A Big Sigh....

We are back from vacation. I need to go back on vacation. It was wonderful! We had a wonderful time. I will be posting pictures and video soon (hopefully), but right now I'm just dropping in to say that I am working like mad to get Christmas presents done, so I will be on hiatus until they're finished. I knocked out two today, so hopefully I'll be on a roll!

A short little update is in session, I guess. Things are really great at our house! Claire is still trying to adjust to normal life again. Grandma and Grandpa Anderson let her get away with EVERYTHING out in Ohio, so it's quite an adjustment for her to not get her way all the time. It's been extremely difficult for me to get anything done this week so far because she wants to be held and played with ALL the time. Try getting my hair done? No, she is there to whine and hug my legs until her shrill crying gets to my nerves. Today I was ingenious! No, really! I had her play with toys on a blanket right by me and my hair actually got done. Wahoo! If she wasn't such a doll.... She has also learned to say "up, please" although it sounds more like "hup peassss". She puckers her lips so fat and will kiss us over and over and over. It basically melts my heart and I'm so glad she's such a lovey little girl! She is really into "bebies" right now. We can't go anywhere without touching them.

Brian is back to work, which hasn't been as stressful as we both anticipated with all of his deadlines and all. I am back to slaving away with primary stuff. I love primary, but boy there is a lot to do. Sigh. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will be having another little person in our house to love on. I haven't quite gotten used to it. I think part of it is that I can't understand how I could possibly love another little kid more than I love Claire. I think that's normal. The other part is that it's a little boy and A) the name thing is still killing me. We've decided on one, but I still can't accept it yet. B) I have to get used to the idea that it's a boy...not a girl. Things are so funny.

In short, we're doing well. :) Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Lipstick

It has be a very. Long. Week.

Yes, I have to get my house cleaned before vacations.

Yes, I am worried about my upcoming piano recital since some of my students think they learn a song by not practicing.

Yes, Claire and I have had a couple of rough no-nap days due to errands.

Yes, Brian has been gone every single night.

Yes, I am stressed about Christmas present making.

YES, I am getting really into lipstick. The bolder the better.

Also, YES, lipstick makes me feel a whole lot better!

Family Moments

Here is what has been going on with us lately. We (as usual) are into the Christmas Season a tad earlier than everyone else. However, we didn't get to put up our tree exactly on Nov. 1st (sadly) due to Brian's wonderful undercooked chicken giving us food poisoning. We put up the tree on the 4th instead. Claire has done amazingly well with not taking the ornaments (beside the fact that MOST are a tad out of her reach).

Here is proof that this child LOVES mexican food. She's not the greatest eater in the world, but at least I know she's getting her protein. She would eat beans all day if I let her.

She wore this basket on her head for quite some time.

Here are my belly shots. The picture with the pink shirt is with Claire at 23 weeks. The recent picture is me at 21 1/2 weeks. I like a little comparison and I'll try to get a to-the-day 23 week shot to really compare.

I also started going through the rest of my belly shots and......did I REALLY get that ENORMOUS?????? Oh my gosh! I can't believe that I really expanded around the globe and back without popping! People say I'm not showing very much now, but just wait people, soon I will have swallowed a whale!

Why Claire Will Love Little Brother

I am convinced that Claire is going to be completely taken with this little brother of hers. Reason number one is that she just loves Boys. Apparently they're hilarious. She laughs this hard with all little boys. I think she was about 9 months old in this video! WHAT A CHUNK!

Reason number two is that she is also completely in love with her babies. She will put them to bed and give them kisses every single time I tell her to. It's a nightly ritual now and she loves it.

We're excited for little Brother! Nesting has even settled in (FINALLY)!!!!

Refiner's Fire

It is 12:30 and guess what I have spent the last not only 2 hours, but countless days before, doing? Going through the massive baby name book. Yes, I read every single boy name in the blasted book (minus the A section) and guess what? It didn't help me one single bit. We still liked our favorite two. We could have easily gone through the top 100 boy names of the last few years and found both (which I did). I just had to know. I had to read every. single. name.

Here is my conclusion:

Boys just aren't as fun to name. Sorry son. I had no giggly emotions of excitement come over me as we have been deciding. Anxiety is the emotion that I most correlate with choosing boy names. They're not frilly or pretty (thank goodness), but with that also comes a certain plainness that I just can't feel too excited about. Since Hubster nixed my favorite name long ago (Jackson) it has been a battle ever since.

Now, dear friends, I will give you our top five and you let me know what you think about them. I will reveal our decision afterwards....after I have thought long and hard about it for a few days, trying to get giddy about it. Once we decide it probably will not change once he's here, but I guess you never know.

Here they are (in no particular order):

1. Joshua

2.Gabriel

3. Nick

4. Jared

5. Zachary

Oh wait! I can't forget LeRoy. That's what we've been calling him in the meantime since it's so.....beautiful? Gorgeous? Lovely? It's basically the ugliest one that we could laugh at temporarily. If your name is LeRoy, then just take those question marks away from "beautiful", "lovely", and "gorgeous" and replace them with exclamation points. :)

6. LeRoy

Let me know! :)

Little Dreams

I went to Heaven yesterday. No, I did not die. I stepped foot into my lovely Banana Republic. Yes, this is deemed as heaven in my book. Silk clothes slipping through my fingers. Autumn fabric that is deep and luscious. Dresses. Shirts. Beautiful. Too bad I had to end up on the men's side due to my enlarging waistline. It's better that way since the silky stuff is always a little more heavy duty on my wallet. As I was at the cash register paying for Brian's future Christmas gifts, I decided on a few things. A few new dreams.

Dream #1: If I ever go back to work when my kids are in school, I don't think I'm going to do squat with my degree. I want to work at Banana and spend my earnings on employee discounted gorgeousness. I will be dressed in the new season loves and I'll have a great time.

Dream #2: I would like this to happen a little sooner, but I want to take a make-up class. No, I'm not talking about a Mary Kay consultant coming to tell me to apply my eyeliner before mascara, I'm talking more. You know how you go to any make-up store....Sephora and Bare Escentuals being new favorites....and all the women have the most stunning eyes you've ever seen? Yes, I want those eyes. All due to beautiful combinations of eyeshadow. I need to take a class. Tomorrow?

Dream #3: I want to learn interior design. Sometimes I get caught in the drab of white walls and cheap decorations and I know that there is a better way without spending a lot of money. I just need the ideas. I know several people that start with Pinterest, but I just can't get into it. I find it so mundane and frustrating that my house can't transform into the picture I'm looking at.

Dream #4: I want to be a great photographer. Enough said. I need to practice more.

That's all.

Better Write That Down

First of all, we just got back from our re-check ultrasound and everything looks great! Phew!!! She had us worried for a second because we still couldn't see a stomach, but after a few minutes it started to fill up and showed us where the sweet thing is. We're so grateful that everything is ok and for answered prayers.

Second, we had a wonderful weekend! It was so relaxing and fun. We didn't do much, just a lot of family time. We went to the mall on Saturday and got a little outfit for baby boy for $2 (thanks to JCPenny who sends out $10 off a $10 purchase) and we just walked around looking at things. It was nice to get out of the house for a few hours. The mall was followed by napping and then I got a couple of hours to work on Christmas presents. I LOVE making gifts. I almost feel bad for loving it so much for two reasons. 1) I make an ENORMOUS mess when I'm trying to be creative and it doesn't get cleaned up until I'm done. 2) I probably enjoy the making process and what it looks like in the end more than the person receiving it.

Third, we started a new cooking/cleaning way of life at our house. Brian always grew up like this: whoever makes dinner doesn't do the dishes. I liked it when we didn't have kids, but now it just doesn't work for us. It's nearly impossible actually. Dishes pile up for days and I HATE doing dishes. I would clean a million bathrooms before I would want to do the dishes. What I really need is a self-cleaning kitchen. Sigh. Anyway, I started to re-think our strategy since I would get angry that I was cooking and the dishes weren't getting done. Then I remembered a conference talk in which one of the Apostles told a story of trying to fix the washing machine and his wife told him to stop and go play with his children. My clockwork started...well....working. Since I'm with Claire all day, I think he needs to have some daddy time after work and then I can cook and clean AND it serves as my mommy break. We then switch roles on the weekends and I play with Claire while he cooks and cleans. We have done it for two weeks now and I LOVE IT. Our kitchen gets cleaned more regularly and I'm not running out of cups or utensils anymore. I also love that Brian gets more time with Claire and I think she's really enjoying all the attention.

That's what we're up to. :) All 4 happy and healthy. :)

We're having a.....

Bouncing bundle of a BABY BOY!!!!!!! Here's his little facial preview. Cute, isn't it? :) (haha....they're so adorable on an ultrasound, right?)

His little arms were always up by his face rubbing his eyes the whole time. He was a lot more wiggly than Claire was! We can already tell that he's a cutie! :)

Well, Here you go. Here's the proof....that is, if you can tell what ultrasound pictures are like. I can see. Definitely a boy. I knew right away (however, I knew before we were even pregnant that a boy was coming).

Here are the little fingers. They're the little dots toward the left in that big black hole. They look like peas in a pod.
Everything is looking alright so far. They couldn't find his stomach, so we were in and out of the ultrasound room all morning and early afternoon....still with no luck. If there is no stomach, then we could be facing some more serious problems, but we're not thinking about that right now. We're just praying for our little guy and hoping that it wasn't visible because mommy was sick and throwing up (nor eating or drinking) the whole day before. We love him already.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Well, we had a wonderful (for the most part) Halloween! Claire LOVED trick or treating and loved her candy bag even more! I took it away from her at one point to wipe off some dog slobber she was assaulted with and she was angry at me for doing so. She made the cutest little bee I've ever seen!

Bees love apples!

The whole family. Brian and I were so excited to dress up this year. The other years we've been married we haven't had costumes and it was L-A-M-E. Now, Brian loved his costume right away, but it took me quite a while to find a costume that wasn't too skanky (hard to do with those halloween costumes, right?), but I finally found one that I could make modest and I enjoyed being a bee with Claire!

Claire and my mom. Luckily Claire wasn't too frightened of the witch at her Grandma's house.

That was our night! We had a lot of fun (until Brian got hit with food poisoning and was up until 5 am throwing up - poor guy). Hope your Halloween was as good as ours!