You May Be Surprised...

You may be surprised to hear that everyone here in Mexico seems to think that I am Mexican. Maybe it is because I wear pants most days & they don't see my incredibly white legs? :) No, but really...the people here have much lighter skin than I realized. I don't know if it is good or bad that people don't realize that I am an American when they see me. I like that I don't stick out like a sore thumb. However, I don't love that people speak Spanish to me super fast, thinking that I will immediately understand them. When I say "Hablo pequito Espanol" ("I speak very little Spanish") they look at me in surprise. I do enjoy seeing their shock when Lincoln (who they know is an American by looking at him) speaks Spanish fluently! :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Have I ever written about the first time I met Lincoln? My cousin Brian was coming to Mesa and wanted to set me up with his cousin (on the other side), who was coming with him. All I knew about my date was that his name was Lincoln & that he had just gotten home from his mission. On the day of our date, Brian & Linc arrived to pick me up as I was walking outside to take the trash out. Lincoln got out of the car, walked up to me, took the trash bag out of my hand & asked, "Where is your trash can?" Those were seriously the first words he ever said to me. Is it any wonder that I ended up marrying the boy? :)

My definition of love includes these things:

ENCOURAGING EACH OTHER DURING THE TOUGH TIMES...

ALWAYS BEING SUPPORTIVE...

SHARING THINGS WITH EACH OTHER THAT YOU WOULDN'T SHARE WITH ANYONE ELSE...

AND LOVING YOUR SPOUSE FOR WHO THEY ARE.

And I had to add this picture, just for fun... :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY LINC.
You are my best friend. I love you!!!

Photos taken in 2008 by Forget Me Not Photography

Hangout Spot

Because our back porch is all tile, we end up going to one of two places during the day to play in the grass...one of them is the park in our coto. We let the dogs & Kylee run around here & they love it. I've said multiple times that the weather here is amazing. We thoroughly enjoy it! I feel so thankful every time I am able to spend time outdoors. There were so many days when I wasn't feeling well & wished so badly that I could just see the sun & spend time outside! Now I can have that whenever I want it. It is a blessing that I will never take for granted!

Linc enjoying the view of the city while the dogs wrestle...

Pool #1...with a view of the huge houses behind us.

Pool #2... a smaller one that I'm sure Kylee will love!

Kylee hanging out by the tennis courts...

She finally likes wearing sandals. They look so cute on her little feet!

Chilling with Daddy after school one day...

Doesn't she look so old?!

Kylee 18 Months

 Well, I missed Kylee's 17-month update during the move...I know, I know, monthly updates are a little much, but I love looking back & reading what she learned each month. Kylee turned 18 months old at the end of January. I just have to warn you, this is a very long post. I thought our families would appreciate hearing how much Kylee has changed since we moved, though...so here it is!

Kylee is talking like CRAZY...in English & Spanish! She mostly just copies the Spanish words...but she does know "hola", "gracias", and "adios" and uses them in the right context. As far as her English goes...Kylee speaks in sentences & has good grammar. It is so weird to hear that many words coming out of her little mouth! Of course, she doesn't talk nearly as much around other people as she does around Linc & I, but we definitely get a kick out of the things she has been saying lately.

Kylee's favorite show is Dora The Explorer. She even watched it in Spanish the other day. It's quite the experience watching Dora in Spanish. The dubbing is pretty bad and Dora sounds like she sucked on helium balloons. Plus, it just sounds so funny hearing them speak Spanish with random English words interjected throughout their conversations & songs. Kylee loves to watch it, regardless of the language it is in though. :) She does a good job (when watching the English version) of following the instructions on the show, yelling "Map!" or "Backpack!" when prompted. She also loves saying, "Man!" after Swiper says "Aw, man!", and says it in the cutest tone. In fact, during our first week of church here, a man was praying (in Spanish of course) and finished with "Amen", pronouncing it "Ah-men". Well, Kylee thought the guy said "Aw, man." and yelled out "MAN!" It was REALLY funny.

Kylee has also been practicing her colors. Lincoln has a shirt that has pink, black and blue designs on it, and Kylee loves to point to each color and name it. She also has a talent for remembering people's names. I'm constantly amazed at how many people she calls by name now. Since being around her older cousin Kirtlyn, Kylee is suddenly very into Barbies & the Disney princesses. She loves to go on walks with Daisy, Duke & I during the day and we often end up at the little park in our coto, where she loves to swing & run around. She also enjoys finding cigarette butts on the ground, pointing to them, and yelling "yuck!". She has developed a habit of saying "Bye pool!" & waving to the swimming pool every time we leave the park too.

Kylee's favorite foods right now are yogurt, peanut butter, crackers & pizza. She also really likes spicy foods. She even ate the bell peppers & onions that I picked off my supreme pizza today! She is afraid of some of the loud noises here, especially the buses. When we are out walking & a bus drives by, she screams "Aaghhh! Bus!" and runs to me. We like looking at the different flowers in our neighborhood & naming their colors. Kylee also likes to copy the made-up songs that I sing during the day and will sometimes sing random words to me. It cracks me up!

Kylee adores Daisy & Duke. She tries to walk them with their leashes, gives them each a treat after their walks, throws their tennis ball to them & gives them kisses. Daisy & Duke are getting to be quite protective of her too. Kylee can finally tell the difference between the two dogs & calls them each by name, instead of calling both of them "DaisyDuke".

So now that I've written almost EVERY detail of what Kylee is doing at 18 months, here are a few more things that she has been up to:

She still LOVES jewelry & puts some on every day...

 Her coloring skills are improving...

And she takes great care of her dolls...

(Linc shares his earphones with Kylee when he listens to music, so she decided to do the same for her baby. How funny is that?!)

Kylee also likes to wear Mommy's hat...

 And she loves taking baths with her new tea set from the $1 store.

 Kylee asks for crackers all day long. The first words out of her mouth when she wakes up in the morning are, "Mommy, I want crackers." Those are also the last words out of her mouth each night before she falls asleep. She also likes to see how many crackers she can fit in her mouth at one time...

 She still loves her bottle.

 I'm hoping to have her off the bottle in the next month. She is great at drinking water out of a regular cup, but refuses to drink milk unless it is in her bottle!

Kylee is still really good at making messes...

 She loves to read books...

 And just got a new Winnie the Pooh toilet seat!

This past month she randomly started telling me when she needs to go to the bathroom & which one she needs to do. :) She still ends up going in her diaper, but I'm excited that she thinks to tell me without me ever asking her! She will sit on her toilet seat for about 30 seconds & then wants to get off...but I figure it is a good step. Luckily she is so young that I don't feel the need to rush it. However, not having to buy diapers anymore sounds pretty heavenly to me!

We are so thankful for the little things that Kylee does that bring us so much joy. We love having a child in our home! I have thought multiple times since she joined our family, how much I love seeing her toys & shoes & everything else laying around the house. As funny as it sounds, that is something that I dreamed of for a long time. When I was pregnant with Jackson, I always visualized his clothes laying out or his toys all over the floor...and then when I had him, his clothes stayed in his closet & his toys stayed in their boxes. Seeing Kylee's things being used makes me happy. Seeing her grow & learn & develop makes me thankful. Seeing her point to Jackson's picture & say "Baby Jackson" makes me feel so privileged to have her as my daughter & to have a sweet son in heaven. Life doesn't get much better than this. You're awesome Kylee. Thank you for everything that you do for us!!!

The Queen Bee

Kylee loves to think that she is the Queen Bee around here. 

She enjoys relaxing in her big chair with her feet up on the table...

And thinks she is hot stuff in her bright pink shoes & jacket...

Plus, she has perfectly mastered the "strut"...

I don't blame her. If I was that cute, I would probably milk it for all it was worth, too!

Daddy's Little Helper

Our dryer had a few issues the other day (it is a natural gas dryer from the States that has to be converted to propane), so Linc went to work trying to fix it. Kylee saw what Daddy was doing & decided that she wanted to help...

It's no surprise that she wants to make her Daddy proud. After all, when he is always doing cool things like building her a big house out of the washer/dryer boxes, why wouldn't she?

(This house includes windows, a door with a handle, and a covered porch!)

P.S. I love the things that I notice when I am uploading my pictures...like the fact that Kylee was touching the dirty mop the whole time that I was taking the dryer pics. Whatever. :)

Tonala, Mexico

 Thomas & Lincoln didn't have school this past Monday, because it was a Mexican holiday. We took advantage of their time off & followed Thomas & Jenn to a town about 30 minutes away, called Tonala. It is basically a town filled with vendors, who sell things for pretty cheap. We needed a toy box for Kylee's room & a desk for Lincoln, so we were excited to see what Tonala had to offer. On the way there, I realized just how nice the part of Mexico is that we live in. It was pretty crazy to see how quickly things changed once we were out of the city. 

When we arrived in Tonala, we parked in a parking lot...right in front of this guy.

 How funny is that? A random horse living in front of the parking lot? He gave me a great smile when I took his picture though! (I should have told Kylee that her teeth would look like the horse's if she keeps drinking her bath water!)

 Family picture by a random skeleton...

Kylee got really excited when she saw this horse ride. It only cost 2 pesos (like 20 cents)...these normally cost like $2 in the States, don't they? That's my kind of ride! And I have to say, I think Kylee makes an awfully cute cowgirl!

 We finished our trip with a yummy lunch...

We didn't find what we were looking for in Tonala, but we did get a dish drying rack (since we don't have a dishwasher here) and some cool laundry baskets. We also ate at a yummy restaurant while we were there. We will definitely be taking another trip to Tonala sometime fairly soon. It was a lot of fun!

Getting Adjusted

Trying to get settled into our new home has been quite the task. Since we moved almost a month into Lincoln's first semester of school, we have been trying to make sure that he studies every night, while still trying to get things done. I don't have a car during the day & don't know how to communicate effectively with anyone yet...so Linc & I have to run errands when he his home. Things here in Mexico seem to take a lot longer too. (For example, our downstairs bathroom doesn't work. The plumber was supposed to come a week ago. We are still waiting for him. Apparently that is kind of normal here.) So needless to say, things have been kind of crazy these past two weeks.

It was quite the task getting our new mattresses upstairs when we moved in. Luckily Linc had some friends to help him...

We moved in without a fridge or dishes. Thank goodness for nice friends who invited us over to eat with them. On the other days, we settled for fast food or tacos. They even have Burger King here...

(Apparently Linc's fries were quite fascinating.)

What do you do when you don't have Saran Wrap or Ziploc bags yet? This...

(Can you tell we are in Mexico? Beans, guac, red sauce, refried beans? :) )

Because we didn't have a microwave either, Kylee & I were lucky enough to eat things like cold tostadas. Kylee didn't seem to mind...

We also have to constantly remind Kylee that she can't drink the water when she is taking a bath. We use the words "yucky" & "owies" a lot here. :)

Now that we have most of the big items that we need, we are slowly adjusting to running a household here. We still have some work to do, but we'll get there!

Some More Pics

Here are a few random pictures that we took before we moved into our own place. They don't really need much explanation...

Love this girl!!!

Leaving Our Cousins

We sure will miss seeing our cousins everyday! Kylee loves playing with Kirtlyn, Thomas, Hyrum & Maya.
Kylee is obsessed with Maya & calls every baby she sees "Mayna".

The kids were so sweet to Kylee. They kept her company while she was sick...

And kept her entertained in the car.

Kylee definitely enjoyed not being stuck with just me everyday!

I will miss eating Thomas's yummy food, my daily conversations with Jenn, putting on makeup with Kirtlyn, listening to little Thomas's songs, telling Hyrum every morning that he is cute & funny and hearing him exclaim, "I'm NOT cute! I'm just funny!", and seeing Maya's huge grins. Luckily, they still live close by. We can never thank Thomas & Jenn enough for all that they've done for us since we've been here. I have NO idea what we would have done without them. Thank you, thank you, thank you Thomas & Jenn! We love you guys!!!

Our House!!!

Here is a picture of our home here in Mexico. It definitely has its quirks, and I still have a lot of work to do to get it in order, but we love it! I'll take pictures of the inside in the next week or two. (Don't you think Mexican-style describes it well? :) )
 P.S.- We have INTERNET now! Yahoo!!!

Another Week

Another week has gone by and I still don't have Internet or a phone. I have to admit, it is getting a little old. However, we made a lot of progress in other areas this week. We bought a refrigerator, washer, dryer, a microwave, and other smaller things that we needed. We have mattresses sitting on our bedroom floors. We will wait until next semester to buy actual beds. One thing we weren't counting on was how insanely expensive most things are here. Yes, it is true! Things here in Zapopan are more expensive than in the United States. For example, a half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream costs over ten dollars, an ugly one piece baby outfit from the cheapest grocery store I could find costs about thirteen bucks, and milk is almost four dollars a gallon. For someone who is obsessed with finding good deals, it is a wonder that I don't have a total mental breakdown every time I go to the store!

But enough about that. Let's move on to some positive things that happened this week:

1)Kylee suddenly started talking in sentences. ("That's my chair!" or "I want crackers.") She also learned how to say "Gracias!". It is the cutest thing I've ever heard.

2)We ate elote (the corn with chili powder on Nacho Libre!) and pezole (a chicken and corn soup)for the first time this week. DELICIOUS!

3)Kylee went to nursery for the first time by herself. (She had been going with Lincoln & I since she was eight or nine months, but she is finally 18 months and can go by herself.)

4)I bore my testimony in my new ward. I bore it in English. I'm pretty sure nobody ever does that here, but I was proud of myself for doing something way out of my comfort zone.

5)Daisy and I worked out a very efficient system to kill the roaches that have come in our house. I call her and tell her to get the roach, she runs after it and flips it upside down with either her paw or her teeth, then steps back so that I can smash it. Not even kidding.

6)I went a whole week without eating a pastry. Trust me, this is a huge accomplishment!

7)I drove here! Twice! Without dying!

8)I paid for something all by myself. The whole peso/dollar thing can be trickier than it seems.

That is all I can think of for now. I know I've said this before, but the weather here is absolutely incredible. I am also thoroughly enjoying the cityscape view from our bedroom window. I love how much I end up walking around town here, coming to the realization that I now prefer a Mexican meal to an American one, and understanding even more what unbelievably loving and supportive families we have. There are days that are mentally exhausting, when I want certain things to be easy and familiar like they were a few months ago. But there are more days that are filled with good, uplifting things that I have never experienced before. This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I sure am glad that we are here.