Got a sec?

Hi all. No excuses. It's been a while. This post will not be for the
quick and hurried, I've got a lot of filling in to do.

First thing: Happy Holidays!
I've been in the least holiday mood (however I should word that...) I think I've ever had in my whole 27 years. The shopping, the C-mas cards, the decorating... I must admit that it's made me cringe instead of giggle with glee. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a scrooge b/c I have had Josh Groban's version of little drummer boy on repeat for about a month now, but admittedly, we're the only very dark little house in our kid-run subdivision and just yesterday I switched out my Halloween/Thanksgiving wreath for my C-mas one and called it a day. Yep, big beautiful prelit tree in the closet that won't make its debut until 2008 and I'm okay with that. ;-)
I had presents that I needed to wrap (especially the ones for children) and I seriously considered just sticking a bow on them... wouldn't need a name tag b/c the "mystery" will be staring us all in the face. Gift giver and gift receiver... but I didn't think the kiddos would understand and I am above robbing them of their C-mas joy, so I wrapped a few and then had my niece and youngest nephew do the rest (for the adults, and I made them promise not to tell what was inside, although my nephew did manage to write "love, and then his name" on a few, but hey, he's 6 and I'm so impressed with his writing that I'll let the fact that he big-boyed our gifts as though they were from him, slide).
Dirty secret #1: I hate wrapping presents. Birthday, Christmas,
random... I'm very thankful for the gift bag. And honestly, I'm not all doom and gloom although I think that's how that intro might read. We officially started our C-mas tour of Alabama on Friday afternoon(we've done/will do lot of traveling between then and the 26th) and I'm excited about seeing friends and family.

KJ's family does dirty Santa with the big extended group (Aunts, uncles, cousins) and I wanted to take a bunch of Auburn stuff, especially one of those 6-0 t-shirts,
but I'm the ONLY Auburn fan and when I mentioned my idea to KJ, his mom and his sister, I was told that I'd be banned from the festivities. shame. So I let KJ just pick out 2 gifts, and we're going to roll with those, even though the thought of seeing his family pass around an AU t-shirt that's destined to come back to me, still makes me smile (a wicked smile, but a smile non the less).
Lastly on the subject of Holidays: Looky looky what ole St. Nick
brought to my house a little early. hehehe


It's the wall paint! Mom, Daddy and KJ all went in on a collective gift/effort to get my living room/dining room/ kitchen painted for me and really it's a better gift then I could have even thought to ask for. I love it! I feel like I've made progress in my home and I didn't do a single thing. The painters came and did a fantastic job and KJ and my nephew put everything back in it's place before I came home from work. It didn't even smell like paint. The people who love me, love hard and the find the best ways to express it! (disclaimer: for those of you who check out the backgrounds in pictures... I know I do, I'm so curious... please disregard the shoes laying by the barstool and the lack of wall decor, everything hasn't found it's home just yet)

The little mini:
She's doing great! We hit the 26 week mark last Thursday which translates to about 6.5 months. She a strong kicker and tends to really get going early in the morning (I think she gets that from me) or while I'm driving. She generally kicks in the same area and earlier this week the sonagram tech showed me that our little mini likes to push her head up against my womb down toward my hips so that her feet are angled upwards. I'm scared she's going to have the worst crook ever in her
neck. Here's her latest pic (sorry the second one is just a foot, but the tech wanted to show my oldest nephew the 4-D technology {he spent the week with us}and since her face was all squished in my side, the best thing she could get were her toes). I've been told she has long legs (no doubt from KJ's side) and I think her feet look like KJ's. I'm a little concerned about her having man feet, they look pretty large... hehehe



Me:
Pregnancy has made me a little weepy lately. The other morning I had to take a moment and remind myself that misplacing my black camisole was not causing me physical pain and that the amount of tears I felt the need to shed was ridiculous. Really. Over all I'm very conscious of trying not to be an overly emotional pregnant lunatic, and I think I hold up pretty good, realizing that sometimes I just need a moment to myself so that I can be all sad and whiney without anyone having to see that. I've also become quite the klutz, breaking the lower level of glass in our coffee table and spilling my juice being my two most recent episodes. Both were pretty minor and undramatic so no harm was incurred (the coffee table glass broke when I lifted the top level to clean underneath and it titled and broke the glass underneath. KJ
cleaned it up while I sat crying and shaking my head in disbelief and neither of us got cut so no biggie), but still, little things that I think push me to the weepy edge.

Physically I'm doing really well. Can still wear my wedding/engagement rings, can
still shave my legs, can still see my toes...need to paint them, but hey it's winter time, and even in FL you can wear closed toe shoes in the winter. I've experienced a few "growing pains" where little miss mini is getting larger and my body's stretching to accommodate, but no worries said the doc, so no worries it is.

I get tired a little quicker and am having to remember not to push myself to get things done. This became a funny thought to me as I was in the mall on last Wed for about 2 hours trying to finish up some C-mas shopping and almost suddenly while shopping for KJ's dad a sweater in Sears, I thought, "Okay, sit down, you're over doing it" and I proceeded to sit in the store floor hidden by the clothing racks for
about 15 minutes. It made me remember how we used to get in trouble playing in those racks when we were kids and how thankful I am to be 27 and old enough that someone would think twice about reprimanding me for just sitting there. They may think I'm crazy, but they wouldn't dare fuss.

I did have an ulcer on my eye that drove me bonkers for about 2 days until the eye doc gave me some "magic" drops, but it was my own fault from wearing a crappy contact for too long. Seriously, squinting one eye with the other completely closed driving 45 min to work at 50mph with the morning sun burning my sensitive retina as my eyes watered profusely on the very highway that killed my beloved Kia Sorento 2 short months ago...I've been wearing my glasses since then. Lesson learned. ;-)

Okay, I think that's about it for now.

I hope to blog again soon. Regardless, I'm counting on you all to be consistent b/c I can only comment on the same post so many times. hehehe I'm one to talk!

Merry Christmas all! Hope you have a wonderfully blessed one!