Other Things, Not Exactly Christmas Related

There have been other goings on … but with all the Christmas catch-up I haven't written about them. In no paticular order:

• We have been having MAJOR WIND here (house shaking, wake up the baby variety) … and while we get some major wind fairly frequently, this lasted for about 12 hours straight. No one slept a lot last night.
• Tabby seems crazy close to potty training. She's still going dry almost every night and has started asking to use the potty more often. I am planning to get some vinyl training pants and work on this with her while we're together later this week and early next.
• I am starting to sort of wig out about the impending arrival of baby #2 given the fact that every time I blink a month goes by … and we are totally out of space in our house. Yikes.
• My new video game seems to install fine and yet when I go to play it, Vista (old buddy, old pal) is all “Spore what??! I know not of this Spore you speak of.” Bastard.
• I think I'm actually sick of sweets. It took three weeks (and a few pounds, I'm sure), but there you have it.
• I really need to reacquaint myself with the treadmill (see above item).
• I think I shall make JustJenn's broken glass Jell-O for New Year's Eve
• Our local Rec Center (that's Colo-speak for community center, y'all) has a T'shirt Quilt making class. I have a box of t'shirts that I'd love to use for this purpose. Unfortunately the class is Fridays from 10-noon. That bites.
• We successfully used every penny of both medical and dependent care flex accounts. I'm stupidly proud of that.
• As much as Spore/Vista sucks and won't load, Prof. Layton/DS is awesome and I'm enjoying it very much. But what does it say about me that the hard puzzles (worth more points) are simple for me and the easy puzzles (worth few points) require all the hints plus some guesswork for me?? Maybe it is like this for everyone.

And now you know just how sad my life is. Or lovely.

Christmas Crafties

It was nice this year to have a few moments to be able to create some unique gifts for our loved-ones.

For Tabby’s beloved babysitter, we gave her this plant. It has a cut out of a Tabby holding a (photoshopped) sign saying “Thanks for helping me grow!” It was easy to make and the most expensive part of it was the plant. We just took a photo of Tabby holding up a book. A little photoshop later plus some hot glue and that’s it.

And these are the ornaments that we gave to Tabby’s loved-ones on her behalf. We took a piece of wood from Home Depot ($8, I think) Matt cut it into cubes (got 11 out of the piece of wood) drilled a hole in each and then we covered them in green paint except for one side which we painted white. Tabby got to do her painting thing white side and then we put photos of her on the other sides. A coat of polyurethane and a bit of ribbon and they were finished.

Tabby had a lot of fun painting the blocks and she also chose which of her paintings would go to each person. We wrapped them in seasonal Chinese take-out style containers (phoned that one in!) and they were a big hit, I think.

We also did photo calendars …. used Shutterfly this year … great calendars at a great price … and I painted ornaments for our “nephews” and also a mug from Tabby (she has yet to open this, so I haven’t photographed it yet).

Now I’ll have to start figuring out what to do for next year …

Christmas All Wrapped Up!

Christmas was a decided success in our household. Miss Tabby got into the whole affair and rather than expending the energy to unwrap gifts herself, requested that they be “OPEN”ed by her many willing minions. She was enraptured by the kitchen Santa brought her (complete with IKEA dishes) and by many of her other thoughtful gifts. Purses and jewelry were a big hit and after things calmed down, books were hugely loved as well. She's also been wearing her “cute!” clothes the past couple of days, very happy to pick out a new outfit. The festivities on Christmas day were fun for her and she weathered the whole long day rather well despite a spotty nap, but by the end she was DONE.

Matt and I got lovely things as well. Matt got a cordless tool set and among others, I received a yoga gift certificate to the place just down the road where I can do prenatal yoga on Sundays. I am looking forward to that.

Best of all, the day after Christmas we received our check from the insurance company and I got a replacement car. It is even a bit of an upgrade (thanks crappy economy)! I am super excited to have my car back and Tabby even got a new ride.

We have spent this weekend hanging out with friends, getting Tabby back on her schedule, getting the house put back together and playing with our new toys.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Yes, Jessica, there is a Santa Claus

Last night, Christmas came early to our house. The insurance company gave us our settlement less than 2 weeks after the accident. My car is a “total loss” and we will be getting a pretty darn fair check from them today … pretty much the max I thought we could get from them. And they didn't even question replacing Tabby's (pricey) carseat. Now if we can just find my car all over again, I will be happy.

'Tis the Season

Tis the season for me to be so busy I cannot find the time to blog. This was my weekend: shopping with Mom on Friday; shopping and subsequently wrapping with Kelly on Saturday; digging out our horribly filthy house followed by more wrapping on Sunday. I'll catch up soon, promise!

The next three days are just as busy! I should have a contest to see who can most closely guess my number of trips to Target without going over. Hehe. But I cannot take on another project!

So a funny story just to brighten your day … Matt has been chauferring me to work since my car is in purgatory. Usually Tabby is deposited into her carseat half asleep, but since she went to bed at 6:15 last night, she woke up right around the time I got up. Matt tried to get her to lay down with him while I got ready, but to no avail. She loves showers (shau-shau as she calls it) and insisted on joining me. When it was time to get out, it was FREEZING of course and she was all chattering wrapped in her towel. So Matt just put her pajamas (footy pjs, so cute!) back on her as quickly as possible … o quickly he forgot a diaper!! Luckily I noticed her butt wasn't as padded as normal when I picked her up to put her in the car and we corrected the situation.

Hope you're getting close! Happy Holidays!

6 Days?!?! Yikes.

I cannot believe Christmas is 6 days away. But we are in pretty good shape, I think! We have 99.9% of the shopping done (just a few stocking stuffers needed) and gifts to those far away have been sent (yay!). And there is mostly just the wrapping to do … and maybe some cooking.

Speaking of Christmas, I thought I mailed out the bulk of my Christmas cards around the 11th, but somehow the final “send them” order never got processed, so they just got sent out yesterday (or maybe today). They will be on time, but I felt like a bit of an idiot for screwing it up.

We are waiting to hear on my car still. When Matt called them on Wednesday (day 4 of the 3-5 day estimate) they were up to $15K and they hadn't even gotten into the engine compartment. That was just sheet metal and airbags. My fervent hope is that they total it because I really doubt they can fix it “good as new” plus I don't even want to think about how long fixing it could take. So keep your fingers crossed for me on that!

The plans for this weekend are pretty mellow compared to the last couple. Today after work I will be going to lunch with my mom and grandma and Miss Tabby and then my mom and Tabby and I are going to do a bit of shopping. Tomorrow, my sister and I are going to do minimal shopping and finish up just a couple of things and then get to wrapping. Sunday I've got dillusions of cleaning up the house, doing grocery shopping and laundry. I could definitely use some peaceful time at home.

And this week starts my three short weeks at work … 2.5 days next week, 2 days the week after that and 3 the following. Nice, eh? I cannot wait!! Hope your holiday season is going well … don't over do it on the eggnog.

20 Week Scan

Tuesday was our 20 wk ultrasound. Instead of going through the normal radiology dept. at a clinic, I requested to have it done in the perinatology (high risk baby doctor) department. Last time the tech had some trouble scanning me and caused us some undue worry. This time I wanted to go straight to the source and so I asked my OB if I could be scanned the first time in perinatology (where we ended up last time). They have better techs and more sophisticated equipment and the doctor actually sits in with you during the scan and analyzes right then and there. Plus I love our perinatologist … he is a great doc with perfect bedside manner and so comforting to see!

The scan went just as perscribed and our gender determination was confirmed … boy it is! He's got all his parts and looks perfect, “totally normal and boring” as the doc joked. Because I'm one of the only “normal” patients they see in perinatology (usually they deal with multiples and other higher risk pregnancies), they let the novices (his resident and the ultrasound trainee) play around with my belly a lot which was neat because we got to see tons of stuff, including the kid waving at us and kicking me.

It was a very nice experience and definitely helped make it a bit more real for me. This time has been much different … I know I'm pregnant, but I don't think of it so much. With the gender confirmed, I think we've also been able to settle on a name, but we're not spilling … at least not yet. We did tell Tabby though and she seems to like it. Loki has been rather mute on the subject.

No Shortage of Goings On

Did I mention I've been busy? Here are the goings on in no particular order.

• growing a person
• making pot luck dishes (we have like 4 of these events before Christmas)
• baking cookies (in addition to the ones baked last weekend)
• singing Christmas carols and dancing around the living room with Tabby
• getting some sneak previews of our little guy via the 20 wk ultrasound (more on this tomorrow)
• trying not to think about my car until we get some actual news
• researching car seat replacement
• packaging up gifts for friends and family far away
• planning Christmas Eve dinner
• making a (gift) list and checking it twice
• fighting off a cold *sniffle*
• not getting enough sleep
• making tea for Tabby
• hoping for a white Christmas
• enjoying all of your lovely holiday cards
• making everyone's days merry and bright