Merry Christmas!!!

We enjoyed a nice quite Christmas at home with just our little family. Peter came running out of his room with nothing but his diaper on. It was a lot of fun to see Peter actually open presents this year. He was super excited about everything he got and he even decided to play with Josie's presents too (lower left picture).

Josie got two dolls and the rocker stacker from us. Her stocking was full of the bath toy letters (for Peter) just so there was something actually in her stocking. She's posing with her new book from Grandma Thatcher.

In Andrew's family it is a tradition to get your own box of cereal wrapped as a present under the Christmas tree. A few years ago I didn't do the cereal and Andrew was sad. So this year I made sure to do it. Everyone got cereal except for Josie, she'll get some next year though. :)

Christmas is Coming

At the beginning of the month I put up our Christmas tree because I had to have it up for the ornament exchange I hosted. The angel won't stand up straight, but I like her anyway. Also if I took a picture of the tree now there's a big bald spot in the front where Peter likes to take ornaments off the tree. 

These are all the ornaments from the exchange. I love handmade ornaments!

This is my ornament. It's a melted snowman!

Last week we really started to get into Christmas festivities. On Wednesday Peter's play group decorated cookies. He was much more interested in eating the mini M&M's than decorating the cookies. 

The cookie started out with more frosting and a bunch more M&M's.

Then on Saturday we went to the Train Museum with my friend Amanda and her family. Her boys were totally into it and Peter was done after 15 minutes of being there. It was actually really cool. It's a bunch of retired old men that bring their trains together to display for the public. The main reason Peter had issues was there was a no running, no touching rule which is really hard for him. 

This was the only picture that I got just before Peter was done. :)

Saturday was our ward Christmas party and Santa was there. :) The primary kids performed Jingle Bells on the kazoo and Peter managed to steal a kazoo he had it in his hand when he went to see Santa and quickly traded it for the candy cane. He wasn't too impressed with him but at least he didn't cry like last year. 

There were also some awesome musical performances that Peter really enjoyed. I got video of Peter dancing to the music. So a funny story, originally the cello was set up to the left of the piano, right in front of where we were sitting. I had to tell Peter not to touch it and thankfully he moved to up on the stage. I didn't start taking video until part way into the song so I missed some of his cute dancing.

I also put up the lights on our house. They pretty much look like last year, except with a bit of flair by the door. 

Peter's 1st Christmas

We decorated our house, inside and out.

My lovely "childproof" tree.

Aaron & Kjerstin's "childproof" tree all of the ornaments were moved out of Peter's reach.
We drove to Texas where it snowed on Christmas Eve and the snow was still on the ground Christmas morning. Peter didn't like the snow much.

We opened presents on Christmas morning.

The only present Peter really opened on his own wasn't his and it was a couple days before Christmas.
Some people get presents from Santa or their husbands. I get presents from Monkeys.
Peter got crayons and colored some paper for Grandpa Thatcher.

Santa Cries?

We went to a Christmas sing-along at our friend's house last night and one of our other friends came dressed up as Santa. Since it was Peter's first experience with Santa we thought it would be fun to get a picture of him with Santa. We thought wrong. :) He was okay for 2 seconds until he turned and looked at who was holding him and then he started to cry. It was really funny. There were a few other babies there that did the exact same thing so it wasn't just Peter.

Andrew made the comment, "For being such a jolly old fellow a lot of kids cry around him." How true that is. I think it's because most of his face is covered with hair so babies don't recognize him as a person.

Peter's first experience with Santa

Thanks for the picture Jenni!

Yarn

Andrew got me a yarn ball winder for Christmas (I asked for it) and had a lot of fun winding my old balls of yarn into new balls of yarn. It sounds like such a silly thing to get excited about, but I was really excited. :) You may ask why do you need an apparatus to wind your yarn when you were perfectly capable of winding balls of yarn on your own. The answer to that question is tension. You get a more even tension with the winder than with your own two hands. I've actually had some yarn that was wound too tight and when I went to use it on a new project there was a distinct difference between the old and new yarn. The yarn ball winder is the solution to that problem.

These are my yarn balls before.

This is the yarn ball winder finishing up a ball of yarn.

These are my yarn balls after.

It's silly but the new yarn balls make me happy. :) Just look how nice they are and they're not going to roll away and the tension when you use them is so much more even than using a regular yarn ball.

A White Christmas?

Not for me. I've been reading about the snow that Western Washington and even Las Vegas is getting so I thought I would look up the weather forecast for the Tucson area. Who knows, if it can snow in Vegas (which is kind of like hell freezing over) then maybe it can snow here in Tucson too. No such luck! In fact the forecast here is going to be cold for maybe 3 more days and then it's predicted that it will start to warm up again. Christmas day is supposed to be a high of 74 and a low of 43.

Stuff I Made

So just for fun I decided to create a new blog specifically for stuff that I've made the link is: http://MorganMadeStuff.blogspot.com. Some of it I have already talked about on this blog, but I have a lot more new and old craftiness that I am going to post. There are a couple of things in progress right now that I can't talk about because they are awesome gifts for people for Christmas, but I'll be sure to post them up after Christmas. :) Hurray for being crafty!!

Today is 36 Weeks

Officially I have 4 weeks or 28 days left. We are hoping to have this baby either right on time or a little early. The full moon this month is on the 12th so who knows maybe we'll have the baby around then. :) I'm to the point that I don't think we could be physically anymore ready. We have clothes and diapers and blankets and a place for the baby to sleep. That's all you really need right?

I guess we need a name too. We've got a list and we're working on it. Right now we have more girls names on the list than we do boys names. Which is funny since I have had a bunch of people tell me that they think I'm carrying high so it must be a girl. :) I don't know about that but I can still breathe so I don't think I'm carrying that high.

I haven't really started nesting yet either. Andrew was joking that my nesting will be me telling him what to clean; just because I told him to clean the bathroom before people came over for Thanksgiving. I have been crafting a lot I've finished up one crocheted blanket and putting the finishing touches on another. And I've got quite a few other projects that I need to get finished before Christmas.

This picture is me at 35 weeks and 4 days and yes the pants are supposed to be capris.

Only 65 Days Left Until...

Christmas!!! I bet you all thought that I was going to say until the baby comes, nope that's 70 days, only 2.5 months. It really is crazy how time flies. I'm feeling kind of like Costco right now. They have Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations out for sale right now but they're really gearing up for Christmas. :) I'm also feeling like a little kid again: counting down the days, wondering what I'm going to get, feeling like it's never going to come, wanting to make Christmas sugar cookies or at least get the premade dough and eat it (not that I was allowed, but I like cookie dough). :)

Andrew told me that some of his family are planning to go to Afton Wyoming for Christmas to visit his Dad's parents and that sounds like a lot of fun. But I'm not going anywhere anytime near Christmas, well except for the hospital that is. :) It's actually kind of weird not going to either of our parent's houses for Christmas, or Thanksgiving for that matter. I guess we were really spoiled living so close to both of our parents and extended family. Andrew says Christmas with just the two of us will be fun, I think it will be too. I'm just glad that we've already got our Christmas tree, with lights on it and everything. :)