Whew!

Talk about a whirlwind week!

We got to spend some great time with family and friends for Christmas. Chris' brother came to town for the whole week, our friends Jerel and Heather (and their 3 kids) came to stay with us for a few days, we got to visit with our good friend Josh for most of the day Monday, and I got to see my two childhood best buds, Steph and Monica, on Wednesday afternoon. We also had the honor of hosting Christmas Eve dinner for my family at our house for the first time. It was a lot of fun! As tradition has it, we spent most of Christmas day at Chris' parents house with 20+ people coming and going throughout the day. I heard it was a lot of fun -- I missed a good chunk of it because I spent most of the day sleeping! I was so exhausted from the weekend and Christmas Eve that I ended up taking 2 different 2 hour naps throughout the course of the day. I think I forget I'm 8 months pregnant sometimes.

Micah and Katie had a blast. Particularly, Micah. He hasn't quit talking about how Santa brought him a Monster Truck for Christmas. Although, I think his favorite present is the cash register. He has rung up every thing in the entire house. Katie seemed to enjoy eating more than the gifts. She ate soooo much food throughout the course of the week.

The busy week isn't over yet, either. Tonight we are preparing for Chris and Micah to go camping tomorrow. Chris and his brother are being brave enough to take Micah and Logan (Micah's cousin) camping for the first time. Let's just say, I'm glad it's them and not me! We also have 3 birthday's to celebrate this weekend - Chris' mom, his neice, and his sister.

Meanwhile, I'm now almost 37 weeks pregnant. I'm bracing for the inevitable, but I'm mostly just trying to enjoy these last few weeks as much as possible.

Oh, and for those who are interested.. I finally got that Media Center PC working. I have no idea how, but it's been running stable and working like a champ for almost a week now. For those of you who haven't made the switch to Vista yet, the best advice I can give is - wait! Hopefully things will be better with their first Service Pack release.

Some girls like diamonds...

A lot of girls like things like jewlery or flowers as a present from a man. I guess I'm not your typical girl, though. How many wives would get excited over receiving a mac'd out new PC for Christmas? Chris totally surprised me with a sweet new Media Center PC - AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core, 4 Gigs of RAM, a super nice Gigabyte motherboard, 2 TV Tuner Cards with HD and Analog, Windows Vista Ultimate, a super nice Media Center case, etc etc. Of course, neither one of us could wait to get the kids to bed to put it all together. We worked on it for a couple nights getting it built and software installed. We had a few bumps along the way, but we could deal. But, here we are almost 2 weeks later... and we're super frustrated. I can't find any central cause of all of our problems other than Vista. The PC locks up all the time, it has a hard time communicating with our WD MyBook, it won't recognize all 4 gigs of RAM (a known Vista issue), we can't get both tuner cards working.. argh! I think we're both ready to throw this thing out the window. Maybe it would be a lot easier for me to just be a typical girl.

Bleh.

That's how I've felt all week. I've got a cold and have mostly lost my voice. And there's nothing like having a cold, having two kids who are sick as well, and being 8 months pregnant. At least the kids have been able to take medicine to help them get through it. Me, I'm pretty much just stuck with warm salt water to gargle with. Chris has been quite the hero though. Tuesday and Wednesday he let me lay down for a quick nap (I asked for 20 minutes, he let me sleep for over 2 hours both times). He watched the kids and cooked dinner with no complaints. Talk about an amazing husband.

So, I don't have much to write about this week. I've been so out of it that I don't even know what has happened this week. The only slightly amusing commentary I can give is an incident that happened tonight. We went to Target to buy a humidifier (to help with the colds). It was super busy in there. While were checking out, Micah walked over to look at the candy rack. When he turned around, he didn't see us and began to panic. In a tear jerked voice, he was calling my name and frantically looking around. I grabbed him immediately as he began to cry. It definitely gave him a good scare. As I'm consoling him, Katie leans over the cart handle and says "Sowwy, Micah. Sowwy, Micah. It's okay, Micah." I wanted to laugh, but I figured Micah wouldn't have appreciated that. Katie is turning into quite the nurturing little girl.

I don't know what I'd do without you.

Before I had kids, I was fairly focused on my career. I was a manager in IT with a promising future in the corporate world. But, when I was pregnant with Katie, after much discussion with Chris, I decided to step down in order to be able to be home with the kids. My company was generous enough to offer me a part time position doing the more technical stuff that I love to do. Almost 2 years later, I am so thankful to be in this situation. I get to be home with the kids as they grow up. I get to do continue to challenge my brain a couple days a week doing work I love. And when I'm at work, we have the incredible blessing of having one of the best families in the world (in our humble opinion) keep the kids. They love it over there. What more could I ask for?

So, I was a little surprised on Friday at a train of thought I had. My boss had called a special meeting of her direct reports to share an offer that was made to her to go to another department. The question came up of who would take her position. She wasn't certain so it was purely speculation, but she threw out the possibility that maybe one of the two guys who replaced me when I stepped down might be promoted. I will readily admit, it's been tough to watch other people do my former job over the past couple years. The Lord has really been using this time to chip away at pride issues I didn't even know I had. As of recent, I thought I had mostly overcome this issue. But, as I have learned over the years, sometimes sin can sneakily hide itself tricking you into thinking it's no longer issue. And then burst forth when you least expect it. When I heard the possibility that one of them might have been promoted, my brain immediately raced to the basic idea that "Hey, that should have been my promotion!" As soon as I became concious of the thought, I quickly tried to erase it. Especially because it shouldn't have even been there in the first place. My boss had already said prior to that comment that she wasn't going to take the position. So, nothing was changing anyway.

The fact that I had this disgusting thought it in the first place consumed a lot of the rest of my day. Why in the world would I want that promotion anyway? I love being with my kids! I love doing the work I do now. There was really no other answer other than pride.

Later that evening, we were sitting in the car at a stop light and it was surprisingly quiet in the car (that doesn't happen often with two kids). Out of no where, Micah suddenly says "Mom, I don't know what I'd without you." Wow. I couldn't help but tear up. It was exactly what I needed to hear to bring me back to reality. It took hearing those precious words from my 3 year old to remind me that I'm doing exactly what God wants me to be doing right now. Those guys can have my job, my old desk, my promotion, whatever. I'll take being with my kids over that any day.

7 hours later...

...we stood in line to checkout. That's right. We spent 7 hours in one store. Not just any store, though - the new Ikea in Orlando! For those of you that know us, you know that we're Ikea fans. Needless to say, we were pretty excited when we found out that a store would be opening in our state.

It was quite the day. We started the day at 5:15am and headed out to go pick up our friend Josh. We were also supposed to meet some of our other friends there, but they arrived a little later than we did and the store was so packed that we never crossed paths. On the way down, I also got a surprise phone call from one of my best friends and former college roommates, LB. We hadn't seen each other in close to two years, so when she said she had found out we were coming to Orlando and wanted to meet us at Ikea, it was just icing on the cake!

On our way back, we topped the already wonderful day off by eating some great pizza at a place called Satchel's in Gainesville. Josh had raved about this place for sometime, so it was fun to get to try it out. I have to admit, that was probably some of the best deep dish pizza I've ever had. But, Chris would disagree with me. He didn't like it so much. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

So, this week we'll be spending our spare time trying to put all the stuff together that we bought at Ikea. We also need to get the Christmas tree, wrap presents, work on our Christmas cards, and finish putting the lights on the house. If anyone is bored, feel free to come help! :)

Ouch.

The end of this pregnancy has definitely been more uncomfortable and exhausting than my other two. It could have something to do with having to chase two kids while being pregnant. Just a guess. For me, weeks 15-30 are generally great. I feel great, have energy, don't feel sick, I'm not sore, etc. But, I think if I felt that way the whole time though, I'd neer want to give birth! So, in a wierd sort of way, I'm thankful I feel this crummy. It just means the time is drawing near. My denial is ending - I'm feeling more ready to accept the inevitable labor and birth process ahead. And more importantly, I'm looking forward to meeting the newest addition to our family.

I heard some great news yesterday - one of my best friends from childhood is expecting her first child! I'm thrilled to death for her and I know she will be an awesome mom. When she told me, it dawned on me that we have known each other for almost 25 years. And even though I have 3 kids already, it just doesn't seem like we're possibly old enough to be having kids of our own. From the day we met in kindergarten, I still have tons of memories of the experiences we shared together. Like standing at the end of her dock in the freezing cold to pour Magic Shell chocolate in our mouths and let it solidify, spying on the boy next door to her house, our rollerblading club, playing soccer together for 10 +/- years, and the list goes on. It just doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I guess we're growing up. :)

Why?

Micah has officially hit the "why" stage. In the 1 hour time span of he and I cooking a single dessert today, I counted 72 why's. And I'm sure I missed a few. Here are just a few examples...

• "Why are you not using the whole stick of butter?"
• "Mom, why is that called vanilla?"
• After attempting to lick his fingers after getting egg all over them as I quickly yell "NO!" "But why mommy?"
• After sticking his finger in unsweetened cocoa powder, putting it in his mouth and nearly gagging, "MOM! Why do you put that yucky stuff in there?"
• After dumping M&M's on the ground for Abbey to eat as I attempt to frantically clean them up and at the same time calmly explain that chocolate will kill a dog, "Why? Is it okay for me to eat chocolate?"

Talk about exhausting. That doesn't even scratch the surface of all the questions he asked. I can appreciate the need for a child this age to ask these questions as part of development, but when you're in the midst of it, it's hard to not lose patience. Needless to say, we finished up that one dessert, I put him down for his nap and rushed to finish the other food before he woke up so I could avoid another 150 question why game. I should have figured he'd wake up and say "Why did you cook without me, mom?" :)

At the end of the day though, I always find myself reflecting that it's actually really funny and sweet to hear him asking these questions. I find a lot of his questions end up getting so far down the "why" tree that it often times leads to conversations about God and how much He loves us. When Micah prays at night now, it's hard for me not to tear up when I hear him say "God, thank you for the trees. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the ducks. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for Katie. Thank you for Abbey. Thank you for trains. Amen."

So all that to say, I suppose I can put up with this stage. I at least need to get used to it since Katie isn't far behind. When I put him to bed tonight, I told him thanks so much for helping me cook today. It was hard to contain my laughter when he responded, "No problem, Mom. Anytime."