Pictures in December

This picture was taken from the parking lot at church.

I LOVED seeing the snow-flocked forest of Christmas trees.

SPOILED.

This was the sweet birthday gift I received from my kind neighbor Barbara.

Sadly I have been sick pretty much ever since my birthday,

so I haven't had a chance to use the gift certificate yet.

But it will be almost better to enjoy it after the baby comes.

I left the house for about ten minutes.

When I left, Ammon and Peter were watching TV.

When I returned, Ammon and Peter were watching TV.

Apparently they took a break from TV watching during my absence.

Peter's foot ended up in Ammon's eye.

No one said anything.

We were sitting down for dinner when I saw this.

Unexpectedly finding your child injured is a terrible experience!

Fortunately, it healed up and all is well.

This is the beautiful sunset that the boys get to enjoy as they walk home from school.

Yup - sunset at 3:30 in the afternoon.

That's winter in Ketchikan for you.

Just another picture of the lovely view of our street.

It took several people holding him down, but Ammon FINALLY got the blood work done for his TB test.

Between that, and his black eye, he looked pretty miserable.

So glad to have both behind us.

Andrew finally had a chance to pull out his grill.

It was a lot of running around to find a place to buy a new tank from.

And a different place to fill it with propane.

But it was worth it - he was happy to have it up and running again.

I have spent the better part of the month feeling deathly ill.

It wasn't really bad until the coughing started interrupting my sleep.

Sick and unable to sleep was a terrible combination.

Add being in the final stages of pregnancy, and, well, it's been pretty rough.

Sadly for Andrew, he is just now entering the unable to sleep phase of it.

Baby comes in two days.

This is my handsome Ammon walking home from school.

The missionaries came for dinner the day after my birthday.

With how sick I was and continued to be, it was the closest we had to celebrating this year.

Andrew made me a German Chocolate cake and everyone sang to me.

It was nice.

One evening I looked down at my feet to see that they had been replaced by tree trunks.

Fortunately my hands didn't seem swollen, but it was still worrisome.

Swollen feet was the first sign we noticed of the toxemia with Ammon.

After that I started watching my blood pressure really closely.

It had been up from previous measurements, but nothing alarming.

Then it got alarming, so I called the nurse and asked what I should do.

The coolest part about it was the the random nurse is actually a member of my ward.

She is familiar with my background and had already seen the picture of my swollen feet.

She told me to not mess around and just come in to Labor and Delivery.

I hung up and swallowed really big.

I knew she was just making the conservative call, but it really freaked me out.

I wasn't ready for this.

I called Andrew at work - barely holding it together.

I told him that my blood pressure was 137/91 and that the nurse told me to go in.

He arranged to come home immediately and take me to the hospital.

I started sobbing as soon as we hung up.

The nurses were really great.

I was showing minimal swelling, but my blood pressure had gone back down and there was no protein.

They ran some labs that all came back great.

And they made sure the baby was doing well.

I went home feeling very comfortable that everything was OK.

At one point during the time at the hospital, Andrew ran home to get out tablets.

He ran into someone in the hall who quickly inquired about me.

He made reference to the fact that I had seemed "puffy" at church.

Even though we didn't know who it was, we were both comforted knowing that there were people who were mindful of us and watching out for us.

And then, as we were leaving, we ran into yet another person who totally knew Andrew but neither of us could place.

As it turned out, she was a Wells Fargo customer.

We left feeling warm and fuzzy about living in such a small community.

We are still learning to recognize all the faces, but it was a comforting feeling to run into so many people who knew us.

I FINALLY got to the point where I felt well enough to drive Andrew to work and keep the car.

I also really wanted to buy some fabric to bind my tree skirt.

I waited for 45 minutes (and entertained myself with taking the picture).

When the store FINALLY opened, I learned that they no longer sold fabric.

And the store that did sell fabric was only open two days a week.

Ugh.

So much for getting that to-do item checked off the list.

Ammon won a couple of books at school for good behavior.

I think he got them two days in a row.

He was excited and I LOVED seeing him buried in reading.

The boys each performed in a Christmas concert at school.

It was fun to go watch them.

Eventually I got my fabric for the tree skirt binding.

I was just going to work on it when Barbara came down and invited me to visit with her.

As it turned out, she had all the tools I needed to cut and sew my binding on.

I probably got more accomplished because of my visit with her than I would have otherwise.

The next day I went to work on the hand stitching.

Yay for FINALLY completing a project several YEARS in the making!

Now I need to get more fabric to bind the reindeer quilt.

Sad to realize that by the time it is finished, it is outdated - we'll be missing Laurie's little hands and feet.

Christmas break has been really pleasant so far.

We've enjoyed lots of games and puzzles from Christmas.

We've also broken out the electronics more than normal.

I thought it was cute to see the boys hanging out "gaming" on the lap-tops.

One Christmas splurge we bought ourselves is this little Willow Tree figure.

We have a really cute one called Brothers that represents the two boys.

We usually have it set up with one that was just a husband and wife.

But now we have the baby, too, so it will be an accurate reflection of our family again.

This picture was taken just two days before the baby.

Andrew was up all night - unable to sleep from coughing.

I was up every hour going to the bathroom.

The parents are tired and the house is a mess.

I tried to get the boys to help clean, but they weren't exactly thrilled with that idea.

So we all took a grumpy picture together.

And here I am - about as pregnant as it gets.

Technically I am 38 weeks and 5 days.

But with the baby coming in about 37 hours, I don't foresee a lot of change in how I look.

And that is just SOME of what we've been up to in December.