Family

This is a 36-week belly. And today we're already 37 weeks! Baby has definitely dropped. (I'm nearing the point where I'm certain if he/she drops any lower, they'll just fall out, but Midwife Shannon assures me there's a much longer process to the whole thing.)...

So there's this condition called nesting, and I've got it. The baby's dresser is fully organized (as is the entire room!); pictures have been placed around the main floor (okay, so that's something that should have been done a long time ago, but apparently I just...

1. My hip pain continued to increase until I was at a breaking point two weekends ago. The most severe pain is while sleeping, which is also when your mind is most susceptible to discouraging thoughts. Really hard to fight back when you're barely awake. Up...

Soo Christmas still wasn't done, and it was almost New Years'! We spent our last day in Michigan with James' sister, her husband, aaaand their daughter whom we got to meet for our first time since her birth...

Corban learned Sorry! with his aunts. His pieces somehow always ended up in his home waaaay before the other players' pieces. He loved it.  Grammie-Jaeda time. It had to be forced, but then the cuddles really began. Mi amor y yo. So many games were opened and learned and played. Hours and...

Our big Christmas meal is on Christmas Eve. We love it that way, because we make it so big that we can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Christmas. No cooking, just present-opening, present-playing, and overall lounging around. The.best. With 18-20 present-openers (girlfriends were in and...

This is my beautiful family. It just keeps growing and growing! My gorgeous, grown siblings (minus one who's growing/grown?? in heaven). Ages 11-29. One daughter joined with a son-in-law and brought two (almost three!) new additions to the family. Did I just say three?! Yikes! Then one son joined with one daughter-in-law and brought one (for...

We're still figuring out how our own family Christmas will work. We currently celebrate just us at some point before we leave to be with family. Maybe in the future this will be on Christmas Day, but for now, we really love using James' time off...

We love to drive through Chicago to get to Wisconsin. Well, James loves to drive. I like to read, and I can read no matter which road we take. We left four hours earlier than usual so that we could get to their house before...