A little catching up . . .

Well, Greg suggested that maybe Jan 15th was a good date to take down the Christmas Music . . . and I couldn't really disagree . . . . so the Christmas music is now gone just in time for a little post on our Christmas.

Now where to begin . . . We had a fun time with Greg's family on Christmas Eve. We all gathered for appetizers and gifts around 3 and then had a speed opening session so that I could get to the last choir rehearsal for the Christmas Eve service at church. There was much laughter as we opened the ongoing jokes (I think Willie Nelson has now been passed around for 5 years?)

We received many practical gifts which were put to use right away . . .

And, of course, at least one of Kristie's gifts was addressed to Nathan . . . supposedly it really was an accident this time . . .

The rest of the group headed out to Red Lobster for dinner as I was off to church. (Greg brought me chicken tenders to eat during the sermon . . . sorry, Joe!) The service went well and the choir "didn't sound all that bad", which is always encouraging to hear.

Christmas morning, Greg and I opened gifts from each other (I am now the proud owner of a lovely tripod which, theoretically, means that there will be more and better pictures this year), enjoyed cinnamon rolls, and a little organizing of all the gifts we had received the night before. Seriously, before Christmas morning was over, I do believe we had almost everything put away. (I'm sure that this is Greg's ocd-ness shining through . . . love you, babe)

Around lunch-time we headed over to my family's house where we *shocker* opened yet more gifts and then snacked and napped the afternoon away. Oh, and watched a documentary on Antarctica because that's really Christmas-y. I guess the snow ties it all together.

Dad helping Chelle remove the tape that had somehow tightened around her fingers like Chinese handcuffs.

We had a wonderful dinner together and ended the evening by watching a real Christmas movie, White Christmas . . . it was a wonderful day!

Then Greg had several days off and we spent them . . . yea, I can't really remember how we spent them which means they must have been wonderfuly relaxing. I'm sure that we ate lots of leftovers and I vaugely remember reading a book I received for Christmas and the Zelda theme song is softly ringing in my ears. Yea, I'm pretty sure it was a nice long weekend.

On to the next major holiday, New Years! Greg only had New Year's Day itself off, so after work on NYE, we drove up to Winston-Salem to Evan and Leah's and spent a riotous night with them. And by riotous I mean that Leah and I fell asleep on the couches while the boys smoked cigars and drank Evan's homemade beer and then woke us up at 11:40 to see the ball drop. Does "old souls" fit here? Or are we just old?

The next day we slept in and then all lounged around in our PJs until about 2. That's one of those tests of true friendship, right there. Kind of like eating spaghetti together. Then we had steaks for lunch (thanks to Greg's grandparents who sent us a box of Omaha steaks for Christmas) and then homemade calzones for dinner. Eating and lounging, does it really get much better than that? Thanks, Hawkins, for your hospitality!

And now on to my excuse on why it's taken me a month to update our blog . . .


I'm 13 weeks along (due date July 24th) and we're still working on the first stages of training our little bean that it's not acceptable to make Mommy sick all the time. He's been a little stubburn at receiving our correction, but I think we may be turning the corner soon.

In all seriousness though, we are so amazed and grateful to be at this point in a pregnancy and to have a growing baby! We don't take any day or any good news for granted. I still feel like I'm holding my breath and probably will be for quite a while, but the Lord has kindly been answering my prayers that I would grow in excitement and anticipation of this child's arrival (as opposed to assuming that something is going to go wrong). I'm sure I'll have more commentary on that aspect of the pregnancy, but I'll leave that for another day.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, only a month late!