Busy times

The past couple of weeks have flown by. We have been busy. Everyday I have to make sure our house is spotless, just in case someone wants to come by and see it. We have had a few nibbles, but no offers yet. There was a couple that looked at it yesterday that may put in an offer after Memorial Day, but I am trying not to get my hopes up. Also, yesterday the person that probably made the full price offer on our house when we bought it dropped in to see it. He liked it and asked if we would take a lower price. I told him we were entertaining offers so he should call and make one. He also asked if we would rent the house if we did not sell it. We had an open house last Saturday and had 10 different sets of people come through. All in all, I am excited about the prospect of selling our home.

Joseph likes to show me things now and says that he has learned to do this or "I can do this now." He is happy to be learning. He also recognizes all the letters in his name. He draws the letters H, L, J, and O. We are also working on getting him to drink more water. He doesn't like to drink plain water. We are keeping a chart of what he drinks everyday so he can see. It is funny because each day I go out to water the year and on occasion, I will get him wet and say that I am watering him so he can grow. He laughs and then says that water on the outside won't help him grow but water on the inside will (We had to have a long conversation about why he needed to drink more water).

Samuel likes to look around and touch the world around him. When I water the lawn, I usually have to carry him in one arm. He drools a ton. If I am not changing his outfit due to a blowout, I am changing it because he soaked it with drool (even with a bib on). He is more vocal about things. He hates tummy time. He is going bald in the back. He sleeps really well at night now. Usually he sleeps from 8 or 9 p.m. till 5 or 6 a.m. On rare occasions, he will wake up one time for a feeding. He had his 4 month check up a week ago. He weighed a little over 16 pounds (82nd percentile), is 25 inches long (67th percentile), and his head was in the 86th percentile (not nearly as big as Joseph's).

Joe's boss got fired at work on Thursday. He is such a nice guy and worked so hard. Joe's CFO called him into a meeting and said, "I have heard good things about you." He then told him that he has to step up. So, now they expect Joe to be the team lead, plus do his job...all without increasing his pay. It made me so mad that they are expecting more work and responsibility, but are not planning on compensating him in any way.

Samuel and Joseph

Here is a picture of our family. Samuel was blessed on Sunday. He is wearing the same baby outfit that Joseph wore, as well as the same one that his dad and uncles wore. It was a little snug, but it fit. If we had waited any longer, he would have burst out of it.

My boys. What a handsome bunch! :)
Joseph and his baby brother. Samuel still enjoys watching his big brother. He smiles lots when he sees him and he will turn his head in any direction.
Here is everyone that participated in the blessing (except for Joseph). I spent so much time in Texas and then trying to get our house in order that I failed to contact lots of family members. The only reason we had anyone there was that Joe reminded me at the last minute. Sorry to all ya'll Wades. We would have loved to have you there also. I hope there are no hard feelings. The blessing was sweet. I don't know if it is appropriate to blog about the baby blessing and the promises, so I will just say that I am grateful for the priesthood and that Heavenly Father is aware of us and loves us dearly. I am also glad that the microphone worked for Samuel's blessing. With Joseph's, I couldn't hear any of the promises or blessings.

Samuel and Joseph are growing up so fast. They are both so much fun.


Here is what is happening with Joseph. He is loving the fact that mommy is home with him all the time. Sometimes he will let me rest a little, but only sometimes. Most of the time he is up and he wants me to be up with him. Joseph is working on recognizing the letters of the alphabet. He loves his Dinosaur Encyclopedia. Dinosaurs are his favorite, but I am trying to help him gain confidence to do things on his own. Yesterday he put on his own pants and shirt. It is a struggle because he wants me to do it for him, but once he does it, he is so happy and proud of himself. The art in the video he did on his own. I left him with the paints so I could paint one of the rooms. He did a great job.

As for the transition to big brother, he is great for the most part. He likes to play with his brother. He has started to get jealous with his old toys and will take them from Samuel, even if he hasn't played with it in ages. He also waits till I start feeding Samuel to ask to go to the bathroom and then says that I need to put Samuel down and let him cry a little. This has happened on many occasions.

He likes to help around the house and loves to wash dishes. We'll see how long that one lasts. All in all, I love my little boy. He is so sweet and I am happy to be home with him.



Samuel is starting to be very interested in grabbing things. He doesn't like to be on his back or belly. He prefers to sit up or stand (with assistance of course). He purposefully reaches for things that are close to him. He likes this toy that Uncle David gave to Joseph when he was a baby. Samuel talks lots and smiles a lot. It is still hard to get him to laugh. He sleeps through the night for at least 6 to 7 hour stretches. He is awake a lot more during the day. Samuel is in size 3 diapers. He is getting a bald spot on the back of his head. It is sad to me because I love his head full of hair. The other day Joe was looking at him and said, "I found one thing that is Rankin on him...his ears." He then showed me his baby pics with the same type of ears. I also think that he has Grandpa Rankin's eyes.

Our house is on the market!!

Yay! I am so happy. It is finally clean and on the verge of being completely in order. To think we thought it would be easy to get our house in the market in January. Yeah...didn't happen. We finally just did it. My dad is our realtor. If you need a realtor in Utah, use my dad (a little plug for you apa): Ernesto G. Nunez with EXIT Realty Solutions. He knows what he is talking about and he will take care of you like family (nunern@wfmls.com).

This is a picture of our bedroom. The comforter and pillows are a designer set that my mom gave me that originally cost over $1800 for the comforter alone. The business went under (can you imagine with ridiculous prices such as that), so my mom got it for $100 with the pillows (originally almost $200 a piece). It is hard to imagine anyone paying that much for a blanket and pillows, hence the reason the business did not survive in this economy.
Here is our guest bathroom. It looks so nice with everything that Joe has done.
Here is our kitchen. I have to say that I really like our slate tile. It is so pretty. Heavenly Father sure is one for detail and colors. Each tile is unique and beautiful.
Another view of our kitchen. I love my orchids. They are so pretty.
Here is the wood floor room. It now has a couch and chair. I will try and take pics of it later.
Here is the outside of our house. I planted flowers the other day. There are some blue and white columbines, some star dianthus and spotted dianthus, some sun blanket flowers, some cape daisies and some coriopsis. I bought some delphenium and pink and white columbine to plant as well. I only bought perennials. The lilac trees are in bloom as are all the other trees in our yard. Achoo! They smell so good and look so nice.

More in depth on Texas...

I finally have a moment to blog about my trip to Texas. Above is a picture of Samuel grabbing his foot and sitting up. He can sit up on his own for a few seconds at a time. He likes to grab his feet and he examines his hands all the time. He also pulls objects towards him so he can investigate them. The other day I had taken his pants to his ankles for a diaper change. I put on a clean diaper and went to wash my hands. I hadn't picked up his pants. By the time I got back, he had taken his pants off and was looking at them. He is so cute!
I will be writing the block in backwards order, only because I should have gone from the most recent pics and worked my way towards the older pics. This picture is in Utah on our drive back. It looked like a painting to me, so I snapped a shot as we drove by. This is fairly close to Price, Utah.
Our last night in Texas, April 20th, we drove to Corpus Christi to say goodbye to my grandma. We drove 3 and a half hours to get there, only to find out that my Tia Juana had picked her up and taken her to San Antonio and Austin. Tia Juana knew we were on our way, but they didn't wait. I was irked because that added 5 hours to our trip. It also would have been nice to see my Tia Juana because I haven't seen her in years. This is Joseph with my cousin Loretta's little boy, Dylan. He is 5. He and Joseph had a great time play fighting and punching. I think this makes him a second cousin to Joseph and my first cousin once removed??? Anyways.
This is me and my cousin Maria. We grew up together. We are almost a year apart in age. She would spend many a summer with me at our home. We would pick her up and bring her back. She is engaged to Abraham. I don't know when they will get married, but maybe I can attend her wedding. :)
I hardly have any pics of me and Samuel, so while we were at my Tio Oscar's house, I had Maria snap a photo of me and my little boy. He is so precious.
Grandma Nunez sitting on the steps of my Tio's house. This was where my Grandma Juarez lived before when I was little. I thought this was a very nice picture of my boys with their grandma.
This is Joseph with his Great Tio Homero. Tio Homero gave him the Houston Rockets cap as a gift. Joseph loved wearing the hat.
This is me with my cousins Leslie and Amanda. Leslie (in the middle), is a grandma. She is 34. Wow. She has 2 grandkids (she became a grandma at 31). She and I were really close growing up. Leslie is my Tio Ramiro's daughter. Amanda was a lot younger than I was. I only remember her as a little girl about Joseph's age. She is my Tio Esteban's daughter. I was thinking about us now. We are our parents in the sense that we are where they were at when we were Joseph's age. It is crazy how generations grow and up and new ones are born.
This is me and boys with their great-great Tias Nena and Tome. These are my grandma's 2 living sisters. We were so happy that they made it to the funeral. They are the bickering sisters. Tia Tome's son, Jimmy, brought them from Kingsville, Texas to be with us. It was really nice to see them. My Tia Tome looks a lot like my grandma. I also remember her being a lot taller when I was younger. It was amazing how different things looked coming from my adult perspective versus my childhood/adolescent perspective. Everything and everyone seemed so much smaller than I remember them.
This is the funeral procession. I need to get pics of us at the grave from my Tia Sylvia. Her niece, Erica, took a nice picture of me, Samuel and Joseph. I missed them putting my grandma's coffin in the grave because we got there and Joseph said he needed to go to the bathroom. The closest bathroom was the funeral home, so one of the workers drove us there. She is distantly related to John Taylor. My brother Esteban and I sang as we said our final goodbyes to my grandma. They gave all of us rose petals to toss into the grave. Joseph thought they were giving us candy, so he bit into the petal. He said, gross and tossed it onto the coffin. Erica's picture is of us tossing the petals into the grave.
These are my godparents, Oscar and Brushy. When I was a baby, I was baptized into the Catholic church. They have always been there at big occassions. They told me that their son, Oscar Lee, was having their first grandchild soon. He is going to name the little boy Joaquin Maximillian. The name reminded me of Gladiator.
Joseph absolutely loved my cousin Matthew's little girl, Kourtney. He wanted to play with her. He still asks and talks about her. He wants Kourtney to come visit him in Utah. :)
This is my Tia Gloria and my cousin Laura. We used to go their house when I was little. I used to love it because they had so many dress up clothes. This was the first time I had seen Tia Gloria and Laura since I was probably 7 or 8. Tia Gloria still looks the same.
My Tio Homero thought Joseph looks like Spanky from the Little Rascals, especially with his hat turned to the side. I couldn't get him to stop smiling for the camera.
Joseph totally reminds me of Joe as a kid in this picture.
This is a picture of Samuel's reaction to touching the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. He wasn't to happy.
This is the before picture of him touching the water.
Jospeh was having so much fun wading in the water and playing in the sand, that he didn't mind that his pants had sagged off his little bottom. The beach was a lot nicer and cleaner than I remember it being. The water is still as brown as I remember it.
Joseph playing in the sand.
The beach was a lot closer than I remember it being as a little girl. I thought it took forever to get there. In reality, it was only about 4 miles from the exit we would take. Everything shrunk (except the distance to Corpus and Utah). Well, by the time we got there, Samuel was hungry. This is him sucking on my arm after I took him out of the carseat. He was sucking on anything that came close to his mouth. I love that he sucks on his hands when he is hungry.
"Uncle Derek (my cousin Eric)," Kourtney, Tio Homero and my cousin Matthew with Joseph. This was on Easter Sunday.
My Tia Sylvia made Joseph an Easter basket from the Easter Bunny. He can't read this yet, so he won't know that it was from her till much later in the future. Thanks Tia! She did this without us knowing about it. It is greatly appreciated because I was stressed about what I would do for him for Easter.
Kourtney and my Tia Sylvia. I got to know my Tia and Tio a lot more on this trip. It was really nice to stay with them and spend time with them.
Tio Homero with Easter Bunny ears. This is a great picture of what grandkids can do to a grandparent. :)
My Tio Robert, my Tio Ramiro, and my dad. Most of the brother's together for the first time in years. My cute Samuel is in the pic too.
My brothers and me together with Joseph. This is the first time all of us siblings have been together at one time in over 3 years. Crazy how time separates families, but events bring us together, even if they are sad ones.
My dad with my cousin Amanda. My Tio Esteban's funeral was the last one that I had attended. It was in March of 1999. Time flies by.
Joseph with his cousin Jasmine. She looks exactly like my cousin Leslie looked when she was a little girl. Jasmine is my cousin J.J.'s little girl. Joseph loved her so much and looked for her everywhere. She sat with us at the luncheon the church members provided for the family after the funeral. It was great how the members served our family. Bishop Markham did a wonderful job of getting help and making sure we were okay.
Can you tell my parents were tired from the long drive to Texas?
My Tio Ramiro with Samuel. He is a great grandpa 2 times over. That is crazy to me. My cousin Leslie's oldest daughter, Savannah, has 2 kids. I only remember Savannah as a toddler. She is 18 and has a 3 year old and 1 year old.
Our first day in Texas, I took Joseph to the park I played at as a kid. They had a huge Easter egg hunt. They gave Joseph a "Don't Mess with Texas" bag to put his eggs in. The eggs didn't have candy but lots of little goodies. He also found a baseball since the 3 and 4 year old hunt was held on a baseball diamond.
We spent 30 minutes in Corpus on the night we got there. From the left is my Grandma Juarez, my cousin Maria, me and my boys, and my cousin Loretta. My cousin Loretta had her second baby in March, a couple of months after I had Samuel.
My Tio Felix, my cousin Johnny Joe, my cousin Jesus, my cousin Sofia, me, my cousin Crystal, my cousin Maria, baby Roger (another cousin) and my brother Esteban. What can I say...we come from a LARGE family (ha, ha, ha). ;) I hadn't seen my cousin Crystal since she was a little girl. I called her Spikey because that was her nickname back then. When she was a baby, her hair stood straight up. I hadn't seen my cousin Sofia or Johnny Joe in ages. My cousin Jesus looks like my Tio Blas.
I grew up with baby Roger. He lived the closest to my family. My mom is raising his nieces and nephew, my cousin April's kids. It was so much fun to see everyone. They all got together to say hi, knowing that we would only be there for 30 minutes. I am glad I didn't miss the opportunity to be with them, even if it was only for a moment.
Joseph on the car ride. He did so well. Here is entertaining himself with a spider that he lost in Texas somewhere.
Samuel was amazing on the car ride too. Here he is with his little blanket.

Joseph and Samuel together before we left. My boys are adorable and I love them soooooo much. :D

Short post

Last night I went into the room to lay with Joseph for a bit to help him fall asleep. He kept looking at me, so I finally asked, "What are you thinking about little guy?" He said, "I am looking at you." I asked him, "why?" He said, "I just love you." It made me smile and almost cry. He is such a sweet boy.

He was sick last year about this time. On May 2nd of last year I had taken him to the hospital for his super high fever. Soon after, he got a stomach bug. I put trash bags on the floor with sheets for him to sleep on because he was vomiting. It was next to our bathroom. Last night he wanted me to sleep in his room. I told him there was not enough room on the bed. He then told me we could lay blankets on the floor to make a bed like we did when he was sick. He still remembered it and it has almost been a year. That kid has a great memory.

Samuel and Joseph

Samuel is definitely exploring the world around him. He is trying to sit up on his own. Today at church, I had him on my lap. I had him propped up on my belly. He did a crunch and sat straight up. He then found my engagement ring and kept playing with it. It was cute to watch how much he concentrated on moving has hands to my hand with the ring. It was also funny because I went to the mother's lounge to feed him and 2 young girls were playing in the room. When they saw that I was planning on feeding him, one of the girls said, "I want to watch you start." Then she and her sister sat on the chair in front of me. I got out my Peanut shell to cover myself. One of the girls, the older sister, got up to help me put it on. She then got my face in her two hands and kissed me on the cheek. She then asked how long I was going to be so she could come back and visit me. I was really uncomfortable. I had him fed and changed before she came back. I had put Samuel sitting up on the chair while I grabbed my diaper bag. The little girl tried to pick him up. I picked him up before she did and asked her if she could help me by opening the door.

Joseph came home from sunbeams today and told me that his class was great. He said that he learned about Adam and Eve in the garden. When they were in the garden, they lived with animals and they were nice. There were tigers and bears and deer there. He then explained that Adam and Eve ate the bad fruit and then there were prickly things so they had to wear shoes. The animals were not nice anymore. It was so fun to hear him explain the lesson. He did a great job.

Dreaming about the stars

Joseph is starting to get into the planets and aliens thanks to the Magic School Bus. He know has rocks that he says look like asteroids. He knows that comets have tails and that they are made of ice and rock. Asteroids can't melt because they are space rocks. He found a shell in Texas that kind of looks like a rocket ship. He flies it to different planets. He also mentioned that we need to fly the fire ants to "Bluto (Pluto)." He then offered an alternate place to fly the fire ants. He said, "we need a rocket to fly the fire ants to a planet that has aliens. The aliens can eat the fire ants." He also remembers Mercury, Earth, and Jupiter. I don't know how to tell him that Pluto has been down graded and is no longer considered a planet.

He also helped me clean compound from the floor. He did a really good job...up until he found a paint brush with primer and painted the floor. I would have taken pictures except I was worried it would dry.