8.5 months pregnant and surprise visit

It's Saturday night (12/29) I'm standing in the kitchen icing a chocolate cake for Jay and Sarah's Bugarin's party. Tyson is playing with Sydney in the front room. All of the sudden we get a nock on the door. Odd? It was only 430 and the office is open so it shouldn't be a customer. Tyson goes to the door and all of the sudden I hear a scream of joy! I run to the front room and my MOM IS IN THE ROOM! My parents drove 8 hours to surprise us with a visit!

I was amazed! I was so happy! It was a Christmas miracle - sort of. After 5 minutes of hugging and realizing they were ACTUALLY here we unpacked their car. I showed mom my half organized nursery and the little projects I needed help with.

We were suppose to go have dinner at the Bugarin's house but felt bad so we called to cancel but they INSISTED we come with my parents. We had a great dinner and a great time chatting. We sung happy birthday and were home by 715 pm. We put Sydney to bed and the boys headed down stairs to watch a game. My mom and I talked for hours. We talked about parenting, in-laws, routines, work .... everything. It was awesome. At 1030 we went to bed.

Sunday I could not sleep so I was up at 530 am. I took a shower, headed down stairs to prepare my Sunday School lesson. Mom got up and heard Sydney and got her up too. We played downstairs and took down our Christmas decorations. So happy! My mom quickly got to work and cleaned my downstairs, dusted everything, cleaned my fridge, started laundry - she's amazing!

Tyson and I headed to church and for the first time in 7 months attended Sunday school together. I taught a  great lesson, Tyson participated  and we headed home after. We got home and we tackled the nursery. It was a big job but we got it done and succesfully now have Sydney in the new room. We also took out ALL our 0-3 months clothes, washed them and organized them for London. We sorted clothes and put alway all the 12 months clothes and just kept out the 18 months clothes.

I know it sounds weird but doing all of this took a big stress off my shoulders. We then headed to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy some organizing bins and a dresser divider.

We ordered chinise and had dinner. Poor Sydney was super tired because she got up so early so she was in bed and out at 7 pm. It was awesome. Sunday night I slept much better and got up at 630 but stayed in bed. Monday sadly I had to work and even though I attempted everything to get coverage, I found nothing. We did meet up for lunch at my favorite place - Panera Bread. We shared a great meal and then walked around Target.

That night we went to a new years party at the Ashby home. We stayed until 8 pm and headed home. We put on the movie the guardian but I was in bed by 945 and everyone else followed by 1015 - being parents is soooo cool :) 

The next morning my parents headed back to Utah but not before taking us out to breakfast at IHOP.

It was an AMAZING visit. We got so much done and organized for baby London. I feel so blessed to have such great parents. I love you mom and fredy!

Christmas part 2

Christmas part 1

Christmas this year was very very fun. We stayed back in colorado because I did not want to travel at 8 month pregnant and tickets were CRAZY expensive. So we stayed home.

Christmas even we were invited to the home of Ann and Ryan Brown. They have a beautiful home and we had amazing food - roast, funeral potatoes, dessert - it was awesome. We stayed until 745 and then headed home. We put Sydney to bed and Tyson and I started to prepare for our party the next day. We were in bed by 930. We woke up at 715 am and got ready. We made sure Sydney looked super cute. We brought her downstairs and got the cutest video of her first real Christmas. She went straight to ther stocking and started pulling stuff out.

We did our stockings, then eat breakfast. I attempted to  make a casserole - not a success, but it was at least an attempt lol. After breakfast we opened our presents. I'll admit that it was really all about Sydney. It was fun to see her rip the paper and actually recognize a toy or a book. After presents it was nap time. Sydney slept and cleaned the house. After we woke up we skyped with Debbie and Gaylan and shared our presents. After Skype we put Sydney in her snow suit and took her in our front yard for her first experience with snow. It was hilarious! She looked so cute all wrapped up. She was doing great walking the snow. She fell several times and of course we laughed our heads off. We got some great videos. It's amazing the difference of a year. Last year she was just this little blob of a person  - now she is running and exploring and growing. It's amazing to watch.

We got the house ready, finished our first turkey,put the finishing touches on our cider and dessert and it was time to party. We had the Ashby's and Stallings over. We had a great dinner, watched the movie "Prep and Landing" and then started our MINUTE TO WIN IT GAMES. We played an M&M games with a straw, we had a cracker in face game and the funniest one was the orange in a stocking game to push down water bottles. It was a hoot! We laughed so hard.

Everyone left by 730 and we got to cleaning. We were done by 815 pm and we sat down and relaxed. It was a great day. It was filled with great food, great people and fun memories. We felt very blessed. My favorite part was how relaxed things were. It was the best route for us with me being so prego. Of coursed we missed family but we are excited to spend next Christmas with them.

Passing the time.....

I make it my mission to stay on top of Christmas shopping EARLY in the year - mostly because nothing stresses me out more than last minute shopping. I actually don't even like to hit the malls or shopping areas right before because I feel a sudden urge to buy. Still I usually have to hit Walmart a couple of times for little things.

Sydney and I hit Walmart on Saturday. We picked up 4 food things and headed back. We did however pass all the cute bikes. If Sydney is in good spirits I will let her play around and get the "wiggles" out as we call it. She was really interested in this little trike. I put her inside and showed her the basics - she was in love. The loved it when I pushed her and then she liked to push it herself like a walker. I would say we played a good 20 minutes just back and forth. The workers were super sweet to let us go around and around.

It's moments like these that make me really glad I try to keep our holidays really simple. This year we could have traveled to see family - but it was too expensive, I'm 8 months pregnant and just did not want to add the extra stress. I'm glad we stayed home. We have parties on both Christmas eve AND Christmas day, so we won't be alone. Meals are being kept simple and I'm using this time to actually empty out all our freezer meals and see how long we can go without buying new food and just clearing our pantries and freezer.

London is moving lots still. I feel like I am getting mini braxton hicks contractions but I blame that on not drinking as much water as I did with Sydney. I think I'm lucky if I get 60 oz in per day, where with Sydney I was easily downing 100 oz at work every day. I can totally feel a difference.

Sydney is developing grately in recognizing things. It's true what they say about babies understanding 5x more than they can say - Sydney follows directions like:

lets up upstairs
lets go to the carpet
time to eat
Where's your belly
where's your nose
where's your potatoe
Where's your baby
Stay still (even though she usually cries)
Not for Sydney
Not for eating
Keep going ( we say it when we go up the stairs)
Where's Mr. Lion
Where's Mr. Bird
Where's Mr. Kangaroo

It's been fun to see her actually "get things.." and it encourages me to keep up our efforts. Sometimes I just want to turn on the TV and veg out and not be active with her - but then I see her progress and my energies are renewed.

Also my reading at lunch time continues. I've started using more story picture books rather than just reading my books and Sydney can now last about 15 minutes of quietly eating while paying attention to the books I read. It's small but it's progress. I've decided that rather than torture myself that I have to do it EVERYDAY to have a goal of doing it 4 times a week. This way I get some lunches off or I can be out and about.