Jacob at lunch

It takes years for me to upload pictures and videos onto here...so if you want to check out my latest video of Jacob you can check it out over here...gotta love our little Jacob!

It's about time!

It has been a while since I last updated our blog...here are some of the highlights:

*Since the last post, Anna had her 6 month Doctor's appointment, and was at 75th percentile for weight, and 95th percentile for height!  She is developing and growing right on target!  She is such a sweet and content little girl.  She loves to smile and chew on anything and everything.  She has started 'scooting' and is getting ready to crawl :)  Her favorite people right now are  her Mom, Jacob and her Dad.  She is sleeping about 11-13 hours a night and takes a couple of 2 hour naps during the day.  I put her down at about 7pm for the night, and that's a wonderful time for a baby to go to bed if you ask me!  She is now 7 months and I just can't believe how fast the time has gone by!

*Jacob continues to grow, learn, make us laugh and amaze us!  He says the funniest things!  The other night as I was putting him to bed he said to me "mom, I want fifty dollars...I have a coupon!" hahahaha he's been hanging around me too much!  He is such a little helper, especially when Anna starts to fuss.  He makes Anna laugh and gives her any toy within his reach to make her happy.  He's the best big brother! 
He enjoys electronics and anything to do with the computer or buttons.  His favorite song on the 'hi-pod' right now is 'Jingle Bells'  He also loves tools, and prefers his dad's 'real' tools as opposed to his 'toy' tools.  He's always trying to clean, or fix something.  
He also loves anything to do with Lightning McQueen or Mater or Cars!  He watches that movie in the car and never seems to tire of it!
He's more and more independent lately, and it's a bittersweet experience for me as a mom.  He still sleeps in his crib (I will let him be in there as long as he doesn't jump out) and takes a daily 2 hour nap, and sleeps about 11-12 hours at night. :) 
We still haven't started the potty training process...but I have a feeling he'll be ready soon.  He has asked to go potty...but will just stand there not knowing what to do...so I'm sure I'll blog about it at a later time.

* One of my sisters (the one right after me) got engaged in October!  We're so excited and happy for her, and are planning a trip up to Canada in May for her wedding.  It will only be the second wedding in our family...and I have been married for over 6 years...so it's been a while since we've had a wedding.

* We had a fun Halloween.  Jacob was a little pirate and Anna was a ghost.  We only went trick-or-treating to Randy's family's homes but we sure got a lot of candy!  We barely finished it actually!  It was a fun night, and we can't wait till next year when Anna will be a little older. :)

* In October, we also found out that my sister in law is having a boy!  This will be boy #5 in the 'Taylor Tots' and Anna will have to wait for another girl cousin to come later....right guys?  We are excited to see this little one, she's due in March.

* My two brothers returned home from their missions the first week of November, and are happily adjusting to life in the 'real' world.  We haven't had a chance to see them yet...but we'll see them next year at my sister's wedding!

* We had Thanksgiving dinner w/ Randy's family and it was wonderful!  I am truly blessed to have such great people in my life. 

* 3 out of the 4 of us got sick just before and just after Thanksgiving.  We are all doing better now, but it was a rough few days.  Thankfully, Randy didn't get it as bad, so he could continue to go to work and continue to fulfill his calling.

* Last week we went to Salt Lake to be a part of the youngest Taylor Tot's blessing.  He's as cute as can be!  We were so happy to be able to be a part of it all.

* Next week we'll be attending the "Winegar Family Christmas Party"  It is something we look forward to all year.  We love to see all the family, and to see how much our kids are growing! 

I'm sure I have forgotten a lot of details and events since the last post...so if I remember anything else I will post it. :)

**Pictures to come soon**

I hope to keep our blog more updated from now on.

Anna's pic...

Check out Anna's pics on my facebook page! I love how they turned out :)
Randy was finally able to download them without the computer crashing...yay! :)

Little Anna...

We went in to get some pictures taken of Anna by  Lindsay Jane Photography and they turned out fabulous!  I wasn't sure how well little Anna was going to do because she had a rough morning that day...but she did great!  She was all smiles and was trying to eat her dress half the time!  Here are just 3 of my favorites...I will post more later.  Thanks Lindsay!

Anna- 4 months old

We took Anna to her 4 month appointment yesterday and here are her stats:

Weight- 14.65 lbs - 80%

Height- 25 3/4 Inches - 97%

Head Circumference- 41 1/2 cm- 70%

She's a healthy, growing, beautiful baby!

She got some shots and her ears pierced at her appointment yesterday too.  She cried like I had never seen her cry before :(  After all was said and done I'm not sure I would do the ear piercing thing over again.  It was as bad as when Jacob got his circ!  Poor Anna had a rough night last night, but not nearly as bad as I had anticipated :)

Happy baby before her shots and ear piercing..

Asleep baby after crying so much :(

Smart Merchandising!

Next time you're at target and you're buying bubble bath (like we were) look around at how the whole aisle is merchandised...

The other night we went to Target to buy some bubble bath and diaper cream...since I had a few coupons, I thought we'd head over there and save some money on stuff we needed.  After looking for a few minutes I got everything I needed and as I was getting ready to leave...I see Jacob down the aisle playing w/ a 'lightning McQueen' Car!  He's been watching 'the movie cars' in the car lately...so he instantly recognized it. The car was actually filled w/ bubble bath...and Jacob did NOT want to let go of it.  Randy pointed out that it was right at eye level for him to see!  And upon further inspection, all the fun expensive bubble bath was eye level to him...and all the cheaper, boring stuff was eye level to me!  So we ended up spending the money we would have saved!  But in the end, it made Jacob so happy...it was so worth it! :)

Say Cheeese!

I learned the hard way, that you definitely shouldn't let your 2 year old run around 'taking pictures' with your digital camera...
About 2 weeks ago I was sitting at the computer typing away, and was holding Anna...Jacob was playing but got tired soon after. To keep him entertained for a few minutes, I thought it would be harmless to let him take pictures of his sister...
Somehow he dropped the camera while the lens was out, and when I picked it up it wouldn't go back in...and it was ruined!
I felt bad for letting him play with it, and as much as I was sad that we no longer had a camera, it wasn't his fault.
Randy tried to fix it, and had no luck.
After almost 2 weeks of being 'camera-less' I have to say I don't know how I survived without it! When you have young children, they're always doing funny, or cute things...so I have been looking forward to a new camera. Randy did the research (as always :)) And we decided to go w/ another Sony camera. Partly because we have the battery and charger which will still work with this camera. He bought it from Amazon, and so far so good. We just got it yesterday, it's a Sony cyber-shot. Our previous digital camera was a 7.2 megapixel camera, and this one is a 12.1. This camera has so many cool features, I love it! I'm still learning to use some of the features, since we just got it yesterday...but I am very impressed with the whole package. It's very user-friendly, and it looks sleek and nice.

I thought I'd post some of the pics Jacob took before the other camera died...and a couple of pics I took yesterday while out for a walk w/ Jacob and Anna, with the new camera :)

6 years and counting...

I'm sure 6 years ago yesterday, when people went to our wedding...some people may have wondered how we would ever last. We are so different, and from such different backgrounds. Yet here we are 6 years later, with two beautiful children, and more in love than when we first started out.
I don't have much time for blogging lately, but I wanted to blog about how wonderful Randy is, and what a perfect husband he has been these last 6 years. I always knew he would make a great dad, what I didn't know is how much he was going to love being a dad and playing, taking care of, and teaching our children. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I couldn't ask for a better husband! Not only is he a devoted and loving dad, he is a helpful, contributing, and loving husband. At the end of his work day, when he gets home and is totally exhausted, he is never too tired to take care of the kids, mow the lawn, do dishes, clean up after dinner, play with the kids, and put Jacob to bed. He really works hard, both at his job, and here at home. I want to express my gratitude for who he is. He makes my life better everyday. He's funny, and smart, and not to mention the sexiest man alive! (I'll be in trouble for saying that...), it's true though, what fun would it be if I wasn't married to my best friend, and the sexiest guy I know?
Thank you mijo, thank you for 6 wonderful years. I love you so much!

On another note, we went to Tepanyaki for our anniversary dinner. It was so delish, I ate so much! We had a great time. The best part is, we actually went without the children! Yay for some alone time! Thanks Aunt Kay and Uncle Ron, they took such good care of Anna and Jacob. :)

We have had a busy few weeks. My youngest sister was here with us for almost 2 weeks and my parents and other sister were here last weekend for Anna's blessing. The week before Anna's blessing, we attended Randy's grandmother's funeral. We will miss her so much! She was always so sweet.

My favorite part about my sister being here was the fact that Jacob could get to know her, and have someone (other than us) to play with. Here's my favorite video of Jacob playing with his 'auntie P' He's still askin for her, which is kinda sad :( But he sure had fun with her!

aww kids...

After rejecting about 10 songs...he wanted to dance to this one!



Anna was having some words with the little cow...

Is Old Navy cursed?

I'm not superstitious at all, but we all remember the experience I had at Old Navy a couple of weeks ago in the parking lot, right?...

Well, yesterday I went with the kids again because the last time I was there they gave me a $20 coupon off my next purchase and it expired yesterday. I bought a couple of shirts and paid only the taxes so I was pretty happy! I called Randy (this time I took the cell), and told him we were on our way home. I actually left a message because Randy was home vacuuming and cleaning the carpets so he didn't hear the phone ring. As I was driving home I heard a loud weird noise from the side of the car, but since nothing else sounded or felt weird I kept driving. Soon after, someone driving pretty close to me pointed to my rear driver side tire so I pulled over. It turns out I had a flat!
I'm not very good at 'feeling' when I have a flat tire, so I hope I hadn't been driving on it for ever. Last time I had a flat was about 4 years ago when one of my friends let me use her car and I was on my way to pick her up for work! Same deal, I didn't hear or feel anything weird. So what did I do? I called Randy!

I'm sorry but even though I 'say' I would know how to change a tire, I'm still a little intimidated by it, and have never actually done it all by myself. So I figured, if he was home, he could come 'help' me out! Like I mentioned though, he was busy cleaning the house so he didn't hear the phone ring again...so I called our neighbors who live a couple of houses down(I'll have to write about them in a later post), and they were able to come to the house and let him know I needed him to call me. It's a good thing I took the cell phone! Otherwise I may have had to change a tire for the first time in my life! As Randy was changing the tire, some elders rode by on their bikes and asked if they could help...I thought that was nice!

I was remembering that on my mission I had a flat tire twice, the first time I was in Deming, New Mexico and we pulled over to a grocery store parking lot. I had sister Dickson as my companion, and she's such a go-getter that she didn't even hesitate to start to change the tire! She really hadn't gotten far when a guy came by and offered to help, I think he turned out to be an off duty cop! So I got a break there.

The second time was when I was in San Elisario, Texas. My companion was sister Burke and we were all dressed up for church one morning and as we got to our car, we realized we had a flat. The elders only lived about a 20 minute drive from us, so we called them, and they changed it for us thankfully...so yet again, I didn't 'have' to change a tire. I have always told Randy that I would just start and someone would inevitably stop because it's a girl changing a tire right? I'm so prissy when it comes to car stuff...and maybe when it comes to everything? For any of the ladies who read this blog...would you have changed the tire or would you have called your husband or significant other? If Dickson reads this I know the answer! She even has twins and a toddler now too!
So one of these days I should really change a tire 'for fun' so I can at least be more prepared....or else I might just have to call my sweet husband again ;)

Big Baby...

Anna had her 2 month appointment yesterday, and here are her stats:

Height- 24 inches- >97%
Weight- 12.05 lbs- 95%
Head Circ-39.5 cm- 75%

So the Doctor said she's "a big baby all around" :)
Anna also got a few immunizations and last night was a rough one for her. Hopefully today will be better.
Here are some pics of her, before and after she got her shots

Before...




After...

Scary...

Today was a day I will always remember...

I went shopping to Old Navy for their sweet $5 deals...and as I was loading Anna and Jacob into the car to go home, I thought it would be a good idea to start the car because it was so hot out. I had the air going in the car but not the air conditioning. The doors automatically locked when I turned on the car and I thought for a second that I should unlock them...and I should have!

Because I had all the doors open I didn't think anything of it, until somehow I managed to close all the doors and lock my children in a hot car while it was running!!! I was panicking because I don't have a cell phone and I didn't want to run all the way to the store to call someone. I had planned to call Randy because he's usually the calm one under stress. I didn't have much time to think because the temperature in the car was already super hot. I thought maybe I should just break a window, but then I saw a couple across the way getting into their truck. I ran and amidst tears managed to ask if they had a cell phone I could use. I explained to them what happened and they said they would call the police because they would be there in no time to help me out. So the kind lady (I forgot her name) called the police, and a few long minutes later we saw the fire department coming down the road. We flagged them to where we were and they said they just 'happened' to be driving down the road. By now it had been close to 10 minutes for the kids, and they were both doing so well. Anna wasn't crying, but she was awake and moving around, and Jacob just kept smiling at me when I would look into the car. I have to say I have never felt more helpless and guilty! I can't believe I locked them in there!!

Anyway, a couple of minutes later we saw the police officer coming down the road and he had some tools to open the car. I guess he had two sets because one of the fire fighters was on one door and he was on another trying to open the car. For those intense minutes, I prayed harder than I have prayed in a long time. And of course, my prayers were answered when the police officer got the door open!


We even had a 'random' pedestrian drive by and stop and get out of his car and offer to help the officer to get the door open.
I am so so grateful for the kindness and help all those people were to me today. When we got the kids out, Jacob had sweat running down his face but was otherwise ok. We gave him water and took them both out of the car. They checked Anna's pulse because she's so young...and everything was ok.


What an experience... I have heard of mothers who have done that with catastrophic results, and I thought I would never be one of those moms who locked their kids in the car. I'm so thankful everything turned out ok and that I was able to be helped by so many people.

Note to self: keep an extra set of keys in my purse.

Jacob turned 2 on the 24th! We had Jon and Kevin over for some cake and ice cream...
We are so grateful for them and their thoughtfulness and love...Jacob loves them! And so do we.
We are also grateful for Jacob and his endless energy! He is such a loving and kind little boy. Our lives have been blessed so much because of Jacob.
We love you so much Jacob, you are a wonderful big brother and a fun-loving little guy.
Te queremos mucho mi amorcito! (Hopefully one day he understands that)

1-10

Jacob has been counting to 10 for a while now but we hadn't gotten it on tape...sorry about the bright video! He sounds so cute when he says 'seden' :)

Where's Waldo?

I had my citizenship ceremony yesterday and it was wonderful! Can you find me in this picture? I can't!



I was surprised at how emotional the ceremony was, it was amazing to see over 150 people from about 44 countries come together to become citizens of the greatest country on earth! It was so interesting to hear the different stories of what it meant for people to become a citizen. Some of my favorite ones- There was a guy from Mexico who said he had been living here for 20 years and he came here when he was adopted by an american family. He is now a Scientist and hopes to be a mentor and help kids, just like he was helped!
Another guy from Africa (who was 6'7) said that from the day he came here, he woke up the next morning grateful that he didn't have to worry about his safety or wonder about his future, because he was in America!

Becoming a US citizen for me is such a blessing. Who would have thought a little Salvadorean girl would end up here! If I can find pictures of where I grew up I'll post them, but it's like night and day! Plus I feel there are so many opportunities not only to progress personally, but to help others. I love the values on which this country was founded. I'm grateful to those whose lives where lost so we could have all these freedoms. Like the judge said yesterday "Freedom, is not Free"
I just want to say there's nowhere else I'd rather be, and nowhere else I'd rather raise our children!

I had such a great day yesterday. Randy's aunt took care of the kids while we went, and it was such a blessing because there's no way Jacob would have made it through the 3 hours!
After we picked up Anna and Jacob, we came home and my father in law came over for a bit. Then Randy made us an 'American' dinner. It consisted of steak, mushrooms, corn, root beer floats and crenshaw melons! It was so delicious! Thanks mijo!





So now I have a certificate that states I'm a naturalized citizen, and soon we'll be applying for our passports...here we are at the end of the ceremony with my certificate.

Jacob and Anna

Can you believe Anna is 5 weeks old already? We hung out outside yesterday while Randy mowed the lawn and here are some pics of our children...

June 17th...

Yay! I finally got a letter in the mail from US Citizenship and Immigration...I go in for my citizenship ceremony on June 17th in Salt Lake!
It has taken us almost 6 years for this day to arrive so I couldn't be happier! Now our next step after that is for all of us to get passports so we can travel...

Did I mention I love America? I really do!

2 weeks...

We took Anna to her 2 week appt today (although she's not officially 2 weeks until 1:23 am tomorrow morning) and here are her stats:

Height- 21.75inches (she was 20.5 inches at birth)
Weight- 8lbs 2oz (she was 7.7 at birth and 7.5 last week)
Head circ- 35.5cm

She is growing well and slowly adjusting to life outside the womb. Jacob has become very loving towards her and will run to wherever she is when she cries. Randy and I are still zombies because of our lack of sleep, but we wouldn't trade it for anything!
My mom has been down here with us this week and will be here next week too. It's been fun seeing Jacob get to know his grandma Rojas, and it's been nice being able to take naps during the day while she watches the baby and Jacob naps.

Hanging out with Great Grandma Winegar on saturday


Hanging out with Grandma Rojas today after her doctor's appointment

more pictures...

meeting his sister...


He wanted to sit up on the bed with me :)


awww...