33 weeks + a holiday party...

Wonders of wonders! Today marks the start of week 33 for me and lo and behold here I am with an update and pictures - can you even believe it? So we're going to have just skipped over week 32, because apparently pregnancy brain makes me bad at numbers and when I said we'd get caught up at week 32, I really meant week 33. Tomayto -Tomahto, really! Which is exactly how I'm looking these days - ripe, round and ready to bust!

See what I mean, very round these days! All over I might add:) Weeks 31-33 have really been easy save for the symptoms mentioned in my last post - speaking of, do you think I look any bigger?

Overall, I think the biggest thing for me to grapple with at this point is the crazy thought that I'm considered full term in just four weeks. Like a month away. Oh and I'm getting SUPER SUPER excited for my baby shower...which is just TWO weeks away! I remember when dates were being thrown around for it and it seemed like it would take forever for the shower to be here - I mean the shower was in 2012 - A WHOLE other year away;) But here we are just 7 days away from the start of a new year!!!

In the coming weeks there will hopefully be lots of posts on the nursery and thoughts as this whole labor deal gets closer...I cannot tell you the number of unwritten blog posts circulating in my head and I do plan to get them out sooner than later!

Last but not least - more pictures! Ty and I last night at our last holiday party of the season at his work in Dallas - and let me tell you, I'm not complaining about keeping our holiday schedule low-key this year. I wore this same exact outfit and shoes to Sarah's wedding back in September and holy smokes - what a difference those two months have made...I was seriously jamming my chubbed-out feet into my shoes last night. Note to self - TRY on shoes before packing when 8.5 months pregnant! We're in Dallas so I had no alternatives and let's just say the feet did not look pretty last night.

I took an AWESOME (in my opinion) video of the little guy doing his acrobatics yesterday, so I'm hoping to get that posted this week too. Which would really knock my socks off, it's like I blog regularly or something these days! So I'll be in touch soon - hope you're all enjoying the hustle and bustle of the season. Only FIVE more days till Christmas - yay!!!

p.s. Oh my gosh you guys - can it be five days till Christmas and only seven days till the New Year? No, no it cannot. But in pregnant brain it can and does. I hit publish and then re-read my post and started laughing. I'm SO brilliant these days. So for posterity's sake I'm leaving the mathematical error.

A Tree Tale...

**Disclaimer - important to the story, I promise.**So something's switched in the last week - it's like week 32 of pregnancy is ushering in this feeling of "oh boy, I AM pregnant." And I'm finally really feeling it. As it goes with many first time pregnancies that go full-term, you don't really SHOW how pregnant you are till a little later in the game, so it felt like it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to show...and the weight gain was slow and steady as was the bump progression. But tis no more...now we're riding off into the sunset, me and this belly of mine, with lightning speed that's only to be slowed down by a waddle.

And on top of it all, we're what? Less then two weeks till Christmas by my count, right? AND our story begins....

Ty just returned from his six-week (which we calculated out and it was really SEVEN weeks) of traveling, so we're finally just getting to the decorating and general merriment that historically speaking at least, has started much earlier in this household. I tried, believe me, I tried. I even had Ty get ALL the boxes down from the attic in the hopes that I would decorate during the week and he'd return home to a winter wonderland. Instead he returned home to boxes opened and things scattered randomly throughout the house - not so much a winter wonderland, but rather like Mr. Kringle got sick and threw up all over our house. Awesome.

So this weekend we were off to change all that and start with the tree. Only to find that the trees we LOVE and prefer - were - you guessed it, were pretty much gone. (We do a real tree, not a fake one...though I see where the appeal is now in that you never don't have a nice tree...) So, we strategized and we decided we'd give a new species of tree a try - so instead of the Noble Fir we love, we went with what we thought was a really beautiful Fraser Fir. The plus side - this thing smells incredible. Definitely more fragrant. The downside - the thing is the worst to string lights. It took Ty and I well over an hour and a half to get the thing right...but still we were in the spirit of the season and we were finally together doing it all...so we continued! We stayed up till midnight getting the thing juuuust right and drinking our hot cocoa - and there was lots of talk of "this time next year..." and general cuteness going on. Now, midnight is not my bedtime these days, so by the time we went to bed I was exhausted. But happy. We were getting back on track - maybe the rest of the decorations WOULD make their way up!?!

At nine the next morning, we were still laying in bed, we had earned a luxuriously slow start to the day given our holiday efforts from the night before...and we heard a loud swish and crash (enhanced by a lovely glass shattering sound). IS THAT THE TREE? was all I could mutter...and sure enough it was.

Don't ask me how it happened, I really have no clue. Because while it looked like it needed to be a teeny teeny bit more centered, I figured that was just my retentive behavior sneaking in. There were lots of bad words exchanged about the tree and stupid Fraser (obviously IT IS the tree's fault!). And we got the thing back up and surveyed the damage, one glass bulb had made it all the way across the living room and hadn't even broken - talk about a survivor! Really I'm surprised how many made it out alive given the size/weight of the tree.

The tree is now being punished for its bad behavior and is not redecorated. It's in timeout with clear fishing line running from the tree and being anchored to a tool box that sits behind the tree for extra support, since clearly we can't trust this thing. We're keeping our eye on it for the next few days to see if it's still possessed and then we might consider redecorating...the verdict is still out. Remember my disclaimer about the being big and pregnant? Yeah, not happy with this tree. I hope it redeems itself.

But I have hope and photographic proof that it was at one time something beautiful...here it was before the great fall of '11 moments before we hung the final ornament:

 

I'll be sure to let you know how the tree makes out this year - if it doesn't go well, we may just stack our gifts up by the fireplace this year;)

Thanksgiving 2011...

Ahhh...we made it! I don't know about you all, but the last week was a whirlwind of family, food, and a whole lot of fun - and isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about? This year we were lucky enough to have Ty's brother and his family join us for the festivities and I don't think Margot has ever been so happy in her life to have a perma-friend in our youngest nephew, Carson. He dragged her everywhere and she loved every minute of it!

In addition to the usual crew plus Troy, Tracy, Dylan, and Carson - we also had a new visitor, Joplin, who is Matthew's brand-new puppy and you'll see her in all of the photos below. She's just about the cutest thing ever and she made herself right at home in the mix.

Lastly, I'd like you all to know that hosting Thanksgiving while being 7.5 months pregnant isn't really ALL that bad. And I only had one minor meltdown...not too shabby! As always, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

First up - the people who made this year so special...

The pups deserved their own spot...note Raleigh's hysterical underbite. About died when I saw this pic!

The setting...

Which was not to be out-done by the amazing meal...Ty made this roasted pork loin w/rosemary that was out of this world!

And lastly, our attempt to grab a nice photo of us as a couple on our last Thanksgiving as "just us." Though, I feel silly even saying that because baby boy is very much with us in all we do and couldn't be more obviously "with me" as I'm looking very pregnant these days:)

So very much to be thankful for! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!!