Christmas Tree Shopping, 2013

2 posts in one week?  You can tell I had time off for Thanksgiving!

Black Friday has become sort of a holiday of its own in our house.  Not because we go shopping in the traditional sense, but because it is Christmas Tree Day!  I started the morning by making some cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa.  Breakfast of champions!

 I dressed Scarlett up in her new Christmas outfit and my favorite hat ever (it was the first thing I bought when I found out I was pregnant a year ago).  She was super excited!

 And can we all just take a minute and check out this adorable Santa on her bum?  I can't handle it.

We headed out to the Christmas tree farm and picked out our tree!  We had gotten a few inches of snow (okay, 8) last week, and that made the whole thing feel extra festive!  Here are Scarlett and I looking for the perfect tree.  I promise I am not missing teeth, and Scarlett does not have a black eye.  The shadows in this picture are weird.

And here she is with Luke...possibly my favorite picture of them together ever.

We got home and Luke put the tree up and started putting the lights on

And this girl sat completely mesmerized in her Bumbo Seat the entire time.  She's like, "I don't know what the heck you are doing Daddy, but it looks awesome."  

All of this was happening while Home Alone was on in the background.  We bought the blu-ray set of Home Alone and Home Alone 2.  Uh, for Scarlett.  Ahem. 

We hung the ornaments, and I couldn't help but reminisce about the special significance of each one.  It's what I do...

This special ornament was from my grandma the year we got married.  Extra special this year as I am missing her so much.

Here's the finished product!

Then I had to do an entire photoshoot with this cutie:

"This Christmas thing is going to be fun!"

 "Wait a minute, I get presents?!"

"I didn't know there were going to be presents!"

 "I better be good this month!  No more screaming like a crazy person when I get mad!  Or getting distracted or falling asleep while Mommy's trying to feed me!"

"Okay, turn me around so I can look at these lights some more." 

"You think you can just sit me here when you want me to be occupied, don't you?"

 "Hahaha!  Not a chance!  The novelty will wear off by tomorrow.  But right now, I think this is pretty cool!"

Today I went out to do some Christmas shopping, and couldn't pass up the chance to buy a little tree for Scarlett's room.  I told Luke, I know she's too young to really appreciate it, but I waited enough Christmases without a baby...we are going to do it up right now that she's here!  And she really does seem to like it.  If nothing else, we can see it glowing in the background while we all hang out in the living room each night.  It makes it feel extra cozy!

 A few other Christmas touches in her room:

 I can't imagine a more perfect start to the Christmas season.  I have about 90% of my Christmas shopping done, and all the gifts that are here are wrapped.  I am determined to enjoy this Christmas season, and not be out shopping and stressed at the last minute!  Now the rest of the month can be spent baking, watching Christmas movies, hanging out with my family, and oh, finishing up the semester.  I am not looking forward to that last part!  But at least I am 3 weeks from being done with another semester.  and then I'll have 2-3 weeks off!  I've never been so ready for a break!

First Days at Home

I am trying to get up the energy and time to start writing Scarlett's birth story.  It was a 36 hour labor, so there's a lot to write.  That's one reason I'm putting it off.  Also, I think I have PTSD, and am not looking forward to reliving the experience.  I kid, but it was seriously the labor of my very worst nightmares.  All worth it, of course!

On Saturday, July 13, we came home from the hospital as a family of 3. A big welcome was waiting for us, set up by my sisters-in-law:

The hospital had given us a voucher for free pizzas, so we picked them up on the way home and had a big pizza party with our families to celebrate Scarlett's homecoming!

 During the weekend, Scarlett met lots of her family members

Some of them enjoyed playing dress-up with her...Princess Leia hat courtesy of Luke's sister Diana

 On Sunday we took our first outing.  Scarlett is a little jaundiced, so we had to take her out to get her bilirubin levels checked -- something we've done every day this week.

We took our first family walk with the stroller on Sunday night...

...to our friends' house, where Scarlett and her cousin/future bestie met for the first time

Mostly we've all just been busy falling more and more in love with her in the first five days of her little life!

I am so thankful that Luke has so much time off from work so we can really learn to adjust and start a schedule as a family of three.  I feel like we learn a million new things each day.  So far, Scarlett has been the perfect baby!  She hasn't woken up at all the past 2 nights; we've just had to wake her up every three hours to eat.  She makes the funniest faces and the cutest noises.  

She has changed Luke and I so much already.  Our priorities changed so much the moment she was born.  And watching Luke become a daddy has made me fall in love with him all over again.  He's been so helpful, and I know he'd give her the world if he could.  He's wrapped around her little finger already!  And she doesn't know just how lucky and loved she is.

I am trying to cherish every second of these first days together.  I know they will be some of my most special memories!

Friday Photo Dump

I am in a good mood this morning!  Yesterday was my last day of class for what I've been told is the most difficult semester of grad school in my program.  I have an online final to complete, and one day at my clinical placement left, and then I'll be officially done!  ...for a week.  I still have a week-long literacy seminar, and a month-long fluency (stuttering) class to take this summer before I get a real break.  But it feels good to be on this side of the semester.  My classes this semester included voice, neurogenic disorders, dysphagia (swallowing disorders), and articulation & phonological disorders.  Whoever decided that 4 of the most content-loaded classes should be taken during the same semester apparently had some anger to take out on innocent grad students.  But I survived it, and it wasn't all bad.  

Anyway, I have my last day of clinicals with some adorable preschoolers that I'm really going to miss next Wednesday.  But aside from that, I have no major plans for the next 10 days.  The forecast looks just about perfect for this weekend and next week, and I'm pretty much feeling on top of the world.  I hope to work on some nursery projects and spend the entire week enjoying this pregnancy and focusing on Scarlett and her upcoming arrival!  I feel like I haven't been able to fully do that in the past 15 weeks because I've been so busy.

Hopefully with the extra time I'll have in the next week, I'll be able to blog a little more often.  I thought I'd start with my Friday photo dump since I haven't done one in awhile.

 

 A few weeks ago I tried a Pinterest manicure.  Pinterest picture above on the left, and  mine on the right.  I just used the bottom end of a paintbrush to make the polka dots.  I don't know if I'm too old to pull off polka dots or not, but it turned out better than I thought it would!

My mom bought this stuffed animal for Scarlett just minutes before I told her I was pregnant.  True story.  My mom just had a feeling that's what we were coming over to tell her.  Anyway, here Gabby is stalking it.  We may need to teach the cats about boundaries before July...Scarlett is not even here yet, and doesn't have any siblings, and she's already having to share her toys.  Not fair.

Luke is in a small basketball league at our church and plays on Monday nights.  Here he is getting the rebound!  It was fun to watch him play, but the league was pretty aggressive, and I was terrified he was going to really hurt himself every time he played.  So I'm secretly kind of glad the season ended last week.  Bring on the softball season!

Life of an SLP grad student.  I kind of love it.

Gabby's specialty is finding weird places to hang out.  I'm always amazed at the tight spaces she can fit into.

I had my glucose test last Friday.  I passed!  This is the gross drink I had to chug beforehand.  It wasn't pleasant, but definitely not as bad as I was expecting.

Th cats' new favorite pastime: to lay on the nursery carpet in the sun every morning.  They lay there until about noon when the pools of sunlight have disappeared, and then move to either the couches or the bed.  Ahh, the life of a cat.  I think mine sleep at least 20 hours a day.  One of my professors shares useless trivia with us every class just for fun, and this week we learned that giraffes sleep just 20 minutes each day.  A friend from class posted on Facebook that she would call them "giraffe naps" from now on instead of "cat naps."  I have to agree that that makes much more sense.  I don't know where the term "cat nap" came from, but unless you're planning on napping for at least a 4-hour block of time, that is probably not an accurate name.  

Speaking of cat naps....while Gabby's specialty is to find weird places to take them, Ellie's specialty is finding the most uncomfortable positions for them.  

Last Saturday, my church had a women's retreat for the day.  The theme was joy.  We had a great speaker, and it was great to just refresh and get some encouragement!  We all got notebooks to take notes in during the session, and then we got to decorate them.  

On Tuesday night I took a nice walk with my cousin Sarah as she pushed Hudson and Hadley in her double stroller.  (Whom I accidentally called "Hudley" last night while talking to my mom.  New nickname for the pair of them, Sarah?  ;-))  Anyway, it was a beautiful evening!  I just had to snap a picture.  I can't wait until Scarlett is here and I can walk her around the neighborhood in her stroller!

Another cat picture.  I just can't help it.  They melt my heart with cuteness.  (I am such an annoying cat-mom).  Anyway, if I leave the doors of my wardrobe open for more than 4.2 seconds, Ellie likes to jump in and burrow behind my neat piles of clothes, completely messing them up.  

Yesterday was Luke's 29th birthday!  Everyone keeps saying to him, "Only 1 more year of being young!" Yikes. I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he said, "nothing."  How boring, right?  I figured I'd just make him some ice cream and cake and keep it low key, and next year we'll do it up big.  We had lots of visitors last night to wish him a happy birthday, even though we hadn't had anything "formal" planned.  I think he had a good day!  

At my wedding shower, my mother-in-law gave me a recipe box full of Luke's favorite recipes.  One of them was for homemade chocolate cake and frosting.  Baking a cake from scratch always seemed so daunting for me, and I've been afraid to try it. But I thought I better practice now, so I'll be able to make one for Scarlett on her birthdays (and future children too).  So I came home yesterday from my last day of class and nervously threw the ingredients together, praying the whole time that I wouldn't mess it up! And somehow it all came together okay.  While I was baking I couldn't help but imagine Scarlett helping me bake a birthday cake for Daddy in a few years, and thought my heart was going to explode from happiness.  

Luke got an ice cream maker for Christmas a year or so ago, so I decided to make some homemade ice cream too.  I wanted to make mint, Oreo ice cream, but overdid it with the mint a bit.  It wasn't terrible, but definitely could have been better.  If I was going to mess something up, I'm glad it was the ice cream, and not the cake!

That about sums up the past few weeks in my world!  Spring has been good this year, regardless of how long it took to get here!  I feel so blessed, and can't wait to see what the next few weeks have in store!

Finally, A Day Out!

I have to be honest and say that the winter blues hit me pretty hard this past winter.  I don't even think I realized the extent of it until it started warming up past freezing temperatures in the second week of April, and I started feeling alive again.

It really was a long and very cold winter here in Ohio.  That's something we can say every year, but this year was even worse than normal in that we had no relief from the cold during the entire month of March.  Praise the Lord for the warm weather and sunshine we've seen in the past week!  

Anyway, Luke and I have a tendency to live slightly like hermits in the winter months, because it seems easier than going out in the cold.  But I had been itching to get out and spend some quality time with him.  Especially since these are our last few months just the two of us!

Luckily, last Friday we had some errands to run in the Akron/Fairlawn area, so Luke took the day off and we made a whole date day of it.  I needed that quality time so badly, and I'm so thankful for it!

We started the morning off at The Sweat Pea Cafe for breakfast, after Luke's phone told us to go there. (What did we do before smart phones and the "Around Me" app?)  Luke ordered chocolate chip pancakes that were as big as the plate, and I had an omelette filled with avocado, cheese, spinach, and tomatoes.  I told Luke it was a super food breakfast with all that healthy stuff inside.  The hash browns on the side were delicious, too.  Although admittedly not as healthy!

We tried not to stuff ourselves, because we were meeting my sister and brother-in-law for lunch in 3.5 hours.  To burn calories between meals we did a little shopping.  I found another pair of maternity jeans that actually weren't too long at Motherhood Maternity, and they weren't as expensive as I was expecting, so it was a successful shopping trip!  Other than that, we just browsed and had fun window shopping in stores that we don't have around where we live.  You really realize how limited your choices are in Salem and Alliance when you visit a place like Fairlawn for the day!

Next stop was lunch with Andrew and Julie.  I've had dozens of people tell me that I have to try this burger place called The Rail.  Especially considering that Scarlett apparently wants me to eat her weight in burgers daily.  Anyway, all of The Rail's beef is all local, so that's a win in my book!  The atmosphere was fun, and the food was delicious!  So hopefully we can go again sometime.  

Next stop was the movie theater to see Jurassic Park in 3D.  Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books, and I love the movie too, so I've really been wanting to see the movie again in 3D since it was re-released.  It was totally worth it.  After seeing it many times before, I nearly had a heart attack at least eight times during the 3D version.  Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen.  It is just one of the best suspense-building movies of all time.

Source

After that it was time for a little more shopping, and then we headed home.  We came home and I think we fell asleep around 7.  Seriously, being old and pregnant is hard work.  Or just being old, in Luke's case.  In our defense, we had to be out the door at 6:30 AM to make it to to an appointment that morning, and we had gone to bed later than we should have the night before.  But seriously, you know you're not young anymore when you spend your Friday evening sleeping on the couch.  In fact, Luke turns 29 in a mere 2.5 weeks.  Our twenties are rapidly coming to a close!  ...Along with a lot of our freedom.  But that is something I would gladly hand over after spending 9 years together, just the two of us.  Bring on the babies! 

Regardless, I was glad we got to spend a little time together before Scarlett gets here.  I'm hoping to squeeze as much of that in in the next 3 months as possible!