It's a ...

I had my ultrasound today (19 weeks) and everything went great. I found out we are having another little boy. Very exciting! The little guy was very active during the ultrasound and at one point the technician said something about "jumping jacks." It was pretty funny. He's measuring right on target and everything seemed good. The big challenge now will be choosing his name. I like to use family names and since this will be the fifth little boy on my side of the family and the third on Brian's side of the family, it will be even more challenging to come up with a good name that hasn't been used. But I think I'm up to the challenge.

As to those who are waiting for Part 2 of the Christmas recap, it is delayed because I was having issues uploading pictures to Blogger tonight. It may have to wait until we return from Virginia around the 7th. Sorry! Hope you all have a wonderful New Year's! We'll be spending the day driving to Virginia. Off to enjoy a quiet New Year's Eve with my honey. Have a good one!

Christmas Photo Recap: Part 1--the tree

First, I wanted to let everyone know that Little Man and I are both doing much better now. He only threw up on Friday night and has been doing pretty well ever since. We're still limiting his diet so hopefully his stomach will remain strong as we start reintroducing less bland foods.

I started choosing Christmas pictures to share and realized I had way too many to squish into one post so I'm doing this in installments. Here's the first part. These are all photos related to our Christmas tree. Yes, we're one of those families that get a real tree. I grew up with white pine, but we decided to branch out this year and ended up with a Balsam Fir. I really liked it.

Little Man helps Brian set up the tree stand.
A nice employee at this nursery took our family photo. Unfortunately, we did not end up buying a tree here. They were way too expensive. But don't we look like a nice little tree-hunting family?
We didn't get one at this nursery either, but look at the cool "tree" of animals they had? Little Man thought this was very cool. Much, much cooler than the Santa who was walking around. Santa was treated like a pariah.
Little Man at Home Depot where we ended up getting our tree. It was very inexpensive and turned out to be quite lovely in my opinion.
Our tree decorated.
Little Man enjoys playing with my nativity and his nativity that were set up under the tree. He just loves his farm animals these days.

My Worst Nightmare

Little Man started throwing up last night..while I was at a wake (a friend's mom passed away). Poor Brian was home alone while Little Man threw up in 4 different rooms in the house in about 10 minutes. I arrived home just in time to help clean up the 7th round of throw up. Poor Little Man was looking so pitiful. On a happy note, he made it threw the rest of the night without more throwing up. Oh, I hope he gets healthy soon. Brian said he was just so confused every time he threw up.

I thought it was the post-Christmas blues (a rambling Christmas post)

I thought I had a case of the post-Christmas blues, but it ended up being the stomach flu instead. Fun! fun! But I'm all recovered now, well mostly, just a bit drained.

Christmas itself was strange this year because it was my first spent here in Ohio with Brian's part of our family. His family gatherings are a lot quieter than mine as my family has a lot more little ones. Anyway, it was still nice although very different.

Being unemployed and watching our funds depleting more quickly than we would like put a slight damper on the holidays. There's something innately wrong about discussing the possibility of having to move on Christmas Eve or looking for new job postings on Christmas day. Oh well. Such is life.

We leave on January 1st to head to Virginia to have a belated celebration with my family. So the post-Christmas letdown was only a partial one as there is still some celebrating to do. I did go ahead and undecorate the tree--much to Little Man's disappointment. The rest of the decorations will wait until we return from Virginia. Little Man had a wonderful time this Christmas and I promise some pics of his precious self shortly.

The other big news to come is that I have my ultrasound scheduled on the 31st and we will hopefully find out if our next little one is a boy or a girl. I can't wait!

Happy Holidays

( Yes, I know this one is a little late. Sorry!)

(It's almost here!)

May all your holidays, whichever you celebrate, be lovely and filled with family, love and laughter.

7 Weird Things About Me

Lydee tagged me to share 7 Weird Things about myself. So here goes. I'm sure there are more than 7 things, but I will just list the first 7 that come to mind.

1. I treat my dogs as if they are human. Some people think this is weird. I let them kiss me on the mouth and sleep in my bed (under the covers). Some people think that is really weird.

2. I'm a hypochondriac who's somewhat afraid of doctors. So this means that I constantly think I'm dying of some strange disease, but I don't do anything about it. As I'm not really dying, it generally works out okay in the end.

3. Maybe I'm not so much of a hypochondriac as an extreme worrier. I once went to bed with my clothes on because my husband was really late getting home from a meeting and I didn't want to be in my pajamas when the police came to the door to tell me he was dead. Can we say drama? It is my middle name.

4. I hate to wear shoes. If I'm inside I'm either barefoot or in just socks. If it's summer time, I'm often barefoot outside. If I wear slip-off shoes, I am constantly slipping them off. Not so good when you're at work. I went barefoot a lot my freshman year of college (except to eat because that is gross), but then I stepped on a piece of glass that got embedded in my heel. Then I wore shoes more, but now I'm back to my on-needs-basis-only policy with shoe wearing. My husband is the opposite--he always has shoes on.

5. I get really attached to practical strangers in my life. Somehow I feel really close to people I barely know. I once saw our UPS man at my doctor's office--it was down the street from where I worked and thus on the same UPS route. I got all excited and eagerly greeted the UPS man as if he was a long lost friend. He thought this was very weird.

6. Sewing patterns scare me. I feel like I'm a pretty intelligent person. I know how to use a sewing machine. I have successfully made valances, a roman shade, pillows and a few other odds and ends. I have successfully followed a number of knitting patterns. But if I see a sewing pattern, I get really scared. I've tried using them before and immediately get overwhelmed and abandon the project. Or just continue sans pattern and make something similar, but not quite right.

7. I'm more comfortable sharing my intimate feelings with complete strangers than people I know. Now that there are a few people I know in real life who read this blog, I edit more of what I say on it. Right now life is pretty sucky with Brian being out of work and yet I haven't blogged about it because I don't want those people to know what my life is really like. Why must life always be happy and great? What's wrong with the reality of my life right now? Somehow it embarrasses me if I'm not happy. I know. I'm weird.

No, I didn't drop off the face of the earth

Sorry it's been so long since I blogged. Life has just been extra busy with the holidays. We had a small get-together on the 15th which was huge fun, but time consuming despite my direct attempts to make it less time consuming. I'm almost done with my 120 or so Christmas cards that I send out. My Christmas shopping (what little I did on our jobless budget) is done and presents are wrapped. I only have a few more Christmas gifts to make. Then I'll actually have time (and hopefully motivation) to blog again. Thanks for your patience. I've been tagged to share 7 Weird Things about myself so that will be coming soon. Now...to narrow it down to 7. Hmmm... Have a happy holiday season and I'll catch up with you all soon.

Crafts and Christmas

Hey everyone! Hope you all are doing well. Even though it's Tuesday, I'm not in the mood to do a Top Ten Tuesday so I thought I would just talk about what I've been up to recently. Despite my lack of blogging, I have been doing some fun things I'd like to share.

First, I made another set of hats for Reed, Mary and Madeline. I used this simple free pattern and a combination of Caron Simply Soft in White and Paton's Beehive Baby in blue/pink/lavender. Both yarns were leftover partials that I had in my stash. Go, stash-busting! This hat uses very little yarn so I could make a ton more if I wanted--but I don't! I've not been much in the knitting mood recently. Oh well.

The hats with my hand for scale.

They fit better a month or so ago when I made the sample hat for sizing. They're just growing too fast for me to keep up!

Second, I've made a few Christmas ornaments for my mom. I make her one of these for each of her grandchildren. These are in honor of the triplets. I still need to add their names and birthdays to the ornaments. These beaded ornaments were my initial crafting love and I still really enjoy making them.

Top view of the ornaments.

Side view of the ornaments.

Third, I decorated a stocking for Little Man. He's really into farm animals or "baa," "moo," and "neigh". He likes pigs and chickens, too. So I decided to decorate his stocking accordingly.

Little Man's farm animal stocking. Baa! Moo! Neigh!

I did these stockings for Brian and I a few years ago. I love coming up with the fun details like the beer-drinking snowman on Brian's.

I still love how these stockings turned out.

My favorite part of Brian's.

Fourth, I've been decorating for Christmas. It's the only holiday I decorate for and I love pulling out all the decorations each year. They are so full of memories that it makes me happy. Can't wait to do the tree this weekend.

My nativity. Unbreakable--so Little Man can touch it and move the animals around without fear.

Baby Santa who I inherited from my grandmother and who stays out all year round.

Our mantel.

A Santa that Brian's dad painted. Isn't he amazing?

My newest Christmas decoration bought last year. They're salt and pepper shakers. Alligators in Christmas clothes! She's wearing high heels!

Anyway, that's me for now. Hope you are all having a lovely start to your holiday season. Sending much love and cheer your way!