Christmas Activities 2009

Happy New Year! (Almost)

Christmas has been a blast this year. Here's some of what has happened:

Ginger Bread Houses!

This year my mom and brothers decided to go all out with the ginger bread houses and they built a castle! Matt and I built little houses to create the village and all together we had a very enjoyable little scene. It was pretty amazing how my mom was able to bake all those pieces. Here are some pics:

This is the 'Over All' shot. The four houses in front and the one back toward the 'gate' are the ones that Matt and I crafted.

These two above are my favorite. You can see the third last house in the background of the picture below.

The pic above highlights the castle: note the windows. My mom actually put candy in to melt into windows. Pretty cool effect! The pic below highlights some of my brother's creativity. The marshmellows on gumdrops are supposed to be cannons and the candy cane baracade is supposed 'caltrops' (or inother words, pointy logs that keep evil people out).

Chrismas Eve

Christmas Eve we finished our Advent Nativity set. Emmaline loved putting this together through December and it was fun to have such an interactive way to tell the story of Jesus' birth to Emmaline several times. Of all the Christma pictures that Matt took this week I love this one of our tree the most. Somehow the lighting of the tree and the room behind us made this picture so beautiful.

Snow!!

Somehow every Christmas its snowed I've been out of town so I've always missed the 'white Christmas' that everyone can fondly remember. This year (I was sad about moving to Guam where the chance of snow at Christmas is literally 0%) it happened to snow about 4 inches! I was happy! Well, when we weren't driving in it cause we did slide twice- once almost into a busy intersection and the second time almost into the back of another car. Luckily both times Matt was amazing and was able to gain control of the vehicle!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was a blast! Matt and I woke up around 5:30 (I guess even as an adult we can't get the excitement of the magical day to go away enough to sleep in!). When Emmaline finally woke up we were excited to show her that Santa came! She loved opening her presents and we enjoyed watching her. This year both the wrapping paper and the gifts were appealing rather than just the packaging!

Here is what Emmaline got: Chapstick (probably a mistake), baretts, stickers, play jewelry, princess shoes (they sparkle!), books, board games and a helmet and a scooter! The scooter is her favorite, of course.

(I must comment: This picture was taken on Christmas morning. See snow? Nope. I woke up and was sad there was NO snow on the ground. Within an hour of this picture there was an inch of snow. Also note her princess shoes).

Matt got: A calendar with pictures of our family to take with him to Korea, a jar full of 80+ things I love about him, letters to read while in korea (see a theme?), games for his PSP and a camera so when he is in Korea he can take pictures to share with the family!

Britta got: beautiful jewelry from Matt, a few movies from the fam, and a new set of silverware! I was very excited for the silverware because mine has been bending and rusting for a while now and a new set has been on my wants list for about a year!

Christmas Sales

After Christmas we went furniture shopping. Emmaline needs a new bed before baby comes and we decided to hit the sales. We found a bed we both like that was definately under our budget. Happy! The bonus to this bed is that the lower bunk can be stored until we need it in a few years. The dresser, shelves and desk are all built in so we have tons more room in the room- which is important with two little girls in a small space. (The bed is supposed to be delivered today but its snowing again... we'll see if it actually gets here.)

Pregnancy Pictures

And finally: I feel like a beached whale already. I'm now 22.5 weeks along and feeling baby kick all the time. Some days I just feel fat but others I can definately feel pregnant. Here is a pic of my big belly:

Here is what you've all been waiting for!

Matt and I found out we are expecting a GIRL!

We couldn't be more excited!

(This is not the actual ultrasound photo...but you can imagine our baby looks pretty much the same at this point! Except our baby was actually grabbing her toes during the entire ultrasound making any really good picture difficult.)

Gender Gender, who knows the Gender?

The ultrasound is in a week and I'm so excited to find out if we are having a boy or a girl! We have decided that because the ultrasound is so close to Christmas that we aren't going to tell anyone the gender until Christmas day. (Sorry mom!) I'd love to see what you think we are having though. Come on guys...its a 50-50 chance you'll get it right. Here's what the 'professionals' say: Chinese Lunar Calendar predicts: Girl Food Craving Prediction: I've been craving salty- boy Heart Beat Prediction: Heart beat has always been over 140- girl Wedding Ring Swing: swings in a line- boy According to www.childbirth.org I have a 60% chance of having a girl. They take all the different tests and compile the answers to give a percent chance. Matt wants a girl and is pretty sure we'll get one. I really would love to have a girl but I'm more pessimistic and feel like whatever I want I'll get the opposite so I think we'll be having a boy this time. Post your thoughts...it'll be fun to read. Then on Christmas I'll post and let you all know what we are having!

Addendum

After writing the last post about my car I got another call from the car place. My alignment was so bad that they told me if I waited even a month my tires would probably be ruined again. What a waste of 400$. So I had to get the tires realligned- another 75$. Then when I got there to pick up my car I was informed that my break fluid was low (couldn't they have thrown in a bit of break fluid for free? I was spending enough as it was!) and that the struts in the front of the car are making noise. Okay, so I've never even heard of struts. In fact, strutting is what peacocks do. Is it even an thing? My dad will be refilling my break fluid and replacing my headlight today. My car already rides better after having the alignment fixed and the tires replaced. It'll be nice to see when I'm trying to turn after the headlight is fixed!

My poor car.

I call it mine only becuase Matt is gone and hasn't even driven it for 4 months. So its mine. That means I have to be incharge of taking care of it. Oddly enough. Two months ago I asked Matt to check the tires when I was at Lackland for his graduation. His verdict was that our tires were just fine and I didn't need to worry. Well, two days ago I happened to glance down at the tire and was shocked to notice that it was nearly bald! I fumed for a little bit that Matt would have the gall to give me such poor information then I realized that in the last two months we have driven more than 3,500 miles. Definately a reason my tires would look bald now and didn't when Matt checked. Christmas is not the best time to have to replace tires but a few things fuel the necessity. For one, I'm traveling another 2,500 miles within the next three weeks. I really don't want to deal with a tire blow out while driving to Texas. Not an exciting event to deal with. Two, in order for Matt to go with me in my car an MTL has to inspect it for safety. I'm almost positive that my nearly bald tires wouldn't pass the test. Three, I have a safety inspection to do in order to get new tabs on my car in Feburary. So I'd have to get new tires by then anyway. So I'm spending 400$ to get new tires. The most frustrating thing is that our tires are an odd size. Why? I don't know. But they are. It means that I can't find them cheap (something like 50$ a tire or buy 3 get one free sounds good to me!) and they aren't at every tire place. Walmart doesn't have them in-store but does have them online. The problem is that it would take 6-8 business days to get them to the store and I only have 4 business days until I make another round trip to Texas. So no go. But Walmart employees kindly informed me that the front two tires needed replacing, the back two tires would be okay. I was relieved, half as expensive, right? I opted for a Firestone Tire- who actually had exactly 4 tires in stock. I was happy to drop my car off this afternoon and get the car dealt with days before my trip. But then I get a call. Sigh. So a little lesson here. Car tires are given a rating on a scale of 1-12. 12 means that there is full tread, 1 means its entirely bald. (I totally like this rating scale, Walmart people were trying to tell me in inches which baffled me). They reccomend that tires be replaced when they get to 4. My tires? 4,3,2 and 1. So all of them needed to be replaced (makes me wonder how much the Walmart people know if they tell me the back tires are just fine...) So I'm getting all four tires replaced. I wonder if that'll make for a smoother drive? Also, my poor car has had a headlight out for about a month now and has needed an oil change for weeks. I finally got around to the oil change today and bought a new bulb so my dad can replace it tomorrow (thanks dad!). I think my car felt neglected. I hope it didn't start lowering the gas milage to get back at me. But he should be happy now!

Emmaline's Comments

Yesterday I started chatting with one of Emmaline's nursery leaders. She said that Emmaline LOVES to go to the bathroom (they have the cutest little bathroom attached to the nursery with minature toilet and sink...). I have only sent her to nursery with panties on once but the nursery leaders continue letting her go potty if she asks. Anyway, the lesson this week was on saying 'I'm sorry'. The leader told me that Emmaline said (I'm sure in less intelligable words but essentially this) "I have to tell my mom sorry when I go potty on the floor". When she told me this I was floored! For one, I've never made Emmaline appologize for going potty on the floor. An accident is an accident and I treat it as such. Its all a learning process. But mostly I was shocked at how she connected those two thoughts! My baby is growin' up! (wipes tears away).

Christmas Decorations!

Emmaline, Matt and I spent the evening decorating. Actually, I decorated, Emmaline got into the decorations and Matt sat on the phone eating sausage, cream cheese and crackers.

The tradition in our family has always been to put the tree up over the weekend after Thanksgiving (I was out of town so it was pushed to this weekend) while eating crackers and spreads and such. We generally listen to Christmas music and maybe drink some sparkling cider or something. Since Matt was in a different state we elected to not have him go AWOL but just listen to the comotion over the phone.

Yesterday Emmaline and I made some Christmas ornaments with grandma to put on the tree today. The bottom half of the tree holds all of Emmaline's ornaments while the top half holds all of my ornaments. Thats how it works. But honestly, the tree looks pretty good!

I was only disappointed to realize how few decorations we have. Each year Matt and I have elected not to buy decorations because of a lack of space to store anything. And I totally understand why we've done that. But I was disappointed to open the one Christmas box and find that most of the stuff in it went on the tree and not on the walls or counters. I hope next year we'll be in a position to buy stuff and actually store it.

So here is the tree!

Emmaline's 'half' with the ornaments we made yesterday!

I'm hearing voices

Emmaline has picked up on something I never thought she would. Sometimes when I tell her 'I love you!' I say it in a funny voice. I don't know when this started or why but it happened. And now I catch her talking in her 'silly voice' occasionally- especially when she says 'I love you!'. I tried recording her doing it but I don't really think the camera picked up on the nuances of the voice differences. But the video is still cute anyway. Enjoy!

Belly Bubbles

I love feeling my baby kick. When I was in Texas with Matt I'd tell him every time I was feeling the baby move and he would just get the biggest grin on his face. He loves feeling involved with this baby and is very disappointed he is having to miss so much of everything. When my baby kicks it feels like bubbles popping in my tummy. I really can't wait until it gets harder and more predictable. Right now I'm totally surprised when I feel the baby and sometimes only feel the kicks once or twice a day. I really hope the baby's kicks are strong enough to feel outside my tummy before Matt leaves. I'd love for him to feel the baby kick. We get to find out the baby's gender in only 3 weeks. We really are hoping for a girl but, of course, will be totally excited no matter what we have. Either way I'll have to buy new clothes. Emmaline was born in the fall and all her first year clothes are winterized. This baby is due in late spring and her first year will need to be more summer clothing. No big worries, I love buying baby clothes!