Rockin' around the Christmas tree!

It is Christmas decorations for as far as the eye can see! Lance is on the ladder as we speak, setting up his train that goes around the top of the tree. He loves this train but it doesn't match my color scheme. Do you think he would notice it if I painted it to match the purple scheme of the tree and room? I bet he wouldn't... We'll see....
We're listening to Christmas carols, Lee and the animals are entertaining us with their antics and I'm putting decorations on the tree and surfing the net. Now if it could be softly snowing, it would be perfect!

The entryway is packed full of totes. So hopefully no one comes over because there's no way they would get in the front door. We're not decorating as much as we did last year because A) we're not on the Tour of Homes this year and B)most of the decorations are going to be packed up in the Trailblazer to be used for decor at Ember's wedding.

I've got pictures of thanksgiving that I need to post but I'm using Lance's laptop and the pictures are on my computer downstairs... so it will have to wait until later.

So thankful!

Since I will be busy cooking, celebrating and enjoying the moment tomorrow, I thought I would list all the things I'm thankful for today:) This is such a wonderful time of the year that many people forget to slow down and take it all in. Lance and I really try to ~not~ be those people. Tonight we're heading to a special Thanksgiving church service at Hope (the church that we got married at). We both love that church so much that it's hard to switch to a closer one...so we haven't. I'm cooking and STILL cleaning today. I wore out yesterday after getting SO much done but still a few things need my attention today.

So onto the thankful list:

1. my fabulous husband!! He has to be #1 because he's such a great guy for all that he does & is. I'm a very lucky woman;)
2. Lily & Baby2 (they are a very close 2nd to their daddy!)
3. my family & friends (which include all our pets too!!)
4. stretchy pants (a must for any pregnant woman)
5. fitting in my bridesmaid dress
6. getting a start on my Journal Your Christmas album put together so I don't fall behind
7. the Great Pumpkin Dessert that's baking in the oven and making the house smell wonderful

There are so many other things but I'll leave it at that. What are you thankful for?

If you are traveling for the holidays, drive safely! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Journal Your Christmas Year#2

Shimelle's info for this class is located here. I took this class last year and absolutely loved it. It really helps you remember the true meaning and spirit of Christmas. I love that the prompts inspire me to journal as that is definitely the shortcoming in my scrapping. If you are needing some Christmas spirit or inspiration this season, definitely look into this class. It's not just for scrapbookers either. Anyone needing a creative outlet (writing, photography, ect) would really enjoy this class. I made my mom and grandma doing it with me last year. They both enjoyed it!

There's a new cowboy in town.

Or should I say cowcat?! This is Maui's new favorite place to nap...on my show saddle! I always bring all my horse stuff inside for the winter as it's not good for the leather to be frozen.





I also fit in my dress!! What a relief! When you look at me from the front, you can't even tell I'm pregnant. Then I turn sideways and YIKES! I have a serious growth protruding out of my belly area. So yay for fitting in the dress.

Today is the day of cleaning! I must get this house in shape before all the guests arrive on Thanksgiving. Gotta run!!

Think skinny thoughts.

I'm off to try on my bridesmaid dress this morning and get it fitted or unfitted. Even as the belly is expanding in unheard of proportions, I do believe the A-line-ness of the dress will work in my favor. I'm also going to get the rest of the Thanksgiving groceries and pick up some groceries for Ember as she's still having a crazy time with Aaron's dad in the hospital and running back and forth to Minneapolis plus a little thing called HER WEDDING in 2WEEKS! Yikes!!

Once back home, I'll be cleaning and getting some of the food in order and lined up. Nothing glamorous or fun but essential. I might sneak in a nap too;) We'll see!

I'm going to try to talk Lance into going to Twili.ght with me too. I want to avoid all the screaming teenage girls so maybe we can go during the day! I've read all the books and they are amazing!! I love them:) We'll see how long it takes to get everything done in Fargo.

100th Post!!

Yay for 100 posts!! I've got a few more things to add to my "pregnancy weirdisms" post that I just couldn't remember last nite....the memory loss is one of them!! If you want a good laugh, read the comment section from the "Pregnancy Weirdisms" post and you will laugh your butt off. That is my brother, Lee, that is ~anon~! He just found out how to add comments so he is now going to be the comic relief on this blog as he is forever telling me how I should be nice to my husband and not try to trick him into thinking vaccuming is fun or that I should get him something fun for Christmas not tools to better do my projects with. Whatever! I AM perfectly wonderful to my husband eventhough Lance would agree to some of the things that Lee mentioned such as being sniffed at when coming home and occasionally being my sherpa:) At least Lance knows he's needed! As for man bitch, just wait until you see what you will be doing in the nursery while you're on Christmas vacation, Lee!!! Better bring your painting gear!

So to add on to the preggo weirdisms list:

• why is it that the memory is the first to go? Lance says I have CRSS... Can't Remember Shit Syndrome but only while pregnant. I know the blood is probably not going to my brain as often because it's spending more time in my uterus but really?? That's the last thing a pregnant lady needs is to lose her memory. EEK!
• why are my pregnancy dreams SO much more vivid and random?? A couple nights ago I dreamt about my college roommate who I haven't talked to or seen in a bazillion years. Last night I dreamt about Ember's wedding and how I forgot to paint my toe nails and I was freaking out because all I had was purple polish and not red to match the decor. I am wearing open-toed sandal/heels for the wedding so people will be able to see my toes but my dress is to the floor so it's really not THAT big of a deal. Apparently it was in my dream though! I do have reoccurring characters in my dreams but they are always in a different city/location/place. Just weird!

Today I'm cleaning. We're hosting Thanksgiving so I want to get a jump start on cleaning so I don't have to worry about it next week. I'm also pulling down the wallpaper in the soon-to-be nursery. I spray this stuff on it and it pull off beautifully but it runs down the walls and makes a mess. So I'll do it today before Lance cleans all the carpets this weekend. I hope everyone has a great weekend and is all geared up for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Lance and I shop on Black Friday so that will be a great time and even better because Lee is going to give us his credit card so we can buy a tv for him and whatever I want (scrapbook stuff/unicorn/another cat/ect). Yes, that IS what you said, Lee. I distinctly remember it....maybe you have pregnancy brain???

Pregnancy weirdisms

• why is it that on TLC "Taking The Baby Home...the first 36 hours" does the man/husband say how tired he is and how it's been such a long couple of days and he just needs sleep? Umm, what exactly have you done, sir, that has made you so sleepy?

Is it giving birth? no

Is it feeding an infant with your body as the nourishment? no

Is it from bleeding like a stuffed pig? no

So let's see...you counted 1-8 several times, you held your wife's hand and sometimes a leg in the serious moments, told all the relatives the size/sex/name, held your new baby. Hmmm, anything else?? I can see why you are so exhausted....

Seriously! Get over yourself as you did NOTHING in the whole process. If you weren't there, your baby would still be born and fed and taken care of. You are NOT an essential part of the equation except in the conception. Give your wife some frickin love for ALL that she did, you selfish pig! Ugh. Can you tell I'm not watching that show again!

• $185 maternity jeans.... seriously?? They are very cool looking but really?? That much?! Now I'm a semi-high maintenance girl so I'm fine with spending money (especially my hubbys!! NO comments Lee!!) but to spend that much on maternity jeans? I couldn't even get myself to try them on.
• The wonderful "try to sneak a peek at the belly while the maybe pregnant or maybe put on some weight girl is not looking" move. Seriously...we see you...
• I always have to pee when I'm running errands. I normally (non-preggo) have a bladder of steel. As soon as I'm pregnant, that goes out the window so it's me and all the old women in the bathroom. They are the worst at the staring. Why is that?

OK...I'm done with what turned into a complaining post.

On a better note, Teddy now smells like a sugar cookie! You've gotta love that...thank you Petco! He's so clean and fluffy and not stinky! It's great.

Uggs is getting better. He's starting to walk more and go up and down the stairs.

So, I'm off to watch Ug.ly Be.tty and Greys. Have a great night:)

Poor Uggs

We took Uggs to the vet yesterday and they diagnosed him with a severe tendon strain on the right hind and mild strain on the left hind. The vet is guessing that Uggs jumped off of something and landed wrong. This happened on Thursday, then on Sunday Lance walked up into our loft all bundled up from being outside and Uggs freaked out and jumped off the couch (which is low but the injury was already there) and made the strain worse. Now Uggs can barely walk in the hind end so he's on cat bed rest. Poor thing!! We didn't get any pain meds for him because we don't want him to move too much and rip the tendons. He is better today then yesterday and Sunday so he is improving. He's laying under Lance's side of the bed just purring like crazy when you check on him.

I want to send well wishes and prayers to Ember & Aaron as they are in Minneapolis with her father-in-law who had a heart attack at the Minneapolis Airport last Friday while trying to catch his connecting flight home. It sounds like he's getting better but the chance that he'll be able to attend the wedding is definitely in jeopardy.

Also needing some well wishes and prayers but for a good reason is Kat and her DH, Thomas, as they are off to the hospital this morning to delivery their son, Cullen! He is breech resulting in a c-section for Kat so I want to send them lots of positive vibes for their very exciting day!

Comparing pregnancies.

I haven't gotten a pregnancy journal made/started for this pregnancy as I've been so tired and the basement has a funny smell that only I can smell. It's apparently a pregnancy thing! So I'm going to try to journal here once a week (at least) about Baby2 so that way I can have info for my preggo journal once I make it.

Comparing Lily vs Baby2

Lily:
-mild heartburn at bedtime
-all day and night nausea for 2.5 weeks
-super tired
-slightly sensitive to smells
-can't stand chocolate or diet dew
-hair/nails growing like weeds
-very bloated during the 1st tri
-gained no weight in 21wks

Baby2:
-lots of heartburn all the time especially at bedtime
-extremely sensitive to smells especially air freshners
-mild nausea if I don't eat right away when I start to feel hungry
-still can't stand diet dew but can do a little chocolate as long as it's not straight chocolate...it's
got to be with something else like the scotcharoo bar I had yesterday! Yummy!!
-super tired
-mild acne
-hair/nails growing like weeds
-expanding A LOT faster this time
-not as bloated feeling
-gained 2 lbs at 9wks

So going by the extreme differences in the pregnancy, I'm going to put my vote in that it's probably a boy. I'll be very surprised if it's another girl. I'd like a couple of each so I don't care what the sex is as long as s/he is healthy!!

Right now I'm watching foo.tball and surfing the net while Gri.swald, I mean Lance, is working on the Chri.stmas lites. It was such a nice day out that I put up all of the lites on the bushes in the front and back yard and Griswald was on the roof. It's nice to have a lot of that done before the snow flies and stays!

Tomorrow is Lily's Due Date

Since I will be gone all day tomorrow, I wanted to mention that Nov. 15 is Lily's due date. As I look at the ticker on the top of my blog, I can't believe that so many things happened in just those short 9 months since finding out I was pregnant to learning about Lily's problems to her going to heaven and then getting pregnant again on the first try and now I'm over 9 weeks along with Baby2 on Lily's due date. EEK that is a lot to happen in a very small time. Normally I just go to horse shows all spring/summer/fall...which takes a lot less emotion than what happened this year. I guess the reward isn't a baby either:/

As I watch many friends struggling to get pregnant with their 1st babies, it brings to mind the saying "it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved before". Which I feel is very true in my situation. We are so grateful to have had Lily for those 5.5 months but still feel pain, especially tomorrow, as we're not bringing her home from the hospital but starting over with Baby2. The pain is not the heartbreaking ache that we felt after we lost her in July but more of a sense of loss for what could have been.
I also remember one of my friends (who also lost their 1st) saying that they would never have had their Miss Q (as they were only planning on having one baby) if they wouldn't have lost their 1st one. Not that she wanted to lose the 1st baby but she can't imagine life without Miss Q. So I too think of that...we would never have THIS Baby2 if we didn't lose Lily. We would have A Baby2 but not this one as that would be impossible. Of course we never wanted to lose Lily but that was never our choice either. As a Type A/control freak, the fact that I have almost no control over the whole baby thing freaks me out. I really have a problem with that...but again I have no control over that either:/

So I just wanted to take a minute and thank God for the blessing that is Lily and thank God again for Baby2 as only he knows what is in store for Lance and I and our parenting expedition.

On a different note, I think we have a sick cat. Poor Uggs was been limping on his right hind leg for the last 2 days. He's also sleeping a lot. He seems to have more life in him today but when he sleeps his breathing is weird and I just don't like the way he looks. I'm going to call the vet to see what they say and probably bring him in today or Monday. Of course this always happens to us on Friday! At least we do have an emergency pet hospital for nites and weekends and Casse.lton Vet Clinic can usually slide us in on Saturday morning as they have before with Teddy. I'll let you know how things go.

Have a great weekend! It's snowing lightly here and sounds like it will for most of the day but nothing is staying on the ground. Tis the season!

1st dr. appt a success!

We had our 1st official doctor appt this morning and everything looked great! This is a huge relief to Lance and I as this was the appt that Dr. R thought something looked wrong/weird with Lily. He said Baby2 looks perfect and sees nothing to be concerned with!! YAY!!! We have a picture but I need to scan it so I will do that tomorrow. I can't really tell what is what but I think I see a leg:)
I've gained 2 lbs also:/ I was hoping that I would stay the same weight as I did with Lily (never went up a single lb all 21 weeks but I had a lot more sickness with Lily too) but alas that is not going to be the case! My jeans feel looser in the butt and thighs but the tummy is barely fitting. I guess it's going to be stretchy pants sooner than later. I just hope I can wedge myself into my bridesmaid dress in 3 weeks. God willing and grease helping -I will;)

No snow yet!

Just rain. Most of ND, SD and some of MN have snow but not us! I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a flurry of white stuff out my window but then I think "it's only November". There is plenty of time for snow! Still there is something nice about being snowed in.

Because it has been constant rain, Teddy has been inside for the majority of the time...only going out when necessary. It's amazing how little rain it takes to make a dog stink! We have this puppy cologne that smells like powder that we spray on him in between groomings. He absolutely HATES it! As soon as you go to the door that contains the spray, he takes off. He shows his teeth, sneezes and ruts like a bull. It is by far the funniest thing I've ever seen him do! We don't use the spray very often in the spring, summer or fall but definitely the winter! Once sprayed, he desperately wants to go outside to rub it off. He rolls around in the grass or snow trying to rub it off. Again, very funny! Due to my very sensitive pregnant nose, I can detect stinky dog from a mile away. I pulled out the spray this morning and had to bribe him with a treat and still chase him down. Right now he's running around the house trying to rub it off on anything he can. Do dogs not like to smell powder fresh?

I feel like I'm in a holding pattern.

I'm pregnant again (as I have been for most of 2008) with hopefully a MUCH BETTER turn out than the first time. I love the fact that it took us no time at all to get pregnant with Baby2 but I miss feeling like my normal self. I am ~not~ complaining about being pregnant because it is such a blessing and we are very lucky to be blessed again BUT there are things that I do miss from my ~normal~ life. I've been in the 1 trimester for 5 months in 2008 and it's getting a little old! Bear with me now as I list my "can't wait to do again"!! Again I'm not trying to take anything away from the blessing that is Miss Lily and Baby2 but if you've been pregnant, you know how the 1st tri can be ICK!

1. RIDE.MY.HORSE!!!
this is SO #1 on my list!! I can't wait to start showing again too. It's painful to have such an awesome horse just sitting in the pen waiting for me to get my crap together! To remedy this, Faith is going to the trainers in Feb for some finishing and hopefully I'm not too ginormous so I can show her in halter and showmanship while the trainer shows her in the riding classes. That should help fill my horse need:)

2. Be able to eat and smell anything and not gag.

3. Multitask
- I am the QUEEN of multitasking and I cannot do it while pregnant. I don't have the memory or the energy for it. I have SO many projects I'd like to get done but mostly I wind up on the couch taking a nap. Thank God I have an amazing and understandable husband.

4. Go from sun up to sun down (like I use to) and not need to sit and rest.

5. Lift my saddle out of the trailer by myself without my husband yelling at me.

6. Be able to get my butt into the bed in the gooseneck of our horse trailer without the help of a crane, fork lift or Lance pushing my butt all while I'm giggling so much that I can't pull myself up. It's quite the process to get up there while pregnant. Hence the need for a RV instead of the horsetrailer.

7. Drinking!
-whether it's Diet Dew or an ice cold beer, I would LOVE to have some! Now I ~know~ several people that don't give up caffeine while pregnant and do have an occasional alcoholic sip or two but I don't. For 2 reasons.....#1 is that Diet Dew tastes weird while I'm pregnant. It has a metallic taste...ick. #2 is because I'm basically a goody-two-shoes and while I ~might~ have a sip or 2 of wine around Christmas or Thanksgiving I couldn't in good conscience drink while being pregnant. My perinatologist (w/ Lily) said having a glass of wine early in the pregnancy was not a problem and that Lily wouldn't be getting any of it anyways. I still didn't have any but she's the expert so a little sip here or there might happen as long as it doesn't ~smell~ funny.

8. Plan where to eat a week or 2 ahead of time without worrying about whether it will agree with me or not. (this is such a pain!)

9. Button my pants!!

10. Snuggle with my hubby at night.
- I'm so warm all the time (more so than usual) and Lance is a furnace so it's more like a firm handshake or a pat on the shoulder than nice snuggling in bed. Although that's how we got into this ~situation~ so maybe I'll have to rethink that;-)

Go Vote!

Lance and I scheduled this week's work trip around being home tonight in time to vote. That and taking Faith to get new shoes tomorrow! It's so important to have your voice heard.

GO VOTE!

Other things on the agenda today include getting the black dye from the leather accents off of my red showmanship outfit. It cleaned up beautifully yesterday or so I thought. This morning there's black streaks all over! EEK! It better come off! I need to run to the post office and clean the house. Tomorrow is suppose to bring rain and then snow so I'm getting as many outside things done today as possible. Then I'm going to plop myself in front of the tv to see how the presidential outcome ends up.

Have a great voting day!

My first publication...

is finally here! I have 2 layouts in the November issue of Scrapbooking.com . These were picked up a few months ago but you have to keep it quiet until the issue is published. That was so hard for me to keep my mouth shut!!

Take a look:
http://scrapbooking.com/article/72520

What a Halloween it was!!!!

Here is Teddy in his dragon costume! He always wears a costume when he ~helps~ hand out candy to all the trick or treaters. It's a little small for him but he was a great sport with the whole costume thing:)

Next is Lance and I and Missy and Clay (my bff and her hubby) at our Halloween party. It was SO much fun!! Although this pregnant lady wasn't the life of the party as I was so tired but at least I made it longer than the other 2 preggos!
Lance and I are Cliff and Claire Huxtable from the Cosby Show!!






It was such a blast! I will post more pics of all the great costumes!!

Hope everyone had a great and safe Halloween!!