Fast Forward

I feel like my life has been in fast forward for almost 2 months now. Every time I think about the week ahead of me, it seems to include the start of a new month. It's not a feeling I enjoy in most cases, but for blogging purposes I am also going to opt to "fast forward" through the month of November, at least until Thanksgiving. Suffice it to say it wasn't a great month. In fact it was sad and difficult and no one would enjoy reading about it. I would also not like to write about it, so we'll just pick up at Thanksgiving and move on from there.

This year we spent Thanksgiving as we usually do - doing the tour of our hometown where both of our parents still live. Before heading there though, J and C watched the Macy's parade (C was mesmerized) while I did some cooking and prepping for the two dinners we were about to partake in. We hit the road stopping first for dinner with J's family and then on to my Mom's for dinner there. It's a tough life :)

Homemade cranberry sauce - so easy & so good!

Chillin

Doing some baking of her own

Pushing her 25-year old uncle around the house on a toy car

Uncle J and Eli relaxing with a good book :)

J went out shopping on Thursday night with a friend to pick up a season on DVD. He was home by 1:30. Then he got up and went into work on Friday morning only to get a call from his dad who wanted to go shopping. They had a good time out in the madness while C and I shopped online from the comfort of home! I didn't get any spectacular deals but I also refuse to buy things not on my list just because they're a deal.

Friday night we had "Friendsgiving" with J's college roommates - a tradition they've carried on every year since college. Saturday we put up our tree and then went to J's brother's house for their annual post-Thanksgiving football game. We arrived after the football portion was over though due to C's nap time.

She was excited to help me put "necklace" on the tree

We had a usual quiet Sunday and celebrated my nephew's 5th birthday.

Then I did a little more shopping online today. Christmas shopping to me is one of life's great joys. C has been talking for weeks about wanting two things for Christmas - a "Christmas bicycle" and a "Christmas Barbie." Today the bike was delivered and I can hardly contain my excitement. The anticipation of her reaction when she sees it has my mommy heart just ready to burst. J is equally as excited of course and told me he "waited his whole life" to put together his baby's first bike for Christmas. It's just one of those parenting moments, I guess. We're ecstatic :)

Browsing the ads

Between now and then I'm also really excited to teach C all about Christmas through advent activities. I'm going to make our calendar tomorrow. She has been very excited about Christmas this year so I know she'll get a kick out of a countdown with Christmas activities each day.

While I know our Christmas season will be busy and will likely pass by faster than I'd like it to, I'm really hoping it doesn't go by in fast forward like the past two months have. I'm also hoping (perpetually) that I'll be able to document our fun here on the blog.

Anyone else have fun activities planned for advent or the Christmas season? I'd love to hear :)

Wishful Blogging

Things have not calmed down any since my last post, and consequently my hope that lots of happenings would lead to lots of blogging has been dashed. That was wishful blogging on my part. Oh well.

So after J's sister's wedding it was Halloween. That was a fantastic day! In the morning we got to go see our tiny little pumpkin for the first time in 12 weeks at the 20-week anatomy sonogram. Everything looked great and healthy. Much to our surprise, we found out that we'll be welcoming another baby GIRL in March! Given the track record in my husband's family we were just shocked to see a baby girl on the screen. C went with us to the appointment, so she thought it was pretty cool to see the baby "on TV" and was excited to be getting a baby sister. We chose her name right there on the table (we had it narrowed down to 2 anyway) - her name is Reagan. We haven't picked a middle name yet, but we felt like we had a little more time to think about that anyway.

Growing up with a sister who I'm very close to, I am just tickled pink to raise two little girls. I can't wait to watch them bond and become the best little friends. Even when they don't get along, as my sister and I didn't always, they will always be sisters and that beats anything else any day. Another fantastically convenient aspect to having a second girl is that it will make for the easiest transition ever. She will be born in the same season that C was so all of the baby clothes we have will be appropriately sized. C's current bedroom (the smaller of other 2) is already set up to be a girl's nursery. The crib and changing table are still in there. The walls are pretty purple, and all of the bedding and accessories go along. Furthermore, we had already set up C's new big-girl bed in the other bedroom and told her it was her big-girl bed. She is IN-LOVE with it and goes in there to see it every time she passes by. Literally all we have to do is paint C's big girl room and put her clothes in the closet. Had the new baby been a boy we would be designing a boy nursery for the bigger room, moving the crib and changing table to the bigger room, and moving the day bed into C's current smaller room. Not to mention we'd need new crib bedding and changing table accessories since those are all covered in purple flowers. Oh, and a whole wardrobe of boy clothes. Whew.

After the sonogram we came home for nap time and then went to my sister's house to go trick-or-treating with her kids. We've done this every year but this year was the first time we had C walk up to doors and collect candy. She thought that was great fun. Every so often a group of kids in scary costumes would get behind us and when she turned around to walk back down the sidewalk she'd see them, gasp, and freeze. It was kind of funny, though the mama bear in me wanted to yell at them for scaring small children. I refrained from doing that, reminding myself that Halloween is for bigger kids too. She was pretty much the cutest Yoda ever, and was so so excited about her costume.

Everything since Halloween has just been more insanity. It needs its own post, so I'll leave it at this for now. I'll also say that although I disapprove of retail establishments decorating for Christmas in mid-October, I have enjoyed a couple of gingerbread lattes at this point and even used a Christmas mug at home this morning. Now that Halloween is actually over I feel more ready to transition into the holiday season. I've said before that I'm really not much for fall, but I do love the holidays. More on that later also. For now, goodnight :)