It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...especially in my house. I don't know why exactly but I've been uber-excited about Christmas and holidays in general lately. We put most of our Christmas decorations up a week before Thanksgiving this year. I just couldn't wait! And I've already wrapped all the presents we've bought so far. I guess I can blame it on two things: 1. Kevin wasn't here last year and I was super-anti-Christmas/joy/good mood/anything happy so now I'm making up for it. 2. Hormones.

Probably the latter.

Anyway, had to post the following photos because they make me smile. You'll see why.



We were trying to take Christmas card photos with Ruby and she wouldn't move for me to scoot in so instead the camera got us after I had given in to laughing rather than posing.



I was trying to be creative and I know it's not a great shot but for some reason, I really like it. Especially with Ruby straining to escape.



My dad came to visit (referenced in a previous "ape" posting) and he was playing with Eerwin, my friend's dog, and I love love love the photos of the two of them.



(Kelsey, I promise my dad is not torturing Eerwin.)

P.S. It only took me about an hour to figure out how to post photos from a URL onto blogger. Sometimes, I really hate technology.

Recipe for Chaos

So I rarely do two posts in one day because I feel each post should have its own spotlight for at least a day. But I forgot that I wanted to update everyone about what's going on at home. Nothing big, but it's crazy.

We have 3 large-ish dogs in our house that are all very energetic. We're still caring for Eerwin, the ball-obsessed lab, and now we're caring for Katie Bell, the timid, but lovey lab-mix. And of course, there's Ruby. So our house is D-O-G central. And this is the first year Kevin and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our house for people we don't know very well, so I'm thinking Thanksgiving will be quite interesting this year. As crazy as 3 dogs plus hosting Thanksgiving may make this Thursday, I'm still looking forward to it. I think it'll be a fun kind of chaos.

Happiest Thanksgiving!!

Life Lesson

If you are lucky like I am, you will get to learn from life lessons the fun way (a.k.a. the hard way).

Case in point: My dad came to visit a week ago. He, Kevin, and I were in the kitchen getting breakfast ready on a leisurely weekend morning. Kevin and I were preparing the food, so my dad was sitting at the counter talking and watching. It was a pleasant, calm start to the day. While getting breakfast ready, my dad picks up my What to Expect When You're Expecting pregnancy journal and browses through some of the pages. Then he begins to laugh. For everyone's enjoyment, he reads aloud: "Do you find yourself thinking about sex, sex, sex? Are you hornier than a college boy?" Then he turns to another passage and reads aloud: "Are you finding hair growth in new places? Feeling like an ape?" (And yes, these are actual passages from the journal. Not my dad's words, but the book's words.) He proceeds to roar with laughter, which in turn, infects Kevin and me. We are all laughing at the descriptions. Then the laughter slowly dies out, and Kevin says, "Great. I'm married to a hungry, horny ape. I'm such a lucky man." And Kevin and Dad get a great laugh out of that.

Lesson: If you are pregnant, never ever leave any pregnancy-related reading material lying around that may be used as fuel for jokes by your father or husband.

Beau

From random web surfing, to which I fall victim time to time, I found a beautiful poem written by Jimmy Stewart (yes, the Jimmy Stewart) about his dog Beau. If you're a dog lover or simply have an appreciation for the simpler things in life, visit this lady's blog, who has a video of Jimmy Stewart himself reading the poem on Johnny Carson. You can read the poem on the website, but watching the video is so much better.

http://maybellinesgarden.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-great-dog.html

Best Birthday Ever

My 27th birthday will go down in my history as one of the best birthdays ever! There are two main reasons why. Both are due to Kevin.
Here they are, not necessarily in order:

#1



Kevin finally agreed that I could get my hair cut and he wouldn't complain or say anything negative. As long as I was happy, he was happy. Hurray! It's so superficial, but I feel so much better.

And #2:



We (well, I) am pregnant! On my birthday Kevin and I went to our first OB appointment. We found out that (last week) I was 12 weeks along (now I'm 13 weeks along). How cool is that!?! I'm due May 20. And no, we will not find out the sex of the baby till the birth day. Look at the photo! It has arms and everything! That thing is in me! How weird.

So there you go, the best birthday ever. New haircut and new human being. Wow!

P.S. I promise I will try not to bore my readers with endless tales of baby related crap. I will have to do one big posting with all the details and more pictures of the sonogram images (with our alien-like baby as the star), but I promise I will try to keep the baby stuff to a minimum. As excited as I am, even I get bored with baby stuff after a certain point.