Christmas, part 2.

My brother and sister-in-law were in Ft. Wayne last weekend with her family for Christmas so we got together with them tonight for Christmas...part 2. Katelyn was pretty pumped that there were more presents to open!

Thanks Grammy and Papa for all of the great gifts!!! We are spoiled for sure.

Santa put gifts in Mike and Niki's stockings on Christmas and we've just been waiting for them to get here to open them up. Katelyn's been asking for days where her rings were and I had no idea. So Mike gets to the bottom of his stocking and finds a pile of plastic rings and some shells that Katelyn had shoved down there for safe keeping. Hillarious!!! We always call her our little squirell because she's always tucking her treasures away in little hiding spots. She was very excited to have her rings back. :)

Aunt Niki and her fuzzy socks.

Santa got me a sign to stick in the car window...but for now, I just put it here. :)

We are officially done with Christmas at our house. This weekend the decorations are coming down!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!! We had a quiet but lovely Christmas here in Kentucky. Katelyn is 4 1/2 so she was lots of fun. We had dinner on Christmas eve with our good friends and then both of our families went to church together and to look at Christmas lights at a local estate that does it up with the lights and decorations.

We came home and Katleyn got in her Christmas jammies and set out cookies and milk for Santa. Chocolate milk actually because she was sure he'd like that more. She took her bag of glitter and oats out to the front lawn to sprinkle for the reindeer so they would have food and be able to find their way.

She got to open day 24 of the advent calendar and put baby Jesus in the manger.

Michael read her the Christmas story.

We each opened one present.

Here's Michael and his mini before tucking the little bug in so Santa could come.

You would think that Michael got the pink tub of Legos for Christmas by looking at the twinkle in his eye. But no, they are Katelyn's and he has to share. I've already broken up several arguments between the two of them over who gets to use which pieces to build what. The big kid and the little kid. They have played with the Legos together every night since Christmas.

Since we were the only ones here we had to set the timer to take a little family Christmas picture. :)

This is the belly in week 34...I'm not quite sure where six more weeks of baby growth are going to go. The little guy is getting big! We had an ultrasound and doctor's appointment on Tuesday and all is well. He's just under 6 pounds and although they can't give us length measurements, based on this femur length they have him in the 90th percentile for length at this point. They're thinking he'll be 8-8.5 pounds. We'll see if the predictions are right! He is head down though so he's getting ready to enter the world. Mom gets here on February 3rd...so any time after that works for me!

We're wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! Our family is pretty excited about what 2012 has in store for us!!!!

Deck the Halls

Okay...so I'm behind on getting the Christmas pictures on the blog...what else is new? Below are pictures of the house all decorated for Christmas!

I set up the whole village!

My bigger nativity set is on top of our entertainment center...I forgot to take a picture.

The Christmas tree in the dome used to be in my grandma's house. It was my favorite thing there and this year it was passed on to me. It's made of little beads and tiny ornaments. It's beautiful and I love it!!

We hung up everyone's stocking even though it was just Michael, Katelyn and I. We were all together in spirit.

Although, when I set up ALL of my decorations I thought mom and dad were coming and I was excited they would be here to help me put them all away....hmmm. It looks like I'm on my own. Poor Michael's honey-do list keeps getting longer. :)

Christmas partying

Michael's company had a Christmas party today for children of their employees. So Katelyn got to go and see where daddy works. She thought that was pretty cool. I did too for that matter.

Katelyn made a few calls...

Gave some instructions on what tasks need to be done....

and sent a few emails. Michael better watch out or he'll be out of a job pretty soon.

Then we moved on to the party. Katelyn made a beautiful Christmas necklace.

Katelyn even sat on Santa's lap!!! Yeah. (Santa was giving out presents so she was willing to be brave.)

She posed in front of the tree.

But really she just wanted to dance around and be silly. Ahhh....the life of a four year old!!! Two weeks ago Michael's company had a really nice employee party for the grown ups at the convention center in Frankfort...dinner, dancing, presents. And now this party for the kids. They've done a great job doing something special for employees and their families. I'm thankful that Michael's working for a good company!

Katelyn's new room

Katelyn's new big girl room is just about done. It's pinktastic!

I got the wall decals for $8 and they match her bedding perfectly. What an easy way to fill a wall!

We have a cute yellow desk that's going in this corner but it's in the garage and still needs to be cleaned up/refinished and I need to find a chair for it. That project can wait a bit.

I need to get the valance up over the window, but overall the room is just about done. Katelyn is liking it all decorated and now I just need to get going on the nursery!

Weekend in review

Ho ho ho! Yesterday we took Katelyn to a "Cookies with Santa" event at our church.

Santa and Mrs. Claus read stories to the kids.

Of course, Katelyn didn't want to get too close so she stayed with Michael on the fringe. :)

She made a beautiful wreath with colored maccaroni. It is being displayed proudly in our dining room.

We couldn't get Katelyn to sit with Santa and the Mrs. and take a picture for anything...but she was more than happy to partake in the cookie eating part of the event.

She made an ornament and we put her name on it.

And, drumroll please....Katelyn got to sleep in her new big girl room. (She moved to the bigger room next to her old room.) I got it painted this lovely pink color this week. I'll post pictures of the room in the next couple of days. I've still got some decorating to do.

She loved her new room and went right to sleep. I, on the other hand, am the one who cried like a baby. I can't believe how big she's getting. Sigh.

It was chilly today but we decided we all needed some fresh air. So we threw on hats and gloves and headed to the park for a while and then went to the library so all of us could load up on some new reading material.

On a sad note, my grandma passed away last night. She was almost 94 and lived a very full life and I am glad she's with Jesus now....but it's sad that she's gone. My grandparents lived next door to us for most of our lives growing up and I have more wonderful memories than I can count. I'm thankful for that today...

Family pics

Michael's niece was in town visiting us the weekend before Thanksgiving and she was nice enough to take some family pictures of us. We actually got a nice sunny, fairly warm day out so we jumped on it. Here are just a few....

Cutie patootie!

I love this man! He's so good to Katelyn and I and I just can't wait to add another little one to our family.

Me and my favorite girl. She's full of so much joy!

And the baby boy on the way (this was taken as I started week 29).

Hello third trimester

I can't believe I'm in my third trimester already. All I know is the second one was a whole lot more enjoyable than the first.

This was right after we found out I was pregnant...maybe at about 5-6 weeks. See how happy I was? (I didn't know of the 10 weeks of morning sickness that was about to start!)

And here's the ever growing belly in my 28th week. I can't believe I only have another few months. I have so much left to do!! The baby's super active and kicking away. Katelyn was able to feel her brother move the other day and her eyes got as big as saucers. It was really sweet. She's so excited for him to get here. (Michael and I are too!)

A house of sick people

Well, unfortunately I just don't have much to report. All of us have been sick so there's just not much going on over here. I've had a cough for a month. Michael's had a cough, and some other allergy-type stuff going on. Katelyn had been good until a few days ago but now she has the cough and stuffy/runny nose. Bummer all around. We just can't seem to all get healthy at the same time.

Here's Katelyn and her FAVORITE stuffed animal, Puppy Pup Pup. He's always with her these days. In the background you can see the lego castle she built. She loves her legos and plays with them everyday!

We've been going through closets and getting rid of stuff we don't need. We figured out we had more luggage than we could ever use, so this suitcase is on it's way out. Of course Katelyn had to check it out first. Where should we send her?

Next week we head up to Michigan for Thanksgiving. Please pray we all get healthy soon!

Cooking and Gardening

Two of my favorite things...cooking and gardening. Here are a couple of the yummy meals we've had recently.

This is grilled pork, applesauce I had made and canned, kale "chips" (kale with olive oil and salt on it and then baked until crispy) and a roasted sweet potato, potato and butternut squash medley. The butternut squash was from our garden.

Michael and I both love Thai and Indian food so I combined both one night. I made chicken pad thai (which Katelyn loved also) and curried sweet potato filled samosas that I baked instead of fried. Yummy!!

The butternut squash just started growing in our garden. We had tilled our compost pile into the soil in the spring and this was came up. I've harvested 20 squash from about three separate plants. I've got them put up and we'll use them all winter to roast and I'll bake, puree and freeze some to use later in soups and breads. This was a fun surprise this year and one we're loving!

Before the frost hit I harvested all the tomatoes that I could. They are currently laid out all over the counter. I got a big batch of ripe tomatoes before this one and I canned 12 pints of diced tomatoes. We canned and used LOTS of tomatoes this year and they all came from the 50 cent half dead plants I bought at Lowes on clearance. We got a whole lot out of the $4 we spent on tomato plants! What a blessing!!!!

More tomatoes!!! (Really they're everywhere around here.)

Today it was in the mid sixties. A beautiful day for sure. We got some rain earlier this week and so the soil was soft. Before it gets really cold out we decided to have a productive day in the yard getting ready for winter. We pulled everything out of the gardens, raked all the leaves into the compost pile, weeded out old planters on the porch and threw the dirt into the raised bed (and finally threw out all of our old porch containers...new ones to come in the spring), put up the patio furniture, hosed down the patio and put the hose in the garage. We need to mow one more time and rake in the front yard but other than that, the yardwork is done until spring!!! (Good thing because this pregnant mama is about done being able to do all this stuff!) Katelyn was very helpful though. She collected tomatoes that had fallen and she found a worm that kept her busy for a VERY long time. :) She said...."Oh, I love bugs." She was FILTHY by the end of yardwork day.

A productive fall day for sure. I feel so much better!! There is much to do inside now before the baby gets here....Let the nesting continue!