Pregnant

Yup. Still. I'm dilated 1 cm, but no signs of labor starting any time soon. Today I finally got to some of our (overdue) laundry and hiked up and down the stairs about a half dozen times carrying stuff. I know I can't make labor start, but I'm certainly not opposed to trying to help it along!

On Sunday Andrew preached on Mark 11:20-25 "As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.' And Jesus answered them, 'Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.'” It was really challenging. I cried. I was humbled by Andrew's heart as he preached and reminded again how blessed I am to be married to a man who loves the Lord and His Word. If you'd like to hear his message, check it out here.

Alice is waking up from her 2.5 hour nap... "DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.......BUH BYE! BUH BYE!" She's been doing so well lately. It feels a little like the calm before the storm. An Alice Christmas video is in process, though it's long and is taking quite a while to upload.... 29% complete with approximately 184 minutes remaining. Yikes. I'll be sure to post when it's ready. Off to get the girl.

The Advent Calendar

I can't believe an entire month went by and nothing was posted on our blog. Actually... I can believe it. Hopefully the rest of December won't be like November was.

Now that it's officially the Christmas season I've been listening to Christmas music almost non-stop. I hope my husband would say something if he's annoyed... He hasn't said anything yet :-)

I also finally made our own advent calendar which I plan to use every year. LOVE IT! I got the idea from a blog I randomly stumbled upon, though I changed a few things based on what I had (or didn't have). Part of my lack of blogging has been trying to get this thing completed during Alice's lamely short naps and once she's in bed. Not to mention the fact that I got the flu right after Thanksgiving and wasn't feeling 100% until about a week ago. Then Alice started throwing up. Oi. When an 18 month old has a tummy ache, there's really no way of knowing until they throw up all over your bedroom floor. Not that it happened that way with us or anything.....

Anyway, the advent calendar is FINALLY done and I'm getting back into the swing of things after a really wonderful (despite the flu) break from it during the Thanksgiving week. Finally got the Christmas decorations up on Sunday night and got some much needed cleaning done around the apartment. Laundry is in full swing... actually almost done so I'd better get these pictures up... Plus Alice (of course) is awake after a 1 hr 20 min nap. Sigh.

I digress. Here are the much anticipated pictures of my handmade advent calendar. Okay, maybe not all that anticipated, but I'm pretty thrilled about it. The last step is to write names of Jesus on the backs of the ornaments along with a reference of where it appears in the bible. Thank you Pastor Ron for that idea!

In other news, Fred the frog finally kicked the bucket. I refuse to believe it was entirely out of neglect, as we hadn't gotten him crickets in quite a while. He was old and, as far as I know, lived a good life. Poor Fred. He's in the dumpster now. It smells a bit nicer around our apartment without him, but he was a very interesting conversation piece. He didn't contribute much to that conversation, but that's okay. He was a cool pet for a few years. Alright, off to get the girl and fold laundry. Happy December!!

Complaints for Christmas

Yes, you read that right. All I've got for Christmas is complaining. However, in this case, I think the complaining is warranted. This is only the second post in December 2007.

We're in Great Barrington, Massachusetts right now for Christmas. In fact, it's 8:21am as I type this. The first clock I saw this morning said 6:13am. Amy's little brother Dan woke everyone up to come downstairs to the tree to open stockings and presents. Yes, it was too early. We got many presents and enjoyed watching everyone open theirs.

Oh, and it was my first white Christmas! It hasn't snowed in three days, but the snow hasn't all melted yet. It's beautifully cold outside and we have five more full days to spend in Great Barrington. One day we'll spend partially in Connecticut at Amy's grandpa's house (we call him Pop-pop). We're hoping to maybe spend some time in Boston, since that didn't work out while we were with Amy's dad in southern New Hampshire.

Right now, Amy and Lisa are asleep on the couch; Mike and Raphaelle are asleep upstairs. Dan is trying to download ITunes and figure out his new IPod nano. John is asleep and I have no idea where Amy's mom is. That's all for now, and I will post again before we leave for home.

Christmas at Work

Today Rebecca and I went shopping for Christmas ("Holiday") decorations for the office! We got a real Christmas tree and green & gold ornaments (those are the colors of the company). We got a tree skirt and garland to hang on the front of my desk! I also finally received the battery charger for my camera in the mail and I'm hoping it works well, despite the slightly mashed box it came in.

BUT, since I don't have my camera with me today, you know what that means.... PICTURES TOMORROW!!!!! Oh yeah, and I'm going to try to add an album of some of our honeymoon pictures soon :-)

I saw online that it might snow on the East coast. How exciting!!!! Happy and I are hoping to "go to the snow" (that's what it's called here... weird) to join in a ski/snowboarding trip in February. I hope we get to "go to the snow" before that, but we'll see. I love Christmas time!!!

Thanksgiving pictures!

Yes, this is actually a picture of Happy with our FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE!!!! But there are many more pictures of this weekend in our Web Albums. If you'd like to go in order, I finally added a few pictures from our bike ride in Mile Square Park. Following that is the football game played on Thanksgiving morning. Then we got our first Christmas tree on Saturday when we came home.

Writer's block

I opened this post and have been staring at it for a good five minutes with nothing to type.

All I can think about right now is Christmas. In light of that, I'm going to make a list of my favorite Christmas traditions and the things I like about the Christmas season in general (in NO particular order):

1. Christmas music!!!
2. Baking Christmas cookies (Mom, I need your German recipes!)
3. Decorating with red & green, lights and sparkly things
4. Getting a Christmas tree to decorate
5. Wrapping paper & bows
6. Giving presents to people that you know they will love
7. Sending out Christmas cards
8. Christmas music!!!
9. Cold weather (not so apparent in southern CA, but still it's cooler than the rest of the year
10. Time spent with family
11. Hats, scarves, gloves, warm socks, sweaters
12. Those clay-mation TV movies for little kids--Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, etc. (I LOVE them!)
13. Christmas music!!!
14. Watching A Christmas Story
15. Snuggling in a blanket by the fire (I'm not so sure this will happen very often anymore)
16. Playing in the snow (Again, I'm not so sure this will happen very often anymore)
17. Drinking hot chocolate or tea--especially after playing in the snow!
18. Christmas dinner... YUM!
19. Slippers & warm PJs
20. Christmas music!!!

The ironic thing about my preoccupation with Christmas today is the weather. It's supposed to be in the high 70s and possibly low 80s with sunny skies. So while I sit here gazing at the sun shining brightly, I'm daydreaming about snow falling, Christmas music and everything else I just listed.

But, since it seems I'll be living in CA for a while I think I need to get used to California's Christmas season, which is why I have a question for our Californian readers. What are your favorite Christmas traditions?