Decided to wash some clothes...

I tend to procrastinate. It's not my best quality. Today I was talking to a friend and she asked if I was all ready for the baby. I indicated that I was mostly ready except that I hadn't washed any baby clothes yet. She chewed me out and said I'd better get on it because the baby could come any day! She's right, as much as I didn't want to admit it. So I hauled up the boxes from the basement containing girls and boys clothes. I washed a variety of each.

Juliet had a great time helping me with the baby clothes. She recognized the outfit that she, herself, came home from the hospital in. (She loves to look at her baby picture book.) So there. Ha! Done.

Maxine's school sends home these brochures from Disneyland, detailing their vacation packages. The brochures irk me. Juliet was looking through one and said to Merril, "We've already been to Disneyland...what other lands can we go to?" We're thinking Thailand, Ireland, Greenland, Scotland! She's probably thinking more like SeaWorld.

I'm totally term today!!

So I'm 37 weeks. Holy Moly. It could come out and be happy and healthy! YIKES! So I put up the pack and play with the bassinet, put a sheet on it and made plans to wash blankets and both genders of clothes. This pregnancy has felt like it's gone by so fast and I can't believe I'm at the end. I've really felt great this pregnancy, except for the days that I'd lift too much. I'd really love to have 2 more weeks to get everything done that I'd like to. I teach a preschool co-op and I'm assigned to teach the next 2 weeks in order to give me the most time off after the baby comes. I woke up last night because of Braxton-Hicks contractions and panicked that the baby might be on its way. It's not.

Here is yet another picture with my crummy camera on my phone. I'm really too lazy to go get my real camera.

Since it's been so long since I was pregnant last, I've had less charlie horses, less heartburn, and less feet in my ribs. I had a dream last night that the baby was here already and probably 3 months old. It was smiling at me but wearing white pjs so I couldn't tell what it was. Then I opened a bucket of flour that was full of flying weevils, which creeped me out. Weird. I woke up worried about disinfecting the pantry but luckily, no weevils. Thank heavens! Have a great day!

New carseat...

My Mom wanted to buy a new carseat for the baby, so I let her. :) We browsed WalMart for a little bit and picked out this one. It's brown, tan, lime green and orange. The base matches the Tahoe interior nicely. :) So I brought it in and the kids wanted to play with it. Juliet put her favorite doll, Suzie, in it and has been playing "Mom" ever since.

It's almost a little scary to see a baby in the carseat already. :)

Having an off dinner day...

I like to think that I make good dinners. My kids tell me I make good things for dinner all the time and I figure they're pretty tough critics. But tonight I failed. Merril was out of town and I generally don't try as hard at dinner time if Merril's not going to be there to eat it.

Earlier I had promised Juliet that I would fix macaroni & cheese, which I never make when Merril's home. Already dinner is going downhill. I see a whole pineapple and figure I could chop it up and have it as a side. Rummaging in the fridge, I see brussel sprouts from the bountiful basket and think, "I need to use these up." So I cut them in half, drizzled them with olive oil, salt and pepper and put them in the oven to roast. So dinner consisted of

Mac & Cheese

Pineapple

Brussel Sprouts

Oi. All by themselves, not necessarily bad. Together for dinner, it just felt weird...off...not melding at all. The kids ate the mac & cheese and the pineapple fine. I had to really coax them to try a brussel sprout. I ate lots of everything, especially the brussel sprouts. I struggle with brussel sprouts but thought they were really good this time. But as I ate dinner, I thought to myself, "This is going to cause some serious heartburn."

Vegas trip...

Over the Martin Luther King weekend, we decided to take the kids to Vegas. It was a last hurrah before the baby comes. We just went down for the day and took some very crummy low light pictures. :) But hey, I wanted to get them on here before I forget.

We got some Wahoo's fish tacos. Then we drove up Las Vegas Boulevard and saw the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. Maxine commented that it was a lot smaller than she thought it would be. We explained that the sign is really old and at the time it was great.

First we went to the Bellagio (Merril and I love it there) and saw the Conservatory. It was decorated for Chinese New Year.

We watched the Bellagio fountain show.

Then we walked across the street to the Paris and went to the top of the Eiffel tower. Merril and I have been to the top of the Stratosphere a ton but never to the top of the Eiffel tower.

From the top of the Eiffel tower, we could look down at the Bellagio fountain show canons, which I thought was pretty groovy.

We stayed up there for the next show and Merril snagged this picture.

Then we met up with my sister, Jess, and her family for dinner. Then we went to Fremont Street to see the light show. Juliet was tired and cold by then so Merril drove around with Juliet while Maxine, Jack and I saw the show. We saw a very bendable man who could fit into a box, the light show and bought some balloon animals and a hot chocolate.

After that we drove home. It took me me 5 days to recover from all the walking. Merril was amazing and ran to get the car several times and had me sit and wait but I was still pretty beat up. I'm back to feeling good again and can't believe mere weeks separate us from a newborn infant.

A Christmas gift...

One Christmas gift that Merril made me grew from a comment I made a few months ago. I mentioned that I thought my fridge always looked "messy" because I hang so many things on it. I thought maybe some type of magnetic boards could be attached to the back of my pantry door so I could still hang things, but close the door and hide it. So Merril decided to make them. So here is my very clean fridge!

If I need to look at stuff, I can just open the pantry door and unveil all my untidiness.

The curse of a really clean fridge is that it made me want stainless appliances even more. Maybe next Christmas?

Happy Epiphany...

Epiphany, or 12th Night was yesterday so we made a king cake to commemorate the event. Epiphany is a holiday that celebrates the supposed day the 3 Kings found the baby Jesus (I think). Mostly, it's a time for me to make a wreath-shaped cinnamon roll and hide a teeny, plastic baby doll (to represent the baby Jesus) in the dough. The cake is sliced and whoever is lucky enough to get the baby in their slice, receives good luck for a year. I feel like it really ends the Christmas season for me as well. Here are the kids and the king cake. They are each holding a teeny baby Jesus.

Merril cut the cake since I knew where the baby was hidden.

Maxine's piece had the baby hidden in it and she was very excited. Juliet started to cry and went to bed right after. She was tired.

Jack was playing with a different baby doll and made it look like the baby was crawling over his piece of cake.

We finished taking down all the Christmas decorations and cleaned the house today. Ahhh. I never mind the decorations until they disappear. Then I sit in my clean house and feel relieved that it's all gone. I debated getting some Valentine's Day stuff out but I don't think I'll want to clean it up next month. So I might just skip Valentine's Day decorating this year.

Coral Pinks 2012...

Since it was a brand new year, we went out to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, just like we do every year. We went out on Monday because New Year's Day was on a Sunday. Usually there's about a foot of snow on the sand but not this year! The weather has been so warm and hardly any snow was on the sand. I brought snow gear just in case but the kids didn't need it, aside from boots and gloves.

There I am, 34 1/2 weeks.

This is Merril's new work truck. He bought it at an auction in Seattle, WA and the front bumper was smashed. He got a screaming deal on it! There's a couple of things that still need to be fixed but it runs and drives and we're quite happy with it.

Grandpa brought some shovels and inevitably holes were dug. :) Juliet and Jack fit in them the best.

Happy New Year! I've thought about resolutions and all I can think of so far is I plan to drop 25-30 lbs. (I expect to gain a few more before I start losing but that can't be helped.) Other than that, I have low expectations for the year because I'll have the bambino. I'm focusing on just getting the bare essentials done around the house and family for a while. I don't feel like that's a goal though. It's not that I don't want to set goals, it's just that I want to keep them realistic because I'll have a newborn and don't want to take on too much. I hope the rest of you have really ambitious goals, for me, I'm just happy to be here.

My realization...

So in church I leaned over to Merril and said, "You realize that next month we're having a baby." Commence freaking out. :o Okay so we didn't freak out but it's feeling close. I just need to get a new baby car seat. Yikes. Happy New Year!