catching up

We have been so busy lately. I don't know if it's just the holidays...I think it might be...or if it's just our life and I need to get used to it. One interesting thing that has happened to me over the past few months is that I have had an increased desire to hang out with people. Normally I like to just be an introvert and stay in my house with a book. But, lately, I've really wanted to spend time with people and, fortunately, have had many chances to do just that.

Two weekends ago I had the Christmas Women's brunch at Grace which, admittedly, I never would have gone to had the pastor's wife, Meagan, not personally invited me as her "special" guest. It was her ploy to get me and my mom to attend...and it worked. The brunch was actually really cool and reminded me how nice it is to be a girl. My small group leader, Nancy, put together these skits that were just awesome and the table decorations were so cool I took like 80 pictures of them. Maybe some day I will steal the idea. Most of all, it was just fun to be back at Grace and know people and speak English and be recognized and loved as a part of a church body...not that I don't have that at the church plant, because I do. But, there is just something so special about going back to a place and realizing you were loved there and that you loved it there. So, yes, it was a good time and I was very glad I went. I also had a baby shower that weekend and then Ricky came back from the airport so I had to leave the shower early to go pick him up. However, I learned a few valuable things at the brunch and shower that I thought I might share:

1. bring a bathrobe to the hospital
2. It is possible to tell the hospital you want an all natural birth and that you don't want to be hooked up to all the machines (I'm not sure I really believe that the hospital will listen to this request)
3. Your expectations after you have the baby should be, "maybe I'll get a shower today" (this one almost sent me into a panic so I got a second opinion and found out that, no, life doesn't have to be that limited...but evidently it might be)
4. If you think you should call the doctor, you should just call the doctor and not worry about it
5. You cry a lot after the baby comes...mostly hormonal...yippee.

Ok, this last week, then, was full of small group and trips to Winterhaven. I really do not think it is Christmas in Tucson until you've taken a trip through Winterhaven. I went once with friends from college and small group and then with my family. Both times were wonderful. Winterhaven gives me warm fuzzies. And, Ricky got to go with us the second time and everything is better with Ricky.

Thursday, which is usually our date night, became our date night at the manager's meeting for the Flying Diamond Airpark...committees are so great. The amazing people at the airpark got us these awesome baby gifts so it was like having a party and a business meeting at the same time. And to top it all off, Joan made fudge.

This weekend I rearranged the living room and my dad came over to help put up blinds in one of our studios...this was the point where I realized that I am becoming ridiculously emotional because my parents were going to leave before I wanted them to and I totally freaked out. I cannot stand any kind of emotional turbulance and having it go on inside of me without any normal reason why is even more disturbing than it going on around me or have to deal with emotions that make sense. Needless to say, this baby needs to come before I turn into a monster or I decide I just need to go lay in bed until labor pains send me to the hospital so as to not be horrible to people I love. Seriously, what is wrong with me? I'm psychotic.

And now it is three days to Christmas and I just can't wait.

on working late

I finished decorating the inside of our house today. I got some new garland this year from Michaels and it was 60% off so each piece was only $4 and I'm very pleased with the outcome. My favorite part about decorating is that we get everone in the house a stocking. Ricky is in Dallas this weekend so I grabbed my mom to go shopping with me for all the fun stuff. My favorite place for stocking stuffers is World Market and my mom had never been there so we had fun filling up the little basket and walking around looking at everything in the store. I just love that place. We got little chocolates and some coffee for one of the guys and more chocolate (we just got a ton of chocolate) and some pens and sticky note highlighter things that were just non-existent when I was in college but really look like they would come in handy, and then I got everyone an ornament. Oh, and we have an older couple who lives in one of our studios and I got them some organic pasta and a soup mix.

And now I'm working at my laptop in this great mauve Lane recliner that was my Grandmas and has very quickly become my favorite spot in the house. (side note on the chair...I have very little that is truly "mine" here and I work really hard to maintain that mindset but, for several reasons, I had very definitely decided that this recliner was MINE...atleast in my head it was. I had managed to successfully convince myself of this for atleast the past 6 months and then last week one of the guys was writing a letter to a friend leaving the country and he kept using the chair to write the letter and I came home from work three days in a row and my chair, my Grandma's chair that I sat in as a little kid, the chair that I had decided was mine and only mine, was occupied. The first day I about had a coronary and then by the third day I realized it's just a chair and why does God give us things if not to share them with other people and use them to benefit those around us. And God has given us this house that we might share it with others and I need to be grateful for the opportunity to do so. *sigh* . I have relinquished the idea of the chair being mine but still find this little place inside of me that has delighted in finding it empty for the last several days as I've come in from the office. It invites me to come and read novels.) Back to reality...I keep trying to pull a report that keeps crashing and though it is 11:50 at night, I keep repulling it and repulling it. I'm on attempt number four and I believe it's still thinking so I'm going to have to close it down and try to repull it again...or I might just go to bed.

One busy weekend

I keep thinking that it's been such a long time since high school but this weekend I was reminded it hasn't really been all that long. Cody's winter formal for Tucson High was on Saturday and he spent the morning running around with Ricky picking up the corsage, which, evidently kids don't do here, and buying a new shirt for his suit. I had a baby shower at 11 in the morning and ended up spending almost all day hanging out afterwards which was so fantastic. It made me miss my friends. I spent the drive home reminiscing in my mind of college days when I used to hang out multiple times a week. Anyways, my mom and I were not really flying because my mom never speeds, but were talking about flying back to town as quickly as possible from Lauren's house so we wouldn't miss the pictures.

So fun, btw, high school dance pictures. It's way more fun to be the parent, I've decided, as you no longer feel like your life is hanging in the balance of whether or not everything turns out perfectly and you can dote and pose and wear whatever you want. It's great. Cody went with a group of six and the girls were all so cute. I loved the dress that his date wore. Note, again, she's the only one who got flowers. The midwest is just so different. They all met up at our house to take pictures first, then wound their way on over to one of the girls' houses before going to macaroni grill and then the dance.

After picture time was over, I walked to the UofA for the ASU/UA duel in the desert. It was such a great game. I have actually never been to one of the rivalry games so I was so excited when our friend BJ, from Phoenix gave Ricky a call to invite him and Ricky couldn't go and neither could Cody so I got to go...and I didn't even have to feel guilty. Outside of walking a million stairs with my pregnant belly--I realized just how pregnant I was by about row 31--everything was perfect. I even snapped off a few pictures.

Consequently, today, after Brent and Jessica's baby shower, which I did not get any pictures of, I took like a 3 hour nap and had to absolutely drag myself out of bed at around 7:30.

Cody has a paper due for his history class. It's a debate paper where he has to pick a side, yes on the constitution or no on the consitution and then read 5-10 articles written in the late 17oo's to back his position. The articles are as hard as anything I read in college and the debate paper has to have 20 points, ten for and ten against. Needless to say, it's 2:45 in the morning and we've been reading and discussing the various stances of the federalist vs antifederalist view points for over 4 hours. He's been working on it since noon...poor guy....it's good for him. It is leading to more college reminiscing.

Black Friday

I would just like to note that Black Friday was not really that busy and the lack of craziness made me kind of sad and disappointed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Day!!
We spent the morning cooking at our house. We smoked up a turkey and made green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and spinach (because I didn't make enough green beans). This was our third go, well...Ricky's third go at smoking the Turkey and it turned out to be really tasty. I think it was much less stressful to cook it than it has been in the past too. We injected garlic butter into the skin before we put it on the smoker which helped it taste a little less smoky.
We had dinner at my folks house this year which was really nice and very relaxing. We sat around and watched Kung Fu Panda and played Settlers of Catan and then watched Lemony Snickets A series of unfortunate events. And now I'm really tired. I'm posting a video of Ricky and Cody playing with the dogs.

5 oclock is going to come too early tomorrow. I'm a little nervous to brave all the little old ladies out shopping at the crack of dawn but we have things we need to get so we're going to venture out. I've never in my life gone shopping on black friday. I've heard it is quite the experience. Maybe I can pull the pregnancy card and people will be nice to me...or not.

Here is a good picture of Cody and Ricky. Cody has declared that he looks really good here. :)

All Things Baby

Last weekend we had our first baby shower. It was really cool. So many of my friends from work and our friends from church and college came to celebrate our little baby in my belly. We got the room all spiffed up and worked for like 10 hours cleaning the house. I really had a lot of fun and we were blessed with so many wonderful things for the new baby. I have most of it put away now and it makes our baby's room look like a real room.

Today my mom and dad got us a camera as an early Christmas present so after like 8 months of no pictures we can finally start to document stuff. I'm very excited. I went into the baby's room and took a video so you can see what it looks like and then I think tomorrow we will just play away with it until we've filled up the memory card.

The video turned out a little dark but I think you can still see it.

Here is a gratuitous picture of our Gertie dog...we think she's cute

Football and Fall

Oh, and we went to a football game with Cody. U of A actually won. It was not very exciting considering the score was like 42 to 7 but I hadn't been to a game in such a long time. Yay for US Airways chartering jets for the football team.

Also, it feels like fall today for the first time and I feel like picking a pumpkin. Yesterday Cody and I picked one up from Home Depot and I made pumpkin pie. Not as good as my moms but it was fun making a huge mess in the kitchen anyways...very domestic of me. Again, I think I'm nesting.