Introducing . . . .

David Isaiah Rivera

Born April 16, 2009

7lbs 8oz

20 1/4 in

Life has never been more crazy or beautiful since having two boys!!!

Mount Rushmore

About a month ago, I was surprised by Elliot with a very impromptu trip to Rapid City, South Dakota for the weekend! He pulled it off very well, because he had previously made plans to have coffee with a friend that afternoon. So, when he met me at Walmart after he got off work and was in a serious rush to leave, I thought nothing of it :) Sneaky man.

James checking out our digs in Rapid.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . who's the cutest one of all?"

Elliot and James seeing Mt. Rushmore for the first time

"Wow, there are huge faces carved in that mountain . . ."

The Fifth Face of Rushmore

Playing at the mall in Rapid City

Enjoying some potato soup for the first time back at the hotel

Mount Rushmore at night . . . very majestic

The mother tumbleweed that attached itself to our car on the way back

Pit stop at Grandma's house for some food and lovin'!

We had such a good time on our trip! It was nice to be able to have a pseudo "baby moon" before David gets here!

The Best Sugar Cookie You Will Ever Have

So the recipe I am about to share has been in my family for a long time. I thought that it might be my great-great-grandmother's recipe, but after talking to my mom, we're not sure exactly where it came from. All we know is that it's pretty stinkin' old. So here goes -

Grandma's Sugar Cookies

3 C. flour

2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1 C. butter

1 C. sugar

2 beaten eggs

4 T. milk

2 T. vanilla (use the good kind, not the fake stuff)

• Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and butter with a couple of knives until they look like cornmeal (it works best if butter is at room temperature). Then add the sugar, incorporating well into cornmeal-like mixure. Then mixing the eggs, milk, and vanilla together, pour a little bit into dry mix at a time, until wet ingredients are gone and mixed thoroughly, forming a big clump of dough. (Be sure to check if there's any hidden pockets of dry mix in the dough). Preheat the oven at 375 degrees, and chill dough in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes. Scoop about 2 tablespoons worth of dough on cookie sheet for each cookie, and bake for about 8-10 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.

• For glaze: mix powdered sugar and water together until it is opaque, and dip slightly warm cookies face down into glaze. Let harden and enjoy!!!

So there you have it, the best sugar cookies ever. The key to them is making sure that you stick within the 8-10 minute perameter, because you don't want to overbake them. I love these cookies because they do have an old fashioned taste to them, and unlike hard sugar cookies, these are very light and 'cakey'. I like to have mine with a cup of tea, especially Burrough's Brew from Serendipitea. Very delicious!

And the Lamest Blogger of the Year Award Goes to . . .

Me! Sorry guys . . . . it's been a little crazy as we're in the final countdown before David comes. I'm 39 weeks pregnant now and I'm ready to have my body back, though I'm not going to complain about any extra sleep I get before he arrives.

Here is a list of things to come:

• My surprise trip to Mount Rushmore




• Maternity photo shoot with my awesome new photographer friend Jenny




• The best sugar cookie recipe you will ever find




• Thoughts on Momhood and life

On a final note: how cute is this kid? He sure is becoming more of a little boy and less of a baby with every day.

More to come later!

My Boy is One!

My son James has officially turned one as of the 21st of February! I can't believe how quickly the time has passed.
I remember when he was first born, how Elliot and I both thought we would never be able to sleep through the night again. I remember how when he was a couple months old, he would randomly smile in his sleep, and I thought it was the absolute cutest thing. Thinking back to when he was four months old, we got him to laugh for the first time, and we acted like idiots the rest of the evening just to get one more laugh out of him. I love recalling the times that I would carry him with me in a sling everywhere I went with his little body cradled against mine, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake and watching the world around him. We were extatic the first time he started to crawl, only to realize that a Pandora's box of busy-ness had just been opened that would never close! I remember that I grieved just a little bit in my heart when he got his first tooth; a sign that he was quickly growing into a big boy. How fun it was to watch him laugh at his favorite parts during a movie, and rewind it over and over just to hear him giggle about it again and again. And then of course, we will never forget how he cried when we sang 'Happy Birthday' to him in Spanish, because of how overwhelming a crowd of people staring at him was.
All these things I cherish in my heart, and I look forward to many more years of sweet memories and moments that show me a glimpse of what eternity with God must be like. So Happy Birthday my Love! You have brought us true Joy, and have taught us so much in this past year. Daddy and Mommy love you more than anything, and only until you have your own little ones will you understand the depth of what we are talking about!

Tampa Airport Security is a Four Letter Word

It's around 1 in the morning, and I'm up because I have wicked heartburn. I'm cursing Tampa International Airport Security right now because they took my Tums, and I haven't really needed them until now, when I can't go out and get some more. Why would they take them? No clue. Maybe some guy was about ready to ralph from the Grease McMuffin and coffee he had earlier, or maybe some Barney Fife just knew I was transporting Columbian nose candy that was neatly and carefully fashioned to look just like Tums whilst being carefully tucked within piles of maternity shirts and pants. Well I hope you're happy, Tampa! I hope you're happy . . . .

16 Mysteries Revealed

I was tagged by my new blogging buddy Kate to do this "meme". So here goes!


16 Things You Might Not Know About Me:


1. I shamelessly made fun of my husband upon discovering a state quarter map that he had been working on in the past, accusing him of severe nerdiness. That is until one night when he was having a long conversation on the phone with his father, and I got bored and started sifting through our laundry quarters to see which states we had so I could put them in the map. Needless to say, I am now also a fellow member of the state quarter nerd brigade. (We only need Florida and Michigan, so if you have them, let me know!)


2. I love journals, and I have four of them. The problem is, I want to write the perfect entries, and for each journal to have a specific theme or purpose, so I have four journals that are practically empty. Every time I go to Barnes and Noble, Elliot gets annoyed when I look at the journals, because he's afraid I'm going to want one more. And maybe I do.


3. I'm a big textures person when it comes to food, so my ability to eat eggs is very limited. It's especially hard if they get cold. Conversely though, I think a potato salad is not a potato salad without huge chunks of eggs dispersed throughout.


4. My favorite book from childhood is Corduroy. I bought it the other day for James, and couldn't make it through without crying when I read it to Elliot for the first time. It's such a sweet story.

5. I love the art of Mehndi, which is henna paste that is applied on the skin in fancy designs commonly throughout Middle Eastern and Indian culture. Elliot bought me a kit for Christmas, and I'm going to do some sweet designs on my belly and have some nice photography taken of it.

6. It's very hard for me to listen to mainstream pop radio, because I'm angry at the Music Industry for promoting the sound that makes the most money, as opposed to the sound that really shows creative and artistic talent. Everything sounds the same. I'm also upset at them for allowing a lot of people who don't have good voices and limited or no training to record albums and make money off of their mediocrity. It's amazing what a little bit of technology can do to make a voice sound like it has the ability to sing on key all the time.

7. If I had to pick my least favorite household chore, it would be doing dishes. This, unfortunately, is also the one us moms tend to be doing the most. (That and laundry).

8. I have a suppressed desire to work as a coffee, tea, and wine connoisseur. I mean, how fun would it be to get paid to travel all over the world and distinguish the complexities of these awesome beverages?

9. I love to cook. Especially ethnic foods like Moroccan, Thai, Indian, etc. Sometimes I'll even sneak in ingredients my husband doesn't like, just to see if he'll like it in those dishes. He usually thinks the flavors are good, but he still won't eat the actual culprits.

10. Speaking of which, Elliot's mom just bought me an awesome cookbook called Puerto Rican Cookery (he's Puerto Rican, in case you couldn't tell), and I'm way excited to start making the dishes he grew up with.

11. I hate Brie. This is surprising for someone who tends to appreciate the finer things of life, but it's difficult for me to appreciate things that smell like butt. (sorry to all you Brie fans out there).

12. I got to dance on stage with D.C. Talk when I was 7. It was at a concert at my church in San Diego, and security guards were asking kids if they wanted to come up. It took a little convincing (yah right). Apparently Kevin gave me bunny ears.

13. Elliot and I would like to have 4 kids, and he said he was willing to try for a 5th if the first four are all boys. I'll weasel an extra one out of him somehow ;)

14. Elliot is a helicopter/airplane pilot, and one of the coolest things I had the opportunity to do so far was to fly around the skyscrapers in Denver at night with him in a helicopter. We were so close you could see people's papers on their office desks.

15. Before Elliot bought me a heated mattress pad, I used to take a blow dryer and blow hot air under my portion of the down comforter in order to be perfectly cozy and warm. If you've never done it before and you're always freezing, try it. Just don't stick the whole thing under the covers, because then it could spark . . . not that I would know : ).

16. I prefer my hard ice cream to be really hard, and I like to eat it with a fork in a mug. My go-to flavor is Breyers all-natural Vanilla Bean.

Ok! Now I'm going to tag Shelly, Sandra, Jen, Kelsey, and Mom. Fill out 16 things we might not know about you, and then tag 3-5 people. You better post!