For months, we've been thinking of this baby as a girl. We've only been discussing girl names, always calling her the "baby sister", etc. Well, the other morning we went and had a sonogram, and it turns out this baby is a BOY! It's a bit of a shock, just because now this baby feels like someone completely different, but we're just as thrilled and excited.

Last night I went through my stash of diaper fabric, and every single piece but one is super girly. (Maybe it is because of me that Ems is such a girly girl!) I sewed one itsy bitsy adorable little diaper last night, and now I get to have the fun task of going to Joann's and picking out a bunch more fabric. My grandma gave me a little serger awhile back, and I used it for the first time last night - not without a struggle. The serging looks horrible, but I still love the diaper just because it's so little and cute. I also applied the snaps wrong and put the elastic on the wrong piece of fabric. It still works, but I am definitely out of practice since I haven't sewed any diapers in over a year.

The other night we were eating dinner at Chipotle. Emma, of course, was wearing her princess dress, and several people stopped as they walked by to comment on how cute she looked. One couple looked to be in their forties, and they stopped and oohed and aahed over her, then the man asked if he could take her picture. I sort of stammered, "Uh...I don't know..." but Emma and already grinning and saying "cheese" and the guy already had his phone out and was snapping her picture. I guess it's no big deal, but that just struck me as odd. I don't think I like strangers taking pictures of my kid (darling though she may be).

Christmas was good. It was the same as all holidays - wonderful time at my parent's house, lots of stupid drama at the in-laws. We aren't actually finished yet, because we were so busy visiting and running around that Santa never had a chance to stop at our house. Emma (and Steve) are napping right now and I just set all her stuff out in front of the tree, so we will take care of that as soon as she wakes up. She has already received so many gifts that I think we could probably have skipped getting her anything ourselves and it wouldn't have mattered. I forgot how many things we got her until I was getting it all out again, and it seems a little ridiculous now that one little girl would get so many presents. I'll have to remember that next year. Her favorite things that she got so far were, of course, frilly girly dress-up type things.

I didn't finish my Christmas knitting, or even come close, but that's okay. I did these washcloths (from Mason-Dixon Knitting) for a few people and gave them with soap.













My main project was making slippers (from a Little Turtle Knits pattern) for everyone in my family-my mom, dad, three brothers, one brother's finacee, Emma, and myself. Out of 16 slippers I had to do, I finished six. Oops. Hopefully I can finish the others within the next couple months.

I am going to be disappointed when Christmas is over and we stop getting all this good mail. We got TWELVE cards yesterday and NINE today! As Emma, who has not yet mastered her "sm" sound, says, "Holy pokes!"

Why is it that things always seem much better in the morning? Last night I was feeling pretty down. Emma never really took a nap yesterday, and consequently was super cranky the rest of the day. We've only seen Steve about an hour total so far this week (and probably won't see him again until tomorrow afternoon), and I was really feeling like I needed a break. Just five minutes to myself or something. Actually going to the bathroom by myself would have been good enough. Emma and I were making spinach calzones for dinner, and she knocked the bowl of filling on the floor. It splattered all over the table and walls and made a huge mess. Plus, we were left with nothing to have for dinner. We ended up having mashed potatoes and apples. Then, awhile later, I decided to make cookies to cheer us up. At one point Emma and I went in her room to change her diaper, and came back to both dogs standing on the table, trying to down every bit of our dough as fast as they could. Ugh! I considered making them anyway, but they had eaten a lot, and the licked-all-over dough just looked too gross. So we left the mess and went to bed. However, the point of this all is that this morning, even though we woke up to a huge mess, I felt so much better. We've actually had a pretty nice morning and accomplished a lot. I'm still wearing my pajamas at this point, but I'll take what I can get.

I am very much looking forward to Steve's coming home tomorrow, and actually being able to spend the next whole three days with us.

Christmas Letter

The past two years, Steve has written a letter to send out with our Christmas cards. I think that's a great tradition because I love getting letters from other people, and Steve is pretty good about making the letters funny and interesting. This year he wrote another one, but I think he went a little overboard with the "trying to be funny" part. I'm not sure if I'm being too sensitive, but I'm not comfortable sending out the letter he wrote, so this year our cards will be letter-less. He poked fun at me for not going in our backyard for the last five months due to my fear of snakes, but failed to mention that our yard is completely overrun with snakes! It's not just some crazy baseless phobia. He also mentioned that I have "cast off certain societal norms, such as bathing, dusting, and mopping". The last sentence of my paragraph said, "All kidding aside, four things can be said about Sarah: she is a great wife, a loving mother, a talented knitter, and a horrible housekeeper." I realize he is being sarcastic, and I don't care if we joke about these things together, but I can imagine people who don't know me that well reading it and thinking, "Wow. This chick doesn't bathe, has a filthy house, and is afraid to go outside. She sounds like a real winner." So no letter this year. And if there is to be one in the future I will have to write it myself, because I doubt Steve is going to waste his time writing one again that won't get sent out.

Steve has been working up in St. Joseph a lot lately, which is about 1.5 hours away. Last night he just decided to stay there instead of driving back late, so Emma and I drove up there to spend the night with him. She was very excited to be on a mini-vacation. He didn't get to the hotel until about 10:30, and by then I was ready to go to bed, but it was still a fun trip. Especially because I stopped at Gap Maternity on the way up there and bought myself a few Christmas presents!

Yesterday Emma was running down the hall, when she tripped and her poor little face slammed into the corner of the doorjamb. Now she has a large bruise that covers almost her entire sweet little cheek, and I'm a tad self-conscious about it when we are out. It looks like someone hit her, and I don't want anyone to be thinking that. Emma, by the way, has completely become the World's Most Polite Girl. Remember when, not that long ago, I was saying she was being really whiny and demanding? She transformed herself back into a sweet and wonderful kid, and is once again pleasant to be around. Whew!

Oh, and the big girl underwear thing? Not so successful. She pooped in her first pair, then peed in her second, and I was about to put on her third pair of the morning. I said, "Now remember to tell me when you have to go potty, because you don't want to have wet underwear, right?" She matter-of-factly said, "Yes, I do. I really, really like to have wet underwear." Oh. Well that may be, but I don't like cleaning it up, so back she went into the diapers.

I generally don't make New Year's reslutions, but this year I'm making one for our family. We are only going to eat out twice a week. Steve, of course, will still eat out when he's working, but only twice for me and Emma. This morning I was thinking about it and I realized that Saturday night we had dinner at Cinzetti's, Sunday we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, yesterday Emma and I had lunch at Jason's Deli and dinner at Mimi's Cafe, and this morning (which really couldn't be helped because we were so far from home) we had breakfast at Houlihan's. Five times out in four days is pretty ridiculous, and it's not unusual for us, either. So, in an effort to stop wasting so much money, two times a week is the limit. Hopefully this will be more successful than most New Year's resolutions.

I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to clean and organize. While I am the first to admit that my housekeeping abilities are pretty abysmal, Steve always acts like I do nothing but sit and watch soap operas or something all day. Yesterday I had already put clean sheets on the bed, swept the kitchen, vacuumed and steam cleaned the carpets, done four loads of laundry, planned our menu for the week, and been to the grocery store when Steve called. He wanted me to go look at something on the computer, but I was in the middle of setting out a picnic lunch (on the living room floor) for Emma and myself, so I told him I couldn't do it right then. He said in this sarcastic tone, "Oh, like you're too busy?". Grrrr. So what if I don't mop the kitchen as often as I should, or if sometimes we don't have any clean socks, or if I never dust? Anyway, I'm rambling, but it annoyed me more yesterday I guess because I was feeling really efficient before he called. Hopefully I'll keep feeling motivated and the house will be so spotless it will knock his (clean) socks off.

Yesterday I made a joyful discovery. I had two pairs of stretchy pants - one black and one grey - that I wore every single day. After we got back from Thanksgiving, I couldn't find the black ones. Since then I've been wearing the grey ones constantly, and really wishing I hadn't lost the black ones. Last night I found them shoved way back in one of my drawers! I'm so excited to have two pairs of pants to wear again!

Steve bought Emma this set of princess stuff last weekend, and she hasn't taken it off since. I don't know where she gets this super girliness from - definitely not me!



















More exciting news - this morning when she was getting dressed, Emma told me she wanted to wear big girl underwear today! I guess we'll see how it goes, but I think it's a good sign she might be ready to (finally) ditch the diapers!

I am so tired.

We had a great time at my mom's as always. However, we came home to a messy house and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about all the stuff I have to get done in the next week.

I'll write more tomorrow, but for now I'm off to bed.

Oh yeah, we had 19 Christmas cards waiting for us when we got here! Woo-hooo! I love getting cards.

Yesterday I participated in an handmade ornament exchange with some other moms. I made these,













and got these in return.













Steve has been working crazy hours again, and will continue to do so until mid-April. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. He worked until about midnight every night this week, and only came home earlier last night because I called him in tears. Today he is, of course, at work again, but we will see him this afternoon when I bring Emma up to his office for their family Christmas party. She will have a chance to sit on Santa's lap there, and it will be her first time. I am not too fond of that whole sitting on Santa's lap and telling him what you want idea, but I guess I'll have to deal.

Tomorrow Emma and I are going to my mom's house, where we will stay until Thursday. We are excited, and it will be much more fun hanging out with them than sitting here by ourselves while Steve works.

In the past two days, I have taken over 100 pictures of Emma, hoping to get one we can send out with our Christmas cards this year. It is darn near impossible to get a two-year-old to pose for pictures. Most of the pictures ended up looking like this



















or this.














It took forever, because she got her toy camera and wanted to take pictures of me as well. So after every one of her, we had to switch places for her to take one of me. She'd usually say the exact thing I had said to her for the last picture. "Put your little butt in the chair, please, mommy!" At one point I told her to sit and I would tell her a story. When we switched places, she asked me what my favorite story was, and I said The Three Little Pigs. She proceeded to tell me the cutest story ever that started with, "Once upon a time there were two little pigs and they lost their mittens."

Emma and I are stranded here today without a carseat, so we have been making the most of our day at home. In addition to the photo shoot, we've played lots of Candy Land and baked blueberry muffins. Now while she is asleep I better go knit. I am starting to think there is no way I will get all my gifts knitted before Christmas!

I have a confession. Emma has been driving me crazy for the last week. Ever since we got back from my mom's house, she's been super unreasonable and she cries about every. little. thing. She is still limping around and often complains that her foot is hurting, so I hope it's because of that and not some drastic personality change. Last night I got her one of those stretchy bandage things for her ankle, and today that seemed to help. Let's hope it's on the mend and that she will soon be back to her cheerful self. Please, please, please.

Today I wanted to take a picture of Emma and I said, "Okay, look cute," and this is what I got. That's one for the Christmas cards, right?













See what she is wearing in the picture? Saturday night my friend watched her while Steve and I went to his company holiday party, and when I picked her up, she was wearing that little purple nightgown, which belongs to one of my friends' daughters. Since then, she has only taken it off for a bath, and it went right back on afterwards. She wore it out to breakfast and to the mall yesterday, and on all our errands today. I am not looking forward to the spectacle that is sure to arise when we have to give it back.

After we went sledding on Friday I left our sleds in front of my car in our driveway. They were right up against the house, and while we were gone yesterday someone came and took them. Even though they were sitting right there, I still feel violated. What's wrong with people?

And lastly, me at 22 weeks.

Snow, snow, snow! I love snow! We went sledding with some friends this morning, and honestly, being out in the snow with little kids really isn't much fun. It's carrying toddlers while trudging up slippery hills, replacing dropped and snow-filled mittens over and over (and over), blowing on icy red little hands, and eventually, a bunch of kiddos crying because they are cold. Still, I know Steve wants to go sledding when he gets home, so we'll give it another go this afternoon.

Okay, I need some advice. Steve and I have been using T-Mobile for our cell phones and always thought they were great. We each had 1000 minutes for $45.99 a month, and never went over. Last month he switched to Cinglular to get some big fancy phone for work, and we both went over our minutes. He used 2200 minutes (!) and I used 1016. He wants me to switch to Cingular so we can get mobile to mobile, but with them I would be paying $10 more a month for 100 less minutes. I am also reluctant to leave T-Mobile, who I like so much. So, if you use Cingular, please tell me that you love them (or if you don't).

Here is a little Christmas cheer from Emma, whose favorite part of making a movie is watching it on the camera afterwards. Sorry it's a little blurry.


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