Santa # 2

Here is Eli's letter to Santa-directly from his mouth. (He cried when I told him he couldn't eat Santa's cookies).

We found a gift for a name draw we did 2 weekends ago under our tree when we were organizing things.  Oops. A late gift is sometimes fun right Liz?  This year under our tree are gifts to and from each other-for all 3 of us.  We finished wrapping gifts for Eli tonight.  Things not wrapped were brought from Santa.  Eli is also getting a stocking full of goodies which includes 2 more pairs of Thomas the Train underwear (see 3 pair sitting in front of the tree).  We think he'll be oh-so-very excited.

Look who is sitting in front of the tree!!

Just a closer look.....I can't wait until he's wearing these!

I specifically love (and not trying to hide) the fact that our star is drooping to one side.  Our tree is dry, has been up for a while but is loved. 

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Santa

Santa is coming to our house tonight. He missed us last week because he was confused on all our travel. Plus he knew Mr. Eli was feeling under the weather on Christmas morning. 

So it's a big night in our house and I'm listening to Christmas music and wrapping presents with the Christmas tree lights on.  I know some people have already moved on to New Years resolutions and removing their decorations.  But working full time and traveling to other locations the last 2 weekends allows for us to stretch out the joy of the season.  And I'm ready to take full advantage.

I hope it is as magical as I dream it to be.  I've gotten lots of tips from others about taking it slow in the morning.  Putting things together and unwrapping deliberately.  Stop to have breakfast in the middle etc.  I want to teach Elijah how to give, not just get. And 2.5 years old is a hard stage to understand that.

I wonder if the baby feels the excitement.

Also of note-I have survived my first Christmas season completely gluten free.  And also to mention I made it through totally pregnant!  No tears were shed. So many loved ones helped me in so many ways.  Both households of family members worked hard not to cross contaminate, they put extra dip in a container for me so nobody would dip their crackers in, made my pancakes first, used gluten free bread, made gluten free Christmas cookies for me etc.  I think I ate more than I ever have and it's not over yet!  My 1 year gluten free anniversary is coming up...more to come on that.  I think many people who are close to me are able to see how much of a lifestyle change this has been for me and I thank them all for helping me cope in my many ways.
This wasn't my tray but look how beautiful and yummy:


So which one would you take first?



I know the holidays can be all about comfort foods and maybe even foods that are traditional or "every year" dream foods.  But this was the first time I made this salad. It was super yummy (to me at least!) and I will make it again. I wonder what others thought of it?  It was dairy, meat and gluten free.

Ok I can't stop there. I want to share just a few more.

Don't worry Aunt Sarah-I didn't let Syd have anything!

Soon to be Aunt Liz reading to the boys

(Hello Baby belly!)

More to come.................For now...  HO HO HO I wonder if Santa Claus will like gluten free cookies tonight?

50th

Christmas has come but it hasn't gone in our house.  We will continue to celebrate this coming weekend.  This will be our third weekend of christmasing.  More of those posts to come....

Throughout it all I have continued to cook away-making those baby cheeks more round and promoting some possible hair growth on our little peanuts head.

There are not many moments I can forget that this sweet lil bean is there in my belly.  I have so many pregnant woes....but that's also for another post.

The news is that I had an ultrasound last week.  We did NOT find out the sex of the baby...I know most of you are wondering if I got a sneak peak. 
The baby has his/her head down-very far down.  The ultrasound tech was wondering if I was feeling a lot of pressure and that answer is YES.  Now I know what I'm feeling with each movement (hands, legs, butt etc).

The main reason we had the ultrasound was to check the growth of the baby.  The big news is that the baby is in the 50 th %ile.  Average. Wow!! This is so exciting to us.  Eli has never been above the 5 th %ile and we've always had a hard time coming to grips with this and wondered what to do.  And although we've always been concerned and struggled with wondering the cause, we have been in love with that little boy from day 1.  I'm so looking forward to expanding that love to another child.  I feel truly blessed to get the chance to be a mother again and there are so many aspects I'm excited about.

There is a chance that the baby could still have a growth issue since I have 7 weeks to go. But chances are-the baby would not decrease so much in size that it would be an issue.  If things continue the way they are, the guess was a 7 lb baby.  What a dream.  Perfect.  I'm much more confident now and so very grateful to have a sense of relief over size worries. 

We didn't get any good pictures this time but the baby had one hand up on his/her forehead and that is why I can feel those fingers moving so low, almost like a piano keyboard.  I hope he or she is happy, healthy and full (not hungry) in there!!!

Elijah:  "I'm laying down like papa"  --on the couch, propped on pillows with arms behind his head.

Me: "You are! Do you want to be just like papa?"

Elijah:  "Yes"- spoken with great confidence.

Me: melting.......awwwwwwwww!

Grace in the small things

I am annoyed with myself that the last post was so negative so it's TIME to post something more positive.  But I left my camera at a friends house and can't get any of my recent pictures.

So here are some tid bits that I'm happy about.

Andy's baking cookies. He is definitely the baker in the house and I'm the cook.  2 different things.  He made the first batch with gluten free flour (a recommended gluten free flour mix).  They smell and look deliciously the same.  I can't wait to try one when they have cooled.  If both types of cookies he makes works out-I think I will be purchasing a box of this specific gluten free flour for all my relatives to bake with . (I won't mention that it costs $13 for a small box.)

Have you ever seen anyone eat pumpkin pie like a piece of pizza? I saw this twice on Thanksgiving.  And I'm serious when I say this one that I captured was from BEFORE we ate our meal.

We have our babymoon set up and I'm already excited. If we do half of the stuff we want it'll be a success.  If we don't do half the stuff it'll be a success-because we don't have to do anything but rest and hold hands. 

We went to church today and Eli was spectacular.  If you are looking for a quiet toy that keeps kids quiet during church-look for a magnet board with lots of little magnets. Eli's is Thomas the Train.  I love the holiday music in our church. It's always different but always the best around Christmas. It is quite magical.  Today they had a drummer (played with hands), piano/organ and a flutist.  Our 9:00 mass is also translated to sign language.  I love to watch all the people in the mass who aren't even deaf participating. 

I got Andy to listen to the Hunger Games on CD.  I am very excited for the movie to come out and I want him to be excited. We are already looking for a committed babysitter so we can see it on the big screen-for the 2 kiddos!!!!! eeee yes 2 kids. Any takers?

Hey syd-do those shoes come in my size? CUTE

I hear this little girl has passed another milestone.  I can't wait to see her this Christmas.  She is growing up so fast. It's amazing. 

Hey friends!  I finally am connected to Words with Friends on Facebook and I'm so excited. I invited like 3 or 5 people to play a game. 

Pictures to come from the Christmas party we attended this weekend. Andy wore an Ugly Christmas sweater/vest to be funny. He loved it.  I told him on the way that it was a kids party.  He didn't care.

I know I already posted that we got our Christmas tree. It is still standing!!!  Last night we had the Christmas tree glowing, and we put on a little video called "Oh Christmas Tree" and Eli and I held hands under a blanket while we watched.  It was so special to me.  Here we are shopping for a tree.



I'm 30 weeks along now.  10 weeks to go. Maybe 8. Maybe 7. Maybe 9.  Maybe 11? Ha.  Babycenter compares it to a head of cabbage.That's the picture compared to a quarter.  Still no headway on the baby room or picking out names.  I'm not real relaxed about those 2 things but Christmas first!!!  Baby is along for the ride.



Today

Today wasn't a great day.  The Christmas spirit wasn't in me and I just needed some time.

A few things made my day better.

1. An email from another prego friend-just fun to get an update and hear how she's doing
2. Andy took Eli Christmas shopping tonight and I got to relax for 1-2 hours.  I made gluten free pancakes for dinner for myself, cleaned the kitchen and read my book.  It was bliss and just what I needed.  Andy is awesome.  I still got to play with Eli for an hour before I got to rock him to bed.
3.  This-sent to me from someone who knew how hard of a day I had. She found it on pinterest.com

It pretty much summed up how I felt all day. 

I hope nobody thinks I'm a bad person for thinking this is funny.

Come on...admit it-you've had those days.

Just to fit in...

If anyone reads my mom or sister's blog-you'd know they posted pictures of their wrapped gifts for our annual Christmas name drawings. So...just to fit in-here is a shot from our house today.

I love that paper!
See that little triangle of blue-ish green material right at the bottom in the middle (I know it sort of blends in)? Yeah-that's my shirt-sticking in the picture because I can't even get my belly out of the way when I'm taking a picture!!!

I bought 3 rolls of wrapping paper this year so far and I love them! I will put bows on after I get to the location of the party because otherwise they always get smushed during travel and makes it really hard to stack them.


The nice thing about ordering from Amazon.com is that everything comes in a box. All different size boxes-which makes wrapping fun. You can throw people off by the size of the box. You could put 1 or 8 items in a box. So fun.

I grew up loving to wrap. One year after Thanksgiving I went to my Grandma's house and helped her put up her tree and helped her wrap. I don't know how old I was, but it was pure joy. One on one time with my favorite lady, wrapping and decorating. I'll never forget it. I hope it was as special for her as it was for me. I also have memories of donating my finger to my mom whenever she was wrapping. She is pretty much a master at wrapping too. I loved to be involved when she was at the dining room table wrapping. I know it gets torn off, but the ohh and ahh and bending over studying the packages under the tree makes it all worthwhile.


Here's another photo of a special package all wrapped up. Almost 30 weeks along here. Feeling huge. 10 weeks....to grow and grow.

Oh and I probably could get in big trouble for saying this...but I am ready for the first real snow fall.
Happy Sunday----avoiding those Monday blues tonight.

Crying Wolf

I need some advice.  Looking for comments. Yes-from YOU!

Eli has started crying again before falling asleep.   It varies in time but has trended up to 1 hour and 45 minutes.  It's really frustrating because he wakes up at the same time in the morning and is really tired during the day. 

The crying and the time doesn't bother us as much as what happens when we finally give in after an hour and go in his room.  He has started this new frustrating habit.  He will say to us when we go up there "I don't feel good".  One time he even asks for the thermometer.  The first time we actually took his temperature but he didn't have a fever.  His nose is not running, he's not coughing, he doesn't sound congested.  So the first few times we thought he was faking for sure.  Andy is still convinced that he is teasing us. 

But now what bothers me is when we go up there and he says he doesn't feel good he will say "My head hurts".  Why would he say that?  We don't ask him if his head hurts.  We feel his head when we think he has a temperature so maybe it came from that? 

I don't want to be the mom who doesn't take the child seriously for 2-3 weeks and then all of a sudden he has a brain tumor.

So now I just look for signs all day.  Signs that something is wrong.  He has resumed doing his crazy, weird blinking.  He squints and then opens his eyes very wide.  Are his eyes dry? Itchy?  Do they hurt?  I've done many sight tests and he can see everything.  And if you ask him he doesn't shed any light on what is going on.  We brought him in one other time for the blinking and of course he didn't do it. The doctor did a neurological check and everything was normal. 

I want him to understand the story of never cry wolf but he is too young.  Because if he is just teasing us at night....it's really frustrating and we don't want to play in to it.  But what if he really does have a pounding headache?  What would you do? 

A first

Eli has never met Santa Claus, but today spur of the moment we ran into him.  We found out Santa would be at a store close to our house from 11-2 and the ad said "Bring your camera".  We were stoked.  We wouldn't have to pay 20$ for the one shot where your child looks scared, apprehensive or is blinking.

We got to the store a half hour early.  There was no line!  Eli was asking everyone where Santa was.  Finally the man in the big red suit arrived.  Eli put his hand on his knee and said "I want you to see the choo choo train".  (Which was running around one of the Christmas trees next to Santa's chair.  Super cute.  He didn't want to sit on his lap but told Santa he wanted race cars for Christmas and then played with the fake snow.



Pure Joy




What's in there? Can I touch everything?

Eli is really in the Christmas spirit. I love that we have a whole month of celebrating.  I copied my sisters idea of wrapping Christmas books and let him open his first one tonight.  Many are just "winter" books but since it hasn't snowed here yet-any books with snow are magical to Eli.  He also helped decorate the Christmas tree and bounced the whole night. Literally-bounced (see video to check how wound up he is about the Holidays-ps I laughed so hard when I watched it because I scrolled the camera up and down on our Christmas tree like it was ALL MAGICAL-to us it is, but to others it may not seem as magical).  He is enjoying eating 1 small piece of chocolate from an Advent calendar.  He loves to see al the Christmas lights and smiles so big when he sees a picture of a snowman or a reindeer.  This definitely sheds a new light on holidays for me.  I love being on this side (the mom instead of the child)!



Cutest ornament on our tree!



I love that Bailee is involved as well!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Quote

Love this quote I saw on pintrest.com:

The Time
you enjoy
Wasting
Is Not
Wasted
Time


So true in my life. So true.

jabs

Dear Baby Bean,

According to Babycenter.com you are now as heavy as a butternut squash and 15 inches long from head to heel.

Could you tell I was smiling today?  All day today you were kicking me, punching and throwing lots of left hooks. A jab here or there.  All day I had to continue on....working away...talking to people but secretly smiling on the inside.  I know you were communicating with me and my way of speaking back came in the form of a hand resting on my expanding belly and an internal smile.  I hope you saw, heard, and felt me and my love for you.

Do you hear your big brother? Lately he is talking so much.  Tonight he told me that he loved Frosty the Snowman and Frosty loved him.  Those were his words!  I agreed with him and then he told me "and the baby".  He already loves and adores you so much. 

Do you feel your big sister Bailee?  She has been attempting to hop on the bed earlier each night.  She wants to snuggle up close and keep you and me warm as the weather gets colder.  She is going to spend a lot of time watching you as you grow and I know you'll show her some love and give her gummy smiles.

Have you heard your Dad lately?  He is coming up with some new names for you.  So far you haven't reacted to many of them.  He is so excited for your arrival but is so relaxed in every way.  I can't wait for you to give him a run for his money.  I'm counting on you for that.

Did you hear my patient today? She said "Oh, you are going to have a big baby!".  Others say "oh you've already dropped" or even "wow you just popped!".  That's because you sit/lay/swim so low in my stomach.  I haven't dropped but you prefer to lay low.  Is this a sign you'll be a relaxed baby? 

The time is coming soon...some days I think not soon enough.  Other days I want the time to slow down.  I hope you're comfortable in there, eating and drinking well while you rest up before your big descent.  We love you and can't wait to meet you.  Let's have an uneventful next few months.
Love,
Mama