Baby Rowe (November 4, 2012)

This seems so long ago and Emily blogged about it ages ago HERE and HERE but I wanted to include it in my blog as well, cause you know, being an auntie is kinda a big deal. I received several texts from Emily on Sunday, November 4th throughout the day informing me that she was going into labor but she was trying to labor at home for as long as possible until she headed over to the birth center. So I headed down to the birth center in Orem in the evening to help document and support, anticipating that it would be a late night after arriving immediately after Emily & Jared, right around 6:00 pm. Kim arrived soon after and lucky for us (and Emily), baby Rowe wanted to get OUT and was born within an hour of our arriving. It was definitely intense but fast.

Emily was such a champ (I was lucky enough to also be present when Olive was born) but I will admit, it got me a little worried for my own labor and delivery even though Lucy's birth was completely unmedicated and relatively fast. But that was a long time ago! Well, at least Rowe's labor and delivery was even faster and I'm hoping that mine will be the same way.

Because the labor and delivery was so short and early in the evening, the whole family (Olive, Vince, Peggy, Adam, & Marlo) were all able to stop by and see the new baby. And then Emily and Jared were ready to head home with the new baby so I think that we were all gone by 9:30 or 10:00 pm.

Emily - surprisingly lively after just having given birth!

Rowe - super mellow which pretty much describes his character these first few months of his life.

Less mellow, but you know, you would be too with all the poking and prodding...

Big sister, Olive, was so excited!

Welcome to the world, Rowe!

Dia de los Muertos (November 3, 2012)

I know that we aren't Mexican but there is quite a large Latino population in our area so the libraries offer crafts and activities to cater to them. Dia de los Muertos (or Day of the Dead) takes place on November 1-2 and I vaguely remember covering it in my high school Spanish class. I always thought it was like a Mexican Halloween but it's more of a day remember friends and family who have died and is actually quite festive, joyful, and humorous at times. It's so much more fun learning about it as a parent with your child. We missed the actual celebration at our local library (just a few blocks away) but were able to make the it to another branch of the Salt Lake Library for the Saturday bilingual story time and craft.

Here is Lucy, decorating sugar skulls (calaveras) with frosting. Everything was edible so that was a nice treat.

We also colored paper skull masks although I think traditionally, people actually paint their faces.

I was really glad we just colored paper instead of our faces...

Because they had so many extra sugar skulls, Lucy made two and I made one as well. I was told people often write the name of a deceased family member on the skull so I wrote my obaa-chan's (my Japanese grandmother) name on my skull.

Working with the frosting was harder than I anticipated.

But Lucy, obviously had no problem with it.

Glad I can see my tax dollars go to work in entertaining Lucy!