Last days of summer

Been busy getting all of our curriculum planned for the new school year. It is extra challenging as we are now working with a team of behavior and speech therapists for R while still trying to work in some fun. I am cautiously optomistic after the months of research that I have picked things that will be a reasonably good fit for the kids and their learning styles. E will be starting Latin this year. I picked So You Really Want to Learn Latin by Galore park Press. It looks kinda fun. As fun as learning a dead but useful language can be, right? I just finished reading Life of Fred decimals and fractions and actually found myself picking up paper and pencil to do the problems myself. Hope she likes it half as well as I did. We are doing Story of the World vol2 this year. I already have prints of medeival and renaissance paintings interspersed throughout the house and a netflix cue of about 30 programs on that time period. I hope we get to at least a few of them. We are especially excited for science as we are doing earth science and E especially loves geology and oceanography. I am hoping to conquer Beowulf this first couple of weeks which means that I have to read it again (ugh!). E is still on swim team and playing guitar. R is doing well with her therapy. She is no longer dreading Sundays and the crowds at church. I know that math will be easy, as it is a subject that she really likes. I am sorta dreading language arts as she loathes writing and it is a struggle to get her through it. She likes history and science (which we do with E). She will spend hours doing art and playing in her sensory boxes so I am going to try to do art with some writing. Maybe that will work. Worth a try, eh? Baby B wants to be in everyone's business so I have lots of pre-preschool stuff to try and keep him occupied. He is into drawing circles and building with blocks and legos so I keep those supplies handy. BIg daddy B said something about taking the girls to pick blackberries tomorrow. I think he wants more pie like the one I made with company last week. Maybe they can do some beachcombing while they are at it and find some "beach trash" (bits of flotsam and jetsom) to bring back and makes some art with.

Been up reading some blogs of some very special people to me. I found out all kids of things about their doings It was wonderful! I have left my blog to the back burner for a solid year now. I mean, facebook is it. 2 liners full of pithy quotes, all meant to delight and to elevate our pop greateness to the facebook world at large. Sok here's the thing. I have family and firiend that are a great fit for me right in facebook land. I also have those wonderful people in my life that I don't actually get to see very often, but whoe' regular going's on go straight to my heart. So, why was it that I abandoned my sweet little blog? I guess I just thougth blogging was so over as a means of socialparlance. You know leave the blogs to the foodies, crafters, and conspiracy theorists, amongst us. Well. blogging is cathartic. I like to record my happenings and send them to the wwwworld. This blog is back on , baby! I have things to say! AMen!

Robert B Baca, PE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bob is now "officially" a licensed civil engineer. He had to take the test and study for many years. We are so proud of him. We had to take him out to celebrate.
Here's our tween. We get this look A LOT!

It's hard to believe that I had her all dolled up just one hour before this photo was taken. Her ability to get messy is legendary.

This guy! My boy reminds me of my grandpa so much that I nicknamed him Bobby Dale.

Lazy days of summer

Here's my little squishy! I can't tell you just how soft and cuddly he is or how great he smells. All the really great things about babies.

Rachael is just so funny! I love 5 year olds. Her imagination is huge. Here she is dressing up her hand puppet, Ron Weasley.

How come babies are so cute when they are mad and crying?

I love when he just looks around checking everything out.

Emma loves playing with Bobby and she is really great with him. She thinks he doesn't like her when he cries when she tries to hold him.

Here's Bobby sleeping in his swing. This swing is the only reason I get anything done. Bobby has become a real mommy's boy. Hmmmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with my mammory glands........

Rachael doing what she does best: Getting dirty! She was screaming at the top of her lungs. I finally asked her why and she told me that she was screaming at the bee's to leave her alone.

Here'a my Emma enjoying what I consider one of the best summer activities ever: reading in pajamas all day.

Happy 4th of July!

Rachael and Bob building a puzzle. She will do this with him from sun-up to sundown.

Rachael loved making shapes with sparklers.

Emma is such a good helper with her brother and sister. I don't know what I would do without her!

Bobby before the sun went down. The stroller thing lasted about 3 minutes before he wanted to be snuggled. He's lucky to have so many of us who want to love and smooch him all of the time!

Robert Anthony is finally here!

Here's our baby boy! Bobby was born at 2:37 am on July 1st. He was 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21.5 inches long. I checked in at about 3 pm in labor and after about 11 hours of, well, labor he came into the world after 11 minutes of pushing.

His big forehead bruise is pretty aparent in this picture. Imagine my surprise when 2 nurses hopped up onto the bed to help push him out cause his shoulder was stuck. Poor baby!

I love this picture! Bobby is sharing my sisters lap with my nephew! I can't wait to meet him! Only 10 more weeks!!!

Pretty lady, pretty baby.

My niece loves babies so much! I think she wanted to run away with him. Such a cute kiddo!

I just can't believe how much moms and babies have to go through to bring life into the world. Glad his bruises are getting better.

I have this same picture with my mom and all three of my kids. Robert is her first grandson and eigth grandchild.
I honestly don't know what I would have done without her and Beth's help.

We absolutely love our little guy. I had a totally terrible pregnancy and I am so happy with the outcome. He is a mellow baby with a sweet little cry. I call him Bobby Dale cause he looks so much like my grandpa. In the moments he doesn't look like my grandpa he looks just like my brother. He does have a cute little chin dimple and several cute dimples around the sides of his mouth and chin. Those are all daddy. He also has his dad's long slender fingers. It's really too early to tell what he will look like as babies change so much, but we think he is perfect.

I keep having moments of absolute euphoria come over me. I felt so terrible physically for so many months that it is just refreshing to be able to walk around without feeling horrible pain. I am also happy knowing that we are all here and accounted for, no more pregnancies for me.

This has got to be the longest year of my life! I got an unconfirmed case of the swine flu in August which turned into pneumonia by October (after my whole brood went through the same illness). Then I got pregnant. In the middle of pneumonia. Some things you may try for comfort may have long term consequences (ha ha ha). Anyway, this pregnancy has been at least as difficult as my last 2. I have been on modified bed rest for the last 11 weeks. I have started calling my son (yeppers, we are having a boy!) our warden cause we have all become a prisoner to my pregnancy!

My house is a disaster, of course, but I am almost done. Ironically, my VERY irritable uterus has calmed down now that I am considered full term (37 weeks). I am ok with this as I have reached that "I will just stay pregnant and pretend I will not be going through labor" phase. I have had some tricky blood sugar problems. My blood sugars have been decent, but my glucose tests were borderline so I get to eat low carb and prick myself regularly just to be sure. I don't blame my OB, I have ginormous babies without blood sugar issues. We have been keeping track of his size and he has been consistently been measuring about 4 weeks ahead. I had to reassure one of my OB's fellows that I was completely confident in my ability to push out a big baby as I have had 2 nine pounders already. She told me that after 4 hours of pushing she would give me a c section. DUh. I just laughed and told her that I pushed out my last in less than 15 minutes!Good grief, People push out bigger babies than me all the time.

I realized today that I had been physically incapacitated for the entire school year. As a homeschooling mom I worried that my kiddo would fall behind. Emma had a great year. Our school year, perhaps, lacked some of the creativity that we usually have, but we managed to stay on top of stuff. Because we can't do much else Emma has become not just an excellent reader but a reading phenom! She has been reading everything in sight. She read all of the harry Potter books in 5 weeks (pretty good for a 9 year old), the entire Little house series, and an assortment of other books. She is finishing up the Lightning thief and will be starting the Narnia series. I think all of the time not doing anything has been a tremendous blessing in this way. Rachael learned to read this year as well so I will be doing assessments to try and figure out what reading level she will be at for kindergarten. The girls are so looking forward to swim team this next year and I am excited to be able to get them out of the house and moving again!

I have been released from my callings right now cause I can't do anything. It is a strange feeling. I know it won't last, so I am enjoying the break. The ward has been helping where they can and bringing meals a couple times a week and we are so grateful. I have always loved being able to serve my ward members by making a meal or doing an errand for people in need and now feel even more passionate about it. Heavenly Father has many ways to teach us how to serve better, doesn't He?

My mom and sister are coming in a week to help. I can't tell you how grateful I am. I am just ready to be done. This is our last baby. It took us a long time to come to this decision and many many hours on our knees but since we made the final decision we have been nothing but happy and satisfied. 37 feels like 87 for me in gestational years so I am more than ready to be past this part of my life. I am actually looking forward to the middle of the night feedings so I can get some better sleep! Waking up every 45 minutes to use the toi toi is getting old, HE HE HE!!!