Over the River and Through the Woods

We definitely traveled over several rivers (including the Mississippi River) and through a lot of woods to head to Grandma and Grandpa's house just outside St. Louis, MO.  Thanksgiving was a special treat this year because all my family traveled to my parents house- including my older brother and his family, my younger brother, and my grandparents.  My older brother and his wife (from California) have two little girls that we had not even met yet!  So my parents house was busy- 9 adults and 3 kids that were 2 and under!  It was so much fun having everyone together again and watching Amelia play with her cousins.  Such special memories!  We did have a photographer come and take our whole family picture as well as individual family pictures- those will be coming soon!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!

These are just a few of the things I am thankful for:

This is almost the whole family- minus my Grandma and Grandpa at the St. Louis Arch

Amelia and Grandma- unfortunately after this picture my camera battery died so I didn't get any other pictures from actual Thanksgiving Day.

Playing piano with Daddy

Amelia playing piano with cousin Kira (Kira is exactly 1 year older than Amelia)

tub time with cousins (Alyssa-13 months, Kira- 2 1/2 yrs, Amelia- 20 months)

my child was dubbed the "wild child" by family this week

Grandpa and Amelia- at the St. Louis Arch

waiting to take the "tram" to the top of the arch

Grandpa getting in the "tram"- more like a small pod with 5 chairs

Amelia riding on the "tram" to the top of the arch

Amelia and Daddy looking out a window at top of the arch

Amelia and cousin Kira checking out the view

Amelia absolutely LOVED the arch- she could not get enough of looking out the windows and pointing to things way way below

Uncle Will and Amelia

After visiting the St. Louis arch we went to a mall that had a little carousel in the food court.  Even though she is not smiling- Amelia really enjoyed riding the horses

Waving to daddy!  I could barely fit in between the two horses and Amelia was doing so well on her horse I decided to get on the one beside her.

What a great trip!  The only negative- it took us an extra 4 hours to get home because of the rain and all the Thanksgiving traffic!  An 8 hour trip (including a long stop for breakfast and a couple of other stops) took about 12 hours on the way back!  Ugg!  Amelia did great though- that's a long time for a little girl to sit still!

Turkey surprise

The other day we got a great surprise in the mail from Aunt Chrissie and cousins Abby and Ada.  My very creative sister-in-law had made a turkey shirt for Amelia and the girls had colored a picture for Amelia.  This morning as I was putting the shirt on her to get ready for church, I asked her if she was a turkey.  She shook her head and said "no, baby" while pointing at herself.  I just had to smile- even though we have been calling her a big girl she IS definitely my baby girl!

Sweet turkey girl

Great grin- now why can't she do this while standing up so we can see the whole outfit?!

sitting with Daddy-trying to get Amelia to smile

turkey nose

Hard to tell from the picture- but Amelia is rocking the turkey like a baby doll

31 weeks pregnant

I realized that I haven't given any updates about baby boy!  I am currently right at 31 weeks- which is towards the end of the 7th month.  So far everything has been great- baby boy moves around ALL THE TIME!  It seems like he is much more active than Amelia was.  I have been craving mostly sweets- not one thing in particular though. I've been having some lower back pain- but I think I must of pulled something because it is a lot worse than the regular pregnancy back pain and it is going way slowly but surely over the past few days.

I'm hardly having any heartburn- which I had a ton of with Amelia.  That makes me worry that this little guy may be bald.  I totally buy into the old wives tale that if you have a lot of heartburn your baby will have a lot of hair (it came true with Amelia).  So whenever I do get heartburn I get excited- I know, it's silly. 

When we ask Amelia where is baby she will point to my belly and she has even kissed my belly a couple of times.  Baby boy's room is coming together- his clothes are all hanging up in the closet and folded up in the drawers.  We are just waiting until after Thanksgiving to move Amelia to her big girl room- then we can paint the one wall BLUE in baby boy's room.  After that I can finally put his little bedding set together in his bed and get things all situated in his room. 

I feel like I'm already a lot bigger than I was with Amelia at this point.  Normal everyday things like rolling over in bed, bending over to pick up toys or Amelia, putting on shoes, etc are all becoming harder and harder.  We are hoping these last few weeks (especially with the holidays) will fly by and that Dan will be walking right before Christmas.

We plan to announce baby boy's name soon! (I'm trying to get the letters of his name done- either to hang on the wall or to put on a shelf)

Operation Christmas Child

I love the idea behind Operation Christmas Child- packing up boxes and sending them all over the world with people that hand them out to children and share the gospel.  We started a tradition this year- we will do one box for each child we have and let them pick out toys to send to another boy or girl that doesn't have any toys.  Amelia is a bit young to understand all that but she did help pick out toys and pack the box.

Amelia specifically picked out this teddy bear and kept hugging it before putting it in the box :)

admiring the soccer ball

who knew toothpaste could become a telephone . . . Amelia had a whole babbling conversation

One last bear hug

Our finished box :)

Learning about Thanksgiving

A couple of days ago, Amelia got a package from Grammy and Papa with a special Thanksgiving gift.  She immediately wanted to open it and play with it- a Little People Thanksgiving Celebration set. 

The set has a table with 2 benches, a turkey, 2 pilgrims and 2 Indians, a horse, a cart, a pumpkin and 2 panels that sort of make a backdrop. 

each piece has been rigorously tested :)  (and tasted!)

Her favorite piece- the Indian with the baby papoose on it's back- she just says "bay bee" over and over again

yeah- let's be Thankful for what God has given us!

Indians saying "hi, hi, hi!"

Daddy's foot surgery

On Nov. 4th Dan ended up having surgery on his broken foot.  It had not healed after being off of it for 6 weeks and with baby boy coming in January we just didn't have time to wait out another 6 weeks to see if it would 'start' to heal.  So the doctor and nurses worked quickly to get him in as fast as they could for surgery so he could be walking before baby boy comes!

Right after surgery he has 2 weeks in a soft cast- he cannot remove it and it's rather large making it hard to get on some of his pants.  Luckily we found 2 pair of dress pants that can fit over it and his shorts.  His work has been so kind about allowing him to wear shorts and set up his desk area where he can put his foot up during the day. Right before Thanksgiving he has an appointment to remove the stitches/staples and he will go back into the black boot for another 4 more weeks.  He cannot put any pressure on the foot during this time.  We are hoping that right before Christmas he will have the 6 week post surgery check-up and be allowed to walk in the boot!  After that- its about 4 weeks until baby boy so the goal is for him to be walking (without the boot) just before baby boy comes!


That first evening after surgery- we took it easy and had pizza

Amelia wore her "Daddy's girl" shirt

The next day- Amelia sharing one of her favorite snacks, string cheese, with Daddy

Even though he is smiling in these pictures- the first few days were tough- mostly exhaustion and trying to manage the pain.  After 4 or 5 days he was back working full days and not taking any pain medicines.  Dan is strong and has come through this so well- I'm so proud of my husband!  He made it clear that he had this surgery for me and for our baby boy.  He wanted to be able to take care of me in the last couple of weeks before baby and of course those first few exhausting newborn weeks.