Well we’re off. It’s been a lovely week, though I’ll be glad to get back home.. It’s great to be with family but there is something to be said about your own bed..

Christmas was awesome and Grace had a great time. There some new pictures on Flickr for anyone who is interested. We finally got an actual family portrait done. You know, where you dress up and someone else (not a timer for our own camera) took the picture.. We got some awesome ones of Grace. Anyway, we’ll be getting a New Years Card made upto send out. Better late than never right? I don’t know that we’ll do a “letter” or not. While I love the concept, I just don’t think it’s for us.

Anyway, I’ll catch up here again.. once we’re home. Today is Sunday.. super early. We’re meeting Chris’ family for breakfast right before we pick up Coco at her temporary home (the one that I’m sure she’ll regret leaving to come with us)..and then we leave. I’m 14 weeks pregnant today. No movement except for little tiny flutters here and there. I did not bring my doppler with us this week and I really wish that I had.. it will be good to get home and hear that. Though I’m in the second trimester, I guess I’m having some periods of being paranoid still.. I’m sure it’s okay though.

Hope you all have a safe and happy New Year! Be sure to make your resolutions challenging, but attainable..

I’m so giddy I cannot sleep anymore. In just a little while I’ll get to watch Graces’ face as she discovers the fun stuff that Santa left for her overnight. I’ll be ready with video camera in hand to catch every detail.

Yesterday went well, though I did have quite a few errands to run. I seemed to get really lucky with most of them! It wasn’t until the diaper fiasco at Albertsons that I ran out of luck. I waited in line for approx. 15 mins for a bag of diapers. Oh yeah, and Einsteins was just about out of bagels so I ended up with a dozen plain, cinn. raisin, and cranberry orange (which for me is fine, because that is what I liked anyway). Except that I honestly really wanted a pumpkin one. Thats what I get, waiting until 2pm on Christmas eve..

Anyway, but the other stuff went really smoothly. I was dreading Target. But I wanted to get a pair of pants for Grace to wear today (Christmas). They are black with tiny red and white candy canes. She has a pair already but in just a few washings they have faded and gotten fuzzy. Since they were only $5 I decided to try to get her a new pair but I had trouble tracking one down until yesterday, when luck was with me and they one ONE PAIR left in HER SIZE. THAT, my friends..is a Christmas Miracle. Okay, not really.. but I was pretty excited. Then I exited Target after just a 2-3 min wait in line.

I got my contribution for Christmas dinner ready to go, the jello salad (you know, the one with the pretzel crust and the whip cream/cream cheese middle and the strawberry jello top), and the shrimp ball/cracker appetizer.

As for our good deeds to those less fortunate this year? Well, as a moms’ group we adopted a family. That was awesome. Sometimes when you donate money you can’t be sure how much of it will actually go to someone in need. But with this, since we delivered all the goodies ourselves, we knew they got every bit. It was a family of 5 and we helped them to have a very Merry Christmas. Also, Chris and I took it upon ourselves to help someone who we see on a regular basis. On the trail near us, is an overpass. Under this overpass, lives a homeless man. In the mornings when Chris sees him, he is bundled up in blankets and whatnot, trying to stay warm. In the afternoons, on the days I walk Grace and Coco..he is out and about, sometimes hanging out by the creek, sometimes up on the trail. Once the temperatures in the area reached freezing at night, we talked about how he manages to stay warm in the wind tunnel of the overpass. Then we started talking about the fancy sleeping bags we own and never use. Chris in particular had an REI sleeping bag that is a 20+ bag (meaning it makes you sweat your butt off in anything over 20 degrees). We decided that if and when we ever go camping (because really, I’ve discovered I’m not such a camping pioneer) we’d want to get sleeping bags that could be zipped together anyway, and that we could give this sleeping bag to this guy to give him an additional layer of warmth. So one morning last week, Chris walked Coco like usual, but stopped to give this sleeping bag away during the walk. Not much was said, but he’s seen him using the bag since. I felt like we really made a difference. It made me want to give away the rest of our unused sleeping bags and camping gear.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and your family, may everything you’ve wished for for the holidays and next year come true.

We had it today. So far everything looks normal, though it is a two part test (ultrasound, bloodwork) and we still have to wait for the bloodwork. This measures for certain trisomy disorders and down syndrome ( I don’t fully understand the trisomy disorders). So sometime next week we’ll get the results of the bloodwork (which I’m sure will also be normal).

Baby was measuring right on track for my dates and I’m pretty much getting into the second trimester now. Grace thought it was neat to see the “baby”..she kept pointing at my belly and then at the monitor going “baby!”.. though we couldn’t get her to give us a prediction as to the sex. Before she’s said Baby sister. But occasionally she says Brother…so we’ll see.

After this we’ll hear from my regular doc with the actual results and decide whether to do the AFP testing or not (which is another downs test but also tests for things like spina bifida, etc . That is done (I think) between 16 weeks and 20 weeks. Insurance covers that one also so I think we’ll seriously consider it. It’s just a bloodtest so it’s not invasive at all.

Then after that we’ll have the anatomy scan (and hopefully a gender sneak peak) sometime around the 18th-20th week..