OMG, Quatro is Almost Here!!

I can’t believe I didn’t take a single picture to document it, but our really close friends, Sara and Kaakpema, threw us a beautiful baby shower last weekend at their gorgeous home.  We are SO lucky to have such awesome friends.  The icing on the cake was that my mom, Christy (my older sister), and Angela (my little sister) flew in for it.  I’d worked until 12am the night before, so they’d gone to bed in our basement before I’d gotten home.  I came downstairs the next morning to see them in the kitchen making breakfast for the kids and was TOTALLY confused and floored!  I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  It was the coolest surprise ever.

It’s funny, but the shower somehow helped make the whole “we’re really pregnant” thing a little more real to us.  I keep thinking it’s going to hit us and we’re going to feel “ready,” but it’s still so surreal.  Travis still has this look of shock and horror when he sees my profile and remembers I’m about to delivery a baby.  I finished my final ER shift last night, so I’m sort of “off” for awhile – I’m on back-to-back derm elective months with my mentor.  Since I have some book chapters that are written but not yet edited, I can use the time to finish those and get elective credit that way.  I don’t have to be back in the hospital until Jan 23.  I don’t want to think about that yet though.  I just cannot process the fact that we’re going to have a newborn in 5.5 days or less!  That is just wild.  The kids are so cute and sweet with my belly – they rub it, kiss it, and talk about the baby all the time.  I’d give the excitement and newness of having a new baby brother/sister about 2 days for them once Quatro is actually here;)  I’m also kind of shocked that I went full-term.  EVERYONE predicted I’d deliver early because of the stress, lack of sleep, and craziness of being a pregnant intern.  But nope, my body once again proves it likes to hoard babies and NOT let them out…hence the scheduled section.  I am HUGE (close to my pregnancy weight with Finley) and really would have been thrilled to be unpregnant about 2 weeks ago, but I’m also very grateful my Little Bun got a full cooking. 

Anyway, we had an awesome little getaway to Keystone a few days ago with Kaakpema, Sara, and our friend Shane (affectionately known as “Big Shane” to my kids).  Big Shane, Kaakp, and Travis are business partners and have some very exciting work in Africa as well as Colorado in the field of health IT.  It’s so neat to finally see Travis engaged in work he feels passionate about, and it’s clear this is the field in which he was meant to work.  He initially thought he went to medical school to be a clinician, but he’s realized his strengths and potential are far greater in health IT.  His MD/MBA was the necessary educational path to open the doors he is now walking through, and Kaakpema and Shane are the perfect partners to balance him out.   On a somewhat related note, my kids are obsessed with Big Shane – they adore him.  Here is Big Shane with Little Shane (as my baby calls himself when in Big Shane’s presence):

We had a great time with everybody in Keystone!  Like last year, I used this opportunity to snap some cute holiday pics of my babies (sans Quatro).  Here are my favorites so far…please excuse the water mark on some of these; my lens needs cleaning and I don’t have time to edit the spots out.

Fin got some baby practice while we were in Keystone.  You may remember our friends, Kaakpema and Sara, had a baby ~4 months ago.  His name is Desmond, and he is ridiculously PRECIOUS!  Fin was tickled pink to hold him and it gave us a glimpse into the overbearing “helpfulness” that will accompany her transition to being the big sister of a poor unfortunate soul;)  Seriously though, she was so attentive to Baby Desmond and gentle with him – it was super cute. 

Please ignore my man hands in the following pics.  But they do match my hobbit feet, in case you were wondering.

The next 2 pictures cracks me up…they demonstrate Finley taking her duty as drool wiper VERY seriously.

The last picture is of Jack trying his hand at big brother to a teeny tiny baby again (it lasted all of 45 seconds, when he became bored and gently nudged the baby off his lap and back onto mine:)  Shane, on the other hand, is rather indifferent to babies as it turns out!  When asked if he wanted to hold the baby, he just responded “um, no thanks.”  Uh oh.