It was a Merry Christmas....

Our Christmas was full of surprises and blessings, fun and family, and the most wonderful memories.

We celebrated with most of our family.

We traveled through crazy floods.

We laughed.

I cried.

We ate amazing food.... oh the cookies! Note: being pregnant at Christmas time is NOT good for my weight gain goals :)

We played games.

We saw the wonder in our children's eyes as we celebrated the greatest gift of all.

We shared love with each other by giving gifts, both small and big.

We had toilets that didn't work.

We burned chocolate.

We were most of all incredibly blessed, more than we've ever been, and we didn't take one second of our Christmas Week for granted.

** I have some pictures and many more details that I want to share, mostly because I don't want to forget one moment of this Christmas. But today I'm getting ready to go to the doctor and I have laundry and cleaning to catch up on.... and I'm planning a little something fun for the girls for the week so I'm not sure when I'll get to the LONG Christmas post. But it will come!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas Week!

Ok so I didn't get this out last night.... but here you go!

I woke up Monday morning and decided that this week would be called Christmas Week around our house. We are doing something fun to celebrate this special holiday each day this week....

Monday the girls and I did some of this....

I think dipped pretzels may be my favorite Holiday Treat!

And my babies had a sleepover at their cousins' house so Momma could go out and have dinner with some old friends. It was much needed time for Momma and the girls had a blast with their cousins. I had the privilege of eating dinner with 5 of the most fun ladies that I know. We all used to work together before I went to Law School. Everyone has since left the company we worked for and three of them have moved away. It just happened to be that we were all in town this week so we planned dinner last night.

We met for dinner at one of my fave restaurants, US Pizza! Four hours, many glasses of water and tea, a pizza, some sandwiches and salads later we said goodbye. What a blessing to spend the evening with these ladies.... that was a great Christmas present for me! And for those of you who helped me out so I could go, THANK YOU!!

Tuesday morning we went and picked up the girls before J went to work. Those stinkers were SLEEPY so we had a bit of a rough morning, but they both took marvelous naps so they would feel like helping me in the kitchen again!

I wanted to do some fun Holiday baking with the girls this year but I know my limitations! I'm oh so pregnant and my kids are still really little so I knew I had to pick some easy goodies to make. Dipped pretzels - check! Butter cookies - check!

Today we baked a cake for a special family to enjoy on Christmas. And I will make a banana pudding for my dear family to enjoy. We have Christmas with my in-laws tonight and I'm looking forward to it. I have to go through all of my gifts today and separate them into groups depending on where they will need to go.

Christmas Eve we will wake up and open our family gifts at home before heading out to my grandmother's. It should be loads of fun!

I just love decorating for Christmas.... I don't do much but I love what I do! I think the mantle is my most favorite thing.... I made all of our stockings (well my mother made mine when I was a baby and gave it to me to use) and I love to see them hanging each year. I'm searching for the perfect one for Baby M!

I also love our tree.... we have a hodge-podge of ornaments that we hang on there.  And every ornament has a meaning or a story or a laugh behind it. It is such fun when we decorate the tree and talk about each ornament we hang. And the angel on top of our tree will never sit straight so we always laugh as we hang her and just enjoy her leaning to one side all season long. And of course, we don't decorate the bottom part of the tree with ornaments because we have little hands that are very curious!

I hope you all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If...

I can get my act together, I'll do a Christmas-y post tonight. It has been a HARD day and I don't feel great.... but I'm hoping to turn things around this evening. So expect a post tonight and maybe I won't let you down :)

Some days...

are just hard. Today is one of them.

I don't usually write about the days that are hard for me, but for some reason as I sit in my quiet house after a morning that can best be described as hard, I am writing.

I love being a mother, and I LOVE staying home with my children every day.... teaching them things, watching them grow, reporting their accomplishments and funny stories to Dad at the end of the day, I love it all. But I am not SuperMom - oh, how I wish I were!

Today has been a challenge, made worse by the fact that this pregnancy has taken a toll on me that I was not expecting. I know that every minute of intense pain is worth it to complete our family, but sometimes I just get lost in the moment and I stop looking ahead. And the difficulty of this pregnancy is not only affecting me, but it is affecting my girls. I hate that I feel like I can't be or do everything that they need.

Then I thank God for naptime.... when I can sit in the silence and collect myself.

And refresh my attitude.

And focus on the bigger picture.

And remind myself to cherish each minute with my children.... even the hard times, the frustrating times, the painful times.

I'm not SuperMom (I have to remind myself of this daily).... I have hard days and struggles and I get discouraged. But I get to choose my attitude and this afternoon I choose to be happy and have fun.

She's On Her Way....

This will be a post devoted to my third baby girl. :) I don't spend enough time talking about her, on here or in person... so here you go Miss M!


Today I had a doctor appointment. I am 31+ weeks. All is well - weight gain is fine (almost 20 pounds from the time I got pregnant but if you factor in me losing 10 in the first trimester, I've "gained" 30!). BP is normal - yay! The insane pain is just something I have to live with - I had already come to that conclusion.... apparently each pregnancy is harder and harder on your body. 


I am having a lot of contractions... in fact, I had a good one while in with the doctor. We both laughed about it because the belly got all kinds of hard just as she was about to check for the heartbeat. Baby Girl's heartbeat was 140.... so that's good. 


And then Dr. C blew my mind when she said "I want to schedule your c-section today". We picked February 4, 2010! YIKES! It seemed so weird to get to pick the day my baby is born.... although I know I don't really get to pick that, just the last possible day for her to be born! :) I called the hubby when I left and told him and I think he was just as surprised that we did that today as I was. Usually, I joke that the appointments are so repetitive and nothing exciting ever happens (not that I want anything exciting, believe me I like the boring appointments) but not today! 


I asked what the chances were for me to go into labor early since my water broke 4 weeks early with P and 3 weeks early with L. Dr. C said it was highly likely that I will go into labor before Feb. 4 and that I should be prepared for a January baby..... I am (kind of!). 


She then surprised me again when she said one more appointment in 2 weeks then we will start every week.... That is early! She wants to start checking me and monitoring more closely since I will likely go into labor early! YIKES!!!! I'm almost to my weekly appointments. I was not prepared to hear that today! 


All in all, it was a good appointment. Now I just need to get done with all of my Christmas stuff so I can get to work on all of my baby things! I have a thing or two to buy and A LOT of clothes to wash!


Hope you all have a wonderful Monday.... I am planning on taking some Christmasy pictures to post up this week. Hopefully I can get it done!


Christmas Countdown : 11 days!

No Time...

to blog. I have no time anymore. For some reason I can't find much alone time, and when I do it gets filled with things like folding laundry and doing dishes and all those fun things. So today I'm making a little time because I know the rest of this week is going to be CRAZY!

We spent last weekend in Branson with my dad and sister.... Oh the fun! I got most of my Christmas shopping done.... I just have a handful of things left to buy. I try to really enjoy buying Christmas gifts and not stress over it, but I have some gifts I'm stressing over this year. And I hate that. Because Christmas isn't about the gifts that we give each other, it is about the Ultimate Gift that God gave us. I can honestly say that I would be happy if I got zero gifts this Christmas.... all I really care about is enjoying time with my family. And last weekend was all about that! I enjoyed every minute of the weekend.... and so did the girls and my hubby and my father and my sister.

I didn't take many pictures because we were too busy having such fun... but I did get some of the girls eating Krispy Kreme breakfast. They have this precious little donuts and the girls went crazy over them! Pappy knows how to keep those girls happy!

Check out those sprinkles!!!!!!!!!

You can't really tell in this picture, but L was laughing so hard....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My sweet M-I-L posted this about one of her Christmas memories.... and I got the urge to share one of my most cherished Christmas memories.

Christmas was a HUGE thing with my grandfather. Every year on Christmas Eve he would take us shopping so we could pick out our gifts from him. When we were old enough, he gave us money and would say "You better bring something back - don't just put the money away and save it." Then he would go sit on a bench in the mall while we all shopped. It was wonderful. He also would have my mom take my Nanny into the jewelry store and mom would come tell him whatever Nanny picked out and how much and he would get it for her. He was the sweetest man I've ever known.

When I was 3 or 4 we went shopping on Christmas Eve and he said he wanted to take me to pick something out.... just the two of us. I picked out this baby doll.... it was pretty big (at least to little me) and I thought it was the best thing ever. I believe it was $80 (which is a lot for a baby doll even now) and it was at the first place we looked so Papa wanted us to keep looking before we bought anything. This is probably where I learned to shop around and not to be an impulse buyer. :)

We looked around and I found nothing I wanted.... I only wanted that baby doll. My parents tried to talk me out of it but Papa said I could have whatever I wanted.... so he got me that doll. It was a boy baby doll and I named him Little Max (my Papa's name was Max). I loved that baby as much as I possibly could.

I think about this every Christmas.

Papa passed away in 2005. I miss him terribly, especially around the holidays. He was such an important man in my life, him and my dad. It makes me very sad that my husband never got to meet him because I know they would have thought the world of each other. We didn't start dating until a month after Papa died. I do think it was God's perfect plan that when I lost that important man I was given my sweetie.

So that is one of my most cherished Christmas memories. I love being able to make memories with my children now.... it makes the holiday season even more special. Our annual trip to Branson is one of the newer holiday traditions that I love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know this post is getting long, but I won't be able to post anymore this week so I wanted to share a few more thoughts....

We got the girls' Christmas gift - and it was on sale! We had picked it out but hadn't purchased it yet. Then Sunday we see that it has been marked down about a third of the price so we excitedly bought it!

I never heard back from my doctor last week about the blood work, so I'm assuming all is well and my pain is a muscular problem. It was better over the weekend, which I was thankful for! We are so ready to meet this little girl and it could happen in a little over a month! YIKES!!!! Technically my due date isn't for another 9 1/2 weeks but my babies like to make early appearances..... so she could be here quite soon!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and I pray you make some wonderful Christmas memories this season!