HEY BABY IT'S CHRISTMAS ALL OVER, AGAIN!!

Well once again my favorite time of year has come. I posted about it last year, will post about it this year, and will probably post about it every year. I love everything about Christmas, but my most favorite things are the music, decorations (which we put up tonight), how everybody seams so happy, and doing a kind deed for someone every year. I also love wrapping presents and making them all pretty, eating the delicious goodies, tobogganing, using my advent calendar ( I bought it from Jen Isackson a couple years ago and love it), finding ways to hide Mark's gifts and trying to surprise him, and this year of course is going to be the best, with it being my first Christmas as a Mom. I have to say this is the first year I have not been excited about gifts, and am not even remotely interested in snooping, it must be because I already know what the best gift is going to be this year and hopefully she will be unwrapping soon. I am so prepared for Christmas this year and am pretty much all done shopping, have maybe 4 more things to bye, and everything that I have bought is already wrapped. I thought it would be a good idea to not leave it to the last minute as my life is going to get pretty crazy in about two weeks. So Merry Christmas to everybody and hope you all have a great December.

Lily not to impressed with being dressed in the Santa Hat


My favorite part of my decorations, the fireplace where our stockings hang. I truly believe Mark and I have the cutest stockings ever thanks to my wonderful sister who made them for us. (I am hoping you can help make Macie's with me next year)


I got this stocking for Macie at wal-mart, nothing to exciting but thought it would be a cute keepsake. It says Baby's First Christmas 2011


Also believe this is the cutest advent calendar ever. (Thanks Jen for being so crafty)

BABY WHISPERER!!!

Yesterday afternoon I finally finished the book "The Secrets of The Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg. Of all the baby books I read this was without a doubt my favorite. Good information, resources, and helped calm a lot of my fears. I just hope I can understand how to use her advice to make the transition into motherhood easier. As I think about how clueless I really am, this book helped me to understand better how we can hopefully have a wonderful first year with baby. So I am really not one that can give advice yet on how to be a good mother, but advice on books that help, I have to say this has been my favorite.

BITTER/SWEET!!!

Today was my last day of work at the Eyewear Place for a whole year, well I stay at home and love and care for Macie. It was such a bitter sweet feeling for me as I have loved these past 5 months of my life. I can't begin to express how grateful I am for them offering me my old job back, I think I would have lost all the marballs in my head by now if I was still at Superstore. It has been so wonderful to be excited to go to work everyday and come home from work everyday with a smile on my face. It makes it so much easier to know that when I go back in a year it is to a place I love and enjoy.
These past 5 months have been filled with so much laughter I wish I would have written some of them down in my journal. Paula, Melissa, Joanne, Dr. Zidar, and Sara I will miss seeing your wonderful faces everyday. Please still be there when I come back.

Me and Melissa on our last day of work together. She is due a month after me and was suppose to be done work around December 23rd, but is having some complications with her pregnancy and actually finished a day before me. She is being induced 3 weeks earlier and we might be having our babies on or very close to the same day.


My 4 favorite girls, I still can't believe how well 4 women, especially two that were pregnant at the time got along so well together, and had so much fun working everyday together. Dr. Zidar bought us all Pizza for my last day of work and Melissa stopped in for a visit.

Me and Melissa opening our gifts from our co-workers. They gave me a gift certificate to Charles Lamb Photography so Mark, Macie and I can go get family pictures done. So sweet I can't wait to use it.

EVOLUTION OF A BELLY

I am almost done my third and last trimester and can't believe how fast the whole pregnancy has gone, even the third trimester has flown buy, thank goodness. So thought I needed to post one more like and dislike before I forget everything once Macie comes.

Third Trimester Likes:
- Feeling baby kick, move, punch and jab everyday.
- Getting endless good results from my Doctors, this one has been so big. Everytime I have a Doctor's appt (like today) they have nothing but good news for me. example: today I got to hear again that Macie's head is still down and is getting lower, her heartbeat is excellent as always. My results for a Bacteria that I might have were negative, and the best part is the Doctor thinks that there is a sweet little baby in me. His exact words (you have got a little one in there for sure)
- Having her Nursery almost finished
- How my complexion and hair keeps staying so nice
- Still being able to exercise almost everyday
- Maintaining a healthy weight. My goal was to stay under 30 lbs so far I am at 24 and only 3 weeks left to go I am thinking I am good to go.
- How everybody looks at you and thinks how cute she is having a baby
- How everybody asks me about the baby, name, sex, due date, how I feel. I light up every time I get to talk about her, it does not bother me at all.
- Getting all the books read I want read to hopefully help me be a better mom, or maybe a good word to use is a less stressed mom.
- Having an excuse to not do something if I don't want to do it. example: clean the shower
- Being done work on this Thursday and having a couple weeks to rest, relax, get my house ready, read lots more books and just enjoy some time to myself.
- anticipating the arrival of our sweet baby
- watching Mark and I freak out sometimes because we still can't believe this is happening
- going into her room everyday and picturing her playing in hear, looking at her clothes and thinking of her wearing them, and looking in her crib and picturing her sleeping in it.

Dislikes:
- The back pain from never being able to find a good bra
- sleepless nights, from struggling to get comfortable
- how hard it is to do most things: bend over, shave, put on shoes, get pt files, and many more.
- I can't decide if this is a like or a dislike, but how funny I look when I walk.
- feeling over heated about 90% of the time

I would still do it all over and over again, and go through it for a longer period if I had to to have this sweet baby, but you really come to realize how much you take a healthy body for granted. It makes me want to be even that much healthier, and in shape once Macie comes. I don't want anything to hold me back.

Now for the Evolution of the Belly

12 WEEKS


16 WEEKS


18 WEEKS


ABOUT 24 WEEKS


28 WEEKS


30 WEEKS


34 WEEKS


37 WEEKS and probably the last picture of the belly, next picture will be of Macie!!!

WHAT A WEEKEND!!

This weekend was full of busy fun events. Friday night started off with our Branch Chilli Cook Off. This was the first year I entered a chilli and unfortunately did not win, the Cha's got the privilege of taking home the trophy for the year. Then after the chilli cook off a bunch of us sisters in the ward headed to the movies to watch the new Twighlight Movie Breaking Dawn. I am not a huge fan of these movies but have seen the first three and more so was excited for a girls night out. It was a blast and glad I went. Then Saturday was a totally jam packed day, Super Saturday from 10-2 where I made a Family Home Evening Board, and a mog podge picture of Christ and the Women at the Well. I love the colors of my FHE Board and idea but I did not do a perfect job on spacing the lettering and wood pegs. For my first big craft project for our house I am happy. Then that night Mark and I headed to my Work Christmas Party. We had a blast and enjoyed every minute. It was fun getting to know my co-workers husbands and boyfriends better. The entertainment was a comedian Trent something (can't remember his last name) from New Foundland and had me busting a gut. Then we had a live band the Prairie Dogs they were better then I thought but was not in much of a mood for dancing, actually none of us at the table were so we played a game of trying to bounce these round silicone balls that were of course a part of the decorations into glasses. The coolest part of the night was my boss "Dr. Zidar" bought $100 worth of 50/50 tickets and won. He gave all of us girls each $50 each just cause he is awesome. What a great weekend full of fun exciting events, I must say though it definitely wore me out, and I was feeling it at church today. Tired sore and ready to relax.

All dressed up for the Christmas Party (Almost 37 weeks)

THE NURSERY!!

We'll it is pretty much finished except one wall, which I think I have figured out just need to buy the stuff for it and white frames for the two pictures on the one wall. I will honestly admit I am not great at decorating, putting colors together and making my house look like it is out of a magazine. I feel the nursery is the same thing. I wanted that teal wall with white wainscotting (however you spell it) black and white accessories and everything to be modern and perfect. However as I walk into Macie's room every day and think about her playing in hear and sleeping in hear and just calling it her room it just seems perfect. I don't even know her yet, what she looks like, her personality, nothing but I just feel so warm and peaceful when I walk in hear and feel this is what was meant to be. So I do I love her room, others may not but I think it is going to be so perfect for her. One month today and I will hopefully be laying her to sleep in her bed.

THE BASEMENT!!!!

We'll we have lived in this house for 4 years and finally about two months ago we decided we have had it and we are getting our basement developed. With Macie's room no longer being a den Mark's school, teaching and young men's book are all over the kitchen. I have very little storage upstairs so my basement has had stuff just everywhere, and I am sick of having 1000sq feet of unusable space. So we called around set up appointments and yesterday finished off the last of the big projects that needed to be done. We'll my parents did. All that is left is baseboards, the bathroom fixtures, and a big closet we are going to have custom made for our one wall for more storage space. I can't wait to have full use of my basement, a bathroom downstairs for when guests come, a den, and a play area for our family. The two bedrooms downstairs were already developed when we bought the house and framing of the basement and drywall around the outer part of the walls. We still had to drywall the ceiling, the bathroom, storage room and stairs. We had to still mud, tape and paint all the walls, tile the bathroom, and put it together, and get carpet. With Mark being so busy we decided to just hire everything out. It might have taken a little bit more out of pocket then we would have liked but made life so easy for my crazy busy husband. Then my wonderful parents came up this weekend and tiled the bathroom for us. Everything looks great and we are so happy with the outcome.

THE WINNER...

Of course like last time is Marky Mark. I thought the votes would be a little closer this year as I put so much thought and effort into my picture, but no Mark clobbered me again. It is kind of sad when your hubby is more artsy than you. I told him tonight as we were looking at pictures of our Halloween costumes that he will probably be making the kids costumes in the future seeing as he made ours this year.

HALLOWEEN!!

We had such an awesome Halloween this year, best one yet. It started with handing out full sized chocolate bars to all the cute little tricker treaters. We bought 40 bars thinking we would have more than enough as the past year we bought 96 bars and only handed out 10 leaving us 86 full sized chocolate bars to try and get rid of. Well this year 40 wasn't enough, almost but not quite. We probably got about 46 trick or treaters, thankfully though we had a couple small ones to hand out to the last stragglers. Well once that was all done our party began. We invited a couple of friends over to play games, eat food and have some good laughs, and boy did we have some good laughs. We played some mad gab were the Edwards totally and completely destroyed everybody. Then some squash were Mark and I were the experts and winners of that game. The night ended with a game that had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to go into labor. Heck everybody was laughing so hard, I would not have been surprised if we all peed our pants a little bit. I don't know the name, but you write a movie quote, then pass it to the person beside you who reads the quote to themselves, then puts it behind a stack of papers and draws a picture to that quote, then they pass it to the next person who looks at the picture and writes a quote to the picture, and so on and so on. So much fun. Almost everybody dressed up, and I think we all had a blast.

I went as a Black Widow Spider and Mark was my Web



Tiffany and Graham were Fred and Wilma


Kristi was a tri-athalon participant

Dan and Indy were creative and Dan had cars taped to his shirt and Indy's shirt said the Indy Fyfe Hundred.