A Few Christmas Pics

Feels Like Forever

It feels like forever since I posted. I guess we are just caught up in the holiday buzz! I'm sad that it's almost over (I love this time of year) but next Christmas we will have even more to celebrate. On Christmas morning as the girls were opening their presents I had this feeling of Christmas not feeling complete since our littlest is not "out of the oven yet". Initially it was a little tough to enjoy pregnancy, I just wanted to get it over. As time progresses I'm starting to realize that this is most likely my last time to do this so I am working really hard to enjoy every moment.

I had my 16 week appointment yesterday. It went great. The baby's heartbeat was very strong. When I initially heard it thumping away I asked the doc if that was the baby's or mine (if you remember from my last appointment I had a hard time discerning whose was whose). The doc laughed and said "that's definitely the baby". We scheduled our BIG ultrasound for January 28th (4 weeks from today). Sometimes it seems like so long in between appointments especially when you are really anticipating them! I think I'm starting to feel the baby move, it's still kind of hard to tell. I'm sure within the next couple of weeks I'll definitely be able to tell, that's when pregnancy gets really exciting.

We do not have any big plans for New Year's Eve. We are going to a special service at church tonight. There will be some comedians and the pastor will share his vision for the next year. We will probably be snug in our beds no later than 11pm. We usually ring in the New Year fast asleep. New Year's Day is always a day of relaxing for us. Sometimes we just lay around and watch movies all day (classics like National Lampoons Vacation, etc.). Tomorrow we are going to go bowling with Corey's family. His brother is moving to California in about 10 days so this will be one of the last family hurrahs with all of us, probably until next Christmas.

Happy New Year!

CREAM CHEESE & Bagels

The big surprise of last week was my Dad's 50th surprise birthday party. It went off without a hitch and my Dad was completely surprised. I am glad that this past weekend is over and that Christmas is this week!

The duplex is finally in order and ready to be rented so if any of you all know anyone who needs a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, roach-free place to live, send them my way!

I went in for my last night of work at Gymboree (since I got the new job with MOD) and they don't want me to go. They offered to let me work whatever I want (how about per diem but never available and keep my discount). I said I'd talk it over with Corey of course that was met with a big roll of the eyes by my hubby who can't figure out why I think this job is so fun in the first place. I'm pretty sure I'll end up telling them no. I'm thinking I'm going to have my hands pretty full come June.

Our Christmas starts tomorrow. Our tradition is to spend Christmas Eve with Corey's family and Christmas Day with mine. I'm so excited for the girls. They are at such awesome ages for Christmas. It's so magical and fun for them. I absolutely love seeing Christmas through their eyes!

You know you're pregnant when all you can think about is if you've been pregnant for all of the holidays (as of this pregnancy I will be) and CREAM CHEESE and Bagels (emphasis on the cream cheese, the bagels are just the side)!

Here's a Christmas story for you:
Twas two nights before Christmas... The Mother was nestled all snug in her bed while visions of cream cheese and bagels dance in her head! Stupid, I know but that's how serious this cream cheese thing is! Merry Christmas!

Exhausted and Super Busy

Who isn't super busy right, it's the holidays. Come on just let me whine about it a little, I am preggo after all. Anyway, I've had guests staying at my house this week, I've been working on the surprise (details later, I don't want to spoil it), I found out yesterday that I got a really awesome 10 hour a week job that starts after the holidays (I even told them I was preggo and it didn't phase them), we have to go to CoMo this weekend and I think I still need to finish Christmas Shopping. I'm upstairs again so I'm not going back the stairs to take a ornament picture today. I'm so tired I just want to curl up and sleep for a couple of days, I guess that will come next week! I wish all of my blog readers a happy weekend before Christmas weekend (with all I have to do I don't think I'll be posting before Sunday or Monday)!

PS - My new job is a granted position with March of Dimes! What an awesome mission! It's only a few hours a week and the majority of the job will be done from home. My plan is to blow them away so that I can make this granted position a permanent part-time position. Many of you know I have really struggled being a stay at home mom and wanting a career at the same time(it would probably be easier if I were still in CoMo, I met some really great SAHM's before I left, I'm sure spending time with them would've made the transition easier, now we just get to be blog friends). This seems like a really good fit for me and the family. The grant is 6 months so it'll take me right up to delivery-day!

Christmas Performance

The girls had their Christmas performance and party at the studio yesterday. It was so cute to see both of them dancing together. Ashley's so tiny that they had to wrap her skirt around twice and we had to cut the feet out of her tights.

Overwhelmed

That's how I feel right now. I'm too tired to walk downstairs, AGAIN, to take a picture of an ornament so the "ornament of the day" will have to wait until tomorrow. I've spent a majority of this icy day cleaning the girls playroom, what a job. They have way too much stuff! If I see one more stuffed animal I might tell the person who gives it to them to BEND OVER!

Our trip to Columbia was quite productive. We ended having to go through the 6 week process of evicting some tenants out of our duplex. They had to be out by Friday per their court order and when we got there Friday night to survey the damage let's just say that turning around, going back home and letting the property go into foreclosure was definitely a thought. We mustered up some strength from the good Lord (and some good friends) and endured. Let me just say that I don't think I've ever seen anything as nasty in my life, complete with cockroaches everywhere. Our property is only 5 years old and these people had only been there 6 months. It's really sad to see something that you have a vested interest in be treated and destroyed the way that our property was. I have never seen such a complete lack of respect for other peoples belongings in my life.

Our good friends, The DeShon's, were such a tremendous help to us this weekend. They have some rentals too and they have been through some interesting times with some of their properties and tenants as well. You could see in their faces and through their actions of help to us throughout the weekend that they definitely had an empathy for us that not many would understand. Thanks Guys! We love you! We have to go back this next weekend to do some more work but as a bonus we get to see some old friends at an X-mas party Saturday night.

There's a surprise going on this week that is going to have me super busy, I have cleaning to do, laundry, Christmas presents to still buy and wrap...my head is kind of spinning just thinking about it all of it. I better quit spending my time talking about how overwhelmed I am and just get busy!

Do You Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas?

Today's ornament is from Hallmark from this year and it's titled "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". I have two of these little gems hanging on my tree. It has a button that you can push and listen to Gayle Peevey's version of the song. This is the ornament that we purchased for each of the girls this year. This is one of their all time favorite Christmas songs so I wanted each of them to have one. This way when they are older and out on their own they can hang it on their own tree and remember how much fun we had singing this silly song in the car. This song is our anthem anytime we we see hippopotamus's (as if we see them everyday, but you know trips to the zoo, on tv, etc). We even sang this song at the top of our lungs, with my Mom, sisters and nieces, at the Ft. Worth Zoo this past Spring when we saw the hippos.






















I'll be taking an "ornament a day" blog break this weekend as we are headed to Columbia to do some work on our duplex and as a bonus visit some friends. I'm not sure how much visiting we will fit in since I have no idea what shape our duplex is in (that's a whole other story) but any visit is better than no visit at all!

New Baby

My mom gave me this ornament during Christmas 2003 to commemorate my pregnancy with Aly. It's always one of my favorites to hang on the tree.

New Home

This ornament was given to us by some dear family friends to commemorate the first house that Corey and I purchased. I still look back on the Christmas of 2003 with the fondest of memories. Corey graduated from Mizzou that December, started his full-time job with Shelter Insurance, we were expecting our first child in February and we purchased our first home. All of this happened within the month of December except of course for Aly's arrival, she would have to wait about two more months before making her grand entrance.

Our First Christmas

This ornament was a gift from Corey's parents from our first married Christmas together. I feel blessed that we will be celebrating our 11th anniversary this June!

Auld Lang Syne

What a busy weekend! Corey had a business dinner Friday night so the girls and I had some holiday fun and made peanut butter blossoms and Crispex Mix. We then curled up on the couch to watch Jim Carrey's version of "The Grinch" and waited for Daddy to get home. By Saturday night we discovered that Ashley is a little afraid of "The Grinch". She was making the "grinch" face. I guess this was her way of trying to show us exactly what she was afraid of. By the end of the movie Aly concluded that the grinch now had "Jesus in his heart".

Saturday morning we took the kids to "Breakfast at the Manger" at our church's central campus. The kids got to dress up and have their picture taken with Baby Jesus and some animals. Aly got to hold the baby goat and it kept "Baa-ing" at her. It was really cute. At first I thought it was a little kid making the noise at then I realized it was a "kid" just the goat kind. The kids had breakfast (I didn't get any and this pregnant momma could've used some french toast sticks and sausage too), did a craft and watched a puppet show. By the time it was over I was starving so we headed to the new and improved West County Mall for lunch (in the food court, yum) and a little X-mas shopping. Later that evening we went to a Holiday Happy Hour, for parents only, at the dance studio while the girls spent the evening with Grandma (Grandpa was camping with the boy scouts, brrr cold).

Yesterday was a busy church day with services in the morning and then our monthly Super Sunday service last night. It was holiday themed so it was really fun to sing all the X-mas songs. They'll have their X-mas production the week of X-mas so I'm really looking forward to that.

I've been typing the words X-mas all over this blog post today and it reminded me of a funny story from when I was little. My parents divorced when I was one and I had grown up hearing the word "my ex" all the time when my parents would be referring to one another. One year I was at my Dad's for X-mas and he rented a movie for me called "Snow White's Christmas". The sticker on the video read "Snow White's X-mas". So I ended up asking my Dad why Snow White divorced Christmas. Silly huh.

My BIL had a great idea for my sister that a few of the ladies in my family have decided to participate in. He suggested that my sister blog her favorite ornaments everyday from Dec. 1 to X-mas. So I'm going to steal this good idea and participate too!

My first ornament is my "It's A Wonderful Life" ornament. Hallmark put this ornament out in the 90's to commemorate some anniversary of the movie (I'm too lazy to go downstairs to look at what year). This is one of my all time favorite movies. I first saw this movie when I lived with my parents in Nebraska so I was probably about 10 or 11. I sat down and pretended to be really into the movie. The rule was if you were watching the movie you got to stay up past your bedtime. Since it is a really long movie I was all about staying up late! As I watched the movie I actually found myself really enjoying it and it has been a holiday favorite for me ever since. I enjoy collecting "It's A Wonderful Life" commemorative type stuff. On Thanksgiving I was in my parents basement "shopping" for X-mas decorations and I came across an extra "It's A Wonderful Life" snowglobe that they had gotten one year on sale after X-mas. I immediately "put my name on it" and brought it home. It's Martini's bar, it lights up and it plays "Auld Lang Syne". By the way does anyone else like that goofy version of the song by Dan Fogelberg? Here's a sample of the lyrics:

Met my old lover in the grocery store,
The snow was falling Christmas Eve.
I stole behind her in the frozen foods,
And I touched her on the sleeve.

Cheesy huh...but catchy...I love to make fun of this song but enjoy it all at the same time and I've only heard it once this X-mas season.

Baby Update

I went in for my 12 week appointment today and got to hear the baby's heartbeat. I had a hard time picking it up since mine was so loud but when I concentrated on what the doc said I finally heard it. Honestly, I was so spoiled by being a patient of Dr. Penney's, ultrasounds every 2 to 3 weeks, that the first time I really heard Aly & Ashley's heartbeat was when I was hooked up to the monitors in the hospital getting ready to deliver.

My new doctor is so nice. I really like him. He's the chief of obgyn at the hospital so other people must like him too. Since Dr. Penney had been delivering babies for 50 years my criteria for finding a doc was that it had to be someone who was seasoned and experienced.

Back to the baby. Everything is progressing along perfectly. I get to go off most of my medication. I had been taking 10 different pills and supplements everyday. Now I'm down to my prenatal vitamin with DHA and a baby aspirin. I'm really excited and so is my wallet! I was spending over $100 per month in medication after my co-pays.

I've gained 3 pounds since my last appointment, doc thought that was fine especially since it was Thanksgiving. He made me get a flu shot, my first one ever, and they drew lots of blood. I go back in 4 weeks, December 30th, for measuring and more fun. At that appointment we will schedule the BIG appointment which should take place somewhere around January 27th.