Moving On

Yes, this IS a positive pregnancy test you see!

I took it about a month ago now, while D was on interviews actually, and was really excited to see the results! They say the first pee of the morning is best, but this was taken after drinking water all day at work and peeing regularly, so I figured if it was positive at that point in the day, then I was definitely pregnant!

We waited a month to tell everyone because that's when the doctor's appointment was scheduled. I didn't/don't feel pregnant and I wanted to be sure we weren't lying to everyone, so we waited. It was kind of hard, but it was nice having that secret to ourselves for a bit while we adjusted to the news. I feel fine, no complaints at this point and I'm praying it stays that way!

It was really fun telling everyone today, boy does news travel fast! My mother, and father for that matter, told the entire family and some close friends inside an hour. Quite the accomplishment considering everyone that was told. Mom was way too excited, so I'm glad she got the chance to call everyone...I think if you saw her right now, she'd be glowing! Direct quote from her, "Oh I'm just so excited that I just want to go out and buy a ... crib!!!" And Dad's been just as excited, which is odd (for his personality) and cute. D called his parents and his brother and his sisters, which he couldn't wait to do. So the first wave of people knowing is over. We'll tell our friends this weekend. At work, people's jaws were dropping because it was totally unexpected, but it was cool to see their reaction. It's neat to know that this baby is no bigger than an inch and already all these people love him.

On that "him" note, at this point we don't want to find out the sex of the baby. Well I don't and D says he would find out if I wanted to, but won't if I don't want to. So we've just been calling the baby "he" because "it" just seems cruel.

The only difficulty in the forseeable future: Kristina's bridesmaid dress. Yeah, I'm not going to be fitting into that size 4 we bought come June. I'll have to see what can be worked out, but it seems like Mom is already on that, too.

Oh, and some name suggestions we've already gotten:
Ernest William
Trident Forester-Peppa
Alayna

Much more to come...as I think of it. For now, I've added the pregnancy ticker to the side bar of my blog so you can keep track of our baby's progress.

Just wanted to share some exciting news...Auntie Anne's is having a FREE pretzel giveaway this Saturday:
Now, I wonder just how many Aunt Anne's I can hit up in that amount of time... Just kidding, I wouldn't want to take advantage of their kindness, too much...

Herb Garden at Day 11:

Not much to update. D's on his way home, as I write this, from the last of his interviews. We'll probably sit down this weekend and do the Rank List, but it's not due in until February. I can tell you right now that D probably won't let me say what order we put everything in, but everyone will know where we'll be come March.

Oh, and I might have played a little Wii while D was gone. It can be addicting! He ordered Donkey Kong Country for me with his Wii points and oh how I love that game! Didn't get very far, but I had fun in the process.

See what I mean...not much to update...

I got around to planting my herb garden last weekend and it was quite easy...after reading all the directions:

Mom was so excited that "all of her family" was together on her birthday. So excited, in fact, that she decided to round up all of us and snap this picture:


That's why she's holding her little date thingy, January 2nd is her birthday.

In other news, there's not much news. D and I have been spending lots of time together, which usually involves me falling asleep while he reads or does computer stuff. He's been back for a week now and boy has that time flown. We went out to lunch on Sunday with our friends who are leaving for 6 weeks on a support-raising trip. They're from Ireland, well she's an American citizen, but hasn't ever lived over here for an extended period of time until now. They have a two-year-old and she's seven months pregnant with their second, so it'll be an interesting six weeks! Tomorrow night I'm making that pulled pork recipe I made back in the summer and have been craving ever since. I invited a few friends over so there wouldn't be TONS of leftovers...and because we enjoy their company :).

January is always the calm after the storm and it can get pretty boring, in my opinion. So basically we're waiting it out until March (20th, to be exact!) to see where we'll be moving to and then the pace can pick back up again. I guess, then, this can be considered the calm before the storm, too.

Speaking of storms, we had a pretty good snow storm today. It was that heavy, wet snow that isn't fun to drive in, but beautiful to look at. It's so cozy in our apartment right now! We actually went into a flurry of cleaning activity because of our guests tomorrow, but it was cozy while we were cleaning. Ok, I've rambled long enough. Stay tuned for pictures of my newly-planted herb garden that Mom got me for Christmas!

I know we did some more things during our two-week stint in CT, but at this point I can't remember and I really don't want to drag vacation posts on much longer. So, I'll round them out with our New Year's Eve/Day happenings.

Mom and I were at iParty looking for something for one of the weddings when we stumbled onto half-off Christmas items and a cool New Year's Eve party-in-a-box thing. So she bought it and invited G&G over along with Ryan and Yana (Nick and Kristina had plans with some friends). The four couples had such a fun evening together eating the pot roast and lemon cake, drinking tea, and of course talking, laughing, and joking around. Mom took our pictures in front the "Happy New Year" sign, which you can't really see, but that's what it says:





We all had party hats, leis, noisemakers, and strings of confetti (to toss at the appropriate time, although no one waited until the appropriate time). All of us were being silly and there's Dave...eating! :)

The next day there was a pretty nasty snow spell that made it difficult to go across town to D's parents house for a very yummy New Year's Day dinner. But we made it and the snow was pretty to look at, just not to drive in:


D had an interview the day after New Year's (aka Mom's bday). We left that evening and made it back here in our usual four hours, thus concluding our two week vacation! It was nice only having to work for two days before the weekend, but then D left again that Sunday for four more interviews. He's back, 800 miles later, and doesn't have to leave again until the end of January for the last of his interviews!

On the Friday before New Year's, I offered to watch my niece Ariana so her mom, her aunt, and her grandma could go on a shopping spree at the local mall...and so I could play with her because she is just so much fun to be around :)! She was such a good girl and interacted so nicely with everyone at my house. We ventured outside for a bit and she seemed to enjoy that. Towards the end of our time together, she even took a two-hour nap, during which I laid down, too because little people are good at wearing out big people!

That night, D and I gathered up all the ingredients for a chicken parm meal, complete with salad and garlic bread, and headed over to my grandparents' house. We wanted to make them dinner as part of our Christmas gift to them, so that's what we did! Everyone seemed to like the meal and there was plenty of leftovers that G&G told me they had for days afterwards! They are two of the sweetest people I know and I so enjoyed visiting with them at their house. That house holds many great memories and this was just another one to add to the list. After dinner, Gpa scrounged around and found his old yearbook from his USS Oriskany days and showed D and me what life was like on the boat. Then we all watched the DVD we gave him for Christmas, the one about the Oriskany being made into man-made reef off the coast of Florida. Gpa visited it while it was being dismantled in Corpus Christi (I'm assuming around the same time they were taping the show) and while he was sad to see it in such a state, he told us a lot about the ship. Overall it was a great night and one that I'm sure we will soon repeat.



Aren't they cute?!

Anyone who knows me knows that Mom and I are close, like best friend, call each other every day, tell each other things we wouldn't tell anyone else besides our husbands close. Now, don't get me wrong, at 26, she still parents me when she feels the need to, but obviously it's much different parenting than when I was 6. She does it perfectly, too, not overstepping any boundries or trying to force her will on me. I'm truly blessed to have this relationship because I know mother-daughter relationships can vary from no mother in the picture to having a mom just as a mom, but not a close friend and so on. However, I'm so glad that ours is the way it is and I hope (and know) it always will be because I know we both wouldn't have it any other way.

I probably should have saved this post until Mother's Day, but not only would I have forgotten, but I would have missed a perfect opportunity to say THANK YOU to a wonderful Mom. She is beautiful on the inside and out and she will always be one of my favorite people in the world!

What made me think of all this? I noticed these pictures as I was going through the millions we have of our Christmas vacation and thought about what a cool mom I have:

Not exactly sure what went on Wednesday, but Thursday was a super-busy day. Mom and I met Kristina, Nick's fiancee, and some of her bridal party (and her mom) at Olive Garden for lunch. We got the endless soup, salad, and breadsticks and oh how yummy! After lunch, we met more of the bridal party across the way at David's Bridal for the purpose of choosing our bridesmaid dresses. Kristina didn't care what style we had, only that we had the same truffle-type color. We scoured the racks and tried on so many dresses. We all finally ended up picking the same dress because it fit everyone so well. It kills me to pay that much money for a dress I'll wear once, on top of doing the same thing for Ryan and Yana' wedding, but some things can't be helped. I'll probably end up getting one or both hemmed so I can wear them again. Anyway, here's some documentation of our dress-finding journey:

That evening, Mom and I went to David's sister Mary's bridal shower at our church. The theme was Mickey and the church basement was decked out! I had a lot of fun being the scribe. I got to see the gifts up close and she got a lot of nice things!

We had a really nice Christmas this year, like every year, even though it was a bit hectic. We started off the morning at my house, went to D's around noon time, and then went back to my house for dessert and to see the rest of my extended family. We were surrounded by family on both sides and enjoyed every minute of it!

I'll spare you the Christmas morning pictures. Dad is merciless with that camera and I don't want to make any enemies... But it's enough to say that we had an enjoyable morning at my house, opening our stockings on my parents' bed and then going downstairs to where the tree was and opening the rest of our gifts there.

Around noon, D and I headed over to his house where all this siblings were and where an early afternoon dinner was going to take place. Shortly after we got there, D and I opened our gifts and handed out the gifts we got for others. We got a lot of nice stuff...D started playing with his new iPod right away and I started fiddling around with my new digital camera. The next order of business was making dinner. All the girls made different sides to go with the ham. Everything was ready on time and boy did we eat!! We spent the rest of our time chatting and catching up with everyone.

Just after 6pm we arrived back at my parents' house to find it full of friends and family...and the table full of delicious-looking desserts. I love full houses! So we chatted some more...and ate some more...and thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas day!

On Christmas Eve, Dad and I did a little last minute shopping for Mom. He always waits until I get into town to go shopping for her and this year was no different. Not that he isn't a good present-picker-outer, but I think Mom is happy that I go with him...

By the time we got home, Grammy and Grandpa were there! Each year they go around to the grandkids' houses to hand out presents and they get a progressive dinner along the way! It's a Christmas Eve tradition they started when we stopped gathering at their house on Christmas morning. I loved going there on Christmas, ah the memories. Anyway, they had dinner with us and then we all exchanged gifts:

After G&G left, we headed over to David's house to visit with his family.

Ok, back to vacation updates...On Sunday after church (we're talking Christmas Eve Eve), Dad and Ryan met David's entire family over his parents' house for a family photo shoot. As you can probably tell, there was a dress code: black shirts and jeans. The cousins got to wear red shirts and jeans to add a little splash of color. All in all everything went really well. It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would and the pictures came out great. Obviously most of the time was spent getting the little girls to smile and pose, which didn't really work, but I guess that's to be expected. I won't bore you with all 183 pictures, so here are a few I like: