38.5 weeks

"Official" pictures to mark 38.5 weeks pregnant:

I can now have this baby because ...

1. I got a midwinter pedicure.  (A huge thank you to Shawna for coming along!  So good to have a little relaxing girl talk time before Baby's arrival.  And now our husbands know it takes five hours to get a pedicure and go to lunch.  A huge thank you to our husbands too.)
2. I updated the Science Fair registration forms (in English--and in as much Spanish as I could manage).
3. I cleaned out the refrigerator.  Everything else in my house might be in chaos (an apology to my mom and mother-in-law who will be coming to help in said chaos), but my fridge is clean, by golly!  (At least for the next five seconds until it's not ... again.)

Happy New Year's Eve!  I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed early.

A happy birthday for Greg

Yesterday was Greg's birthday.

In the morning David took his Daddy skiing. (For thoughts on skiing in Wisconsin, go here.  You can also see pictures of David's first time skiing.)  David wanted to do a lesson.  We didn't make it to Tyrol Basin last year (no snow!!), so it had been a while.  David said it was a little hard at first, but by the end of the lesson he was really good.  (Greg confirmed this.)

During the lesson, Greg got a gazillion runs in (they don't take long when the mountain is more of a short hill).  Afterwards, they went down together a couple of times.  Then they went to lunch together and came home.  (It's nice that the skiing is close enough, small enough, and affordable enough that it doesn't have to take your whole day.)  David came home excited to do more skiing.  And Greg looks forward to returning too.

Meanwhile, Mary came with me to my last (LAST!!) doctor's appointment.  We listened to the baby's heartbeat together.  It was very sweet.  She is very excited to have a baby sister.

Later that day, Mary baked a cake for her dad (almost all by herself!) and made chocolate buttercream frosting (almost all by herself!).  As she reminded me again and again, she LOVES to bake.  After I frosted the cake for her, she did the decorating one hundred percent by herself.  She took it very seriously--and lovingly, as she knew this was something special for her dad.

The finished product!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

You know how you always try to blow out all your candles in as few breaths as possible?  Well, this year Greg set a world record!  He took zero breaths!  Of course, he had a little help ...

Greg deserves the best birthday ever!!  Unfortunately, he married me.  I did not grow up with a grand tradition of elaborate celebrations for holidays and birthdays.  But they are important to me!  Especially Christmas.  So I work hard against inertia to make Christmastime special for my family.  Consequently, by December 28th, I'm kind of burnt out.  Poor Greg gets kind of a bum deal.  I was sort of hoping the baby would be born on his birthday--that would make it special, right?

Someday Greg might get that big, amazing, thoughtful, special birthday celebration he deserves.  I hope.  But, really, no celebration could be big enough, amazing enough, thoughtful enough, or special enough to match what he deserves.  But it doesn't mean I won't try!  Someday ...


P.S.  Speaking of the baby's birthday.  I think it will be January 4th, as scheduled.  Yes, I am big.  I am huge!  I am short and there is just no where for this big baby to go.  Sometimes I think I am going to burst open Alien style.  But I still feel pretty good.  I am not having a lot of those aches and pains in the back and hips and pelvis that you so often get at the end.  According to the doctor, the baby is high--but to me she feels low because I can breath and eat.  Yes, I've been to the doctor 3 times this week!!!--in part because of a terrible mysterious rash. (Bleh.)  And, yes, having gestational diabetes at Christmastime sure stinks.  BUT I feel very lucky (blessed--I can recognize this as a blessing from above) to feel as good as I do.  In fact, I'll take it as a tender mercy of the Lord, who has been walking beside me this whole time.  Anyway, so I'd like to be able to crank through a few more things on my to-do list before Baby has her birthday.

Christmas pics 2012

It was a joyful Christmas!  We feel very blessed and very loved.  Our hearts were full of gratitude.

The big reveal!

A very pleased (and amazed) little girl!

A very pleased little boy!

Mary loved the contents of her stocking.  Meanwhile, David was ecstatic to learn that Santa had left him something on the computer:  Minecraft!

David and Mary rush around to take it all in.  (Greg looks pleased to see his children looking pleased.  Being a parent at Christmastime is awesome!)

David and Mary discuss something--probably who got the better present from Santa.  Sigh.

Mary can read this year.  So she got to read the gift tags and distribute the presents accordingly.  

Lots of happiness opening toys.

Yes, lots of happy faces.

David made an awesome calendar for his dad.  Here he shows Daddy every picture he drew. 

Not surprisingly, there was lots of Lego building.  This year, Greg had an additional building buddy--Mary!

Mary is a super Lego builder--she is meticulous and follows directions.   (By the way, thumbs up for the Lego Friends series.  Very well-designed.)

David is getting much better at building.  He built a Harry Potter set all by himself, and he built several pieces of this huge mining set.  Way to go, David!

Our new baby wasn't left out!  

Mary shows off a beautiful blanket and a precious quilt made by her grandmothers for our sweet baby girl.

It was a great day.  In the morning Mary asked what she was supposed to do that day.  I told her that kids have two important jobs on Christmas Day:  1) Let their parents take a nap, and 2) Play.  David and Mary both fulfilled their Christmas Day responsibilities wonderfully!

Later that day we ate nachos and watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  We laughed about how David used to be so scared of the Abominable Snow Monster that the mere sight of it would bring little David to tears.  We also played board games and read books and sang a final round of Christmas carols.

I love Christmas Day because I think it's truly the one day a year when I don't do anything.  I just be with my family. (Why is that so hard?)  I play with my kids or simply lay on the couch and watch them play.  I love my sweet family.

I am very blessed.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas dreams do come true

It is so fun being on the parent side at Christmastime.  I love staying up with Greg on Christmas Eve stuffing stockings, wrapping presents, and assembling Santa's gifts.  I love going to bed with everything just so under the tree.  There is a magical, quiet anticipation in the air, shared between parents who have been conspiring together for weeks to bring surprise and joy to their children's faces.

This year, however, we had a bit of a Christmas Eve crisis.  I spent ages picking out the perfect Santa gift for Mary.  It was of good quality, cute, pink, understated but fun, and the perfect size--big enough to be exciting on Christmas morning but small enough to fit in her room.  In fact, a few weeks ago I even rearranged Mary's room in anticipation of this gift.  We ordered the present weeks ago, noted that it had come, then hid it in the basement.

On Christmas Eve we pulled it all the way out of the box--and realized we'd accidentally ordered the wrong thing!  We had ordered the BOY version.

So I did what any mom would do, and I completely FREAKED OUT!  PANICKED!!! DECLARED IT THE END OF THE WORLD!!  But it was for good reason:  We were both sitting there staring at Mary's ruined Christmas.

Now, I'd like to say there is no reason why Mary could not and should not be perfectly happy with the boy version of a very cool toy.  Before I knew and loved Mary, I would have thought, "My daughter can stand to play with one thing that is not pink.  And she will like it!  Whether she wants to or not!!"  In fact, I would have purposely NOT ordered the pink version.  But the thing is that now I do know Mary, and I love her, and I respect her.  Mary sees the world in black and white, and sometimes that means she sees the world in pink and blue.

I knew exactly how she would respond.  She would immediately recognize the gift as something for a boy.  She would be confused, thinking Santa had accidentally brought David two gifts.  Upon hearing it was for her, and upon hearing our desperate explanations of how cool it was, she would be polite and put on a good face.  But I knew, deep down, she would hate it.  She would resent it.  She would probably play with it--but every time she did, she would wish it were pink.  She would wonder why she is the one girl in the world who got stuck with a boy's toy for Christmas.  She would know it would be wrong to express displeasure, so she would internalize it all, suffering in silence.

It was the worst year for this to happen!  A couple of years ago, we could have just given her a balloon and she would have been happy.  Or, a couple of years from now, we could just explain the situation on Christmas morning and promise that the right thing was coming in the mail in a day or two.  Sure, it would be anti-climatic and a little disappointing.  But not devastating.

As it was this year, Greg and I were sitting there staring into that big Amazon box--and we were looking at Mary's broken heart.

Greg, fortunately, is a man of action.  And his guilt (it was technically he who had ordered the wrong thing) prompted him to action.  But what can you do at 9:45 at night on Christmas Eve??  (This is why I was writhing in despair.)  Well, Greg called ToysRUs to see if they were still open.  They said they were supposed to be open until 10:00, but it was so slow they were thinking of closing right then.  Greg told them he was on his way and please stay open!

What does a dad do with 5 minutes in a picked over super commercial toy store?  A dad who feels guilty, a dad who loves his daughter with all of his heart and wants to spare her any disappointment and only wants to bring her a little happiness on Christmas morning?

He comes home with the biggest, brightest (did I mention BIGGEST) Barbie dollhouse the world has seen.  And then he stays up until one in the morning assembling it.

Really, I pretty much hate it.  Except that I pretty much love it.  It reminds me of her father's love, her dad who jumped into the car late Christmas Eve determined to spare his daughter's heart.  The magic of it all is that it's exactly what Mary would have really wanted.  Not some tasteful, high-quality, wood-crafted toy her practical mother picked out.  Whether I like it or not, Mary really likes to play with Barbies and princesses.  She has been lamenting that they have no place to live (which is why they have been living in the Christmas tree).  I told her they could live in a box under her bed.  (Since there's no way I'd ever buy her a Barbie dollhouse!!)  It's almost as if Santa Claus is real--and he made sure Mary would get something she REALLY wanted.  That her Christmas dreams would come true.

Christmas Eve 2012

The kids were going crazy on Christmas Eve.  They were just so excited...and Mom and Dad were busy in the morning doing this, that, and the other.  Finally, at lunchtime official family time began.  

After stopping for some lunch, we made our annual trip to Olbrich Botanical Gardens to see their holiday train display.  It's really the plants that are the stars of the show, and this year was no exception.  The poinsettias were amazing.  The past two years the display has had a forest/birdhouse theme.  This year they went with a tropical island theme.  I missed the birdhouses, but I have to admit that it was a stunning and festive display, with all of the tropical plants.  (And did I mention the gorgeous poinsettias?)

David and Mary LOVED the trains.  They watched them for ages.  (By the way, in the past we have gone first thing in the morning...which is always with the toddler crowd.  This time we went during toddler naptime, and we just about had the place to ourselves.  Much more fun.)

After watching the trains, we headed over to the conservatory.  It is so warm and humid in there--such a nice contrast to the bitter Wisconsin winter outside.

Mary loved exploring the paths through the tropical forest.

And David took a keen interest in learning about the different plants.

It was a good time.  We will miss this little Madison tradition we've created for Christmas Eve.

Back at home, we got to work on our Christmas Eve feast.  Mary helped with the table.  With her mad sewing, tying, and writing skills, she was a huge help!  Look at what a great job she did.

Then we ate.  Yum!

After dinner I read the kids Christmas books while Greg did the dishes.  Then we acted out the Nativity (picture here).  Next David and Mary exchanged gifts with one another.  They were ecstatic!  David gave Mary some Super Flubber (whatever that is), and she thought it was the greatest thing ever.

(He also gave her a Lego Friends set, which she opened on Christmas Day.  Very cool.)

Mary was determined to get David a Bionicle--which are now Hero Factory guys.  She picked one out all by herself--and David LOVED it.  He went crazy with excitement and gratitude!

Our kids do a really good job of picking out gifts for each other.  They just know better than Greg and I.  I guess because they are both kids and both in the kid frame of mind, and they do spend a lot of time together.   Over time I am realizing it's better not to try to influence them in their choices--they do a great job on their own.  Better than their parents can.  It's good to have a sibling!

After new pajamas we lit our candles and sang lots of Christmas songs.  Mary is quite the singer.  You can tell she really enjoys singing, and I'm amazed at how fast she learned a lot of carols this year.

All day the kids had been checking on Santa's progress thanks to Norad.  Mary is totally freaked out by Santa, and she was getting more and more nervous the closer he got.  Apparently Spain was too close for comfort because by that point she was begging to go to bed for fear of accidentally seeing him.  (We should probably tell her he is not real.  The problem is that David wants to believe.  David loves believing--and I feel like he should be allowed to, at least for a little while longer.  So I guess Mary will just have to deal--and probably go to therapy when she's older.)

We put Mary to bed very early.  Then Greg read to David for a long time.  Long enough for Mary to fall deep asleep.  Then I sneaked outside David's window with the sleigh bells and rang them.  He was in bed with his lights off in no time!  This was the first year I rang the bells.  I'm glad Greg got a chance to see how seriously David takes the bells--and how excited he is!  And, I have to admit, I had a good time ringing the bells.

Then, as any parent knows, with the kids asleep, the real work began!

I love Christmas Eve.

(If you want, you can take a peak at past Wisconsin Christmas Eves here and here.  No wonder I love Christmas Eve!)

Nativity and nutcracker

On Christmas Eve we acted out the Nativity.  David and Mary fought over who got to be the donkey.  Mary won.  That left me to be Mary, which was quite appropriate.  Greg jumped at the chance to be my Joseph.  I held his hand.

So here we are, with Baby's first appearance in a family Nativity:

Joseph, Mary with Child, Donkey, and thanks to David the Innkeeper for playing photographer.

(Please excuse the fact I'm basically not wearing pants...I didn't know Greg would insist on a picture of Baby's first nativity scene.)

Later that evening, David presented me with a nutcracker.  We don't have one, and he was so (SO!!!) excited to get me one for Christmas.  As I've said before, David and Mary love The Nutcracker ballet.  They know the story and all of the songs.  In our house at Christmastime, we don't listen to Christmas carols--we listen to The Nutcracker nearly nonstop.  David was bursting with excitement to finally give me my very own nutcracker.

Mary had helped David pick out the perfect nutcracker for me.  It is covered in gold glitter and sequins.  It is perfect, and I will love it forever.

(Please ignore the fact that I look more than a little disheveled.  I've been battling either the mysterious PUPPS rash or some kind of hives-turned-eczema.  Looking normal hasn't been my top priority.)

It was a special, magical Christmas.  Greg even declared it possibly the very best Christmas ever.  Many, many pictures to come.

Fear and faith

Yesterday we stopped by the hospital where I will deliver so the kids could see it.  Mary has been feeling nervous about the prospect of coming to visit me there, and we wanted her to feel a little more comfortable.  Well, Mary left feeling at ease.  But not me!

I don't know what happened.  But suddenly I was filled with dread and fear.  Paralyzed with anxiety.  Hospitals don't normally freak me out.  And compared to the hospitals where David and Mary were born, this one is the Ritz-Carlton.  I guess the realization just hit me that THIS IS REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN.  I am going to have a baby. Which scares me, because, in my opinion, there is no good way to get a baby out.  And then once the baby is out, one way or another, there it is.  You have a baby ... and all that goes with that.

Fear.  It filled my soul.  I feared every little thing that will happen in the hospital.  I feared potential complications.  I feared that dang incision.  I feared pain and discomfort.  I feared mean nurses.  I feared how big this baby will be.  I feared her learning curve with nursing.  I feared missing David and Mary.  I feared how they will hold up while I am in the hospital so long. I feared not being able to meet their emotional needs.  For a long time.  I feared how drugged up I will be.  For a long time.  I feared not being able to let go of control while I am recovering.  I feared caring about the laundry and the kitchen counters and teeth getting brushed and what my kids wear to school and lunches and dinner and screen time.  Things I should not care about for a while.  I feared David and Mary will feel sad.  I feared they will not be able to settle into their normal routines.  I feared they will remember this as a stressful, dark time for our family  I feared I will lose my temper in moments when they most need tenderness.  I feared Greg might break under all the additional responsibility.  I feared being too hard on myself.

Some of the fear I could not even articulate.  It was simply a dark feeling.  A feeling of dread.  Definitely not a feeling from God.  (Does anybody else end up in a dark place at the end of pregnancy?  I sure do.)

I didn't sleep last night.  (I broke out in hives everywhere!!  What the heck?!  Needless to say, it was a miserable night.)  I didn't think I would be able to get myself to church this morning.  But I so wanted to go.  I needed to feel something to counteract the darkness I felt inside.  I was a little delirious and itchy, but I made it.  And I'm so glad I did.

I loved singing the Christmas hymns.  The messages that were shared were insightful and inspiring.  David and Mary sang with the Primary children, and it was so sweet.  I adore my children.  Absolutely adore them.  And I remembered what an act of faith it had been to bring them into the world.

For me, there is no greater act of faith than that of bringing a child into our family.

Anytime we act in great faith, there is the possibility, even the inevitability, of great fear.  But I do not want to feel the fear.  I want to be filled with the hope and love that are intertwined with acts of faith.

"For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."  --2 Timothy 1:7

I may feel fear, but God has given me power.  And love.  And a sound mind.

"Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not."  --D&C 6:21 (John 1:5)

I choose the light that will chase away the darkness and the fear.  Sure, I still worry (about many of the things I listed above).  But the peace I felt today chased away the darkness that comes from fear.  Instead, I feel empowered with the Lord on my side as we take this step of faith.

Of course, the whole bringing another human being into the world is kind of scary.  Any act of faith is.  But it will be okay.  And even if it's not okay, because of the Saviors' Atonement, it will still be okay.

I have felt this fear before.  I have taken the leap of faith.  I have experienced the blessings.

And they are blessings beyond measure.

Christmas fun

We kicked off a weekend of Christmas fun with a caroling party hosted by the R family.  Christmas carols, yummy food, good company ... it doesn't get any better!  We had a wonderful time.


Then, yesterday we headed downtown.  We stopped by the hospital where I will deliver so the kids could see it.  (It's called St. Mary's!  Which Mary, of course, thinks is super special.)  Then we got dinner on State Street and drove over to Olin Park for the Christmas light display.

Yay, Bucky Badger!

Yay, ice fishing!

It's the Capitol and the Monona Terrace in the foreground and the background.

Then we came home in plenty of time to read a stack of Christmas books and put the kids to bed early.


This afternoon we had a wonderful surprise from Cousin Deserae.  She and Baby Elim appeared bearing gifts--huge art sets for David and Mary!  Heavenly!

The kids got right to work!  Elim included.

Deserae and Mikhael are very good at spoiling our kids.  (We missed Mikhael this afternoon.  He was stuck home sick.  Bummer.)

Love these kids!

David, Elim, and Mary

It's been a weekend full of Christmas cheer!  I really do love this time of year.