Sara Pace / Aaron Dance

February 26th (a Friday), I got to venture back out again with Gabe.  Aaron had a dance performance at school at the same time that Sara had her Pace presentation.  So Scott and I did a divide and conquer approach.  I went to the dance performance on the upper campus with the three little kids, while Scott went to Sara's outdoor Pace presentation down on the lower campus. 

Aaron did an awesome job dancing.  Kate and Owen loved watching him, and Gabe slept the whole time.

When the dancing was done, I hurried down to the lower campus with the three kids to join Scott and catch the very end of Sara's presentation on Paul Revere.

I only saw Sara for a few minutes before her class was called to go back in, so I made Sara do her whole presentation again for me when we got home.

Newborn Photos

The more kids I have, the more I realize how important good photos are.  I wanted to make sure to get good newborn photos of Gabe.  I had already bought the photos that were taken in the hospital, but I wanted more.  I asked a friend who had just had a baby who she had used, and she gave me her photographer's name.  Scott and I went together on a Saturday (when Gabe was 9 days old) and spent 4 hours in her studio getting perfect pictures of Gabe.  She was so patient, she was really wonderful.  Gabe didn't want to sleep and relax without one of us holding him, so we had to swaddle him really tight in his swaddling pictures, and have lots of patience to wait for him to relax into sleep when he wasn't swaddled.  We also had a heater blowing hot air on him so he'd be ok being naked (it was probably 80 degrees in the room).  I love that she knew all the tricks to getting a baby to be happy for pictures. I love the way his pictures turned out!

This photo took forever to get.  We'd get him all calm and settled, then slowly take our hands away and he would startle awake.  It took probably half an hour to finally get him asleep enough to get him to stay this way.  It makes me love this one even more, knowing how much work went into it.

(This one was for Scott)

Family Fun Night at the Middle School

Each year the Middle School student council sponsors a Family Fun Night.  The admission is a can of food, and it all goes to the Eagle Food Bank.  They have games, bounce houses, face painting, etc.  This year my big kids didn't want to go, and I needed to stay home with Gabe.  So Scott went and took the 4 younger kids.  He was kind enough to take pictures for me.

40th Birthday

Gabe was actually due two days after my birthday, but I always get induced a week early, so I had him 5 days before I turned 40.  40 was always my cutoff for having babies, so it was really important to me that I had him before my birthday, so I could say that I was still 39 when I had him.  That was my focus my whole pregnancy, having him before my birthday.  But then I had him, and 3 days after coming home from the hospital, it was my birthday.  I had never even considered how having him before my birthday would effect me.  40 is a big deal and I've always imagined having a big party to celebrate.  But my birthday came and I was a complete mess.  Nursing wasn't going well, I was a zombie from lack of sleep, my hormones were all over the place and I would break into tears over nothing, and I couldn't wear real clothes yet.  I cried to Scott that I didn't want to have a birthday while I was such a mess.  He suggested we just do a small family celebration, and then later when I was up for it we could do a proper celebration.  We never did celebrate later, but the small family celebration turned out pretty great. 

Scott cooked a fancy dinner for me (Spanish tortilla).

Gabe was very good and let me put him down long enough to enjoy my dinner.

Scott went to the dollar store earlier in the day and got decorations for me (a cute table cloth and black balloons).

Scott also let the kids each pick out a gift at the dollar store to give to me.  Owen drew me a picture.

 Scott got me a gift card to Kohls so I could go shopping for clothes when I was ready (after losing baby weight).

 Savannah decorated the cake.

 

 

All of my babies are allergic to milk, so we just assumed Gabe was too.  Since I was still nursing, I couldn't have any dairy.  Scott found a recipe for a dairy free cake and made it for me.  It was delicious!

So my 40th birthday came and went without much attention or hype.  Maybe it was better that way.  My best gift was my new baby (even if he had made a mess of me).