Christmas 2010

ETA: If you're reading this through an RSS reader, I just found this post in draft status and wanted to publish it for posterity's sake. The Christmas mentioned was two months before our sweet Jack was born.

We had a wonderful Christmas with our families. I think part of the fun this year was thinking about what's to come next year since we'll have the first grandkiddo on both Brad's and my side.

Since we've gotten married, we celebrate Christmas with a dinner date and gifts just the two of us a few days before we leave to go to whichever hometown we're scheduled to be in. Even though our little family gift exchanging time will probably shift to Christmas eve or morning once our boy is here (as will our travel schedule), we've decided to keep Christmas date night a tradition for the two of us at least for now. That means this was the last Christmas dinner date without arranging for a babysitter beforehand! So fun. We'll see if this all plays out next year.

The weekend before Christmas we travelled to my hometown and had celebrated with my family.

Great packaging for some great giftcards!
My favorite baby brother.
I got my mom some Tom's for Christmas.
She calls them her magic shoes.
My dad is holding a motorized bird in that box.
Apparently it makes a great hunting decoy,
but I must admit this is beyond my area of expertise.
A little lip color and a nap would go a long way on this 7 months pregnant girl.

Week 28

I woke up last Friday and rolled over to look at my What to Expect... app (which I do every Friday morning), and it said something like, "Your baby will be here in 11 weeks and 5 days."

11 WEEKS AND 5 DAYS!

And that was three days ago!

So as you can imagine, I have new sense of urgency about having everything in my house done and in order by the time this tiny gentleman makes his appearance. Heaven forbid that on the day he comes home, he notices the dusty baseboards!

Just kidding, I would never have dusty baseboards ;)

So after that little wakeup call, we began a day of errands which all pretty much pertained to our little bundle. We conquered several tasks that were on THE LIST. Brad chauffeured me to Dallas to pick out fabric for his bed. We stopped by Home Depot on the way home and picked out paint for his room which will be painted over our Christmas holiday.

My doctor's visit went great last week. I passed my glucose screening but I'm a little low on iron, so I started a supplement. I read online (so clearly, it must be the gospel truth) that low iron can cause restless leg syndrome which I continue to have, so I'm praying the iron will give me some relief from that. In the meantime, I'm also eating more hamburgers. The doc thinks I am having Braxton-Hicks when I'm on the treadmill--however, she gave me no license to stop getting on said treadmill.

Jack has made his way north into my ribs, and at times I feel like I'm about to burst. I guess that is a normal sensation and unlikely to happen since I have never seen any news reports of bursting pregnant ladies. I'm still completely amazed that there is a person--my Jack--rooting around in there. We're headed in next Friday for another 4D sono. The last one he kept his arm directly over his face, even though we got some sweet pics anyway. He gets that from his dad!

Weeks 26 & 27

The weeks are passing so quickly, and all of a sudden according to What to Expect..., we have about 13 weeks until we meet Jack. In the meantime, we have a million things to do before he gets here.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at the farm with my family. I made Pioneer Woman homemade rolls which have twice now been a hit with them. The very last thing any of us wanted to do was get out and shop on Black Friday, so I spent my day shopping online for both Christmas gifts and decor for Jack's room. It's so fun to come home each evening and have Fed Ex and UPS boxes to open!

We got home from Thanksgiving on Saturday night and began trimming our house for Christmas. Brad has lights up on the house (every year he says he's going to put up colored lights, but so far he's stayed the course with the clear--my preference). It took me a little longer to get everything up inside because at this point I am really beginning to slow down.

In other news, work is incredibly busy, I take my glucose test on Wednesday, and we bought our first package of newborn diapers. All of a sudden when I saw 13 weeks on the calendar, I was stricken with the idea that we were completely unprepared to bring the little guy home, so I bought some. I'm sure that's the least of my unpreparedness.

Other than some shortness of breath and/or feeling like I'm going to burst at any moment, I feel great. The signs of the 3rd trimester are upon me, with restless leg stuff and having a hard time getting comfortable at night, but those seem to be minor in the grand scheme of things. God has blessed me so much with something I've wanted for so, so long. He will give me the strength to deal.

We're looking forward to a special Christmas season!