My 32 Week Relley-Belly...

So here are pictures of my ever-growing belly. I finally figured I'd just take them myself because I'm never ready for the day before Craig leaves for school or work, and I'm always frazzled by the time he gets home! My poor sweetie...but he still tells me I'm beautiful. What an awesome hubby! I already had a hard time believing him, though, and now I'm pert-near positive he's at least stretching the truth after watching "Liar, Liar" with my parents on Tuesday. Quoting Jim Carrey, "All grown-ups have to lie sometimes," and the example he shared was of when he used to tell his wife that she didn't look fat while she was pregnant-so she wouldn't feel bad! As long as we get another baby at the end of it all, I guess it's worth it.

And this is what I see... :)

Everything's going well with the pregnancy, which is a blessing. I'm anemic again this time around so I've had to start back on the iron supplements. And this little guy likes to hang out with his head up in my ribs, instead of kicking them like Gavin used to. So I'm also trying to get him to turn around - I'm not excited at the thought of delivering a breech baby. If only it was a little more comfortable laying with my face on the ground and my rear in the air! The play-back in heaven should make for some good laughs, though!

And Chelsea and Natalie, you girls feel free to post some belly shots of your own - I want to see!

Proof...

I really was that skinny once! This picture is from 2 1/2 years ago, and 1 3/4 pregnancies ago. My mom took it the day of my bridals. We recently got our wedding pictures from my parent's computer, and it's been a lot of fun to look through all of them. Yea for Jeff Hodges!!! We LOVE our pictures! For me, now that I have a growing belly bump, looking at these is almost therapuetic. My "large" feelings are comforted by the fact that I was once thin (even though I don't think it's possible to EVER get my pre-baby body back). Good thing babies are so darn cute - it makes all the sacrifice (physical being only one aspect of it - I find my brain power is diminishing by the second!) worth it! I know I'm way past due for posting another belly shot, but I keep forgetting to take one, and Craig has the camera today at school so even though I'm thinking of it now, I can't take a picture. So, hopefully soon...at least before the baby comes! :)

And kudos to all the great parents in the world! There's just no way to fathom what parenting entails until you experience it!

SnOw Fun!

Despite the cold, Gavin still loves to go outside (he doesn't get this from me). I always worry about him getting too cold, though, so I have to bundle him up. He looks so cute! It's so much fun to watch him play. His favorite thing is to walk on top of the snow and hear it crunch under his boots. Slipping on the snow even makes him laugh, as long as he doesn't fall...
The ensemble.
It takes almost as long to get ready to go outside as it does to finish playing outside.

So Sad :(

A couple weeks back, Gavin had an ear infection. It was NOT fun! Poor guy ran a fever of 102 degrees (sometimes higher, sometimes a little lower) for about 4 days. It wiped him out! No eating, playing or even talking - he was just too weak. He'd wake up every once in a while and I'd try to coax him into drinking some water or juice. He hated getting his temperature taken, but I had to monitor him closely to make sure it didn't get too high. I ended up putting him in the bath several times in order to cool his fever, and after he got back out, all he wanted was to lay back down on his tummy...
And go to sleep! Thanks Aunt Chelsea for his dino blanky - it kept him company while he felt so yucky. I'm so glad it's over now!!!

I LOVE Christmas

This year's Christmas was the best ever! And what's so exciting is that I'm sure they'll just keep getting more and more fun as Gavin gets bigger. There's something so special about putting up the tree and singing Christmas carols and decorating the house. It all adds to the special spirit that is already the reason for the season in the first place. Thank you Mom for most of our decorations, it's so nice when you decide to get rid of some of yours, they turned out really cute. And what's great about not having that many is that they don't take very long to put up or take down!

We did have all our stockings, and I can't believe that there are already four of us (well, almost)!

This is Gavin's decoration arranging job. He did pretty good about not touching most things, but he always wanted to move baby Jesus around from our big nativity. So I usually just ended putting him up out of reach during the day. Gavin must've thought the manger looked a little empty though because, as you can see, Mary, the Shepherd, a Wise Man, and one sheep (from the unbreakable Nativity that Gavin can play with) all ended up nice and cozy in there!

And my favorite Christmas addition of all...our tree! I love it so much! Thanks again, Grandma JoAnn (not that she'll ever read this) for this gift. We love it! It's just so beautiful!

We had Christmas morning at our house, and it was so cute to see how Gavin reacted to "Ta-ta's" delivery. As soon as he saw his tent he plopped down on his knees and crawled right on in to get to his other toys! And, terrible as it is, this is the only picture of Craig I took on Christmas day. I've got to get better at remembering to get more shots!

Gavin loves his dino. I think it makes him feel big.

This is probably my favorite picture of the morning. And yes, the books got his biggest grin!

After we finished up at our house, we headed up to my parents to hang out for the rest of the day. It wasn't even snowing on our side of the mountain, but we drove up to a blizzard. There was tons of snow, we couldn't make it up 1/4 of Highland Dr. My dad came to rescue us in his 4 wheel drive vehicle (notice his appropriate attire), but it still took us at least a half hour just to get our car over to the church parking lot and into a parking space! We ended up staying the night because the roads were so bad.

Tanner decided to make it an annual tradition to jump in the snow in nothing but his undies! No one else had any desire to join him, go figure!

The day after Christmas we went to Brad and Valarie's to spend some time with them. It was wonderful as always! So relaxing. And Gavin sure liked Grandma's toys.

Oops, I didn't rotate this...Gavin loves his Grandpa's, and it's no wonder when they spoil him so much!