¡Feliz Cumpleaños Jinnie!

Yesterday Jinnie turned 1! To celebrate we had a lunch party with some friends on Saturday. She certainly enjoyed the attention & letting everyone open presents for her (the kids liked that, too!). Even though Jinnie was suffering through an ear infection she was so pleasant and seemed to realize the party was a celebration for her! Happy Birthday, Beautiful! The hat didn't stay on for long.
The cake was cute & yummy (poppy seed with lemon coconut frosting & served with a lemon sauce & strawberries).
Jinnie was so excited to be allowed to touch the cake she had been eyeing since the day before!
We have a tradition of letting our girls dig into their cake for their 1st Birthday, but since we had so many friends over we decided to make a duck cupcake for Jinnie instead.
The duck was a duck shaped animal cracker frosted to look like the cake... she put the entire duck in her mouth & after about 5 minutes of chewing, it was finally gone!

¡Feliz Cumpleaños! (continued)

Jinnie with Dr. Castillo... it's nice that the person that delivered her is our friend & was able to come to her 1st Birthday!
No... Jinnie is NOT spoiled!Posing in the towell that the Rubilar girls gave her... in the summer we go to the beach with them once a week so they knew just what she needed!
The 'kids table' was outside... they thought it was great to be away from their adults & on their own. Have you ever seen anybody so excited for beach toys?

Biggest Strawberry Ever

That is my hand, not Hailey's, Ava's or Jinnie's... it was seriously huge & tasted so yummy! For some reason the strawberrys in Chile seem to taste better than in the US. Lucky me!

Grrrrr....

Any idea why I'm bugged? If you guessed that we have sickness at our house again, you were right... good job! So Jinnie has ANOTHER ear infection. Yesterday they took samples of the lovely pus draining from her ear and the results will be back tomorrow... then we'll know if it's viral or bacterial. If it's viral we'll wait it out... if it's bacterial we'll know what kind of antibiotic to use for treatment. She also has thrush again, and we just visited our neighbor downstairs (he's the medical director at one of the hospitals in town) & it looks like Ava has herpangina (the hand, foot & mouth disease minus the hand & foot that Jinnie had about 1 1/2 months ago). She is on ibuprofen for a few days, but not much else to do for it since it's a virus. Hopefully the rest of us don't get it;).

Back to School, Back to Books...

Last week I started my 1st class as a pilot student for a new program @ BYU-Idaho (yes Spencer... we are now classmates). It is an online bachelor degree program for former BYU-I/Ricks students. Isn't it amazing that I can live in Chile, yet complete my degree from Ricks? This first class is an orientation to the program: getting reacquainted with the 'Spirit of Ricks', developing study skills, creating a graduation plan and developing online learning skills. I'm amazed at how much time it is taking up already, but I'm very excited for next semester when I get to start taking classes that I'm interested in. With this program we double minor and then have a cluster, which is 15 credits in a similar field. I think I my minors will be English & History, with a cluster in Spanish. I'm pretty sure I need some new school clothes.

Bad Day

Grandma White was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. She will be starting chemo next week, 3 days on then 11 days off, for 4 months. The cancer has spread to her lungs and right now she is having a bone scan to see if it has spread there as well. Not a fun thing for anyone to have to go through, especially your grandma. Seems a bit like deja vu, since it was about 1 1/2 years ago that dad was diagnosed with colon cancer as well. Could it be genetic? The bit of research I did today looks like it's certainly possible that there is a genetic mutation... we will definitely need to look into that, as grandma has many descendants. Grandma, you are certainly in our thoughts & prayers.

Negotiations

Every 3 years there are employee negotiations at the mine where Dave works. Lucky him, he gets to be in charge of them this time around. There is a lot of arguing going on right now, but hopefully everything will get resolved by the deadline in a couple of weeks... if not we will see strikes. The girls & I are enjoying Dave working from town during this time... 4 hrs that he doesn't have to spend on the road each day... nice. And he has come home for lunch several times this past week. Of course he's also worked quite late a couple of times. We have to take the good with the bad. The picture is of some of the contractors that were on strike in August.

Most Intelligent

Friday was Teachers Day, and to celebrate not only was there no school, there was also an assembly on Thursday to show the teachers how much they are appreciated. In the younger grades (the schools here are ages 3-18) 1 student was chosen to represent each class. Hailey's teachers picked her because she is the 'most intelligent' in the class (their words, not mine). Last year she refused to talk to her teachers (she admitted to me that she was worried that she would sound stupid because her Spanish wasn't as good as her English, but she's over that now... I sound stupid every time I speak Spanish... maybe I should try not talking;)). This year she talks a lot and now everyone knows how smart she really is. As her class representative she held up a letter and said a line about her teachers smiles. We practiced it constantly for a couple days, but she forgot part of it during the assembly. She hasn't let it bother her at all though (which I was worried about... she tends to be a perfectionist). Being in the assembly turned her into quite the celebrity... when I picked her up from school 3 middle school-aged girls were trying out their English on her, and telling her how pretty she is.

Locked out/in

Next week we will be having some netting installed on the main patio & last night we had a couple of people over taking the final measurements. I was outside with them & the girls were in the playroom. Soon Ava was outside and not long after Hailey joined us (one of the people was the dad of one of her classmates). Jinnie remained in the playroom, happy as can be. Next thing I knew I saw Ava slamming the sliding glass door shut. I ran to catch it, but not in time. She slammed it so hard the latch at the top flipped down & locked us out & Jinnie in. The men were able to wiggle the latch lock loose & tried to take the glass out, but the other locks wouldn't allow it. Luckily Dave was working in town yesterday, so I borrowed one of their cell phones so that Dave could come and rescue us. We spent the next 15 minutes or so being goofy through the playroom windows (which are also sliding glass doors, so she really didn't feel too isolated). My biggest concern was that she would go exploring and climb the stairs, which she has tried many times, and as they are made out of tile I was grateful she stayed where she was. We were all very happy when we spotted Dave's car on the street below.

Desperate Housewives

I haven't watched this show, but now I feel like I need to. I had 3 friends from the US over for brunch & one of them made the comment that I remind her of Bree on Desperate Housewives, "but in a good way." Not sure how to take that. Is it good? Bad? The fact that "but in a good way" was added makes me think it's not such a good thing to be like her. I googled her picture & she doesn't seem so bad, but looks can be deceiving.

Best FHE Treat Ever

We switched nights for Family Home Evening this week, so tonight was the night... the girls are becoming very independent with their assignments. When it is their turn for lesson, they don't want help. When it is their turn for activity, they don't want help. Basically we have to try not to laugh out loud at times. Like tonight. Ava was in charge of treat. I had a berry crisp in the fridge that I suggested we eat. She insisted on ice cream. I was fine with that. But when it came time for treats she wouldn't let any of us help her. I told her no standing on a bar stool to get the ice cream or cones out, and that if she needed something that was high to let me know & I'd help her. Next thing I know we were called downstairs to eat. She had bowls & cups for us, and a bag full of pink & white marshmallows. The girls received pink & Dave received white. Then she wanted us to float them in water (we often have races to see whose cookie sinks 1st in milk). As fun/funny as this was, I'm glad that I'm treat next week.

New Do

Today I got my hair cut... wahoo! The ends were way nasty so it was good to get them cleaned up! Love hair cuts. Love them.
Today was my first time using the camera function on the web cam... now you may see more pictures of me than you care to;)

Done Deal

Yamana received 78% of the Meridian Gold shares, so I guess Dave will be working for Yamana. He had some meetings and a dinner with the President & COO of Yamana on Friday, and as far as we know we'll be staying in Chile.

"We are Climbing...

in Jacob's sweater," according to Ava. The girls have a CD with Bible songs on it, and somehow Jacob's ladder has changed to in Jacob's sweater... makes me a bit worried about how else she may translate the scriptures in the future.

Can you tell...

that Dave is in Santiago, so I'm obviously not playing Cities & Knights or talking with him, or anything else, so I'm catching up on the blog. I haven't mentioned Jinnie for a while... she's doing sooo much better (except with sleeping... sad for me). Her mouth, throat, ears, lungs, etc. are finally healthy (probably because every time Ava prays she mentions Jinnie and her health 3 different ways, so she has had a lot of prayers offered in her behalf). She is enjoying food more than ever and loves to try new things (except squash). The other day we were eating blueberry muffins and rather than giving Jinnie small pieces she received 1/2 a muffin. She was sooo happy. She smiled at it & touched it for a while, then she quickly stuffed the whole thing into her mouth. She was so happy! (until I plugged her nose so that she would open her mouth so that I could dig out most of the muffin. Even though her cheeks are big enough to hold 2 whole muffins I still worry about choking). We're having to baby proof everything right now. Jinnie isn't walking yet, but she is getting closer than I'd like to admit. She loves to say 'momma, dada, papa & baby (more like bebe)' and gets a lot of smiles with her persistent waving. I can't believe that my baby is growing up so fast!

Conference Time

The girls love coloring, eating, playing near the computer during conference.


I always love General Conference. It's always such a spiritual feast. It seems that since being in Chile I've loved it even more, probably because I can understand every word that is being said when we watch it on our computer, verses every other church meeting where I catch some and miss some. I can't wait until tomorrow when I can print out some of the talks at http://lds.org/ (OK, so with 3 children I guess I don't catch every word the 1st time). The Relief Society broadcast the week before was also wonderful. This is the 1st year since I've lived here that there wasn't an English translation in another room, so I listened to it in Spanish with everybody else. What a neat experience. Not only did I understand so much (even when the translation switched to Portuguese for a while), but I had such an overwhelming feeling as I thought that my mom, sisters, friends, etc. were watching and listening to the same people that I was at that very moment, as well as women from all over the world. What a wonderful sisterhood to be apart of!

Bunches of Baby Showers

You know how in the US it's not that cool to play games at baby showers anymore? Well it's just the opposite in Chile. Last month I threw a friend a baby shower and we played some cheesy games. Apparently they were quite the hit because the following Sunday I was asked to do the games at 2 other baby showers (and decorations for one of them). This Friday will be the last one until January... wahoo. I really need a break from this month of cheesiness.

Parents in Action

Hailey's school class is working on 'Parents in Action', which is where the parents take turns coming and teaching the class something that we know how to do. I thought it would be fun to make cupcakes & then frost them. Hailey loved the idea and her classmates did as well. They loved having a ton of colors of frosting & a bunch of sprinkles to choose from! I hear it was the class favorite, until the child whose parents are volunteer firefighters showed up with a firetruck!

Last night I received Hailey's report card... she is doing so well. It's so fun to read what her teachers have to say about her (smart, helpful, outgoing, etc), and they all say 'CONGRATULATIONS', which we just think is so funny. She also had her 1st class presentation this week (on pigs... her favorite animal), and her teachers congratulated me because she did such a good job.

Finally... BARBIE!!!

In our family we get a Barbie when we are potty trained (at least until a boy comes along), and Ava finally got to pick out her Barbie! She has been so close so many times, but then life would get disrupted with a new baby, a bunch of vacations, etc. I guess Ava just needed life to calm down a little. So she was able to pick any Barbie in the store, so of course she picked the Barbie that is really 3 Barbies (an art teacher & her 2 students). Hailey did the same thing... a ballet teacher & her student. I can only imagine when Jinnie is done with diapers we will add a harp teacher & her students to the Barbie collection (my mom & sister just started harp lessons, so that's the 1st 'teacher' Barbie I could come up with).

Hailey kept carrying around her ballet teacher & student Barbies when Ava was opening her box. She really liked one of the Kelly dolls & talked to me about how it would be fun if Ava traded her. We talked about how these were Ava's dolls, and Hailey had hers, but they could share when they played. Apparently my little speech didn't sink in because later Ava informed me that Hailey had 1 Barbie & she had 4 because she traded Hailey the Kelly for the ballet teacher & student, plus she still has the art teacher & the other student.

Newest Addiction

It seems that all too often our priorities have been mixed up lately, and I blame it entirely on the game Cities & Knights of Catan. We used to play Settlers of Catan, and we thought that was fun, but Cities & Knights adds a whole new dimension to the 1st game. The nice thing is that it is a game Dave & I both like and are relatively equal in ability, skill, whatever you call it. We each take our turns winning & losing (though I prefer to think of myself as the champion more often than not). We enjoy it, so what is the problem? We play it too much. Other things of more importance are quickly forgotten when we hear 'I have time for one quick game'. Goodbye clean house. Goodbye nice dinner. Goodbye sleep. Goodbye blogging. Maybe we'll get sick of it soon, or at least use it as a reward rather than a way of life. Until then, I may not be posting as much;)