Christmas Day 2011

Henry's first Christmas! We woke up at 7:30 and opened a couple gifts before church. Henry didn't really get what was going on but he did get that there was a big awesome toy that made noises (Racetrack from Grandma and Grandpa), a ball, and lots of fruit (from Spencer's stocking).

The one picture of me on Christmas day.

It was fun to experience Calvert Christmas for the first time. We finished opening presents sometime in the evening, I can't remember if it was before or after dinner. It was nice take time to enjoy each and every gift, and it definitely made Christmas last longer. :)

We played some Blokus with Amber and Mike and this Calvert family managed not to get any more illness after the Christmas flu passed from big Josh to Spencer, little Josh, Emma, and Randy.


At one point we took a fun jaunt to Gas Works Park in Seattle. It was a cold and windy day, but it was one of the few reprieves we had from the rain, so it was awesome to get out. The park has gorgeous views of the Seattle skyline and we got to watch a couple airplanes land in the lake. And my personal favorite bit of information, the paintball fight from 10 Things I Hate About You was filmed here.




Lastly, two pictures I just really liked from Christmas. I love all these men together, and then the three little redheads.



We left Seattle on the 28th. It was a crazy experience because a)We didn't want to leave and b)The power was out at the Seattle train station. The train was completely full and they had no way to assign seats and monitor it all, so I had a mini-meltdown when we finally got on a full train and couldn't find a seat. Fortunately, someone was polite enough to point out two seats across from each other so Josh, Henry, and I sat together. Henry missed his morning nap to take this train ride, so we had a fairly miserable time with him, but it was the THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Josh proposing. Big deal.


We arrived in Oregon to waaaay too much rain, ready to party and shop Target Christmas clearance.

Christmas Eve

Can I just start by saying I hate the voice I've written all of this in? It's mostly anecdotal which is the problem with blogging specific events that occurred too long ago for me to remember many specific emotional details. Feel free to gaze at and enjoy the pictures and skip my annoying blog voice while I journal Christmas eve, Christmas day, and probably the remainder of winter break. Cheers.

Words and pictures can't do our Christmas vacation justice. We spent 6 days in Seattle enjoying the pounding rain and lack of obligation to work and school. The Calvert Christmas Eve tradition has been to eat Chinese food on Christmas eve, but that tradition has recently been updated to include any kind of Asian food, hopefully a kind that won't make anyone sick...so we settled on Thai food. Henry kind of liked it but mostly stuck to his puffs and juice and flirting with the waitress. The rest of us thoroughly enjoyed the meal, and it was great to have such a stress free Christmas eve meal!

After the meal we wandered around the mall and took plenty of pictures in front of the giant Christmas tree.





Then we went caroling to a few different families, came home and Josh read "The Night Before Christmas" (another Calvert tradition) to Henry before he went to bed.



Then the Calverts (minus Henry and myself) left to do some Christmas good deeds (family tradition), I made some Honeymoon breakfast/Egg casserole (Calvert AND Williams tradition!), and Randy read "The Night Before Christmas" before we headed to bed. Next stop? Christmas!!!

Major

Okay, I've been major slacking. I am going to do this in some bite-sized chunks so I don't get overwhelmed about spending 100 hours on a catch up blog. Ready?

I GRADUATED! I am so happy. I passed all my classes and my diploma is coming in the mail. I don't feel a huge sense of accomplishment or grandeur, but my happiness mostly manifests as a giant weight that I don't have any more. Like how if I want to I can just spend my days playing Wii Fit, playing with Henry, and being obsessed with stay-at home mom things like organization, cleaning, and decorating. I love this new life. Well, so far anyway. I'm only 1 day in to the new semester and life of Josh working 30+ hrs a week and doing school. I'll keep you updated. Probably.

I think my son is adorable. So I'm posting this video. There's nothing all too important about it except I sometimes remember I should be taking more videos and pictures and this is what I get.



Also, two pictures. Henry being cute in some winter clothes.

The ornament/decoration I made for my moms and sister for Christmas. I spent waaay too much time making these and it's a pretty large reason why I haven't blogged in 2 months. Merry Christmas!

40-5 days

Well folks, I'm past my due date. But I got to celebrate Christmas, Williams style. All the pictures I have of me on Christmas Eve/Christmas day I don't think I look at ALL pregnant, i think it's the funny angle of the camera. So I have for your enjoyment 2 separate occasions on which I wore the SAME maternity sweater. You can't blame a girl for wearing the one fancy shirt she can still fit in, can you?

Christmas party (Dec 13- 38 weeks, 5 days)

Christmas Eve (40 weeks, 2 days)

Josh and I had a wonderful time being taken care of and having our last "child" Christmas at Aunt Cheri's house. Santa came and filled our stockings and we got so many unexpected gifts! We only wish that baby would've come....although he wouldn't count as an unexpected gift because he's supposed to be here by now.

We ate the world's largest slab of prime rib for Christmas Eve dinner as well as plenty of other delicious foods. Tom and Mary (Mary who is Kendall's cousin/older sister) and their kids: Talia, Landen, and Madilyn spent the night at Cheri's house as well. They're the adorable kids featured with Josh and me above. And this picture shows our "Santa faces". I was channeling Grandpa, I think.

So. I have a Doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and my induction is set for Thursday. I'm not miserable in any way, except I wish the baby would come. I'm starting to get nervous about recovering before school starts. Other than that, Josh and I are doing good!

Doctor Day

Yesterday was Doctor appointment #3. I'm officially 17 weeks along. We also got to hear Baby C's heartbeat again, which is such a relief every time. The exciting news was we set our next appointment for the 20 week find-out-baby's-gender ultrasound! We'll officially know August 10th around 9:30 AM. The "guess my baby's gender" poll will be up shortly so please put your votes in!

I TALK ABOUT VOMITING IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS SO DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT IT.
Today marks the first day of barf since I've been pregnant (and engaged or married, for that matter). I'm not sure if I can completely contribute the incident to pregnancy though as it was really random and kinda came out of nowhere and wasn't preceded by any true nausea. Basically, I got in the car this morning with Joshua about to run a series of errands and like 3 minutes later, I grabbed the trash bag out of the back seat of the car (lucky we actually had one today) and it was gross.

After like 3 minutes of that I felt okay and we drove to my work to get my pay stubs for the last 2 weeks. Then I used the restroom there and threw up again. Then we came straight home and I slept for an hour, did homework, went to Sammy's, and I haven't vomited since. Soooo...you be the judge on if that's pregnancy related or not.
END VOMIT STORY

This week we're in the process of moving between apartment 1 and basement apartment/home to be. It's about three blocks South East of our current place, it's a 2 bedroom beautifully renovated home. I can't wait to throw the Christmas party there this year, so ya'll better be prepared. I also got the cutest maternity swimsuit so I'm officially ready for the 7 peaks excursion of the summer.

Until next time!
K

Early Christmas

I think we can establish how crazy I am about Christmas. It's the best holiday, best day of the year, best 2 months associated with a holiday, best music, best parties, etc. This year Josh and I get to experience something we have never associated with Christmas before.

A BABY.

Yes. We're having a baby! In fact, we're having a Christmas baby, due on December 22. I'm nervous and excited, and Josh and I are so looking forward to a little addition to our family. I would say 'I can't wait', but I think we're both excited about the 6 months of preparation we're gonna have before our lives change for forever.

I am in my 15th week, and for those who don't speak weeks yet, half-way through my 4th month. Meaning, we're out of the first trimester, and we get to find out the gender the second week of August. It's crazy how fast the last 14 weeks have gone, and we have a mere 6 weeks to find out if we're having a girl or boy! Eventually I'll get one of those polls up so ya'll can vote if it's gonna be a girl or boy. We will be excited either way, because one side of the family needs a boy (Williams) and the other needs a girl (Calvert).

Needless to say, we'll be listening to a lot of Christmas music, and having a lot of preparation for my favorite holiday and a perfect little addition to our family. Love you all!

My gift to you.

Sorry I'm queen of short (AWESOME) blogs, but I just wanted to let you know that Christmas music IS playing on the radio. Which makes me not such a crazy person. Thank you 100.3 FM for my holiday cheer.

And I also wanted to let you know that stores aren't selling Thanksgiving stuff anymore now that I'm getting all excited about that holiday.

Cheers!
K

It's Christmas!

I waited as long as I could, I promise. Josh leaves for Pennsylvania tomorrow and I wanted to get the tree set up so I could work on other Christmas stuff while he's gone. We've been listening to the Elf soundtrack all day and enjoying our first Christmas together.

Adrie was here to help us put some ornaments on the tree. I hope her mother doesn't mind if she thinks it's almost Christmas...

And the almost finished product....

I also attempted something I've never done before in my whole life. I made gingerbread men cookies. The jury is still out on whether or not I'll do it again. I'm planning on having a Christmas party (feel free to schedule this in) and am considering having decorating gingie's (short for gingerbread cookies) on the activity list. As you can see, I made a lot of them, but they don't look so good. We'll see.

All in all, Christmas is a pretty big success. I feel kind of bad for Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving should know that I consider it a very important holiday leading the way to Christmas. I love turkey (probably more than the average person) and I can't wait for Adam and Emma to get here and to celebrate the day with everyone else.

So anyway, welcome to the Christmas season. I don't care if you say it doesn't start until Thanksgiving ends, because it's here. And I'm happy. So enjoy it while it's here, and look at my beautiful house. Cheers,

KL