Christmas, New Years, Pregnancy. and everything else!!!

I was SOOO trying not to let my blog start looking like my journal...with no entries for weeks on end and then one BIG one to catch up...but that seems to be a habit that is hard to break.

Well our holidays were great!! I am sorry to all of my friends...I was sick for a few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas...and was only able to get enough Christmas cards with pics out to immediate family members. The family pic above though is the one we took for those cards...don't be offended if you didn't get a card...none of my friends did :-(

Christmas is so much fun with older kids, because Tyler and I get so much satisfaction out of actually giving them what they wanted. When they are little it's nice because they are happy with just a giant box to play in...but it just gets more fun as they get older!! It's also harder for Tyler and I to sleep than the kids...we end up tossing and turning, and then finally deciding to wake up the kids once it hits a reasonable hour because we want them to see their presents!!! Shaylee is 7 and got a Scooter, a couple Barbies with the pink Jeep, a giant Care Bear, and many other fun things. Cayden is 3 and got a Thomas the Tank Engine backpack with WHEELS to put ALL his Thomas trains in, he got a big stuffed Elmo, a toy bow and arrow (he LOVES bows...he pretends to be Prince Derek from "The Swan Princess"), and several other things he wanted. I bought Tyler a couple of the newer Notre Dame hats that he didn't have YET and a couple other things, and my main gift from him was a pretty jewelry box. Santa brought me "The Last Unicorn" movie which I was SOOOOOOO excited about because I used to watch that on an old recorded VHS that my parents had and it really started getting wore out so I was so excited to see that they restored the movie and are selling it on DVD!!! (That movie is from the 80's I believe) Anyway, it was a good Christmas :-) Here are Shaylee & Cayden when we woke them up Christmas morning...I don't think the reality that Santa had come had sunk in yet because they look like zombies...

Here is Cayden with his cool backpack, wearing his new Spiderman pajamas, and his new Spiderman hat and gloves.

Shaylee & Cayden opening presents...

Shaylee & Daddy enjoying their new robes...

Cayden & Daddy playing Superheroes later that day!

And yes there was a picture of me showing my jewelry box, but unfortunately it showed too much of ME in the picture and since I don't look so good that early in the morning...you don't get to see it, haha!

New Year's was fun too. My parent-in-laws moved to Washington for a few months, then decided to move back up to Texas, so my mother-in-law came over New Year's Eve. I made Orange Julius' and put out snacks. Us three adults, and 2 kids, were able to last until 11 p.m. before we got really tired. We'd spent that morning helping move the in-laws into their new apartment so we were a little beat. We watched the ball drop on TV at 11 p.m. and figured hey, it's midnight in New York, that's good enough for us!!! So we put the kids to bed, their Grandma Caudle drove home, and we went to bed!!! It's kind of depressing to get older...you get tired earlier and in some ways you aren't as much fun...but Tyler and I still had fun so that's all that really matters!!!

Let's see...well on Thursday we get our 3D ultrasound so hopefully they'll be able to tell us that it is a girl for sure or not. The pregnancy has been going great. I'm 28 weeks. I have to pretty much eat & drink water all the time, and by night my legs are restless and I walk crooked for a few minutes when I stand up cuz I get this pain in my lower back when I get up and down...but luckily nothing major!!! Here is a pic of me taken a few days ago...

I have had a funny new thing pop up in the last week though...it started when my mom-in-law offered to take the kids for the day during Winter Vacation. I thought that I'd sit around and relax...but I got the urge to start organizing and cleaning. I did the dishes, then cleaned out and organized our pantry. I then headed for my car trunk which had a whole bunch of random stuff in it that my father-in-law had given to us that we hadn't put away yet...and I got my car trunk emptied and cleaned. Then I vaccuumed the house. Wow, it's amazing what you can do when you have no kids to distract you!!! A few days later Julie offered to take the kids again! I then worked on organizing all the closets and I also purged some of my yarn stash and got all my crochet projects nice and organized!!! (Thanks to freecycle.org I was able to give away a bunch of my yarn that was either scraps, or yarn I had no project planned for!!) That emptied like 3 rubbermaids in our closet!!! Our house (a rental) has no garage, no shed, and no hall closets...so every bit of space I free up is incredibly useful!!! Well yesterday I finally started recovering our dining room set seat cushions (with fabric I had bought for that purpose like a year ago!!!) but then couldn't figure out how to properly reload the staples in this big and hard to use heavy duty stapler but luckily when Tyler got home from work he was so happy to see I'd actually started that project, that he finished it for me while I made dinner!!! I also bought a poster and cut it into 4 pieces for my 4 frames I'd recently painted black to be hung over the wall by dining room table. Today I scrubbed off the leftover wallpaper border that was in the dining room, washed the walls really well, then hung my black frames along with a couple other decorations I'd been meaning to hang. Anyway, my point being...I have been a cleaning and organizing junkie lately which has completely shocked me, because although I like to keep my house clean, I've never had such a drive to do project after project!! I'm thinking though that this is a very nice pregnancy symptom and hopefully I can keep it going!!! To all those with many unfinished projects like myself...pick a small project, then revel in the feeling of accomplishment...then repeat!! You just might get an adrenaline rush after each project!!!

Well I know this blog has gone on and on...but hopefully you've enjoyed reading it, because I spent my regular nap time (while Shaylee is at school and Cayden is napping) writing it!!! I'll TRY to keep things more up-to-date....