Oh What a Christmas!

There's so much anticipation and then it's over in a blink. Although it went as fast as ever, Christmas this year was wonderful - we had a great time 'making merry' with all of our families. Starting around 4:00 on Christmas Eve we began the two-day celebration that included visits to Mimi's house, Nana's house, Grandma's house, God's house and Great-Grandpa Smith's house (not necessarily in that order). We are so blessed to have our family close and be able to share holidays and 'every'days with them.















Grace must have been a very good girl, because she got everything she could ever want and is VERY grateful to Santa and all of her grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles & friends who took the time to give her a special gift.

Here are some the other great pictures from this Christmas season:

(you can click on them to view a larger image)

A Busy December

Time for the weekly update - brought to you by Grandma Peggy's offer to babysit and Grandpa Bob's high speed internet.

First, some very exciting news - Grace and I will be going to visit Christina (my cousin) and her daughter Adilynn in Colorado in late January!! We are very excited - we're flying out on Tuesday, Jan. 20 (Aunt Katie's 23rd Birthday) and we'll be back on that Friday. Mommy's a little nervous about maneuvering Grace and luggage and pregnant belly through the airport by herself, but nothing ventured, nothing gained right? We can't wait to see their home and spend time playing in the snow with them!

Now, on a less exciting note - I am signed up to complete a training course with a company called Berlitz to become an English-as-a-second-language tutor. The training is the second week of January and if I successfully "graduate" I will become a paid language instructor. Here's what this will mean for our family: I can take on as many or as few students as I like (depending on my schedule) and I can select which students to take on based on when I want to do my tutoring. So basically, I can choose to work just a few hours a week (evenings, days, mornings - whatever) and earn a few extra bucks. (And, as a bonus, I will be interacting with people from all over the world and learning about their cultures and traditions!!) Should be very cool. More to come . . .

Now about Daddy - he recently had to leave home and go on two business trips and he was sorely missed while he was away. Don't let me mislead you though - he was only gone one night on each trip; the first to Cleveland and then to some sunny beach in Florida. I'm pretty sure he had a good time jetting around with coworkers and acting like a real grown up :), but Grace and I hope this doesn't become a regurlar occurence.

OK, what else??? Oh yeah, Christmas! I can't believe it's so close - the shopping is done and the house is all lit (way to go Daddy!). There are still cookies to be baked and LOTS of wrapping to do, but we'll get there.

Last night we kicked off the 'official' holiday festivities with a family trip to the Festival of Lights (see pictures below) and on Monday we're going downtown to see the train display, visit Santa on the Square and the nativity scene at Krohn Conservatory (all holiday traditions of the Rolfes Family). There are lots of other Christmas activities we're going to try and squeeze in, so look for lots more pictures to come.

Next time I blog will be post-Navidad, so MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Grace bundled and rollin' through the lights

As close as Grace would get to Santa (of course she didn't skip a beat grabbing the candy cane he offered)

Daddy and Grace on the carousel
Now it's Mommy's turn

OMG - The 3rd Trimester is almost here

Behold! The beauty of stretching skin!

At 26 weeks, it was time to take another belly shot (this is the 2nd of 3 that will catalog my expending waistline). I don't think there are any other words necessary.

Lots of Changes

Hello!! What a busy month November was - I was working to wrap things up at work (in case anyone's counting, it's been 9 days since our family made the switch to a fulltime-at-home-mom arrangement, and it's been wonderful!), celebrating my birthday (whoo hooo 25) & gearing up for Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas season.

So far, we're off to a great start. We put up the indoor decorations and Grace loves to push all the buttons that make the music boxes play and the dancing Christmas puppy sing and to point out Baby Jesus and Holy Mary in our crib set. We'll be headed to a mall someday soon to visit Santa, but I'm not optimistic that Grace will be as willing to sit on his lap as she was last year - it's worth a try though :).

Let's see, what else? OH - we found out that Tony's brother Mike and his wife Amanda are expecting their first baby in June; a big CONGRATULATIONS to them! AND our friends Angela and Ryan told us they will be welcoming their first baby in May. Way to go everyone!! Let the baby boom begin :)

Speaking of babies booming - I think I grow one inch rounder each day. Seriously - I have to hold my breath when I bend over to tie my shoes now and I think I almost passed out after carrying Grace and groceries up the steps yesterday. It's very exciting to see how close we are getting to the arrival of our second baby (only about 3 months to go). I have to do the Glucose test at my next OB appointment (a standard screening for gestational diabetes) - and I am definately NOT looking forward to it. It's not physically painful, but I do have to drink a bottle of yucky sugar syrup and last time instead of a the expected sugar-high, I fell into a deep sugar-coma and fell asleep in the waiting room. Very embarassing :)

We are still brainstorming about names, but I think last time we didn't decide on our final choices until very close to my due date - we'll keep you all posted. Some time after Christmas we will begin Grace's move to her big girl room and start gearing up for a newborn in the nursery, but not just yet.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the last couple of weeks - some are from Thanksgiving dinner (at Nana and Papa's house) and others are just us around the house. Enjoy -

Finally a Halloween Update

So - I know I'm practically a month late, but here is a picture of Grace on Halloween. You can't see it in the picture, but thanks to Papa, our little Lightning Bug even had a blinkin' bottom! She was adorable! This year Grace enjoyed passing out candy more than collecting it from our neighbors. We all had a wonderful Halloween and are looking forward to a cozy, yummy Thanksgiving.

Also, a pregnancy update: There is nothing to update. I'm 23 weeks in now, so while Mom and Dad are having a great time feeling the baby kicking all the time, right now we're (Mom and baby) just gaining weight and counting down the days. My next OB appointment is in early December, but for now no news is good news :)