happy birthday, macy... I'm a day late getting this greeting out to my little girl. She turned two yesterday and I can hardly believe it. She's such a little girl now - my baby is gone! The weather was absolutely perfect yesterday and the day started out great. We rushed out in the morning to get groceries, a cake and some balloons for the small little birthday party we had planned for last night. But I should have known something was wrong in the afternoon when Macy came to me and asked to go to bed. I laid with her (and the cat and dog) in her bed, with the window open, breeze blowing in and birds singing outside. We talked and and snuggled and eventually she fell asleep. I found it a good time to clean the house. I even washed the baseboards in the kitchen (nesting). Macy wandered out from her room an hour later, looking sad and confused and when I picked her up she threw up all over. I stood there, not knowing what to do because this was the first time she'd been sick like this. I finally ran into the bathroom and sat her on the edge of the tub so she could finish in there. Luckily, her blanket bore most of the vomit. Poor little thing, she was crying and scared. She cheered up, though, when I put her in my bathtub. But afterwards, she asked to go to bed again and slept for the rest of the afternoon. We cancelled her party and took it easy last evening but this morning she opened her birthday presents and she was fine and happy all day. Mike and I were even able to go through with our afternoon date. Ashley babysat while we went to Meet the Fockers (hilarious!) and an early dinner at Red Lobster. When we came home, we continued the birthday celebration with birthday cake, fireworks in the back yard and the viewing of Macy's current favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz. Now Macy, with the help of daddy, is going to bed.

Christmas wrap-up... Considering we were unable to journey home this year, our Christmas was wonderful. On the eve, we went to the mall to attempt a Macy/Santa picture. As we suspected, she was scared to death of him and I ended up being in the picture with her clinging to me. We thought it was appropriate, anyway, to have "the belly" in there, too. Afterwards, we bought some more firewood and headed home. I got the tortilla soup started so it would be ready for us after church. We went to the 4:30 Mass at St. Mary Magadalene in Flint and came home to eat and open gifts and relax, just the three of us. It was nice. Mike and I decided to forego gifts to each other this year in lieu of our brand new rocker-recliner. It's a nice one, too. I could sit there for days. Macy, on the other hand, had plenty of gifts to open and had a lot of fun doing just that.

Christmas morning we spent alot of time relaxing in front of the fire, but that afternoon we celebrated with the Schwartz's and their neighbors by pigging out on prime rib and ended the night by watching the boys play charades.

So now it's back to normal, huh? Yesterday my wonderful husband cleaned both bathrooms and now they sparkle. I clean house a lot, but there's something about the bathrooms. They get far too neglected. We also put away all of our Christmas decor and brought down the baby stuff from the attic. I think we both feel a strong need to get the house ready for baby. Hopefully, it'll be any day now, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I just feel like he's ready. I definitely am ready to not be pregant anymore...

blue... No, I'm not sad. Three of my neighbors threw me a baby shower on Saturday. I thought that was so sweet of them. I got lots of cute little baby boy clothes, blankets, etc. Mostly all beautifully blue. I even wore blue to honor him. It was nice and as I looked around the room at all of my new friends I couldn't help but miss my friends and family back home. But at the same time, I was very grateful for these new people in my life who care about me, too.

That evening, Mike got a sudden urge to smoke some ribs so we invited two couples over for ribs, potato salad, fruit and leftover baby shower cake. Mike and I still can't believe we're able to bbq in the middle of December!

Yesterday, on the other hand, I felt terrible! I started my day with the long-overdue task of going to town and getting groceries. Mike and Macy stayed home and I was gone for almost two hours. I'm moving so slow these days! The rest of the day I did laundry and felt like crap. Mike took Macy with him to get my tires checked and hit Home Depot. I kept hoping that maybe I was going into labor, but the crappy feelings really weren't contractions, just achiness, tiredness and nausea - Yuck! I'm feeling much better this morning though. It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do.

done... with a few things... Last weekend Mike worked pretty much nonstop both Saturday and Sunday and completed the sunroom!! I've since spent the week moving toys out there and studying and stressing and feeling like crap. May I complain? I've had the worst sinus headache, I'm swelling like crazy and am really, really uncomfortable in most positions. To top it off, I had written finals Tuesday and Thursday and an oral on Wednesday. As you probably can imagine, I didn't like the oral exam experience very much. I basically sat in my professor's office and he asked me to explain how I would treat a person who is shy, introverted and hostile if I were practicing from a multimodal perspective. I blabbered on with what I thought were some good ideas for about 10 minutes. Afterwards he told me I did a "fair" job and went on to point out a few places where I was "confused". To his credit, he did say a nice thing or two, as well. At that point, I didn't care, I was just glad I was done...

We've also transitioned Macy to a big-girl bed this week. She's done pretty well but she sometimes wakes up confused and calls for mom or dad. I guess we better get used to getting up during the night anyway.

I had a dr. appointment on Thursday and found out I'm 2 cm. dialated. It's pretty exciting considering I wasn't dialated at all a week past Macy's due date when I went in to be induced.

With that, I'm signing off. I realize this rambling is pretty bad, but at least I've caught up. One of these days I hope to start writing better, but right now my priorities are elsewhere.

hectic... Life seems so crazy these days. First of all, I still have a cold that doesn't seem to want to go away, just move to different parts of my head. But on the positive side, I do have all my Christmas shopping done. But, there are still so many things we need to do around here. I have finals next Tuesday and Thursday plus an oral final on Wednesday - yikes! We also have a half-finished sunroom/playroom that will need to get finished (trimmed, primed, painted, carpet, door and ceiling fan installed) so we can move all the toys there, move the big bed to Macy's room and the crib to the guestroom/soon-to-be-nursery. We have a holiday party tonight at the Hooten's and next Saturday my sweet neighbors are having a baby shower for me:) And then whatdayaknow... it's Christmas! But enough stressing. I really have been enjoying some things, too.

Last week I handed in my Ethics paper and last night I presented on it in class. All seemed to go well but we didn't get our grades back yet. Also, last Saturday Mike and I left Macy with the sitter all day and Christmas shopped at the Canton Trade Days. No offense to little Mace, but it was soooooo nice having a day with my husband all to myself. It's been two months since we've done anything alone! We walked around Canton for about five hours enjoying each other and our surroundings and then, back in Tyler, we went out to eat at Julians before coming on home.

And here we are, almost a week later already. It's been a typical week full of last-minute Christmas buying and wrapping since we'll have to ship all our gifts home this year. I'm still kinda bummed to be stuck here over the holidays, but we'll make it special anyway.

P.S. I'm sick of being pregnant!