More Christmas Frstivities

Since my last post, we have continued with the Christmas celebrations!  Maddox did a cute little program at his preschool and had a fun book exchange with his classmates. 

We took the kids to see Zoo Lights. They weren't as thrilled as we had hoped though. It was super cold and Addy was complaining about that and Maddox was mad because it was dark and all the animals were all inside. Oh well, we got our tickets for free so at least we didn't spend a lot of money on it :)

We watched Charlie Brown Christmas as a family and the kids were snuggled up so cute :) 

Collin and I had 2 more Christmas parties, our small group one and the church staff one. Both were fun!!  Here is a pic of the baby bump at 21.5 weeks before the staff party :)

And today I was finally able to find Andee's peppermint chips so that I could bake my peppermint chocolate chip cookies!!  YUMMY!!  

Tomorrow night, we have our Christmas Eve Service at LC and I am really looking forward to it!  Then Christmas morning we will surprise the kids and board a plane to spend a few days with family in Texas!!  Can't wait!!!  

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior!!  

Christmas is Coming!

It's hard to believe Christmas is only 6 days away!  We have been busy little bees here getting ready and celebrating to holiday season!  We had our annual Christmas FX and Dinner with Santa at church last week, we got new jammies and advent countdown calendars from Dede, and put trees up in the kids rooms!  The kids were really excited to see Santa this year!  Addy asked for nail polish and Maddox asked for a Wii game.  Pretty doable list this year :D.

It is so much fun right now with the ages the kids are at!  They are so excited for Christmas and Maddox asks me multiple time a day how many more days until Christmas?  We are actually surprising the kids this year and taking them to the airport on Christmas morning to head to Texas for a few days!  They will be so excited!  I've printed them out some little airline tickets that "Santa" is going to leave for them Christmas morning!  So fun!!

We have had several Christmas parties already and have 2 more this week plus we will have our fabulous Christmas Eve service at Littleton Church next week!  If you live in the area we would love to see you there at 5pm for a time to focus on the true reason for this holiday!!   Hope your holiday season has been as joyous thus far as ours!!

Baby P3 Update

Last week we got to have our big 20 week ultrasound.  That is always an exciting and a little bit nerve-racking appointment.  Its so fun to get to see the baby again and often when you are able to find out the gender but it is also when you often find out if there is anything majorly wrong with the baby.  We thankfully got to see a healthy baby growing inside.

Like I said in a previous post, we have decided to not find out the gender this time around so this was our time to stay strong.  I told the ultrasound tech first thing that we did not want to find out so thankfully she stayed away from the money shot keeping us in the dark about the gender.

The baby looked perfectly healthy and was measuring just a couple of days ahead of our due date!  The heart rate was 141 bmp.  He/she was being a little uncooperative and wouldn't allow us to get a good picture of the face so we actually get to have another ultrasound at our next appointment in January.  This is kinda fun because we get to take another peek at our little but also a bummer because it mean I have to stay strong for another ultrasound and not find out the gender!  Oh well, I did it once so I can do it again!

Here is a pic of the baby sucking his/her thumb :D.  Can't wait to meet this little peanut!  Hard to believe we are already over half way there!!

The head is on the right and the body curves around the bottom.  You can see the little arm and hand coming up to it's mouth :D

Surprise B-Day Party

I have the bestest friends ever!!  Once we got back from our trip to Texas they threw me a little surprise party for my 30th birthday!!  All I knew was that we were doing something for my bday but I had no idea what we were doing.

We started the afternoon with an early dinner at one of my all time favorite places, The Melting Pot.  Yummy!!  It was delicious as always.

After dinner, we headed to the next surprise which turned out to be Canvas and Cocktails!  I had never been there but had always really wanted to try it out.  The girls were sweet enough to bring sparkling cider for me to drink since obviously that a no-no right now :D.  We had so much fun and in my opinion everyone's paintings turned out pretty decent ;).  It is definitely something I would want to do again sometime!

It was such a fun night and I am so thankful for all the girls that came to celebrate my big 30th birthday!

 And my sweet friends got me the cutest gift!  I had pinned this shirt forever ago but had never gotten one.  The best part is they special ordered it to have Texas on the front and Colorado on the back!  I can't wait until the baby belly is gone so it will fit :D.

Texas, Thanksgiving, Cruising, and Turning 30

We had quite the exciting week last week.  We loaded up the car (a day earlier than expected to miss a snow storm) and headed to Texas the week before Thanksgiving.  We had an uneventful drive and arrived in Dallas at around 2 am.  Collin and I spent 3 days there with family before we left the kids with the grandparents and flew out to Florida to board the Royal Princess for a week long cruise!

Our cruise went to Princess Cays, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.  We unfortunately didn't have the best weather but we still had a great trip regardless!  We celebrated Thanksgiving on the boat just the 2 of us and 4,000 other strangers.  We also got to celebrate my 30th birthday on the boat which was on Thanksgiving day.  St. Maarten was a great place to spend my 30th birthday!!  We had a great trip and thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing time together.

Muster Drill

Relaxing on the Balcony

Ready to set sail

All the cruise ships lined up...ours is the one of the far left.

Beautiful St. Thomas. We spent the afternoon at Magan's Bay, the cove on the left.

Ready for our day in St. Thomas.

The pretty beach in St. Thomas.

St. Thomas Harbor

St. Maarten

Orient Beach, in St. Maarten

The kids had a blast back in Texas too.  Both sets of grandparents got to spend time with them and enjoyed spoiling them while we were gone!  Collin and I got back to Dallas late Sunday night and then we all made the 12 hour drive back to Denver on Monday.

It was a great week for everyone.  We are looking forward to heading back to Dallas for Christmas in a few weeks.  We are surprising the kids on Christmas morning and heading to the airport bright and early :D.