Sandia Crest

Today is my due date. It has been a terrific day and I remain hopeful that this little girl is simply punctual...and last minute. Rus decided that a drive up the mountain was in order to induce labor. He was unsuccessful, obviously, or I wouldn't be sharing these great pics with you. The biggest contraction I had came when he said, "I have some flavored rubber to masticate if you need any," and I laughed so hard I had a contraction. Who new he had such a rich vocabulary, or that he would go through such lengths to hide the fact that he had gum from our children.
The destination for our drive was Sandia Crest. One of the perks of 8am church is that we got home in time to pack a lunch and drive to the top of the mountain for a picnic. The kids were super excited and enjoyed the views, throwing their crusts off the mountain ("it's still falling, I know it!"...five minutes later), and climbing on the stone building that perches right on the edge of the mountain. It was about a 2/3 mile hike from the crest where we parked to the stone building and Beau entertained himself by running ahead of everyone and "hiding" from us. Here is a picture of him hiding with me.

You totally can't see me, right? And this is my favorite one of him hiding...so sneaky.

My mom, aka Cutesy is here visiting (her methods of inducing labor are slightly different from Rus'...they involve lots of shopping...). Here are the girls:
I LOVE this picture of her and Beau and beautiful Albuquerque in the background.

Rus enjoyed taking pictures, as usual, and when I got home I told him I really liked this one...and then he said, "You know, that stump is the perfect outdoor toilet."

True, true, true. Maybe won't hang that one in the living room now, but...
And just a few more of the kids climbing the stone house, and my favorite - the one with them and Albuquerque in the background.





So far today I've been told that to induce labor I need to eat some habanero chiles, eggplant, and pizza, have my ankles rubbed, and drive up a mountain...Any other family-blog-worthy suggestions? (Not that I'm having any habaneros or eggplant or pizza...) Any of you have a baby on your due date? (I've got six hours left...)

First Day of School

Last week we met a well anticipated milestone - the first day of school! This new school was kind enough to provide us with two first days - Bekah started on Tuesday and Jacob suffered until Thursday morning. He was beyond excited and was super prepared with his Transformer backpack (it really transforms! Bumblebee to Optimus - he'll remember it forever). He also had a robot lunchbox packed with yummy back-to-school treats like m&m cookies and cheetos.So the night before Bekah's first day I laid out some new clothes for her to surprise her in the morning. The next morning she came into my room excited and dressed and said that she had woken up at 2 am and hadn't been able to sleep so she had played with some toys on her bed for a little while until she noticed her new clothes on the floor. She got up, changed her clothes, and went back to sleep fully dressed. :)Jacob got gypped - I totally forgot to lay out his clothes - but I did have them in my closet when he ran into my room at 6:30am and asked for them. Then who should throw a fit - Beau - who I had not bought a new outfit for. I got lucky and found him some clothes in the "winter clothes bucket" in his closet and he was placated. Here are Bekah and Jacob waiting for the bus on Jacob's first day. Can you tell they were excited?
They were really cute walking up the road to the bus stop holding hands. Bekah was really protective of Jacob and helped him both on the way there and the way home.Here I am waiting with them for the bus......and here is Rus with the kids. He stayed home from work just long enough to send Jacob off on the bus, a small, simple thing that I really appreciated because I know Jacob loved it.
So what did Beau and I do on our first day together? Actually he had a play date with a new friend while I went to a baby shower/lunch that my SIL DeAnn and my friends Tara and Taffy put on for me in Los Lunas. It was a really fun, simple shower and I felt so loved by all the attention. I picked up Beau afterwards, came home, and we started a movie together. I guess Beau's playdate (a girl) really wore him out because ten minutes into the movie here was Beau:All in all it was a great day. Bekah loves her teacher who surprised their class with a class pet gecko named Gary. The principal of the school is awesome and goes out on the playground for recess every day with his pet milk snake - which makes him Super Cool. (And a good principal makes Mom super happy.) Jacob came home from school and said, "SCHOOL ROCKS!" He loved singing time and made a friend (but he can't remember her name).

What more could I ask for?

Pregnant Brain

I think I've told you before...my pregnant brain is slightly crazy. Just ask my friend Taffy, although she'll probably add that it is also entertaining to hear/see me say/do things that just don't make sense.
Last night I didn't sleep very well - my brain exerted itself to unnecessary measures, playing Colbie Callait's Brighter than the Sun song over and over in my head (I swear all night), while I made the Hartman's cream biscuits over and over again - except I don't have the actual recipe, I just know the ingredients, so I felt like I spent the whole night worrying about getting the recipe from the Hartman's.

Seriously.
Who does that?

I'm blaming it on the cake mix cookies I made yesterday. Chocolate seems to mess up my sleep when ingested in large quantities.
It could possibly be the stress of this move, though. You would be proud to know that we have cleared most of the boxes out of the house. I have one (okay one big and two little) in the extra bedroom, and there are a few in my closet in my bedroom (because I don't own a dresser...), and then there are some in the laundry room...oh and there are a few in my kitchen because whoops the cabinet lady forgot to include pantry shelves in my order and I didn't catch it until now. But beyond that the house looks pretty good. I even have pictures on the wall. And curtains. Yes, curtains hanging in my kids' rooms (they slept in till 7am, thankyouverymuchblackoutcurtains.) And most of my cabinets have pulls. I have even made dinner the last three nights in a row. I should feel like super woman but the To Do list is so much longer than the Done list, and maybe being 38 weeks along is starting to wear on me a little bit. Or a lotta bit. Just ask Rus. Wait, don't...

Tom...Mary...Can you send me the cream biscuit recipe? I really need it.
Baby...Can you stop messing up my sleep?
Brain...Can you pick a nice David Lanz song for tonight?
Rus...Do you have two more weeks in you?
Beau...Can you stop pooping in your choneys (underwear)? It's gross.
Colonel...Why the obsession with eating used tissues?
Jacob and Bekah...forgive me, but I can't wait until you start school next week...

Moving On

Tonight is the last night in my house in Los Lunas and I have to admit I've been feeling a little sentimental - running my hands up the banisters (my favorite part of the house possibly and by the way they are dirty, magic eraser time for sure), spending an extra minute in my craft closet (oh wait that was my favorite part of the house)...
We have been here in this house four years and it was been wonderful, but even more wonderful have been our friendships. I'm just planning on taking those with me though and that keeps me from being totally overcome with sadness.
So on that note I thought I'd let you know what we've been up to for the last several weeks...like giving away the grass in our backyard to a cousin's friend for sod and replacing it with rocks - Who does that? We do...(less maintenance for renters, but just a little bit depressing), finalizing lots of little things at our new house, attending Bekah's first piano recital, and packing, packing, packing. ("Honey? Where's that phone number? Did you pack it? You threw it away?! What about a pen? Those are gone too, huh...")
Oh and growing a baby, by the way. I am 37 weeks on Sunday and an ultrasound I had today proves this girl is about 6 pounds right now. And she has a big head like my other kids (but not as big as Beau's, phew.) Rus is incredibly worried that I'll go into labor during our move. I have to remind him that I'm not like his sister and sister in law - our babies come late. No worries. Although, REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION HERE - The cutoff for kids going to school is September 1st. My baby is due August 28th. Do I get induced just to have the baby before September so I don't have to wait the extra year for her to start school or do I just let come what may? Honestly I am hoping that she just comes in her own due time (and that her own due time is before the first of September...)

Here are some pictures just for fun...
Bekah's recital - She did an awesome job, didn't miss a note, but afterwards got stuck wondering whether to curtsy or bow and just froze a little bit. It was really cute/funny. Here she is with her teacher, Sister Hall.My kids with their "spray-on tan." The rocks we put in the back yard came with a bunch of reddish dirt and my kids bathed themselves in it. Bekah added a cherry facial just for some extra color. Jacob is not in pain, I promise. Zoom in to get the full effect.See. Slightly depressing.Rus and I taking a break from our hard labor. (I raked. That's all, I promise.) Picture courtesy of Jacob.The end. I'll be in the deep dark disconnected abyss for a while, so don't worry about me...

Pregnant Pics

A few weeks ago we went to Lordsburg (where Rus' parents just moved), for a family reunion. All of Rus' siblings were there and we all had a terrific time. DeAnn (my sis-in-law) was the official photographer of the weekend - I remembered my camera...but forgot the SD card. When I'm able to snag some of her awesome pictures I'll be happy to share them...but in the mean time I wanted to show off some pictures that she took for me. I asked her to take some "belly shots" because I've never had a good pregnant picture and I wanted one, kind of "for the record - this is how I looked prego". So here's me at 32 weeks. I am not a good picture taker - beyond smiling for a camera I just feel ridiculous or self-conscious having a lot of pictures taken of myself. So DeAnn did great considering what she had to work with.
This first one is by far my favorite. What do you think?

Birthday Letters!

The time has come again for birthdays! Beau's was last week and Bekah's is tomorrow. Here are their birthday letters...Enjoy!