We were super fortunate to have been on the guest list for another wonderful wedding. Andrew's friend Jared got married at Ruby Hill Winery in Livermore. It was a great venue and the food and cake was top notch.
A great ceremony filled with just the right words:
Sealing the deal with a kiss:
Presenting Mr. and Mrs.:
My friend loaned me another metallic dress so I wouldn't "shine" so much:
Their first dance:
The scrumptious cake. They had a candy bar (why didn't I snap a picture of that?) that filled me up before cake so I only ended up eating one piece of cake. It was a shame because they offered three different flavors to chose from:
I booked it. With my husband's permission I decided the best place to relax post-Christmas would be Las Vegas! I have never been and I am just sure it is the perfect place for a one and three year old! Photo The Excalibur hotel was my top pick so Andrew can sleep like a king, I can sleep like a queen, Blake can sleep like a prince, and Reade will probably sleep like a gambler (down at 8 and up at 3am).
Blake went out with a bang on his last day of preschool at Montecito. They had their annual Holiday Sings event where the kids sang, decorated cookies, then sat on Santa's lap. I have mom guilt knowing that he will be leaving his best friend behind so I can only hope he enjoys his classmates in his new school.
Don't expect much out of Blake this time around. He just stood there, bit his lips (his first visible habit picked up from his mother), and wiggled a little. I asked Blake if he wanted to wear his, as he puts it, "elvv" hat to school. In the car he said he needed two circles of red on his cheeks. Reade took a nap at grandma's house so Aunt Jessica was just the one to ask for red, rosy "elvv" cheeks. What a good elvv he was:
Decorating cookies with his favorite pals:
Santa's lap has become a familiar place for Blake. This time he asked for a candy cane for Christmas:
Now, for a good laugh. This is the picture from the Google Holiday party and boy did those cameras bring out the shiny in my dress. I swear to God that thing didn't look so metallic in the dim, ambiance lighting. I look like a pregnant mess of tin foil. That is what I get for sqeezing my pregnant body into a non-maternity holiday dress. I will be wearing this dress to a wedding this weekend so watch out bride and groom, hormonal woman in heavy metal will be throwing off the photographer's lighting:
Although I didn't walk out to my backyard forest and cut down my own tree or create the most magical Christmas banners, there are things in my life that make me feel just as warm and fuzzy inside. Here are some of the things that remind me we are in the thick of the holidays.
Andrew's parents always had a huge box of satsuma tangerines on their front porch back at the farm. You would walk out of the kitchen into the freezing cold to grab a handful of sweet deliciousness. Ellen brought over a box for our very own front porch. I tried to put them up so the ants wouldn't get them, but it has been the kids who get into them more often than not. They fill up their car, drive it around to the back, and fill buckets near their playhouse. My rule is that the tangerines need to find their way back to the box by sun down:
My refrigerator now has that tell-tale bag of cookie dough just waiting to take shape:
Our tree is up. Yes, we bought it at Osh. Yes, it looks emaciated in regards to ornaments. I love to make my own ornaments with gingerbread dough, but those darn ants put a monkey wrench in that plan. I did manage to braid some yarn, add some Ikea decorations to the strand, and drape it around the tree as my homemade garland. That is good enough and makes me smile:
It is that time of year again when Google throws one heck of a party for the engineers. This year our theme was 1940's on an aircraft carrier (USS Hornet). The carrier has been turned into a museum and we went on many tours and heard lots of great war stories.
Here is a terrible picture of the ship as we approached it:
They had a band playing Christmas music next to the loading ramp:
Inside we helped ourselves to some drinks while watching the swing dancers start up their routine:
There were dioramas with different mannequins throughout the ship. This guy was in quarantine in an airstream trailer:
The food was excellent, as it always is, and were set up by ports of call. France had delectable desserts, Puerto Rico had yummy stuff chock full of nuts (couldn't taste those), and Italy had yummy food I never got around to trying. Here is one of my favorite new inventions:
Andrew gobbled up tons of sushi from the Okinawa, Japan port of call:
The photos we took together aren't posted yet, but I will add that one when it gets put on Google+. Thanks Google for a great evening of fun. Andrew and I really enjoyed getting away from the house for an evening and learned lots of historical and nautical facts.
Did I jinx myself by saying bigger things were sure to come? I now know I am brave enough to sit there while my kid's head gets stapled. Blake and Reade were running around the living room and Blake knocked into Reade. He slowly fell, bonked his head on our brick hearth, and started to bleed. I hoped for glue. He got staples:
Andrew's hand looks so big in comparison to Reade's little head. He was so brave.
Today, we had our nuchal translucency screening (testing for Down Syndrome and Trisomy 18 defects) and found out we are having a little girl! and she is healthy and without the defects mentioned above. She has a different facial structure than her brothers and I can only hope that is a good thing:
We are really excited and I am happy I can sigh a breath of relief now that we are through the first trimester. I have morning sickness (threw up this morning, thank-you-very-much-baby), am freezing cold at all times (I think she is hogging all my blood), don't want to eat sweets (but continue to because that is sort of hard wired in me now), love Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and crave salami sandwiches (new on the Philly's, not a new concept with the salami).
Baby is due June 19th. Should make for an exciting summer. We are hoping/planning for another home birth. My preeclampsia issues linger in my memory, but my midwife likes the idea that I won't be preeclamptic this time around. I am going with it!
