San Luis Internal Med

Hello all this is Jeff. I just wanted to chime in with our current predicament. I am writing from beautiful San Luis, Mexico I mean Arizona. Same difference if you ask me? I am here working the underserved population of Mexico, I mean Arizona again. I am easily confused between the two because as I look out of the office that I am working at I see the border patrol and customs. You see I am smack dab on the border of Arizona and Mexico.

This means that ALL the patients that I have been seeing speak ONLY espanol. Big disadvantage for me, I wish I had paid more attention in my high school Spanish classes. I am working in an Internal Medicine Clinic which means we treat patients with a bunch of comorbidities such as: Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension, Dislipidemia, Hypothryroidism, and the list goes on. Also all the people that we see are very poor and live pretty rough lives. It helps me realize how good we have it. The worst part about being 200+ away from Mesa is that I have to be away from Chelsi and Talmage. I do get to go home on the weekends for 2 days but it still is hard being away. In closing I have posted a picture of my scenic drive to work each day. It is the beautiful fence that the government built to keep all the dirty Americans in the United States.

The First Article of Faith

We've been teaching Talmage to say the first Article of Faith. He actually learned it a lot faster than we thought he would. Two-year-old's brains really are amazing little sponges! Here is a video of our trained monkey in action.

(Scroll down and turn off the music before playing video)

Chef in Training

Our little boy is a chef in training. He really does love to cook, a desire he must have inherited from his dad (as his mom hates to cook). Whether I'm stirring eggs, making cookies or grilling meat, he's there beside me standing on a chair, spoon in hand, willing and ready to be in action. Here are some shots of him stirring the marshmellows for rice crispie treats. As you can see, he is really in his element!

Naughty and Nice

I have to tell 2 funny stories about Talmage that happened today. While I (Chelsi) was teaching piano this afternoon, I heard a huge cry come from his room. I got up to make sure all was well and was informed by Jeff that Talmage had scratched him and was now in timeout, so nothing seriously wrong. After I was done teaching, Jeff was still lecturing Talmage about the incident and the little guy came into the bedroom looking all dejected and forlorn. I told him to just tell his dad sorry for scratching him and then Jeff would lay off. Talmage immediatedly scampered off to the kitchen to apologize to his daddy and then runs back in to where I was fiddling on the computer and announced, "I told daddy sorry for scratching." I said, "Good boy. We always say sorry when we are wrong, but then we have to stop doing the mean thing." Talmage replied, "But mom, I said sorry to him!" Which I think meant "What more do you want from me!"

Earlier today, I showed Talmage a cute pair of pj's I'd purchased for Cadence. When he saw them, he blurted out, "That's little." I said, "Babies are little so the pajamas have to be little too." I then pointed out all the brightly colored flowers on them and showed him the big embroidered cupcake on the side to which he very slowly and loudly replied, "Oh my!"

Later this evening, Talmage came into my room holding his bunny he had received for Easter this year. It is a small, soft, pastel rabbit, holding a carrot that rattles when you shake it. He held it up to me and said, "This for baby Cadence." I replied, "You want to give your bunny to your baby sister?" He said yes, so I told him to go and put the toy in her bed with all her clothes, which he promptly did. So there it sits on top of our pile of baby stuff, a sweet little reminder to me of how much our little ones can teach us. I just had to take a picture.

Busy Week Home In Utah

We just got back to Arizona after an extremely busy week in Utah. We had to get all our family and friend time in now because with the new baby on the way, we are not going to be able to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. We also had to have some fun before Jeff starts his rotations on August 18th. We spent the first part of the week with the Christensons, hanging out, playing games, and going out to eat. Talmage especially loved watching grandpa Christenson feeding his birds (Carey has wild magpies that eat right out of his hands). Talmage just loved playing with Amy and really enjoys all the attention he gets when he goes to grandma and grandpa Christenson's house. We spent the latter part of the weekend with the Pulley's, spending one night up in a cabin in Heber, thanks to the Welches, and the next day at Lagoon. Talmage loved riding all the rides at "Disneyland" as he likes to call it. Pretty much any place that has rides is called Disneyland to him. The next day we went swimming and hung out together playing games at the Pulley house. Talmage had fun with his cousins Grace and Kate. He is not very nice to Kate for some reason however, she is tough and seems to take care of herself just fine. We had such a fun week and will miss everyone over the holidays. Thanks for spoiling us grandmas and grandpas!!!

TWO YEAR OLD FOR SALE

I have a horrifying tale to tell about a very naughty little boy. Earlier today, I was preparing my relief society talk and Jeff had just fallen asleep after a 9 hour study session when I got off the computer to check on Talmage. I'd heard him shut his bedroom door which he never does on purpose. If it does close he cries until someone comes and lets him out (we have child safety handles so he can't sneak out in the night). So, I heard the door close and waited for the cry, but it never came. This was very suspicious! So I got up to investigate and low and behold, there he was covered from head to toe in permanent black marker! My jaw just dropped as I looked him over and then moved my gaze over the room, which was equally decorated. He'd drawn on his rug, the carpet, his sheet, and his bed. I walked into the kitchen to grab a towel (I didn't know what I was going to do with it exactly) when what should greet me but another black marker covered room! He'd also scribbled on the fridge, stove, dishwasher, linoleum, every cabinet and drawer he could reach, as well as the counter tops! I just yelled at Jeff to come save me. When he came in, Talmage was placed in time out (his longest one yet) and we set to work. We discovered that with a great deal of scrubbing, the powdered cleanser (Ajax in this case) was able to mostly remove the marker from all the hard surfaces. The carpet, rug and sheet however are a lost cause. So, we've turned the rug over and I'm going to go at the carpet later tonight with some scissors and try to trim off as much of the black material as I can without damaging it even more than it already is. The sheet is completely ruined but that's pretty good considering the mess we had started with. I am just grateful that I kept my head as much as I did and didn't strangle, hit, scream at or seriously harm my child in any way. I know it was hard for Jeff to restrain but after a big time out, we put the little culprit in the tub and turned our anger on the stains instead. I guess that's the silver lining in this whole experience!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

We just had our 20 week ultasound and found out that we are having a little girl!!!! We are super excited!!! The funny thing is when we told Talmage that he is going to be a big brother he said, "Talmage get a baby sister?" We were only about 4 weeks pregnant at that time. He must have known something we didn't. We are going to be naming her Cadence Marie Pulley.

Daddy and Talmage right after the good news.

Mama and Talmage right after the good news.

A Couple Cute Talmage-isms

When it rains here the frogs come out. Jeff caught one to see how Talmage would react to it. It turns out that Talmage loves frogs! He is such a boy. We kept it for 2 days and all Talmage wanted to do was play with the frog. He even learned to jump like a frog which became one of his main modes of transportation while we had the frog. Chelsi had a hard time with having the frog in her recently scoured tub and cleaned house and refused to pick it up. She is such a girl. Talmage was soooo sad when we had to let the little froggy go. We need to get him a permanent pet. We'll see.



Talmage is in that ostrich phase of "if I can't see you, than you can't see me." This is how he hides when it is time to go to bed. Whenever he doesn't want to do something he covers his eyes. It is like clockwork. We just play along and start looking for him all over the house. Eventually he gets tired of it and says, "Here Talmage is." He is big into third person speaking too.




This is Talmage and his little friend from our ward, Jeffy. They have a couple key things in common. They both love cars and anything to do with them. They also have pretty funny camera smiles. Talmage really likes playing with other little kids. He has a couple favorites like Jeffy, Madeline, and Brynna. Jeffy and Talmage had a little picnic and played cars cars cars.




Finally, lately Talmage has not loved sleeping in his bed like a normal little boy. There has been a bunch of nights when we go in his room to check on him while he is sleeping and we find him asleep all over the place. Here are a couple pics of some of the places we have found him. He is a goof ball.

Happy Independence Day

We had a really fun 4th of July this year. We kept it pretty simple. It was so hot here that there was a heat warning, so that was no fun. We started the day off by going to this pool/waterpark at Apache Juntion. Talmage loves these little parks that have the beach style entrance pools with a bunch of water features and even a couple slides. The weird thing was at this park we weren't able to take any pictures because they have had complaints about people taking pictures of other peoples kids. I personally think that some of these parents are a little overprotective and a little paranoid.

Then later we had a BBQ with a bunch of friends from school at our friend Phil's house. It was way fun and we even played a little guitar hero which is mighty addictive. So if you can't spend the holidays with family, friends are the next best thing.

We bypassed the fireworks this year. There is something about fireworks in 108 degrees that doesn't sound like that much fun. Maybe next year.

Which Princess Are You?

You Are Ariel!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?