Merry Christmas!

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on so I'm going to attempt to do a lot of it this afternoon during Grace's nap. 1st of all I want to say that I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We had a wonderful time with family and friends.

My Christmas started off on December 17th with my first gift. An HP Mini....

My old laptop has been having some monitor issues, I've been really wanting a Mini for several months, and Matt couldn't resist buying one for me (even though there were supposed to be zero gifts this Christmas).

So, I've been lagging behind in loading and organizing pictures. Hence the lack of blogging. I think I have them sufficiently organized now to be able to give some Christmas updates.

The Night The Savior Was Born

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born;

O night divine, O night, O night divine.

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,

Here come the wise men from orient land.

The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

Furniture

Less than one month until we close on our new house. Yay! The only thing that we have done in preparation for moving is buy some furniture. We have more rooms to fill (and some that will remain empty) so we bought a couple things.

We are inheriting some bedroom furniture for both Grace and the guest room from friends or family which is great. But we did have to buy a new mattress if we wanted to have a guest room and that was high on our priority list. We decided to hand our mattress down to the guests and buy ourselves a king size mattress. Woo hoo! Can't wait for that. Hopefully my dad will build us a headboard and footboard someday but we've never had one so we'll just sleep on the mattress with a metal frame for now like we are used to.

The other two pieces of furniture we bought are a sectional for the family room and a dining table for the dining room. Here are some pictures. FYI, the dining table expands to fit 8 chairs (we are getting 6 for now).

25 Weeks

Checking in for a pregnancy update....

Food: I've been enjoying the holiday season and eating lots of food. I have been craving salami and cheese sandwiches on delicious multi-grain bread from the Meijer bakery. It's pretty much been my lunch staple.

Morning Sickness: Unfortunately and fortunately I have realized that sugar is my number one trigger in feeling sick. So, I have been extra careful to avoid refined sugars and have found that to be very helpful. The unfortunate part is I can't control myself when it comes to Christmas cookies. So, after a large helping I find myself laying on the couch with a headache and nauseous.

Heartburn: The heartburn has started again. I don't remember when it started with Grace but it was pretty bad. I'm hoping because I'm carrying a little lower this time it won't be as bad. But, I do have Tums at the ready these days.

Doctor's Appointment: I'm nearing the end of the second trimester which means I will start seeing the midwife group at my local hospital soon. I love my family practice doctor but she doesn't do deliveries. I have one or two appointments left with her. The last appointment was in and out with no concerns. I even finally had some significant weight gain so as of 2 weeks ago I'm up a total of 10 pounds. That leaves me plenty of time to gain much more:)

I honestly can't think of anything else.

Buried Cherry Cookies

I just made 5 dozen of my most favoritest cookies in the world for a church cookie exchange tomorrow night. I hope the required 3 dozen make it out the door without me eating them all. Here is the recipe...

Buried Cherry Cookies

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients:

1 10-ounce jar maraschino cherries (42 to 48)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk or low-fat sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain cherries, reserving juice. Halve any large cherries. In a medium mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in cocoa powder and as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour.

2. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press your thumb into the center of each ball. Place a cherry in each center.

3. For frosting, in a small saucepan combine chocolate pieces and sweetened condensed milk. Cook and stir over low heat until chocolate melts. Stir in 4 teaspoons reserved cherry juice. (If necessary, frosting may be thinned with additional cherry juice.) Spoon 1 teaspoon frosting over each cherry, spreading to cover.

4. Bake about 10 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Makes 42 to 48 cookies

House Update

It's time for our quarterly house update. So, our current house has been on the market for just over 6 months now. In the last quarterly update I posted that we weren't seeing a lot of interest in the house and I would say it is still the same. A few people have looked at it but not very many.

Over the last month or so we have been faced with the decision of what to do about our house. With Baby Caleb due in March we know we'd have to take the house off the market for several months. I cannot imagine keeping my house clean and being able to get out for showings with a toddler and a brand new baby. We'd also have to take it off the market a couple months before Caleb is due because we wouldn't be able to accept any offers that would involve closing in February or March because we don't want to move that close to my due date.

So, after much prayer, wise counsel and consideration we decided to buy a house before ours sold. We looked at every house in town in our price range and found a great choice that we can totally picture our family in. After a great negotiation process we accepted a counter offer last week. We had a good inspection today and are set to move in January. I'm so excited.

As far as our current home we will keep it on the market through the spring and early summer in hopes that someone will buy it. If not, we will look for a renter. While our house might not be what buyers are looking for right now we're pretty sure renters would love it.

T-day

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend with family and are ready for the Christmas season. I've gotten a good start on shopping all done from my couch. I love the Internet. Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. We started the weekend by visiting my Grandparents on Thursday and having a traditional turkey lunch. We played games, watched football and did what many of you were doing on Thursday.

Then on Thursday night we drove to Matt's parents' house. Friday we hung out with his family, Grace got to play with her cousins, we had chili for lunch and then had the traditional Thanksgiving meal for supper. After supper we were able to go see the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We went with Matt's parents and his brother and wife. One of their friends came over and listened to the kids sleep in the monitors. The show was really good!

Saturday we just spent some time hanging around Matt's parents house and headed home in the evening. The only downside of the whole weekend is I had a cold. I think it hit it's worst yesterday though so at least I was at home to rest.