Well, another Christmas has come and gone.  This year marks the 2nd Christmas that Mary and I have been married.  I have to say, it really was a great one, too.  Not because I got the so-and-so I always wanted or because we went away on vacation.  No, it was mostly due to the time I got to spend with people.  Christmas was about family.  I really enjoyed all the time with both Mary's family and mine, young and not-so-young!

We also had just a few people over to watch Elf (hopefully a new annual event?).  No big spread or anything fancy, just pizza, some dessert and friends.  It also just happened to be a couple days before Mary's birthday, so we were able to get a little extra celebrating in!

For some reason, I was much more into Christmas than usual.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but I found myself singing random verses from Christmas music a LOT (especially from White Christmas).  Maybe Mary's affinity for the holiday is rubbing off on me?  Maybe it meant more to me knowing that we'll have our own little one with which to celebrate, soon?  Maybe it was watching White Christmas three times this year (once at the Tivoli)?  Either way, it was a great feeling.

Any day now, we're expecting our new arrival!  It is so exciting (and at times overwhelming) to know that so many people are so anxious to meet him or her.  Mary and I seem to be doing good jobs of keeping each others' nerves in check as we grow anxious, ourselves.  Aside from Mary's annual meeting and Christmas, we've been working really hard to try and get everything ready for the baby.  Although things are not (and may never be) 100% ready, we're ready enough.  Now...it's just a waiting game!

It is hard to believe, but I am only 3 and a half weeks away from my due date.  When in the world did that happen and where did the time go?  It seems so long ago that we first found out I was pregnant, but at some point, life seemed to move in fast forward and we are now quickly approaching the time when our family of 2 will be a family of 3 (+Bentley, of course). 

As I am sure you'd guess from my absense on our blog these days, we've been keeping VERY busy.  The Annual Meeting for my work took place just after Thanksgiving, so there were 2 weeks where I awoke very early, worked 12 hour days on average, ate whatever we had on hand (although we had planned ahead well), and went to bed.  Jack made sure to take care of me, just as he has all the way along this pregnancy, but particularly those two weeks.  I always have a bit of a melt-down after the Meeting is over; it is an adjustment back to "normal" life, but this year, normal seems very up in the air.

I am happy to report that all of my doctors appointments are going well and I am going every week now until the baby arrives.  The docs aren't concerned about anything, so it is just a matter of waiting now.

We were fortunate to have two baby showers, which took place on the weekends on either end of the Meeting.  The first was hosted by my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law at a restaurant in Westmont the Sunday before move-in started.  The women from Jack's side of the family were invited, along with the close friends of my mom-in-law and all of my girlfriends.  It was so nice of her to include my friends in this one and I had a great time.  Both parties were smaller groups which was nice because it made it possible to talk to just about everyone.  And for me, it was nice to see girlfriends from various parts of my life all socialize together.  The second was hosted by my mom at my parents' house the Sunday after the Meeting.  Once again it was a smaller crowd of just the ladies from our family, but it was nice to talk with everyone and feel how excited they all are for us.  We are so very fortunate to have such amazing family and friends with whom we can celebrate this upcoming milestone and the gifts we received were very much appreciated!

The Meeting always puts a bit of a crimp on the time we have for the holidays, so Jack and I have been doing what we can to enjoy the Christmas season, as he knows I LOVE this time of year, while still making sure to work at our other priorities, such as making sure we are as set as we can be before Baby Minster arrives.  We bought our Christmas tree and put it up right away, but it still has yet to be decorated.  It's a task that I plan to get to this week as there isn't much time left!  We did put up the other Christmas decorations in our condo though for this year right away, so our place feels festive.  And Jack made sure to put up the Christmas lights on our balcony and in our windows during the Meeting, which made home feel very festive each night when I came home.  I made sure to watch "White Christmas" once already and we've had Christmas carols playing in the condo as we work through our many "to do" items. 

We've been working in the baby's room and going through boxes of papers and random things that were being stored in there, and I am happy to say it is looking more like a baby's room these days!  The crib, bookcase and drawers that we'll use for a dresser and changing table are in their spots and I am pleased with how it looks.  Now that doesn't mean that ALL the boxes are gone, but we've made great progress.  No decorations are up, but that will come with time, as we haven't hung pictures in the rest of our condo either.  We were able to put away just about all the gifts we received from the showers, so we are slowly almost ready. 

We also found time to buy a rug for our living room (which I think Bentley thinks is his new big bed) and a picture mantel for above our fireplace.  While we've been out, we've also been trying to pick up the items we still needed for the baby, so we are just about set with all that too.  It feels great to check things off our list!

I've also been trying to chip away at the Christmas present shopping as the longer we wait, the harder I know it'll get for me physcially.  As it is, I can tell that my pace is slower, I get tired faster than ever, and I am only able to get so much done before Baby tells me I am done for the night.    I promised Jack that I would do more online shopping this year, so after hitting a few stores for things I knew I could get easier in person, I plan to finish up the shopping online (hopefully tonight).  That leaves us with thank you cards, Christmas cards, and all the wrapping to do done, plus what feels like a hundred other little things still, but I am thrilled with any progress we make these days. 

And as if we didn't have enough occupying our time, I asked Jack if we could take a night off and see White Christmas at the Tivoli in Downers Grove tomorrow night.  As the loving, wonderful husband he is, he agreed!  I can't wait!

So, our website was down for a few days due to some technical difficulties.  For a while, I thought maybe it was the blog software running this site that was bringing it down.  I'm happy to report, however, that after making a few nerdy configuration changes (memory heap settings), we appear to be back in business.

In baby news, the baby is moving A LOT!  Not only can Mary and I feel it moving, but we can SEE it moving every night!  I'm not sure if we're seeing feet, hands, head or rump, but there is definitely a lot of visible movement.  Mary is 35 weeks along now (which translates to just over a month to go until the due date for the non-baby crowd), and we're getting pretty excited.  Aside from boxes of Christmas decorations, the baby's room is really coming together.  Once we finish getting Christmas things up, I'll try to post some pictures.

I have been a bad blogger.  Thank goodness for Jack who has kept our blog alive over the past month or so with his entries or everyone might have given up on looking at our blog (if they haven't already)!  The summer seems to be flying by and I am embarressed to realize that my last post was back in May.  I cannot believe that July 4th weekend has come and gone.

Since then, my trip to New Orleans to work with my dad went really well.  I love working with him, we had some good meals and got to spend a lot of quality time together. 

Once I arrived home, I quickly got ready and headed to the rehearsal and dinner for Kristen and Jay's wedding that weekend.  The following day I was back to work for part of the day, headed to meet the girls for manis/pedis and headed home to get ready for the wedding weekend.  We got to Kristen's parents' house bright and early to start getting ready and everything went very smoothly.  Kristen looked absolutely fantastic - a picture-perfect bride!  They had beautiful weather that day, things went very smoothly (minus a few bumps that thankfully didn't impact the success of the day) and a wonderful time was had by all.  The food was delicious, the DJ kept us on the dancefloor, and we all got to take cupcakes home with us, along with some candy from the candy buffet they had put together.  Jack and I stayed in one of the hotels right next to the reception and the following morning we went to meet everyone for breakfast.  We assumed that we would be lucky enough to say "hi" to the bride and groom amongst all the family, but somehow we lucked out that just for 4 of us sat at a table and we got to hear what they thought of their big day. :)

The following weekend, my immediate family got together to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary!  I had originally offered to throw them quite a shin-dig, but they opted for a dinner at home with just the close family.  Since this was to celebrate them, I wanted them to have what they wanted.  They also wouldn't take no for an answer and provided the main dish for the meal (steak, scallops and lobster for all!), and my brothers and I made up all the rest of the food for the event.  We had the most perfect weather that day, so we spent most of our time on their deck and just enjoying one another's company.  They said that it was exactly what they wanted, so I couldn't ask for a better reaction than that. :)

To say the least, May was QUITE a month!  June seemed quieter, but we had a number of items we were working to accomplish and some fun times with friends and family.  We have also been working on finalizing our wedding album so that we can receive all the digital negatives from the photographers and be able to share them with everyone.  You would think this would be an easy task, but I assure you, it is not!  We were lucky to get to visit with my Uncle Paul and his family while they were in town from Texas, we spent Father's Day with Jack's side of the family and then some time the following weekend with my parents and grandparents to celebrate.  We had dinner with the newlyweds (Kristen & Jay) that Jack blogged about, Jack had a guys' night and a boating outing, and I spent an evening with Gina shoe shopping and having dinner. 

I am looking forward to what the rest of the summer holds for us.  I'll save all that for some other blogs. :)

Last weekend Mary and I finally decided it was time to take down the Christmas decorations.  We started Friday night by removing all our ornaments from the tree.  While Mary packaged them up, I removed the lights from the tree and the windows.  I love the way Mary puts lights on the tree, but it made for a bit of a task when taking them off!  It wasn't much, but it was a good start.

Saturday, I took down the lights from our balcony railing.  Never again, will we wrap them around the railing, especially since we bought net lights after Christmas!  I brought out the big storage containers while Mary diligently organized and packed everything up.  Not only did we finish packing up all our decorations on Saturday, but we also got our dining room chairs delivered!  After hours and hours of searching and selecting just the right chairs for our dining room table, we FINALLY got them! 

Ok, so furniture shopping had its fun moments, but I'm definitely glad we now have most of it out of the way.  Should we get leather?  Are those chairs too dark?  Are those chairs too light?  Are we contemporary or rustic?  Modern or traditional?  What do those words even mean?  All the things to think about, I'd almost rather be back at Target with a wedding registry gun!  (Just kidding, Mary)

But I digress...Christmas is now over, and all that's left is the cruel and unforgiving cold!  Oh wait, it's in the 20's this week!  Nothing like a January heat wave :)