I'm still pregnant. Bah humbug. ;)

I wanted this baby to come two weeks ago. And she's still in there. It's making me cranky. Which is silly, because she's not even due for another 9 days. But when I was dilating and effacing the first week of December, I thought for sure she would come soon and I've been expecting her every day for weeks now and it's stressing me out.

We did end up decorating our tree on my birthday and it turned out beautiful. I love our decorations collected from my grandparents, different memories over the years, our kids' school projects, and our tradition of painting an ornament as a family night activity each year before Christmas. Plus ribbon I thrifted the day after Christmas and some dollar store stars and balls and we've got a tree that's just full enough.

I also repainted parts and pieces of my nativity that week. I painted it originally the first year I got married to Kirk back in 2000 and my tastes and decorating have changed. Since it's not glazed, I can change it whenever I like and that's kind of fun. I wanted the pieces to be brighter instead of muted like they've been.

I finished all my Christmas shopping, all my decorating and wrapping, redid a wreath (I love how it turned out), finally got around to the pile of mending that's been sitting on my bedroom floor for months, rearranged my bedroom to fit the pack-n-play where the baby will sleep and a small bookshelf to hold her clothes, bought nursing bras and took Cecily to the mall playground, completed the second draft of my memoir, took the girls shopping for gifts for each other (at Dollar Tree and DI), made two kinds of Christmas cookies, and made two gifts--which I can't elaborate on because if Steve or Emilia reads the blog, they'll know what I made them.

The wreath on the left is the wreath before I redid it.

This is after. I reused all the pieces except the striped burlap and only added the white berries and one red flower.

Last Tuesday for family night, we painted our ornaments for this year. I forgot to take a picture of the finished products. Since we were painting though, it reminded me that I got a big bin of acrylic paint from my mom that she'd gotten free from Megan who'd gotten it free from some other lady. Nobody knew if the paint was even any good and at first glance, it looked like there weren't a ton of good colors. The original owner of the bin REALLY liked "rose" and "deep green," neither of which are on my list of favorite colors. But after shaking all 140 or so bottles, separating them by color group, and painting each one on a paper so I could see swatches, I ended up keeping about 50 colors and giving away over 80 to the neighbor kid who likes making slime with it.

This is the paint I gave away:

I've been keeping myself very busy nesting. lol

Last week I came down with a cold--nothing too bad, just tired and a bit of a sore throat for 3 or 4 days. But I didn't make it to church, which made lots of people wonder if I'd had the baby. :)

We'll see how this week goes, but I have no plans except having a baby.

(Cecily wanted me to take pictures of her when we were at the mall.)

(One day while I was showering, Cecily scavenged a toilet paper roll and made an octopus by taping pipe-cleaners to it and drawing on a face. I love her creativity.)

Thanksgiving n stuff

So it's been a while . . . fortunately for you, that means I'm not going to remember all the details, so you get a general overview. :)

I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house for the Festival of Trees this year (it's a charity event where Christmas trees, wreaths, centerpieces, nativities, and gingerbread houses are donated and then auctioned off to benefit the children's hospital). My mom said that as a birthday gift, she would help me with it.

Once we decided on a style and shape, I baked and iced all the pieces. Then we "glued" them together, and decorated the house and yard. This makes the process sound simple. It was anything but. It probably took me about 25 hours. And the house, though it only cost about $50 to make, if my mom and I were paid minimum wage for our work, it should have auctioned for about $225. And this is not minimum wage work. But--it auctioned for $135. So, although I'm glad I did it, and it really was fun despite the long hours, I don't think I'll be donating a gingerbread house again. A wreath would take me less than 10 hours to make (probably closer to 5) and they were going for $350 - $500. I'll do that next time.

I also did an activity days activity where we went to the local Food Pantry. It was interesting to see how they worked behind the scenes and understand their goals and needs.

Mira had the toothfairy visit twice in two weeks. I helped with the Thanksgiving activities in both Mira's and Cecily's classes. I babysat for a friend whose baby is in the NICU because of complications with the birth.

For Thanksgiving, we drove down to St. George since Nick and Wilda were going to be down there to close on their new house and my parents were going to be in Colorado for the holiday. It was a fun weekend of good food, "gingerbread"-house making (I made 2 more to give to friends, though they're still sitting on my bookshelf because I've been to busy/overwhelmed to take them), playing games, and enjoying the outdoors. Mira hyperextended her knee on the trampoline our last day there and she's been very sad about that ever since. It seems to be healing properly, but it still twinges every once in a while and she'll say, "I wish I never hyper-extended my knee" in her sad, Eeyore voice.

This week, my mom and I took Cecily and Mira to the Festival of Trees, I did a lot of Christmas shopping, Cecily had a play date, we wrote letters for Family Home Evening, we had eye appointments and a doctor appointment (I'm already dilating--YAY!), and Steve and I went to the temple and out to dinner while my parents watched the kids last night.

I'm hoping this kid comes this week. That may be wishful thinking. And I probably should pack a hospital/diaper bag and get out the bassinet, if I really want that to happen. But today is my birthday, the kids are outside building a snowman, and if we have time before my birthday dinner, I'd really like to decorate our tree.

So have a happy week, everybody!

Baked gingerbread:

Iced gingerbread:

Glued gingerbread:

Mira's class party:

A set of doors and shutters that didn't work, but tasted good(!):

The finished house:

A free apple pie from my mortgage banker that was WAY bigger than I expected it to be.=:

Cindy's house Thanksgiving day:

I decorated the table with Haley's help:

My gingerbread house #1:

#2:

This is Cecily + Steve's. It's the castle in Voltron:

Mira's pagoda:

Emilia gave up on building and just made the symbol from her favorie Manga series.

The infamous trampoline ;) :

My belly is huge and this kid needs to come out.

Cecily is getting so grown-up!

Cecily and Mira spent hours making these paintings the other day. When they finished one, they would hang them up in the hallway. When I asked what they were doing, Mira said they were pretending to be famous artists who were so good, they named a museum after them. I love their paintings and their ideas.