Christmas & 25-26 Weeks!

Christmas has come and gone yet again! ...and so has our vacation and break from work :( BUT I'm actually okay going back to work because I have an even better vacation to look forward to in just 3 months...time with our sweet baby girl!!

25 & 26 Weeks pregnant:

We had a busy but fun break!

December 23rd: Enjoyed Christmas celebration with the Powell family in Florence with dinner and the annual games of Bingo!

December 24th: Went to Sumter. Visited with my Dad and Jane, attended Christmas Eve church service, celebrated Christmas with Taylor and Caroline's family. So much fun watching the kids open all of their gifts!

December 25th: Christmas with my family in Sumter and then hit the road again for the beach to celebrate with Joseph's family.

December 26th: Happy 28th Birthday Joseph!!! Joseph doesn't exactly love the date of his birthday and I can understand why but we try to make it semi-special every year. Next year I am going to make him wait and open his birthday presents on his actual birthday so it's a little more exciting!

December 27th: New York City here we come!! We left early Thursday morning and flew out of Myrtle Beach to NYC for a little anniversary trip. My sweet sister allowed us to use her Hilton hotel points so we stayed in the super nice Double Tree suites located in Times Square. I have been to NY recently but Joseph hasn't been since elementary school and didn't stay in the city so it was a good experience to stay in the crazy, touristy part of the city! It was a wonderful trip!

We visited: Times Square, Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and skating rink, American Museum of Natural History, 9/11 Memorial, China Town, Wall Street and the Bull, Central Park, and various shopping locations :)

December 30th: Flew back home and lounged around recuperating from our trip and getting ready for the new year!

December 31st: Packed up Christmas, cleaned our house, and celebrated New Year's Eve via a very low key evening. Kim, Zach, and Jeremy came over for grilled steaks and we watched the Clemson bowl game before watching the NYE ball drop in NYC (Joseph & I both agreed we were very glad we were not still there in the mix of that chaos ;)

January 1st: Mckenzie and I did a little New Year's shopping while Joseph stayed home and watched the Carolina bowl game. I got home in just enough time to see the amazing ending! Proud of the Gamecocks this year!!

And today we returned back to work. It's hard to believe that it's actually 2013 already! We were engaged in 2010, married in 2011, got pregnant in 2012, and will welcome our daughter into the world in 2013! What a great few years!! We thank God for blessing us so richly and ask that He continue to do so and work in our lives throughout this next year!

SO much to look forward to in 2013: Our baby, Morgan and Adam's second baby, Kim and Zach's babies, Rebecca and Branford's wedding, Lyndsay and Breck's baby, hopefully a diamond for Mckenzie ;), and I'm sure there is much more to come!!

24 Weeks!

Christmas is less than a week away!! Joseph and I are both officially off of work through the New Year so we couldn't be happier to relax and spend time with one another and family!

I think we're ready!!



The past week:

Friday: Joseph had his wisdom teeth out :( All went well overall but recovery is still in process. He did wake up in the middle of the surgery but they were able to put him back under immediately. I think he's just glad to have it all behind him!

Sunday: Joseph's extended family Christmas party! The annual tradition is a chinese gift exchange which is always a fun time :) This year, Joseph ended up with a food scale (his own purchase) and being the sweet wife I am, I stole the Bobber cooler for him! Here are some pics from the fun chaos:

 

I worked Monday and Tuesday, and we had our 24 week appointment on Wednesday. Appointments are always reassuring and exciting when you hear the heartbeat. The heartbeat was fast and strong!

Thursday: I hit the road for Columbia to celebrate Christmas with my best college friends! On the way, I made a pit stop in Pinewood to visit Morgan and little Liza Barwick. Liza is absolutely precious and it was so nice to catch up with Morgan. She is due with #2 only one month after me so we had lots of baby talk and she is full of mommy advice, which I always love to hear!!

In Columbia, we all met at Macky's and ate apps and enjoyed our annual ornament exchange. We also celebrate birthdays that were missed/in December. Baby girl even made out in the gift exchange!!
Baby Toms, beach wear, and a passy clip:

Lyndsay and I had a fun slumber party at her parents' house and then I headed to Sumter for the day to babysit my 3 favorite babies!! Caroline needed to get some last minute Christmas shopping done so she went to Columbia while I played with the kids all day (Mom and Kenzie came over after naptime and helped/played with us!) Wells and Sarah Sloan did so well playing together/destroying the house and Benjamin just crawled around and took it all in. He is quite the calm baby!!

Wells and Sarah Sloan love singing Holy, Holy, Holy:) 

 This weekend Joseph and I will probably celebrate his bday with a few friends and we're heading to Florence Sunday for Powell Christmas before we go to Sumter on Christmas Eve! Excited about the next few days and next week when we go to NYC!!

23 Weeks!

I can't believe we're almost 6 months along in this pregnancy! Only 17 weeks left (if baby decides to stay for the full 40 weeks). She's kicking away as I type right now! She is about the size of a grapefruit this week. She weighs a little over a pound now and is beginning to fill out with some fat deposits around her body...Translation: her weight gain = weight gain for me too! Here goes ;) She can hear and sense all of my movements too! What a little miracle :)

Christmas really is my favorite time of year! I love Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas activities, spending time with family, and anything else that has to do with Christmas! Our calendar has filled up with Christmas activities:

This past weekend I had my work Christmas party and then went with Jo, Kim, and Zach to Mellow Mushroom and to see the drive-thru light show at the Pelicans Stadium. It was really neat. We set our radio to the Christmas station and the lights danced accordingly!

Saturday we headed to Charleston for Phil and Kristin Richardson's big day! The ceremony was at the Citadel Chapel, which was all decorated for Christmas. The reception was at the Creek Club at I'on and it was beautiful! We had a great time catching up with old friends and then went and stayed with Murph and Laura for the night. It's always fun to visit with such sweet friends :)

Sunday we hurried home to our furry girl (who stayed at home by herself for the night and couldn't go outside to go potty bc we left the wrong key for friends to let her out...whoops)! We had a pretty lazy day until supper club group arrived around 6:30, dressed for Christmas of course! We had salad, shrimp and grits, bread, and apple pie with ice cream for dessert! We also had fun doing our annual ornament exchange. That's another Christmas favorite of mine...ornaments!!

 

Tuesday night, we concluded our Bible study on Esther. It was such a blessing to study this book with all of these sweet girls. I think everyone enjoyed the study but also enjoyed meeting other girls who live in the MI area. We celebrated the final night with a pot-luck dinner and another ornament exchange!!

This week Joseph and I plan on finishing our Christmas shopping because Joseph will be resting all weekend after he gets his wisdom teeth out on Friday :/ Pray that it all goes smoothly and for a quicky recovery because we have his extended family's Christmas party on Sunday.

Christmas countdown= 13 days, Baby countdown= 17 weeks!

22 Weeks

22 weeks = 5 1/2 months! Wow- it's going by quickly...and I'm growing quickly!

Over Thanksgiving break, I definitely popped out! Mckenize and Joseph agreed that I didn't look pregnant and then two days later, it was quite obvious that there was a growing baby in there :)

Things have been pretty uneventful over the past couple of weeks. Joseph was in training in Charlotte for the entire week last week and then traveled to "the swamp" near Sumter for a boys only camping trip. They had a lot of fun but I think he was excited to come home and sleep in a real bed on Sunday! Since he was out of town, I went to Sumter for the weekend. Mckenzie also went home so it was a nice and relaxing weekend at home with the parents! I love these weekends spending time with family having no agenda. We didn't do much except eat and decorate for Christmas:

I'm excited about Christmas this year! Besides the camera Joseph and I are giving each other (yay!!), there isn't much I want but I'm looking forward to seeing all the kids this year. Macy will be walking around and is apparently loving Christmas trees! Wells and Sarah Sloan are both at fun ages and have really enjoyed birthday parties this year so Christmas should be interesting! Benjamin will probably just sit back and take in all the craziness, as usual. Sweet boy graduated from his "helmet" this past week!!



 

We're looking forward to another busy weekend this weekend. Friday- my school Christmas party, Saturday- Phil and Kristin get married in Charleston, and Sunday- supper club at our house!