Christmas Recap

A quick overview of my week last week -
Sunday night continued our tradition of going to Garvan Gardens with some friends and afterwards they came back over here for soup, salad & dessert.

Tuesday my parents came into town & we went to meet my brother Lance & sister in law Kristin. We met up at Playtime Pizza for lunch. Lance & Kristin moved to North Carolina this past summer so we had not seen them in a while. We enjoyed catching up with them again. I had to go to a Doctor's appointment for me (everything was good) and then take Alexis to the doctor (ear infection). I ended up taking Avery to the doctor Wednesday and she turned out to have an ear infection too. I was pretty surprised b/c neither of them has acted especially fussy lately but Alexis had a fever that prompted me to take her.

We did a little shopping but mostly stayed at the house (out of the rain) and visited & played with the kids. Wednesday Nathan and I smoked a turkey and had all of his family over with my family to eat that night and play games. We had 5 couples so we played a game called Couplez. It's sort of a Christian version of the Newlywed game. (Thanks DeBusks!)

Thursday of course it was still raining but we made the best of it. I was so glad that my Christmas shopping was done on Monday so I didn't have to get out it that mess. Our church's Christmas Eve service got cancelled but we played games & watched The Nativity Story. After Kaleigh went to bed we stuffed stocking & put out all of the presents.

Christmas morning we had breakfast then opened stockings. Then it was time for presents. That was a lot of fun, of course. The twins just had the best time walking around through all the chaos & carrying things around the room. I was glad to see that Kaleigh had not gotten gift crazy. She still wanted to stop & play with things instead of just asking for "more presents". We had to prompt her to keep opening. We had our Christmas lunch then Lance & Kristin had to leave. My parents went to a movie and I ended up falling asleep. That evening we went to Nathan's parents for Christmas dinner and more presents.
I'll post more pictures later from the Statton's house.

WALKING!

I have done an awful job of documenting the babies' milestones, but they are hitting a big one right now. I want to make sure we know when it happened. Alexis has been taking steps for a while now, but just this last week is walking all over the place. It is so cute to watch. She looks like a little old woman with her tiny shuffling steps! Then last night my parents were over and we were sitting around with the kids and Avery decided she wanted some attention. So she stood up and took a couple of steps. She just beamed when we cheered and kept doing it until she was taking 7 or 8 steps. I loved literally seeing our praise & belief turn into a success for her. What an important lifelong lesson in raising kids.

The other night I went with some friends to see New Moon, and a couple of people were asking about what other books I read. I do love to read and thankfully I read fast, since I don't have tons of free time to do it. I'm pretty much a "lazy" reader, meaning if I have to keep rereading a page to grasp it's meaning, I probably won't finish that book. I also read mostly fiction, with a few parenting, marriage, or decorating books thrown in for well-roundedness. But this blog will pertain to fiction.

Lately I've been reading Jodi Picoult. I definitely like some of her books better than others. My two favorites are probably Salem Falls and Nineteen Minutes. I'm about to read Picture Perfect. For laughs, I like to read Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books. If you've seen the movie, the books are way more hilarious. They are a little absurd, but that's part of the fun. Not as funny are some of Barbara Kingsolver's books, especially The Poisonwood Bible. I really liked that up until towards the end. It just lost momentum completely. But it was worth reading. I initially get most of my book ideas from book clubs, like Oprah or Target, or bestseller lists, then go from there.
Nicholas Sparks books are also usually pretty good and easy to read. It's amazing how many of the books I like end up getting made into movies. I guess that's just the thing to do these days. What sparked the discussion with my friends was "Lovely Bones". I liked the book but it was waay overhyped in my opinion.
In the Christian category, I like anything by Karen Kingsbury and most books by Francine Rivers.

So, if you're looking for something to read, maybe this will help you. This is kind of an "obvious" list. If you want more obscure books, I've got those too.

This past weekend Nathan put up shelves in our laundry room. We just needed more storage space for food, cleaning supplies, appliances, etc. Although he didn't quite finish, he got a lot done. The part that is left shouldn't take too long. We had a very busy weekend, with doing that. Friday night was our SS Christmas party. We had a gift exchange of mostly gag gifts. I say mostly b/c it was supposed to be a gag gift but a few were really nice. We ended up with a $5 Sonic gift card which was great and a chocolate monopoly game. Very cool. I brought a 70's/80's book & cd set. Nathan's was pretty funny. Our class normally does an ornament exchange and his tradition is to buy a photo ornament & put a goofy picture of himself in it. This year we got a frame with 8 pictures and he put 8 4x6 pictures of himself in it! I'll have to get a copy of the picture of it.

Saturday Nathan was working on the laundry room and I took the kids to a Christmas party in Benton that we found out about through HIPPY. The kids got to sit on Santa's lap and I actually got a pretty good picture of all three of them. Kaleigh told him she wanted dress up clothes & blocks. She is getting some dress up clothes but I haven't gotten any blocks yet. They also served lunch, had several nice crafts & gave the kids books, hats, gloves & pillows.

After the party we came back here & Kaleigh and I helped Nathan paint the laundry room and he went to work on the shelves.

Sunday we had to clean - it was getting unsafe for the children. Then we put up our Christmas tree and put out a few decorations. It was a full day of work as well, but fun work.

I was thinking back to all we have done since we got the house. I say "we", mostly Nathan, but I have helped as much as possible considering the pregnancy and the 3 kids. We've painted our room, the living room, kitchen, the twins room, Kaleigh's room and the laundry room. We pulled up the carpet & prepped the floors, installed wood floors, put up a curtain rod, built a workbench in the garage, built shelves in the laundry room, and started organizing junk in the basement. We've also had a lot of help with all that. What we still have to do is paint both bathrooms and the new baby's room and install some kind of slide out shelves in my pantry. Oh, and the small matter of the basement. I won't talk about that right now. I just think it's amazing how much we've been able to do in such a short amount of time. It probably helps that we don't have tv yet and just got internet. I'm so glad to have such a handy, hardworking husband.

Here's my promised pregnancy picture and a picture of the girls playing. They climb up in this little toy then scream b/c it's not big enough for them both. Alexis has just been sitting in there all day like a little queen.

? Week Checkup -

I finally went to the doctor today. As they say, every pregnancy is different, and this one is definitely way different from the other two. Especially the twins, of course. With Kaleigh, I was busy working, moving (twice!) and getting ready for my first child. I was starting from scratch with baby stuff and of course I always knew what week I was in my pregnancy and how long I had left. I was fairly paranoid about what I did, ate or drank, etc.

Then, the twins. That was just a whole other ball game...

Now this one. I'm so laid back this time around. Probably a little too laid back. Once I got past the sickness & started feeling good, I got caught up in all the changes in our life and taking care of the three kids I have already. Mostly it's a huge blessing & an answer to prayer that I'm feeling good enough to not know exactly how far along I am and how long I have left. With the twins that's all I could think about. God had his hand in that whole pregnancy also, but it was a trial for us - to say the least. He took us through the fire and back again. This time around He is blessing me with a much easier time overall and good health and energy.

But I am so laid back that I missed one doctor appt and waited 4 more weeks to make another. So today I went back after over 2 months. Everything looked good, but something kinda funny did happen. I was getting weighed by the nurse and she kept moving the scale up, up & up. She said my weight and I said "yes, I'm finally gaining weight". She looked back at my records and said "Well, it looks like you've gained 27 pounds so far. We usually like to see our patients gain between 20 and 25 the whole pregnancy." Then she mentioned something about maybe watching it. I just sort of smiled & nodded, knowing that I'm not going to change anything. Mainly b/c she wasn't taking into account that I started out at least 10 pounds underweight. Also, after what I went through with the twins I developed almost a food phobia. I'm so glad to have my appetite back that I don't really care if I gain 50 extra pounds. Still, my belly is pretty big. I'm about 30 weeks along. It makes me wonder what I will look like at the end of the pregnancy! I'll post a belly picture soon.