Our December finale, sort of.

We FINALLY cleaned out what is to be the baby's room.  It's been "in the process" since we moved in.  It used to be filled with boxes with one little path that sort of led to the middle back of the room, then it was filled with Joseph's junk he got from Apple (thank you Apple for sending us so much paper), and now it is finally ready for a crib!!!  Just as soon as we get the crib of course all will be perfect.

Clearly the room is enormous.

As you can see, Joseph is working at the computer (at my sweet desk I got for $20 - WIN).  The crib will go where the TV and backpack are.  We will soon be getting rid of that TV because we got a new one and it's glorious - I love Best Buy.  Anyway, I LOVE nesting.  It feels so good to clean and get everything ready for little baby to enter into the world!  

I have been incredibly blessed by Heavenly Father with such a wonderful, helpful and thoughtful husband and to have this little baby on the way.  I can't even begin to describe my gratefulness to Him for such a blessed life.

I WOULD LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THAT PROVO HAS FINALLY SEEN THE BEAUTIFUL FACE OF FATHER WINTER.  Yes, it's happened.  It snowed.  And I was here.  (I'll have you take note that the last and first time it snowed, I was out of the state and it all melted before I got back).  All it took was one wonderfully fantastic night for there to be tons of snow.  I love snow.  It's so happy.  I'm so happy.  And I love wearing snow boots.  

Yay!

Our Sunday.

Ahh, yes.  Sundays are quite wonderful - especially in December.  We get to sing all the Christmas hymns at church ALL WE WANT and when we get home Joseph and I make our Sunday dinner.  Which is really more like linner - since we eat around 2.  These last couple of Sundays Joseph and I made the same thing that I have named "Slow-Cooked Steaks".  The originality of my title is unparalleled.  Because we literally slow-cook some steaks, but only after leaving some potatoes in the crock pot for 3 hours (while we're at church) to cook in some water.  When we get home we stick the steaks in for about 30 minutes (an hour if frozen) after smothering them in olive oil and massaging (yes) in salt and some delicious steak seasoning.  After that we grill them for about 5 minutes and make some gravy out of the watery goodness stewing in the crock pot.  AND VOILA!  A delicious meal of meat and potatoes completely smothered in the most delectable gravy.  Unfortunately I don't have any photographic evidence of such a meal because it gets eaten too quickly by my ravenous husband and myself BUT I do have a picture of Joseph cooking the steaks in a pan....

...... isn't he cute?!  

By the bye, that's the apron he got me for my birthday.  IT'S AMAZING.  

My project.

Saturday night Joseph and I went over to spend time with Robin and Neal and their two little kiddies (who were very shy upon our arrival).  Caius (the eldest), as soon as he would talk to me, would call me "Mommy, ... Grandpa,  ..." and then continue with whatever he wanted to show me.  It was really cute and made me laugh every time.  While we were there, the boys went off to play some computer game in the back room while Robin and I worked on some projects.  She made several Christmas stockings - which I now want to make for my growing family, and I started on some little tiny baby booties!  Once we left I had finished one booty which was so stinking small!  Over the next couple of days I worked on a matching hat and then the other booty (the second one didn't take me nearly as long to finish as the first).

I got sick of doing the hat about half way through.. so it's really small and *might* fit a premature baby.  Hopefully we won't have to use that one...  BUT..

BOOTIES!!  They're extra small and extra adorable.  One is also slightly smaller than the other, it's hard to make things the same size!!  When I finished the second one, I attached them together with a bit of yarn so I can hang them on the tree and they can be baby's ornament.  Then she can wear them when she's born (after detaching them of course)... then they'll go back up on the tree next christmas!!  Yay for completed projects!!!

Our three ornaments.

We put up our Christmas tree just before we left for Iowa for Thanksgiving.  I couldn't wait any longer.  Really, I wanted to put it up several weeks before Halloween... but Joseph didn't like that idea, not to mention the fact that having a Christmas tree up at a Halloween party looks weird.  So I waited as long as I could and thought that it would be nice to come back from Thanksgiving with our tree up and decorated!

Our little tree is only about 4 feet tall and made of various types of plastic.  I ordered it from the most wonderful place in the world, www.christmascentral.com.  I don't know why I didn't know about this treasure trove before but thank goodness I know now.  Our tree was $8!  Best, idea, ever.

We literally have 5 Christmas decorations, a tree, a string of lights, and 3 ornaments.  All of which can be seen in this picture.  Did I mention that I made our 3 ornaments?  (I also made that little baby hat on the shelf there, it's small and glorious, yay babies!!!)

I have started the nesting phase of my pregnancy, which is nice because I'm able to keep pretty busy all the time.  Besides constantly doing dishes and keeping the kitchen clean (which is where we spend most of our time) I've started cleaning and clearing out our office/second bedroom/junk room/food storage room.  There are a lot of things I want to give to DI that I have no use for but have held onto for some reason.  My mother was also kind enough to send in our POD along with all of my furniture a load of the toys and things I played with as a baby/child.  Which is great, I don't want to get rid of my Polly Pockets, but I don't want them in my house either.  I have a stinking box full of them!  Fortunately, we're having a girl (WOOT) so I can introduce her to the world of miniature and she will love it.  That equals less toys that I have to buy.  I got rid of a bunch of stuffed animals and some blankets as well - believe me, I have a lot of teddy bears that take up a lot of room, and parting with them is such sweet sorrow.  But don't get confused, I'm only getting rid of half of them.  AND since Joseph is finished with his Apple job for this year we had to send back all of the things they lent us (including the billion boxes we had to keep to send everything back in).  So there's that.  Oh and the forrest of trees Apple sent us in hand-out card type things that can be recycled or something.  Pretty much all I'm saying is that the room will look fantastic in no time at all.  

Ahh!!  My wonderful mother is getting us the crib of my d r e a m s.

It's a mini crib (for the mini space we have) that converts into a toddler bed.  It's so fantastic I could barf. I cannot wait to get it all set up in baby's room!!!