Riot and I

A quick post for Riot's 3 week anniversary. He is doing well and getting a little chubby in the face. I think he looks adorable in brown and blues. He gave himself a little arm hickey when I didn't get his bottle fast enough. He laughs in his sleeps and loves to be held. He has three older sister's who fight for his attention. He is a little man and we are so thankful he is ours. Thanks for sharing!!!

Riot Mark Shannon Rowe

He's here! Riot Mark Shannon Rowe came into the world on July 14th at 4:30 am. He is a small little guy who weighed 7lb 5 oz at birth. (nursery says 2 oz) He was 19 1/2 inches long. He's keeping me busy which is why I can only write this small paragraph about him and haven't been able to post before this or even get newer pictures up but eventually that will change. Here is the first birth picture of him and one from his first bath. Thanks to everyone for thinking of us and looking forward to introducing him to you.

Twelve years later...

Today is Shane's and my 12 year anniversary. With luck we'll be able to have an actual date on Sunday if the babysitting goes through. It's hard to find a babysitter anymore. The more kids you add it seems to get harder. Lol This year finds us packing and pregnant. The apt is starting to look bare but not as bare as I would like. The girls are pretty much packed and the linen closet and pantry are done with the exception of the food for the next two weeks or so. The living room almost done aside from the art and pictures and the kitchen is nowhere near done. Still I'm ahead and for being 8 months or so I think doing pretty well. I can't wait to be unpacked and organized and with luck have a week or two to enjoy the new place, especially the backyard, before Riot is born and the breastfeeding and diaper changing begin. It's hard to believe that 12 years ago Shane and I were spending the day getting small things done for our tiny backyard wedding/elopement. That included meeting with the ordained minister and stealing some flowers from UNM for my and Kari's bouquet. ( I was at the duckpond this past weekend and they smelled wonderful!) Shane put the finishing touches on our vows and I think we both had a little big of cold feet. At that time I was only thinking about the day and Shane, I don't think it ever crossed my mind then about the life we were beginning. Not that it has all been easy, (8 years ago we had a week that I thought was going to kill me) but for the most part it's been filled with a lot of love, happiness, and laughter. (mostly from me as I am hysterical and he is almost as funny but not really. Then again he can fix my computer so I better give him credit for that) It's been full of girls and in the good way! Our daughters have been the greatest sources of joy and parental pride. This year we'll add our son and I look forward to seeing that change in our family dynamic. I've seen Shane be a dad to girls and it's going to be wonderful see him be a father to a son. So here's looking forward to a wonderful new year with Shane and our family. Now I guess I have to go and explain the birds and the bees to Kennedy as she was asking me earlier about her arrival into this world. Ava has her convince she was an egg and I think she might believe she came from a chicken. Lol Life!

Nova and the scissor fiasco

Well she did it. She cut her hair. Yesterday during another full day of packing I found a pair of small school scissors under a bin of clothes in the corner of the girls closet. I had already packed away the art supplies so I put the scissors in a box of misc. stuff I had going with the intentions of packing it full and taping it up. Of course something distracted me and I walked away never to return. (I got sidetracked and packed my sewing cabinet contents.) I had forgotten about the open box until Kennedy came out of their room last night before bed with a handful of Nova's hair to which she said "Mamma Nova cut her hair!" I sent Ava to get them as I was having some hard braxton hicks and she came out with the scissors, Nova, and some hair. Nova looked incredibly proud of herself. Shane was surprisingly calm but I was horrified. Right away I saw the cut. Side of the head and short. I had one of two options. Either cut it all the same length in a bob or give her a mullet. Somehow the idea of business in the front and party in the back didn't seem to be Nova's thing so I sadly decided we had to cut it. This is the part that I partly blame Shane for. I got up and said. "Nova lets go take a bath and cut your hair." Shane had to have heard that and he should have firmly said "No Natalie you take her tomorrow to an ACTUAL hairstylist." He didn't and he knows that I envision myself as a home stylist. I'm not suppose to cut their hair, at all. It doesn't stop me but he should have. So instead he let us go and off we went to the bathroom for a little hair cut. The problem with cutting Nova's hair is that she moves, A LOT. I'm looking at her hair now and it's horribly uneven. It's going to need to be straighten but I'll wait. If I take her in now it will be even shorter and I don't think I could handle that. I do think she looks cute but still I'm sad. Also I should mention that April spent the night last night due to some work issues and it was a little hectic getting her and the girls settled. Maybe that's why I didn't remember the open box. Yes it is. I blame my sister.

12 week countdown

Had my ob apt. yesterday. Have about 12 weeks left until we meet the last arrival for our family. Unlike my last pregnancies I feel very unprepared. Having a boy after 3 girls is a big change. Shane has very specific ideas of what a boy should wear and what his gear should look like. It's very frustrating. I know it will all work out in the end even if it means that Shane will be at Target day of buying his son all the necessary equipment to bring him home. I'm going to enjoy the last 3 months with our girls and savor the all girl childhood. Then when Riot comes home we'll settle down with our new baby and begin our new adventure:)

I have felt a lot of differences with this pregnancy. The morning sickness tapered off sooner than it did with the girls, but that was traded for exhaustion. Being pg this time is tiring. I hadn't felt this tired with the girls until the last month. Also I have felt him move differently than the girls did. Each girl parked her behind right by my upper right side and didn't move from that spot. They kicked some but not as much as Riot. I have felt him low in the stomach and he moves a lot. It's been pretty uncomfortable truth be told. The reason he has felt different is that he is head up. Thanks to having the previous pregnancies the uterus is larger and he has decided not to move down yet. I'm not looking forward to feeling that. My mom had the same issues when she was pg with Fred and she told me that she felt him moves into position. Not fun! Still better than having to have a c-section.

It's hard to believe that I'm at the beginning of the third trimester. I'm hoping to make it until the 18th of July (due date is the 19th and Kennedys' b-day is the 17 which I want her to keep alone ) but have doubts about that as well. Something tells me he'll be early like his sisters. Then again a lot has been different so we'll see. As long as he is not born on the 17th I'll be happy:) Here's to the last trimester I'll ever have to be pregnant again!

Crazy Mary

This is one of my favorite songs Eddie Vedder has performed. Shane introduced this song to me before we were married and it touches me to hear it to this day. The words are thought provoking because most likely you will have someone in your town that you think of when you hear it. I do. If not you should still enjoy it because no one sings like Vedder.

Crazy Mary

My sometimes arch enemy

For the past few weeks Shane and I have made a large switch to having a healthier lifestyle. Manly the focus has been on eating at home more and less processed foods, although I have always cooked from scratch at home but I will admit we ate out a lot. It's been a lot easier than I would have thought because like I said for us the main problem was the crap you get from the restaurants. But some things had been hard to do, like find ingredients without sugar or corn syrup. Today I wanted to BBQ chicken, as usual, I didn't get it set out in time to thaw for cooking. I had to run to the store so I thought I'd pick up thawed chicken and some bbq sauce without the syrup. WRONG!!! I looked through every single one and found nothing I could use. I then decided that I would do a dry rub, but not before the kids drove the other shoppers crazy. That and spending what I thought was hours buying curtains for the hall made me super ready to come home. After Shane was home I got the chicken ready (if your lucky I might one day share my secret seasoning but not today) and then set out to make the deviled eggs. Again I wanted to make a healthier version so I substituted plain natural yogurt for the mayo and added the other ingredients and was pretty happy with the results. Shane came in for the chicken and asked what the side were and I said our usual chunky garden salad, the chicken, and the eggs. He made a face like "Is that all" and I told him he could make asparagus. He said ok and got out the tin foil and snap peas, mushroom, asparagus, spaghetti sauce. I had my reservations about the sauce but decided to go with it and was pretty happy that he was sticking to plan for eating better. (The sauce also was sugar and syrup free!) Then, and I swear he does this to be my nemesis, I look over as he dumps a bunch of butter on the mix and closes the foil and take it to the bbq. He put is on and comes and tells me "I think it kinda neat that you took a normally unhealthy dish and make it healthy and I took a healthy dish and made it bad!" Ha Ha. (You have to picture him laughing with a sinister snarl. Like Boris. Shane = Nemesis