Catch Up

I downloaded our pictures from the holidays and the only thing that did for me was make me cry a little and realize that my camera was a big fat "on-sale-but-still-rather-expensive" LESSON. The pictures are all horrible. How can a 12 MP camera take pictures worse than my 5 year old can take on a 1 MP camera? Anyways, I am going to try to figure it out and use some other settings...so no pictures from Christmas, just memories ;)

We had a restful and COLD Christmas. It snowed quite a lot and we had 60+ mph southeasterly wind gusts creating some pretty impressive snow drifts especially with our northwesterly facing house. We are at the end of a block with our house exposed to the north and west giving us close to 6 foot snow drifts blocking our driveway and our front gate (we still have remnants of the drifts in the driveway and by the gate almost a month later which is unheard of somewhere snow never sticks more than a day). Thank goodness Garth had to work the night the storm came in so the car was out of the garage or there is no way we would have been able to leave the house except on foot (or sleigh)...it was pretty though, and a treat for us in this part of the world to have a white Christmas. Garth Lee's favorite gift was a SpongeBob recliner that my parents got for him, it has a cup holder in the armrest and it actually reclines with a footrest that comes out. It was one of the first presents he opened and the rest of the evening we had to bring his presents to his Highness so that he didn't abandon "the chair".

We did have a rather interesting "visitor" to my parents' house Christmas Eve after we had opened all of our presents. The weather was so bad that most of the family wasn't able to come into town, so it was a cozy 3 couples (us, my parents and my uncle and aunt) plus Garth Lee. We were sitting by the fire chatting, charging batteries, etc. when a nice-looking young man, about 21 or so walked right in the front door. We all looked at him and he was very cordial, said hello, was asking about how the night went, told us how his was going...this is when I left the room...you see I don't do embarrassment well, I can't watch people make fools of themselves, it is painful to me. Reality shows are like torture for me because they are pretty much just us watching people make fools of themselves, I can't stand it, it is physically painful for me and I have somewhat of a 6th sense about it and I could feel it rolling in. Once I saw my Dad look at me with questioning eyes and I looked back and shrugged, I knew there were 2 possibilities to this situation 1) This is some really stupid kid that is about to bust out some magazine subscription he wants us to buy to fund his "mission trip" or 2) This is a really confused kid that just walked into the wrong house. My spidey sense was telling me the former would result in my dad chasing this kid off with his pistol (if he was lucky) and the latter would be almost more paralyzing if it were me. Either way, I had no choice but to flee to the back bedroom and hope for the best for this boy. The rest of the story is pieced together from accounts of the happenings that I did not witness myself. The boy walks in and sits on the step to the kitchen and is shooting the breeze with my aunt and he casually asks where everyone else is. She looks up and tells him that this is everyone. He asks for Jamie, which happens to be the youngest daughter of my parents' next door neighbors, and the mystery is solved. From the accounts given by those that could bear to see this boy tortured, it was pretty humorous when he realized his mistake. He hadn't met Jamie's parents yet and tonight was a big night for him, and he was trying his hardest to make a good impression, he was just at the wrong house. My dad patted him on the back as the boy pleaded for him not to tell Jamie's parents what had happened and my dad walked him to the right house and I'm sure he was very nice about it when laughed the whole way across the lawn. The boy should look on the bright side, how many people get a real live practice run at meeting the folks? It was pretty funny and a Christmas memory we won't soon forget...thanks random neighbor boyfriend for that and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that your aim was better for your New Years kiss.

I've decided I REALLY like having Garth Lee in school and I finally know why my parents weren't nearly as excited about school vacations as I was growing up. Our first week off for Christmas was great, pretty busy and we all got to sleep in...the second week I started to notice in Garth Lee how much he has benefited from the structure that Kindergarten has provided him and we (including Garth Lee) were quite happy to get back to school this year. I can't believe that Garth Lee will be in middle school when Gavin starts kindergarten...crazy how time flies.

Speaking of Gavin, we had another ultrasound this week, probably our last since everything is going well. We were supposed to get awesome pictures for this one but he wasn't having it, he was face down and was covering his face with both arms. He wouldn't show us his boy parts either, so Garth is convinced he is now a she...but we have been reassured in 2 previous ultrasounds that the "equipment" is indeed male. Good news is, he finally turned, we are head down and we have an approximately 80% chance that he will stay that way for the remainder of my pregnancy. My bladder noticed he turned the middle of last week when he stopped kicking it. The weight of a baby pressing on your bladder is bad enough, but it is quite another issue when it is compounded by random direct kicks to it...it's a relief that he is now vertex and no longer breech. The weight estimate for him was 3 lbs 9 oz, which is about the 44th percentile. I was a little disappointed that he wasn't bigger, but I'm not sure why. Hopefully I will have a better chance of this delivery going better if he is and continues to be an average sized baby. But it is also hard for me to ignore the fact that Garth Lee's size estimate was 2 pounds off, so like most things, only time will tell. We have right at 7 weeks to go before we get to meet this little guy, it has been a long road, but a pretty speedy pregnancy...I'm sure these last few weeks will drag into years, but maybe they will fly by, I feel ready to meet this little one and I know Garth Lee is excited too.