Christmas 2019

Christmas this year was a good one. I will admit as Christmas got closer, I didn’t feel a big Christmas spirit. I had a lot of fun shopping for others, but then, as usual, I got to getting things too late and had to ship gifts out, and I shipped them late – I just hate that I end up doing that EVERY year and it ends up costing me so much money, and the gifts end up showing up late. I did order things online for those people so that they did get something on Christmas, but it felt rushed and frustrating. I feel like I ended up spending more doing it this way. I didn’t feel like I got Gwen a lot of toys (which is hard because she just shares toys with Cara so I didn’t feel like I needed to get double gifts, but more of the toys were definitely geared towards Cara more). I also was wrapping gifts up to Christmas Eve and it got to the point where I left some unwrapped because I just didn’t care anymore, and my belly and back weren’t allowing me to do too many each time I finally did get around to wrapping. ….these are lessons to learn for next year!

How cute is this gingerbread house (the box, not the one 

We actually tried making haha)

We finally got a picture with Santa this year!!

Christmas Eve I had to work (again), but it was from home (again). I watched more movies, snacked all day, I created a nice pillow stack to lean on during slow times during work (so that I could get a good view of the movie around my screens) - it wasn’t too bad. So that day was uneventful. Although I love when the girls go down and it’s finally time to bring down all the gifts and put them under the tree! That is the best time.

My movies for this year

Christmas Day Cara had so much fun opening gifts, she wanted to just dive in! We had so many gifts for them to open that she got a bit overwhelmed and found a point where she didn’t want to open anything else (it didn’t help that I had her open her new toy camera – that takes real pictures – first so she really just wanted to play with that immediately). I told Larry that I think in future years we should just each buy the kids 3 gifts and one for each other and call it good. Especially since my mom and grandma get them so many things as well. The good news is we can put these toys and gifts up and just bring them back out throughout the year since there is so many of them.

We went to my Grandma’s for “breakfast”, which we haven’t done in so many years as well. I put breakfast in quotes because it was supposed to be at 10, but we didn’t start cooking it until around 10-ish and we didn’t eat till 11:30, so basically lunch time (luckily I gave the girls a pouch of food and some snacks that morning to hold them over). We had scones, hash browns, eggs, bacon, and orange juice and it was all so delicious! It was late, but very good. Afterwards, we kind of rushed opening the rest of the gifts and got out of there so the girls could take a nap when we got home. I felt bad rushing out, but we had been there since 9:45 and I was feeling done (not to mention the girls were getting sleepy).

At the end of the day I’ve been feeling very…conflicted. I love Christmas time, but I’m feeling like we buy so much and waste so much and we just add so much clutter to our house with it and while I love that people want to show their love this way, it just feels wrong. I’d much rather spend more time with family than just have them buy us gifts and call it good. I do my best to really be thoughtful with my gifts to people, but I feel like others just buy what stores push on them. It feels so commercial. I’m hoping I can find ways in future years to celebrate this holiday and make it feel more special and heartfelt. I don’t want my girls to just think of this as the holiday where they get a bunch of things. That being said, I’ve loved watching them enjoy each gift they were given and get so excited about them being built and getting to play with them. I think I’m just very excited about 2020 and all the goals I have planned for next year!

So with that I’ll say Merry Christmas to everyone out there! I hope it was a happy day filled with love!

3 Months (Weeks 9 - 13)




Compare/Contrast: So far this last month has been a bit easier. I decided to stop taking the meds over Veteran's Day Weekend (I had to go the ER due to some breathlessness and heart palpitations, but it turns out everything is fine and we suspected the breathlessness was due to the pills so we decided to take a break and see) and I got SO sick by the third day I literally couldn't keep anything down. I decided to start the pills again, but only taking 1 in the middle of the night instead of 2 and it is like my body realized it was exactly what it needed so I've been feeling so much better. Plus the breathlessness stopped pretty much instantly.

My new cravings include tomatoes and ice cream (but not together). I also absolutely love eating salads, which is new. I'll still eat junk foods, but if I can have salads I'm all for that! I'm still pretty tired and I smell all the smells, but other than the fact that I need pills for the sickness it's been a typical pregnancy for me.

Best Moments This Month: Definitely going to the doctor's on the 19th and getting even more confirmation that everything is going good. We got an ultrasound to confirm how far along I am and my official due date is now set to June 5th. The baby was wiggling so much and kicking the cord and looked like he/she was sucking on their fingers. I also got to tell the family and make my announcement on the 20th to lots of supportive comments. Which means I get to start parking in the maternity parking again :)

Luckily the sickness is subsiding, it's been only hitting at night and so as long as I go to bed early I usually handle it well enough. And we've been able to run errands on the weekends! My motivation and planning moods have come back!

Also, the holidays! My mom came to visit for Gwen's birthday party and we also had my side's Thanksgiving dinner, which was pretty good. I'm all for eggnog! I'm also all for lots of food and holidays that encourage that. We also did our own Thanksgiving again this year, but it was by accident - I didn't realize we didn't have an official invite to any other ones and they all had plans that were too far away and since it was snowing like crazy that day anyways we were happy to have it in our own home. But we just did rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, olives, and raspberry cheesecake for (my) dessert.

Not baby related, but I picked my planner for next year for my birthday gift and I'm REALLY excited about that!

What I'm Looking Forward To: Definitely getting to the 2nd trimester (hopefully feeling better), getting to know the gender (I really don't care which one it is, but I'll be happy to know and start making plans for him or her), and feeling movements!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving this year was so much different than before. I assumed since we did an early thanksgiving with my mom, we’d have the freedom to spend a full thanksgiving with Larry’s side this year. So on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving I text Marie to see what time they were doing dinner since we hadn’t heard up to that point, but she let me know they were switching years between her kids and her husband’s kids and this year was his kids’ turn. I felt so dumb because I remember she had told me that before and I completely spaced it. My family obviously wasn’t going to do anything, so we had to plan a super last-minute thanksgiving. 

We knew we didn’t really have time (or the patience) to do a whole turkey so we figured an already-made rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, olives, and chocolate raspberry cheesecake (I will always have the time for that dessert! Haha). Unfortunately, this did make us one of those last-minute shoppers at the store the day before Thanksgiving, but it was okay. They luckily had everything we needed, and it all turned out good (we just reheated the chicken in the oven on Thanksgiving Day). The girls ate little bits here and there but had enough to call it good (I’m not sure why Cara is suddenly the pickiest eater lately, she seems to only eat mac n cheese, pb&j, fruit, or pasta noodles).

Friday, I had to work (kind of had to, kind of voluntary). It was actually kind of nice because I got to work from home, so I loaded up our  DVD player with my Christmas movies picked for this year (I have too many to watch all of them every year so I have them divided between odd and even years), I stayed in my PJs, and worked from bed watching movies all day. Normally, I like to put up Christmas decorations on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but since Larry always has to work it seems pointless and we might as well just wait till the weekend to do that.

Saturday, I wanted to do some shopping. I make it a point to not do any shopping on Friday since I hear it’s crazy with crowds (and I absolutely hate crowds). I had wanted to start my shopping earlier in the month, but since the pregnancy sickness has really kicked my butt this was the first time I felt well enough to be out in public. We went to our shopping area in American Fork and oh my! The crowds there were insane! It didn’t help that the freeway in that area was shut down due to a tanker moving hazardous chemicals had flipped over so they had to clear the whole freeway (both sides) all day long – I guess all the drivers decided to go to shopping in the mean time haha. We were still able to hit up a few shops and I found some really good gift ideas for my list of people. I actually got really into in-store shopping that I might have to do this every year! I’ve decided online shopping is great if you know what you want to get someone, but if you’re looking for ideas, then shopping in stores to browse ideas is better and it made me feel like I got a bunch of good ideas.

Sunday, we did our usual grocery shopping and then put up Christmas. I will say we decorated a bit more than usual (and our new tree we got is so beautiful!), but I still want to do more! I really want to get outside decorations on this year for once, but I have a feeling it’s still not going to happen. I’m just hoping Christmas will be great this year, I’m very excited for it since Gwen is finally over a year and Cara is finally to a point where she can open gifts and is excited about them (anytime a box shows up she starts yelling excitedly “open it, open it!” haha).

Nana's Visit (again)

My mom came down for another visit this year and I’m so excited she did! We’ve had so much fun on her visits and I end up looking so forward to them when they come up again (and since we keep adding babies her visits aren’t likely to end anytime soon haha).

She flew in on the 21^st and got to spend time with my grandma. I took Gwen to her 1-year checkup and then met up with my mom and grandma at the South Town Mall (where they had a mini shopping trip) to get her, her groceries, and her luggage. We headed home and had dinner and just let her settle in (travel days are all about just getting settled).

On Friday, the 22^nd, we left the girls with Larry in the morning so we could meet up with Grandma at Gardner Village (not necessarily kid friendly), walk the shops, and have lunch. We found many, MANY cute things at all the shops. Mom and Grandma found quite a few gifts for the girls (I’m so going to have to go back to get these cute notepads I found and some cute books I’d love to add to the girls’ collection). Funny thing about lunch, I was telling Larry that morning how lately in my pregnancy I’ve been craving tomatoes all day long and I eat them as much as I can (in salads and stuff), but a BLT sounded really good so I was hoping we’d have lunch at a place that I could get a BLT. We went to Archibald’s (since it’s RIGHT there) and they had a half BLT and soup combo and one of their soups was a bacon potato soup so I ordered that and it more than hit the spot, it was BEYOND yummy! I was so happy (and content). After that we went home and played with the girls. We put a movie on after nap time and mom cuddled up with the girls and we just relaxed. It was a good night.

On Saturday, the 23^rd, we celebrated Gwen’s Birthday at Kangaroo Zoo. See this post about those details. Mom had a lot of fun with it haha.

Sunday, the 24^th, we celebrated our Thanksgiving with my family and I couldn’t have loved that more! We had all the best fixins, we had everyone there, and hardly any drama was involved haha. It was so nice to have another big family dinner (I don’t think my side has done that in many years, so it was very nostalgic). All the food was yummy, although Cara hardly ate any bites, but we all enjoyed it. I think my favorite part of these get togethers is how Olivia and Cara play together so well (of course Gwen tries to tag along, but she goes so slowly and hardly walks so she gets left behind a little bit haha).

Today was time to say goodbye to Nana. She always hates leaving, but it’s inevitable (I think I’m lucky that I get to come back to my girls after while she’s at the airport). The air was really thick and we got a really big snow storm so we were all joking that maybe her

flight would get cancelled, but that never happened. However, we did meet up with Grandma again for lunch, at Kneaders, and then walked around Kohl’s (where I found a ton of things I’d love to get, but also good Christmas gift ideas for others). Then it was time to head to the airport. Luckily we didn’t see so many turned over trucks this time and it was actually a pretty clear drive. 

We’re always sad at the end of Nana’s trips, but, as stated, we always have so much fun that they are more than worth it. I’m so excited for her next visit (probably after baby #3 is here) and having her help me juggle 3 kids haha.