell on them. I love my two boys.

Emily: The boys had doctors appointments the other day. Sam was 10 lbs 3 oz. He has almost doubled in size! He was also 22 3/4 in. His weight, length, and head size were all riding around the 25th%ile. So he is very proportionate. He is perfectly healthy. He got 4 shots and had a rough time. He was fine at the beginning, but when we woke up from a nap a few hours later, he wouldn't stop screaming! It was so sad! You could tell it just hurt really bad. It also didn't help that Luke was jealous and tried to whack him with a toy golf club. Thankfully Luke has bad aim and only nicked his ear. We gave Sam some Tylenol and put heat packs on his legs which helped him a lot. He slept most of the day. The only problem was that all that sleeping made him wake up several times during the night!

Some milestones for Sam lately: He has started smiling like crazy! He is SO cute. and I'm pretty sure we heard his first giggle this morning. We will keep you posted if he continues that cuteness. He holds his head up pretty well, but he doesn't get a lot of tummy time because we are terrified of Luke stepping on him! So it might take him a little longer to start rolling over. He generally only wakes up once each night sometime between 3 and 5 depending on when we went to bed. When he is hungry, he is so funny he starts pumping his leg very rhythmically; just in and out. He will sort of fuss to let me know and then patiently waits for me to feed him, just pumping that leg. I have to get it on video! Overall, he is a very happy baby. We love him to pieces!


LUKE


Francisco: Luke is also growing so fast. He is learning the alphabet, numbers and colors. He knows green (verde), red (rojo), and blue (azul). He can associate the letter 'c' with casa (house),  'g' with globo (balloon), 'm' with mami, 'p' with pan (bread), 'u' with uva (grape). I'm pretty sure that at this point he is bilingual. His vocabulary is expanding in both in Spanish and English. I think though he knows more words in English since they are easier to say than in Spanish (eg. one syllable compare to 3 in Spanish). He watches TV in English and I only speak to him in Spanish. Emily also does a great job speaking to him in Spanish. I can honestly say that She's bilingual as well.

I have been trying to teach him that now he is two years old instead of one. So whenever I ask him how old he is (Cuántos años tienes?) now he says 'DOSH'. Which is actually dos (two). So yesterday I was with Sam and I asked Sam how old he was, and Luke came and whispered in Sam's ear DOSH. It was so adorable. I guess he is learning something!

Luke is also 'almost' potty trained. He's been 'almost' potty trained for a while, but he is getting better. He doesn't go number 2 on his own, it has to be on his diaper which is really annoying. We have to find a way to get it to go number 2 on the potty!  Number one is easy, even in public places like restaurants, church, etc. Now and then when he is too distracted playing he'll have an accident, but it doesn't happen very often.

Emily: Luke also went to the doctors. He weighed 25 lbs which is the 25%ile as well! I cannot remember his height, but it was in the 60%ile! I thought he was short but apparently he is tall! He hated the entire doctor appointment even though the only thing they really did was prick his finger to check iron status and for lead poisoning at the very end. He was happy to get a sucker, but then he dropped it as we were walking out the door, so we had to go back and get another. On our way home he passed out due to exhaustion with the sucker still in his mouth.

Luke is a very good boy. I am proud to report that he eats most of his veggies! His favorite is broccoli. He also still goes crazy for fruit. He will eat his fruit even before a cookie or a treat on his plate! We have a bit of a problem though. He was learned how to open the fridge. So, he will go and get the bag of grapes and sit down and have a feast! The other day he tried to eat a cube of butter! Yuck! We also bought go-gurt for the first time last week. (the yogurt in a tube). Anyway I gave him one and then left him at the table to eat it. After about 10 minutes I went to check on him knowing that a go-gurt does not take that long to eat! I found him still in his booster at the table with his elbow on the table and hand holding the tube up-side-down and resting on his forehead. He couldn't figure out how to get the yogurt out except to let it slowly drain up-side-down. It was so sweet, because I could tell he was so bored but he wanted to eat his yogurt!

Luke also loves to read! He can identify his books through the characters. For example, I can ask him to bring me the books with Corduroy and he will bring them! He loves characters. His favorites are: Elmo, Diego, Blue, Dora, Ming-Ming from TV and Corduroy, Biscuit, and Busytown from books. He also loves Mickey Mouse. He calls him "too-loo" because Mickey always says, "Oh Toodles!" The other night I put Luke to bed and I checked on him about an hour later to go and get his milk. I found him still awake with all his books all over his bed! What a good boy to stay in bed and read!

Luke loves to color. He can now draw faces and calls it "Papi". He loves for me to draw things. He always asks me to draw our family "papi, mami, baby, Guke" and trains "choo-choo". Maybe I am stupid but I trust him with pretty much any writing utensil by himself. He has free reign on colored pencils, some chalk and some crayons. I think he even has a pen in his room right now. But he has never really colored anything that he is not supposed to...

One last story: we made a ginger bread house a few weeks ago and Luke was so excited to realize it was made out of candy! Now, on a daily basis, he will ask to eat the "casha". It is slowly losing its decoration. haha.

We love our boys. They are so cute and sweet and even have fun together. Luke loves to go "night-night" with Sam in our bed. He loves to talk to him and make him smile. He says "Hi Nano!" "Mamo" (Te amo) and will squeal "Ai!" right in his face just like Papi. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family. They are the best!

Monday, December 19, 2011

I'm 1/8th of a dentist! : )

I finished one semester of dental school. And oh boy IT WAS HARD!
I took 39 exams, 11 quizzes, 6 gross anatomy presentations, 2 evidence based dentistry cases and lots of teeth that I waxed up! 
I'm writing this post to remember these long days of studying. Waking up at 5 am and studying till 10 pm pretty much everyday of the week including Saturday(Except for Sundays, of course). I ended up with pretty good grades and there might be a change that I end up specializing.... we'll see.
I'm grateful for the support of my sweet wife and my children. 
Dental school is NOT easy, in fact it is the HARDEST thing I've ever done. 

Christmas Pictures : )

Christmas is almost here and we are getting ready to spend it all by ourselves! Dental school has come with a LOT of sacrifices but I know that eventually it will pay off. Being far from family is hard, especially during the holidays but we will survive.  We feel very blessed to already have some good friends here in Texas. We are loving our new church ward and we totally feel part of it. 

Little Sam (almost 2 months) given us a bit of a smile.

Luke loves little Sam!
Luke is adjusting to Sam's arrival. Luke loves him but now and then he smacks him out of no-where!

Just couldn't resist that pin striped suit. Abuelita got it for him.


First smile caught on "film"



Luke wanted some pictures too.