Our most exciting news is that we are going to have a baby boy in May! We are very excited to be adding a little one to our clan. Emma was a little disappointed to find out it was a boy because she wanted a sister so badly. But after explaining that boys play with trucks and dinosaurs and probably wouldn't fight her for the Barbies, she was just fine with a baby brother! My pregnancy is going well. At this exact moment I am right at 20 weeks, so I'm halfway there! Things with this pregnancy are quite a bit different than they were with Emma, but I'm also older and started out heavier than I did with Emma. I have aches and pains, and I'm finally able to sleep better at night. I was having a time where I was just so uncomfortable! Aside from all the normal stuff I have slightly elevated blood pressure, so we're keeping an eye on that so we can avoid medication and bedrest!
Our next exciting news is that we bought a new (to us) Chevy Trailblazer! JC's pickup is on its last leg and we figured we had better do something now so we're not scrambling when something DOES happen! We kept his pickup and it's being stored at his parent's house in Colfax. He's hoping to be able to slowly put money into it to get it back to a well-running truck. I love my Trailblazer. It's a metallic blue color with tan, leater interior. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles, but it has enough to be fun! Unfortunately I haven't taken a picture of it yet to share with you...we're waiting for a nice day, so maybe in April or May I'll be able to post one!!!
Christmas and New Year's were extremely fun this year. The youngest in the family, Brayden, is at an age where he'll sit and tear open presents with the rest of them. We had three family Christmases, in addition to one with good friends at the beginning of December. The weekend before Christmas we celebrated with Dick and Connie. JC, Emma and I celebrated Christmas on the morning of Christmas Eve because we had a feeling JC would be plowing Christmas day. We were right! He plowed from 7am to 7pm Christmas day. Knowing this, Emma and I headed North to Mom's house when the roads were safe to travel on so that we could spend Christmas with her. We were there until Sunday. It stunk to be away from JC that long, but I figured with us out of the house he could get some rest between having to go out and plow! Last, but not least, we celebrated Christmas with my entire family on January 2nd.
New Year's Even we spent with friends in Ankeny. It was fun watching the ISU football team win their bowl game, and then we basically just hung out the rest of the night, playing Rock Band and ping pong. Emma got to go this year, so she enjoyed that. In fact, at 1:00 am when I was about passed out and wanted to go home, Emma packed in the car with JC to head to a local gymnasium with the guys so she could run around with them playing basketball! At 1:30 I finally gave in and called it quits. Emma and JC came back to the house to get me and, despite being mad that we were going home, Emma was already passed out in her car seat! It was a great night.
I'm sure there's more I could share, but I think this is enough for this posting. Below are some of my favorite pictures from the holiday season. I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's. Here's to another decade!!!
