On our Christmas vacation we ate, slept, ate, visited friends, ate some more, celebrated Jesus, slept late, visited more friends... oh yeah, and we ate some more. Here are some details...
Christmas Eve after the ultrasound, Alejandro and I came home to cook like mad before church and a game night at our friends, the Gihrings' house. We played the loudest most intense game of Catch Phrase possible, and hung out and ate eachothers goodies. :) Here are some pictures.
This is Shandon and I:
Gwen (in the chair), my great friend and mentor! :) and Mom of 5!
Renee, Chelsea and Morgan (Morgan is my friend who spent time in Africa last year)
Josh and Kirsten are to the left of Alejandro:
Here is Morgan and Josh
What a fun Christmas Eve! After getting home, we crashed and slept late. It occurred to me to get up early and enjoy the day, and then I thought we'd better enjoy the last Christmas morning we can sleep in a long time! It was a beautiful bright sunny snowy day, and as Alejandro and I enjoyed breakfast together, it occurred to me how very blessed I am and how many dreams have been fulfilled over the past years. We were blessed by Christmas presents from family, most of which we've enjoyed spending in the last several days! We joined the after-Christmas craze to shop for this fun addition to the third bedroom:
Of course... some assembly is still required.
Next we drove up to the Ader's house for visiting, eating, Christmas movies, spending the night, and puzzles.
Here is Jim, Jillian, Billy, Pam, Scott, Renee and Alejandro:
As if that wasn't enough visiting and eating, New Year's rolled around so we joined Matt and Melissa and some other new friends at their parents' house for dinner and a game of Fill or Bust. (Thanks Tammy and Geoff! I think we've taught half of Colorado Springs how to play by now!) On New Year's day we woke up and had breakfast.
It was nice to have a couple down-days between Christmas and New Years. I took some days off so I could rest and think over the future months. I discovered that my belly button is no longer as wrinkly or small as it was before! What a funny moment when I noticed that. I said, "Ale! My belly button is enormous!" Well, it's not really, but I noticed a change! I've definitely had more energy the past two weeks. And Monday the 30th I graduated into my 2nd trimester! (as of January 5th, I'm at 13 weeks of pregnancy) Yay!! Not many other changes... except my tummy's bigger and I pull out my ultrasound pictures about twice a day.
Still not having our visiting and eating appetites satiated, we decided spontaneously to drive 4 hours to New Mexico to visit our friends, the Valente's. We affectionately call them our "Best Grocery Store Friends." ...I met Sarah and Brian in a grocery store one day when she was pregnant with her second set of twins, and we've been friends ever since. Here are some great pictures:
This is Sophia, Sarah, Madeline, Graham, Brian, Camile, and "Grammy." The older twins are almost 4 and the younger twins are 2 1/2.
Oh, and Patton is their 5th! He's coming in March! Yep! We got to be prego buddies all weekend!
Toby got TONS of attention and we all had TONS of fun!
Last of all, we had the adventure of driving home through a snow-storm... of course any of you who know Alejandro and our jeep know that truly we enjoyed the entire ride! :) Ok, well not ALL 5.5 hours of it were fun, but we did enjoy it.
So after so much visiting and eating, now I'm resting and blogging... I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years as well!! I love you all!
Now off to do a little more eating... apparently my eating was for me, and now Baby is hungry.