Christmas Recap...

It's almost been a week since Christmas (time flies when you're having fun!) so I guess I better get you all updated on how it went! :)

I think it is safe to say we had a very nice Christmas this year...filled with surprises and only the occasional snafu. I had the day off the Friday before and so I started preparing for guests on Christmas Day. Somehow, as is often the case, I forgot we were only having a few people over and prepared enough food for about 20 people. :)

Due to the stormy weather in Denver (which seems to be somewhat reincarnated), we had the pleasure of having Mark's parents come stay and celebrate the holiday with us beginning early Saturday morning. While they were here, we busied ourselves with home improvement projects such as replacing our kitchen sink. It is now quite nice and a big improvement over the original 20 year old faucet. I guess we won't get to enjoy a replay of my pulling the faucet handle off here...which is fine. I did that in Colorado once and it was about as much fun as pulling off the one in the bathroom. :) We also ordered closet doors for our hallway which hopefully will arrive soon. We've not had doors in our hall closet since we moved in and I am ready for that to be taken care of!

On Sunday evening, Mark's mom joined Mark and I for Christmas Eve services at church. We had a nice time watching the nativity pageant the children put on and celebrating the birth of Jesus. It was really neat having Mark's mom there with us...and we all were thinking that maybe next year our little on could be playing baby Jesus...though it is probably a long shot since we'll be relocating and such. :)

That evening, Mark and I opened one gift each...kind of a tradition we're carrying over from both of our families. He received a game called "Would You Rather..." that should probably amuse us when we have a chance to play it! As for me, I received a very nice fondue set from Williams Sonoma which will also provide plenty of amusement. In fact, it started early by providing amusement on Christmas day since Mark figured that since WS had displayed it with a candle as the fuel supply he didn't buy a sterno. :) It was quite a timely gift since we were planning on fondue for Christmas dinner!

On Christmas morning, we made oatmeal waffles and then went to see what other fun things were under the tree. Mark enjoyed his gifts which included another game, some clothing items and gift certificates for movie rentals and theater tickets (Rocky Balboa is the first movie we'll probably see with those!). Many of his gifts were centered around a theme of our getting to spend more time together and remembering to be husband and wife instead of just mom and dad when our little one comes along. The "superstar" gift that tied these all together was a date jar which has a bunch of different date ideas for us to draw on when we need some inspiration. Many are things we can do here at home for little $$ and with a baby or little child near by...Mark really loved this gift!

As for me, I received some CDs for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra that we saw in concert, the Harry Potter book I need to read before the next one comes out and other nifty things. One of my favorite gifts was a choo choo train bundt pan that I had wanted but didn't get from Williams Sonoma. Since we have a little boy on the way, I think I know what his 1st birthday cake is going to be! :)

We also had some fun gifts for Mark's parents. Since we'd sent most of their gifts to Colorado, many of what they opened on Christmas were re-gifts that we thought they would enjoy....hopefully we were right. Their big "planned" surprise was the digital camera that we recently replaced. They were very happy with that once they figured out that we hadn't went out and spent a ton on a new one. :)

Christmas afternoon was a big party with the addition of our friends Kai and Tina from Sweden to our little family. They treated us to goodies from their homeland and we al enjoyed chatting and eating. Since I was pretty worn out by the time all the festivities were over, it was a good thing we had leftovers...which we're still working on. Hee hee!

As for the past week, there wasn't too much in the way of excitement. We did have a little visit with our Obstetrician and gave him a copy of the birth plan we've written up which he seemed to think would be okay even though it was very "chiropratic" oriented...I doubt he expected anything less! :)

Yesterday, since I was out at noon from work, we met up with a couple of friends - Lydia and Jeff and had a nice lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. Then we went to Target and set up a baby registry. We're planning to do one more at Babies R Us this weekend and then we should be finished with that process. We found lots of little things that we think will be quite helpful in making our little one's first year or so quite pleasant...and of course we found quite a few fun toys that we can't wait (oh, wait I mean, the baby - ha! ha!) can't wait to play with. :)

In just a bit I'll finally (with any luck) get the last ultrasound pictures up for you all...until then, we wish you a super Happy New Year! :) On New Year's Day, we'll be 1/2 way to the sprout's delivery day!