Christmas

December 26, 2015

15 weeks

We sent out our pregnancy announcements as our holiday cards this year. I felt comfortable as I was doing it, but it did remind me of sending out all of those cards after Abby's first birthday and how I wished I could go back in time and take them all back when it didn't work out. I wished I had never told everyone we know. 

Christmas was great this year. We stayed home which is probably the biggest reason it was awesome. The part I don't like about Christmas is the obligation to purchase gifts, especially when it's not meaningful. If I do something inexpensive, even if there is thought put into it, I feel like the receiver thinks I'm cheap, or that I don't love them. It's so dumb!

The thing is, I enjoy buying gifts for Bean and Abby because I'm around them all the time and I know what they will like. Also, we don't focus on the material aspect of it. I only bought two items for Bean and we bought four items for Abby, plus Santa brought her the one item she asked for. The first couple of times I asked Abby what her favorite part of Christmas was, she answered, "Laughing and joking!"

A couple of weeks ago Bean took 2 days off at the end of the week and we had family time. One day Abby was at school, so I worked and Bean worked on her big girl room upstairs. Then we had a date lunch, picked her up, and took her to meet Santa. She loved it this year! Very different from not wanting to be anywhere near him last year. 

There was an area for family pictures so we just went for it.

And then she met the Big Guy. She said she wasn't going to sit on his lap, but he kind of picked her up and made her do it (I wanted to run over and snatch her away!), and she quickly asked for "Elsa and hers microphone" but Santa couldn't understand her very well and started talking about microphones, "what kind of microphone do you want? a 60 mega hurtz?" etc. Then they took a picture and were done. She was excited before and after but seemed nervous during. 

The next day she had a little recital in her ballet class. It was two songs and very cute. At the end there were donuts and props to take pictures with. 

Afterward, we went to the Gaylord Texan resort for the ICE! exhibit. I was not looking forward to being cold but I was pretty certain Abby would love it. We walked around inside the resort for a little while and found that they have several other activities, including milk and cookies and storytime with Mrs. Claus; of course meeting Santa; and decorating gingerbread houses. 

After we survived the frozen tundra of the ICE exhibit and I burned my tongue on some hot chocolate, we ate lunch and decided that it would be really nice if we did a family day again every year except plan to stay one night at the hotel- that way we can just run upstairs for naptime instead of driving all the way home. Especially next year with a 6 month old. It will be easy to trade off nap times with a baby- one of us sleeps with the baby while the other walks around and spends time with Abby. We are really looking forward to continuing some of the traditions we started this year!

On Christmas Eve, we hung around the house all morning (Bean did end up having to work), baking cookies and muffins. When Bean came home, he had some last minute shopping to do so he and Abby went to the mall- they are crazy- while I stayed back and iced and ate half a dozen cookies and waxed my legs which are extremely hairy this pregnancy. 

When they came home, we just hung out for a little while and then attempted to decorate a gingerbread house. I think I understand why people don't do this. Keeping the walls straight and the roof from sliding off was pretty tough! Abby did enjoy putting icing and candy on while eating half of the candy. We watched Elf while 'decorating'. 

Later we ordered pizza and hatched a plan with some cash we had. The pizza was about $30 but we gave him a hundred and told him to keep the change. We were looking forward to it all day, and he was so surprised and grateful. It was one of the highlights of my Christmas!

We ate pizza while we finished watching Elf, then we watched the animated version of 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' which Abby said was scary, but I think she did like the who's down in whoville.

We ended the evening with the classic 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' which I always watched growing up. She has the book and wanted to follow along with the book while we watched the show. That story is really pretty strange! Why is there a dentist? Only so he can remove the snow monster's teeth? Why is Clarice flirting with Rudolph? I thought they were kids. 

Anyway, it was nice just relaxing and spending time together. We read 'The Night Before Christmas' after we put out cookies and milk for Santa and sprinkled glitter oats on the walkway for the reindeer. Abby went right to sleep because she was ready for Santa to come to her house!

Christmas morning at our house was great. So relaxing and just how it should be.

When we went in to get Abby she was excitedly jumping on the bed. We checked to see that Santa ate the cookies, drank the milk, and left a note. Then we went in to the fireplace and she found that he left her a stocking full of Frozen items and Elsa and her microphone! She was in awe, hugged and kissed it and looked really happy. We opened our stockings and then went into the study where the tree was to open gifts.

We took turns watching each other open gifts and had a great time. 

I had planned to make a breakfast casserole that would cook while we were doing all of this, but I ran out of eggs and couldn't find sausage at the store I'd been to earlier in the week, so it didn't work out. 

We went to Pop and Gigi's house for breakfast and they completely showered Abby with gifts. We couldn't even keep track of how many things there were to open. She just kept trucking through, ripping off paper and moving to the next thing. By about 1pm, we were so tired, so we came home for a nap. But Abby was hungry so we ate lunch instead. We didn't want to fight her for a nap that late in the day so we decided to go to a movie instead. 

It was Abby's first time in a movie theater and she did amazing! She sat still in her seat, ate popcorn, and watched the whole thing. We saw The Good Dinosaur. She asked some questions, mainly, "What's his name, Mom?" She fell asleep on the way home but woke up pretty quickly when we tried to lay her down in the living room. She was ready to play some more!

It got a little touchy around here with no rest for anyone- Mom and Dad both wanted a nap they didn't get, and Abby definitely needed one but refused. So we just trucked through the last couple of hours of the day and went to bed early. 

And now for today, the day after. Lots of decluttering, washing dishes, taking out trash, etc. To get the house out of the tornado stage!

As for the pregnancy, it's still there, as far as I know. I'm not really showing except after I eat, and I haven't gained much weight, probably less than 5 lbs. I have more energy and barely any nausea- just randomly in the morning when I have to start drinking those liquid vitamins. When I woke up today, I realized I just don't really feel pregnant and maybe it's because I'm in between appointments and I'm not big or uncomfortable yet. I'm telling myself to just enjoy this time because when I'm uncomfortable and hurting, I'll be wishing for these weeks. 

Sleep is getting a little rocky- there's no way I sleep through the night anymore. Still, the thought of not being pregnant, or finding out that something has happened since I just sent out the announcements fills me with anxiety. Its a little strange with the cards too since they probably arrived on Christmas Eve, or will arrive today so probably not many people have seen them- I've only heard from 4 people out of the 70 cards we sent out. It's a strange kind of limbo to be in. 

Looking forward to my next appointment in about a week and a half. In the meantime, all of the saved posts are starting to release so the journey of this pregnancy will be totally out there before I write again. I hope I have good news with my next post!

The thing getting us through the next couple of weeks is planning a short trip to NYC in March! Bean mentioned that Billy Joel plays at Madison Square Garden once a month, and he's really been into Billy Joel lately so I got him tickets for Christmas. That was one of my other highlights- watching him open and read the tickets. It's been fun for us to talk about what area to stay in, and we are planning to fly Virgin America since we've heard such good things about it. Bean needs more time to relax and do fun things like this, and it's fun to see him so excited about it!