Pictures!

I'm posting pictures!!  On a side note, I am on a serious diet!  I need to start exercising again...my little man is not a baby anymore and my arms are about twice the size they were from when I got married.  Ridiculous.  Anyways, here are some cute pictures!!

We went to the Tenino City Park!



They have all these huge sandstone blocks!

Brian is turning into such a handsome little man!

This is his korean picture pose.  No smiles, all business :)

He loves mommy!  He was getting a little shy.

Being silly and playing!  He loves the park.

At first he didn't want to look at the camera so he preoccupied himself with the flowers.

I love my little guy so much!

I love his smily face!  He is such a happy toddler!



Okay, I think that is a sufficient picture update :)  I'll try harder to put more pictures up, it was kind of fun and a lot easier than I thought!

Family Home Evening

Yesterday for FHE our lesson was based on this talk, More diligent and concerned at home, by Elder Bednar.  Joel and I have been making goals lately so that we can have a more Christ centered home.  Both of us have fond memories of serving in the mission field and entering the homes of some of the members and being overwhelmed by the spirit that was felt.  We both want that kind of home!  After reading this talk we discussed why it was important to be more diligent and concerned at home, what the blessings would be, and what we could both do to achieve this goal.

What does your family do to have a Christ centered home?

Here are some ideas we came up with!

Plan!  We want to live the gospel deliberately.  So instead of reading the scriptures whenever we have spare time during the day we want to have a schedule again.  This has been hard since Brian has been born but if we don't start now it will just become harder.  Since mornings are easiest we have been reading in the morning, then just sharing one thing that we learned.  We love it! It's definitely created more unity in our marriage and our family.  When I read the scriptures I can feel my Heavenly Father's love for me.  Then when I look at my husband i'm so filled with love and gratitude that all I can see are his good and amazing qualities.  I'm just so thankful for the things that he does for our family and for the example he is to our son.  And to me!  I don't think I have ever met a more patient man.  Especially to put up with me.  I am my mothers daughter (my korean mother).  see blog "things korean mom's like".  Just kidding, I love my korean mom! 

We also want to plan our family time.  I don't mean militantly schedule each minute of the day.  We are trying to plan fun activities that we can do as a family that doesn't involve grocery shopping or lounging around the house.  So if anyone has any free/cheap activity ideas we would love some input!!

We had several more but I'm running out of time.  I'll put them up later when I upload some photos (never).

Birthday party

On Friday we went to a birthday party!  My friend Nicole's daughter Katie turned 2.  She's Brian's little girlfriend :)  Nicole and I have known each other since 5th grade.  It's hard to believe that we're both mommies!  Nicole has two adorable little ones.  We moved here to Washington last year around this same time and made it to Katie's 1st birthday party.  She is the cutest little girl and has grown up so much over the last year.  I'll have to get some pictures from Nicole so I can post them here.  Brian and Katie were so cute together and kept giving each other little kisses.  Happy Birthday Katie!!

End of the week

Sundays are always bitter sweet.  I love having the whole day with my family.  I always try to make a nice breakfast and I'll make bread so it can be ready for dinner.  Then we go to church which is always wonderful.  But then towards the end of the day you remember the next day is monday and that you have to go back to work for another week.  It should be illegal to have to work when you're a mom...leaving my little guy is the hardest thing.  It just doesn't seem to get any easier as he gets older.  He's just so fun and playful in the morning.  And then it breaks my heart to hear him cry as I leave to go to work.  Okay, i'm done with my pity party.

Today our family went to an english ward!  It's been a while since i've been to church in english.  We've been considering it for a while but we really hate to leave our spanish ward.  We've been talking about it though and we think it'll be good for our family to immerse ourselves in as much english as possible.  Mostly for Joel.  I obviously speak english pretty well :)  We live in Lacey 3rd ward boundaries but we got our times a little mixed up and ended up attending Lacey 6th ward today.  It was a nice ward :)  Next week we'll get it right.

Joel and I really want to buy a house!  He also really wants to join the army.  Though joining the army wouldn't be my first choice it has been something that he has consistently expressed interest in.  He's very excited about it and will be taking the entrance exam in about a month.  I'm being supportive :)  So we're going to wait to buy a house.  If he takes the test and doesn't receive a score that allows him to have a satisfactory job (i.e. not infantry) then we'll go forward with the military and I will become an army wife.  My family has always been in the army so i'm used to the lifestyle.  Otherwise we'll stay here in Washington and buy a house!

I've been halfheartedly studying for the LSAT.  Since it's a practice test I kind of want to go in "blind" just to see where my strengths are and what areas I need to focus on.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I feel like i'm finally reaching some of my goals!

Brian is finally saying a few words clearly and associating them.  Like "mama".  He used to just mumble that to everyone.  Now he is saying "mama" very clearly and understanding that I'm mama!  I love it!  He's a late talker so it's exciting to finally hear him call me mama.  My mom watches him while I work and speaks to him in Korean all day, then Joel speaks to him in Spanish and I speak to him in English.  He's been a little confused.

For the past month or so i've been rehearsing for a multi-stake musical review.  It has been a lot more time consuming than I thought!  We've been rehearsing on Saturday's and now we're rehearsing even longer so we can get everything together before the show opens.  It's been a lot of fun though.  I haven't performed in a show since high school. The performances are going to be the the last week of July and the first week of August.  If you're in the area make sure you plan on coming, it's going to be a great show!

Fathers Day

I'm so excited for Fathers Day!!  Joel and I always do gifts but I haven't felt like they have ever been well thought out gifts.  This year i'm planning ahead!!  It's a surprise though.  Just in case that by some odd reason Joel decides to read our family blog i'll keep it a secret until little Brian gives him his gift.  It's going to be pretty cute though. 

So far so good

So far I have been much more successful with this blog than my last one.  4 posts in 3 days?  Last blog, 5 posts in one year.  I guess I'm at the stage of my life that I need to blog.  I've also been thinking about buying a sewing machine...This must mean i'm a grown up now.

We found the culprit for our little oven fire.  I have a multi color pack of spatulas.  Brian likes to play with them.  The green one had been missing until last night when we found it burned and melted in the bottom of the oven.

My sister and her new boyfriend are coming over for dinner tonight.  We're going to make some shrimp tacos!!  Joel is pretty excited.  We usually only make them when guests come over because it's kind of a lot of work so we make a ton to make it worth a while.  Since breaded shrimp is not one of those foods that taste very good the next day (soggy!) even if we bake it again...Anyways, this is a treat for Joel.  We're going to make some battered fish also to make fish tacos.  If anyone ever goes to Hermosillo Sonora in Mexico you have to go to El Pescadito.  THE BEST FISH TACOS EVER!!  We try to mimic them whenever we make fish tacos, not quite the same, but still good.  We're hoping to go visit in October so i'll post some pictures!  (notice all the empty promises of posting pictures?  probably never gonna happen.  It just seems like the proper blog thing to say.)

By the way, my husband's family is from Sonora Mexico, which is why we go there to visit.  Not because we're rich and go on vacations to Mexico every year.

A learning experience

This will be a quick post.  My oven caught on fire!!  For the last 4 or 5 months Brian has been really curious and opening the oven door.  We've been using the oven lock but he can easily slide it over to unlock it.  I finally bought a clasp from Toys R Us but have yet to install it.  The other week I noticed he was putting things in the oven but when I checked I didn't see anything so I figured he had already taken it back out.  Well today I thought I would bake something.  While it was preheating I thought I smelled something funny.  When I opened the door flames were shooting out!  I was in shock!  haha and then I took a moment to consider whether or not I wanted to use our fire extinguisher.  It seemed like it would make a bigger mess than the actual fire.  There were flames but it was pretty much contained within the oven and I figured thats what ovens are for, right?  High heat!  So I just filled up a cup of water and threw it in there and called it good.  Now the kitchen smells a little funny.  Oh well...now the little latch is installed and i've purchased an oven cleaner to clean the oven.  So far this week is not making it on the top ten of the year.

Sick Day

Our whole family has been sick this week!  It's been an adventure.  Poor little Brian has had upper respiratory problems since he was a newborn so he gets pneumonia and ear infections pretty easily.  He's been a good sport about it though.  The doctors usually think he is less sick than he actually is because of his good attitude so I have become pretty pushy when it comes to hospital visits so that they don't write it off as a little cold.  That's what mom's are for, right?  Protecting your child to the point of being unreasonable at times?  Right?  My husband is embarrassed to go to Brian's appointments with me.  (By the way, I just learned that embarrassed is with two "r's" and not one.  Thank you little red squiggly line!)

Anyways, i'm staying home from work today to get some rest and get over this cold.

Yesterday my husband bought me a treadmill from Costco!  I think he's telling me it's time to lose the baby weight, especially since Brian isn't a baby anymore...We were pretty excited when we brought it home, until we looked at the instructions.  Let me just say, I am impressed that someone was able to draw that complicated picture on such a small piece of paper.  I'm not even sure if they are instructions.  Mostly arrows and numbers.  The jury is still out on whether or not we will try to assemble it ourselves or if we will use the only legible instruction on there, which is "call a certified technician to assemble this product."

Joel is such a good sport about it though.  He got home super late from work last night and still went and bought it for me, then used all his man strength to get it out of our truck!  His friend is going to come over tonight and hopefully help him put it together.

We moved Family Home Evening to tonight (don't know what family home evening is?  Read about it here!  family home evening.)  It's my turn to give the lesson.  We've had a great time with FHE, Family Home Evening, from now on will be referred to as FHE :).  So we've had a great with FHE, especially since Brian has been old enough to sit for a few minutes with us.  We've been singing primary songs with him and he is starting to catch on that we're singing and sings along!  So adorable.  I'll have to take a video sometime.  I'm pretty bad at those things.  I get so caught up in watching that I don't think to grab our camera.  I bring up FHE because we started doing a weekly overview during FHE so we know what's going on the week, who has appointments, meetings, activities, etc...and it has been sooo helpful!!!  No more "Oh by the way I have an elders quorum meeting..." which is usually followed by, "well I have a primary meeting..." and then "who's going to take Brian?"  We usually solve this with rock paper scissors...Anyways, now we can plan ahead for the week.  We are slowly becoming more organized!  I love it.

For those who don't know, we attend a small spanish branch (which is similar to a ward but smaller)  here in Lacey (What is a branch/ward?)  Our branch, the Rainier Vista Branch recently created it's own Primary!  (see previous link and scroll down)  It has been such a blessing to have our own primary.  We are able to focus on our children and their individual needs.  We have a small group of kids.  Sometimes it's just my son and another little guy but I love it!  We get to sing songs with them, and teach them little lessons about how Heavenly Father loves them.  Especially since my own son is in my class.  I'm so grateful that these are things that I can share with him.  Something that i've realized is that it is hard to prepare a 5 minute lesson for toddlers!  You would think that you wouldn't have to study to teach an 18 month old but I've realized that I have to study a lot more!  It's takes a greater knowledge and understanding of the gospel to be able to teach it so simply that a child can understand it.  It has been very humbling.  I thought I had a pretty solid knowledge of at least the basics, but as I sit down to read the lesson and think, how would I explain this to child?  I find myself learning a lot more!

Back to the point of my post.  I'm home sick today and need to prepare for FHE.  We're going to make FHE and sabbath day activity jars!  I'll post some pictures once we're done.

P.S.  I realize I use a lot of vocabulary that may seem foreign to some people, like FHE, wards, elders quorum.  Feel free to check out this website, lds.org, or send me a message if you have any questions!

New Start

We are starting a new blog!  Again! 

It's finally summer vacation!  Finals were rough.  This was definitely my hardest semester.  But I made it and got a 4.0!!  It made it a lot easier that Joel was already done with school during finals so he was able to watch Brian while I studied/did homework.  I'm taking a practice LSAT on the 25th of this month then the actual test in October.  Two more semesters for my B.S. then hopefully on to either grad school or law school.  We're so excited for these new steps for our family!

Brian is 18 months!  He is still the cutest little guy ever.  I'll post some pictures and videos as soon as I have a chance.  I need to get a multi card reader since my mac doesn't have one built in.

The little man is sick right now.  He has ear infections.  The big stud is sick also.  I think Brian's taking it a little better than Joel is haha. 

Some better news is that Joel bought me a kitchen aid mixer!!  This is probably my favorite gift ever!  We've been enjoying some delicious homemade bread every sunday after church.  I think I want to make it a tradition.

Tonight we're going to costco to buy a new treadmill.  This is necessary due to all the bread we've been eating.  (see above statement).  It'll be nice to be able to exercise at home since Brian doesn't always like going to the daycare at the gym.  And now I can go running in the morning without worrying that Brian will wake up while i'm gone!

I'm still working for State Farm.  (P.S. I'm a licensed insurance agent in Property, Casualty, Life, and Disability, and I speak spanish and english!)  Send me some referrals!  haha, had to throw that in there.  Joel is still working for Peace Transportation.  He is desperate for a new job.  He does not have a very good schedule, it's pretty random.  Each night we wait for an email which gives him his schedule for the next day.  It's pretty hard to plan around that.  And no benefits.  Lame.  So he's been going to school and working hard to get a better job.  We're thankful that he has a job though.  That is a great blessing.

We'll hopefully have some exciting news to report in the next month or so...stay tuned!