December 11

The day Audrey has been waiting for finally arrived! Today Audrey got to go see Santa and sit on his lap. And as you can tell from her face in the above picture, Santa was a big hit!

Audrey always surprises me. Even though she has been talking about Santa and about sitting on his lap for a long time now, I was pretty sure that when the time actually came, she would chicken out. But nope, she was totally willing to sit on his lap and laugh and smile and pose for a picture! The picture below is bad quality because the flash didn't go off, but you can see that she even gave him a high five before it was time to go.

And then after visiting Santa, she got a free cookie and a free stuffed animal. I'm so glad that Amy gave us the tip to go see Santa at Goodwill today. We had tried to get a picture with Santa at the mall last week, but they wanted to charge us $25 for a picture package, which is ridiculous! The Goodwill Santa was free for us to take our own picture, and then we got the free cookie and free stuffed animal too! (Though the stuffed animal was a donated/used Goodwill animal, which seems a little dirty to me, but it was free and Audrey liked it, so it will be alright I guess).

December 10

Sorry I did not post last night. I was feeling horrible all day. Miserable. So sick. So nauseous. Did I mention horrible? I couldn't even stand to look at my computer or focus on anything. I even threw up, which I never, ever do. It really was not fun at all.

So the reason for all this yuckiness? I'm pregnant! I was trying to come up with a fun way to announce this on the blog, but instead, I'm just going to come out and say it and use it as an excuse for my absence yesterday.

I'm due June 21, making me a little over 12 weeks along right now. Up until yesterday, I had been feeling nauseous off and on, but it had been manageable and hadn't interfered with daily life too much. Yesterday was like a flashback to my pregnancy with Audrey when I felt so horrible for weeks, I could just barely function. Hopefully, I won't have another day like yesterday. At the 12 week point, I should be getting close to being done with the nauseous stage. So far today, I am feeling much better.

I know that no matter how horrible it may seem right now, in a few months, I will have completely blocked this stage out of my mind. Once baby arrives, it's easy to forget about all the yucky stuff I had to go through for his/her arrival.

Speaking of his/her, we are planning to find out if it is a boy or girl. That should happen in early February. I'm kind of hoping for a girl. I think it would be fun for Audrey to have a sister. But a boy would be fun too, so we'll just have to wait a few more months and see what the ultrasound says!!

December 9

Audrey had a pretty good morning at Sprouts today. It's hit or miss with her and Sprouts. She talks about it all the time like she loves it, but when we actually get there, she can often be a huge grump. Today, there were a few reasons for her to be a bit more cheerful than normal:

1. Gingerbread men. That was the theme for the day, and ever since Audrey had her gingerbread cookie at the Festival of Trees, she has been very interested in gingerbread men.
2. We got to play with playdough, which Audrey loves. And it was extra special because it was gingerbread playdough, so it smelled really good too!
3. Sprouts recently inherited a Mickey Mouse toy, and since Audrey loves Mickey Mouse right now, she is always excited when she gets to play with it. (Though she also does not like to share Mickey with anyone else, so that can cause some problems).
4. We had milk and cookies for our snack time. We have never had milk at Sprouts snack time before, so that was kind of special (and messy, it seemed like all the kids spilled their milk!). Cookies are a special treat too.
5. Audrey got to wear her "cog" (frog) jammies. Since we were doing the gingerbread and milk and cookies theme, we wanted everyone to be extra warm and cozy, so we encouraged the kids to wear the jammies.
I totally was encouraging Elliot to climb on the doll table and get in the house. I saw him starting to do it, and instead of stopping him, I started taking pictures. He thought that was quite funny, which encouraged him to work harder to fit his whole body inside the dollhouse (while stopping to pose for a few pictures too!).

December 8

I got to take Christmas pictures of baby Jackson and his parents tonight!

December 7

Daniel and Audrey were playing with playdough tonight. Daniel was pretty proud of this creation, and he thought it should be my picture of the day. So here it is.

December 6

I was supposed to go to Daniel's staff Christmas party tonight, but I had to stay home with Audrey because she was sick with a fever today. So we had a pajama party at home with Minnie Mouse instead and watched Mickey Saves Santa. It was only a 20 minute show, but Audrey liked it. She discovered Mickey Mouse recently, and she really likes him a lot! I'm excited to take her to Disney World in February.

As far as her fever goes, I'm hoping this is one of those weird 24 hour fevers/sicknesses that she seems to get fairly often. She was feeling pretty bad today I think, and even fell asleep on the couch for a little bit, which is completely unusual for her. Her fever was almost 102 late this afternoon, so we finally gave her some Tylenol and that brought it down quickly. It was still normal before bed tonight, so hopefully she will be feeling better in the morning.

Bonus Post: The Official Christmas Card

I finished our Christmas card tonight! I liked all of the possible options Shutterfly offered, but finally decided on this one for our official card:

Lovely Leaves Story Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.