Where Your Soul is Free

Where is the one place your soul feels free?

The place where you go to get away from it all?

The place where you go to think, to breathe, to be?

My place is the outdoors.

The air is healing for me.

Even if that air is bone-chilling.

I breathe it in and my fears and anxieties dissipate.

This winter we've been hit with record breaking cold temps and snowfall over and over.

By this time, the end of January, I am aching for green grass and warm sun.

I dream about getaways and adventures.

Today I decided to go walk along the lake - just to be outside.

It was negative something degrees but that didn't matter.

Today was good for my soul.

Alone.

In the silence.

In the frozen wasteland.

I imagined crossing the frozen lake on foot to Canada.

I imagined that the grass was new and my girls were running in the sunshine.

I imagined picnics.

kisses.

life.

After today I am okay to wait a while longer for spring to arrive.

The winter, in all her bitter chill, is beautiful.

She is peaceful and slow.

She makes us stop and relish the simple things.

Time is but a vapor.

Breathe this moment.

Live this moment.

XO.

Christmas 2011

Better late than never?

We celebrated Christmas for four days this year.

Christmas Eve with Josh's family.

Christmas Day with my family.

The day after Christmas (Josh worked) I went back to my family's to see my older brother who was in town.

Tuesday we all went to my aunt and uncle's house to spend one last day with my brother. 

I made tons of treats for gifts.

 Peppermint Stir Sticks (I used white chocolate instead)

 Peppermint Wafer cookie recipe

 Chocolate covered pretzels

 Caramel Corn

(I can't find the recipe I used...oops)

 Peanut Brittle recipe

 Peppermint Barks

I didn't use a recipe.

All you do is melt chocolate and spread on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with broken peppermint candies, and let harden in the freezer. I break it with a wooden spoon. 

 Oreo Cookie Fudge recipe

I whipped up some chalkboard paint mugs for my parents and a little chalkboard for my mom out of an old picture framed (not pictured). 

This Christmas was a whirlwind!

It was so wonderful to be with family, eat and laugh for four days...

Although, I did sleep for about 24 hours after everything was over. 

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Baby Showers

So, I've been wanting to do a baby shower post for the longest time but I just haven't gotten around to getting it done.

My MIL threw a shower for me in early November and my mom had one at the beginning of this month.

Both of them were so wonderful and we were so blessed by family and friends. 

Shower #1

Shower #2

 my Aunt Carol made Vivi the most beautiful blanket.

It is definitely going to be a treasured piece. 

 my aunt gail, memaw (mom's mom), me, my mom ^

my mom and cousins made little waxed deer ornaments for favors. So cute. 

It was so amazing to see all the love for our daughter at these showers. 

We are so Blessed to be so thought of and cared for. 

Only a few more weeks until Vivienne is here to enjoy all her new things and be showered with love!

Also, I promise I will be getting thank you cards out THIS week!

I have had them done since the day after both showers and haven't had the chance to get them in the mail. 

I promise they're coming!

Christmas Tree 2011

So, we *finally* got our tree!

He's a little lop-sided but we loved him as soon as we saw him :)
I took a bunch of pictures of the living room decorated for Christmas but when I try to upload them on here they're sideways and I can't get them to rotate.
At least you can see the tree here.

Baby is growing like a weed!
Almost 34 weeks here.
This week is going to be super busy - 2 doctor appointments, out to lunch twice with some girlfriends, babysitting in the afternoons/evenings, Christmas shopping. I'm already tired just thinking about it.
Josh just has finals all week so he'll be home a lot more starting now until January 26th when school starts (and coincidentally my due date...nice) again.
Viv is getting *so* heavy that sometimes it's difficult to walk...I find myself hunched over most of the time like a cripple.
I'm really hoping these next 6/7 weeks go by really fast in the fact that it's just simply getting hard to live with being so huge and uncomfortable all the time. I am however, treasuring this time as best I can - having my baby so close to me and bonding with her in this way, having time to myself to do whatever I want (which is mostly sleep), and most of all enjoying every second with Joshua that I can. After the baby is born life is forever going to be so different so I'm just soaking in the *now* :)

I've been super lazy with blogging lately.

I think about it - but then I think about something else and well, there goes the blog.

The past few weeks have been anything short of dull.

I had my first baby shower hosted by my wonderful mother-in-law at our church. It was a beautiful time.

A lot of Josh's family that lives out of state came up for a few days and were able to come to the shower. It was such a blessing being able to spend a few days with them. They're all a blast! But now we miss them again!

A few days after my shower I got really sick.

chest pains, couldn't breathe, blurred and spotty vision, lost feeling in many places.

I along with my doctor panicked for a while at the possibility of preeclampsia but ruled it out.

Finally, after a bunch of tests and doctor visits they diagnosed it as Anemia.

phew!

Nothing too serious - although my iron level was 11 (not sure what it's supposed to be but 11 sounds really low). I've been feeling a lot better since going on a 3x daily iron supplement. yeuch.

I babysit 4 times a week for most of the day for two 7 month old babies ( I mentioned awhile back I think). I adore them but they do like to steal every ounce of energy that I may have from me. I made the decision today not to continue babysitting them after Vivienne is born. My heart feels torn because these kids are so adorable and lovable and their parents are great. 

Tomorrow my mom is coming over for the day to work on favors for my second baby shower which she's having on Saturday.

I've started to go into panic mode.

Only 8 more weeks and our daughter is going to be here.

We still have so much we need to buy for her arrival - like the real essentials people!

I need to make my birth plan, make lists of everything I need to do, go on some dates with my Hubby, get new tires on the car, clean out the car (it's disgusting!), choose our pediatrician, enjoy Christmas! Oh my, so much to do! 

here's some crappy pictures to update you on how fat I'm getting.

Seriously, I'm becoming a cow.

I've finally gained some weight (not that I was by any means skinny before I got pregnant).

I would tell you what I'm at now but saying my weight out loud is something I never liked doing - might as well not start anything new. 

You know how your mother always used to tell you "appreciate how skinny you are now because you won't always be!" 

Yep, wishing I took that motherly advice now.

30 weeks ^

31 weeks ^

32 weeks! ^