One reason I love being married...

You can sit at home on New Years Eve night sick as a dog, exhausted from only getting 2 hrs of sleep the night before, and feeling crappy all together... but still feel so happy and content because you're still able to spend the night with your best friend.

Christmas recap.

Tyler and I had a great Christmas this year, and trust you did too!  Here's some of the highlights...

Tuesday we left for Columbia and arrived right around dinner time.  The night was spent practicing our nursing home music, playing a game, and watching a christmas movie.  Mom loved watching my belly move and loved seeing her grandson kicking... we had lots to catch up on regarding the baby since earlier in the day I had an appt.  Here's proof of the belly obsession... my sister snapped a picture of my mom checking it out. 
{don't mind the chihuahua... she makes her way into every picture!}


Wednesday (Christmas Eve) both my Mom and Dad had to work so Tyler and I took full advantage of that and slept in.  Once we woke up, we had a really lazy morning, consisting of sipping on coffee, wrapping a few leftover gifts, and ran to Best Buy to check out a video camera we're looking at buying. (gotta catch all those cute baby keith things on video!)  Once my Mom got home we spent the afternoon baking... sorry, no pics.  We made lots of Christmas goodies, including a delicious pistacio dessert... one good enough that I'll be making it again soon! 

That night we went to my parents church for our usual Christmas Eve service... it was good.  A little long for my taste, but still beautiful none the less.





After the service my Dad took us to drive by what was named "the prettiest Christmas tree in Columbia".  It definitely lived up to its named.  This baby is called "The Magic Tree" - it has 75,000 lights on it... no joke!  A guy has this set up in his front yard... you should have seen the traffic!  Lots of people driving by just to see it.  $20 bucks says the neighbors can't stand the guy... haha.



Christmas morning we woke up and did the usual... opened our stockings to see what "Santa" brought us.  One thing I wanted for Christmas was for it to be a "white Christmas"... but no such luck.  It was more like a "upper 40's-50's kind-of Christmas".



One tradition we have as a family is every Christmas we go to a local Nursing home and bless the residents there with some music.  We play our instruments, and sing lots of fun vocal arrangements.  This year we went to the same place that we did last year... it was fun recognizing some of the faces we saw last year.  It is always such a blessing to me when we do this... such an easy way to bless so many people.  So many of these people spend Christmas day cooped up in their rooms, and it's spent just like any other day of the week.  No family comes to visit them, no one stops in to give them a gift... nothing.  It is so sad and makes me cry every year when you see their faces light up.  I love that my family does this every year.  It is one of the quickest ways for me to snap right into the holiday spirit... by giving to others.  And check out this sign they had posted all over the nursing home!!  They were super excited to have us back again!  (but seriously, who wouldn't be?!  juuuust kidding!!!!)


Chad and Kaela and the kids arrived Christmas night so after we had a delicious dinner, we recited our Christmas verses (everyone in the family has a section of the Christmas story from the Bible that we have to MEMORIZE and recite before we can open gifts) and then opened our gifts.  Christmas night was spent laughing endlessly and playing the new games we received. 


My parents beautiful tree!


The whole fam!

Friday we shopped till we dropped... never again will I step foot in a mall the day after Christmas!!  It was by far worse than Black Friday.  And the evening was spent ... you guessed it!  Playing games.  (My family is sorta obsessed with this, as you can probably tell!)

Saturday morning we made Perogies.  If you know what perogies are, you win a gold star for the day.  This is one of my Dad's family's old recipes that my family never makes because it is soooo time consuming.  However, when you make a "train" and have a different person doing each step of the "train", it goes by a lot faster.  In fact, we whipped these perogies together within about 30 minutes, when it would normally take hours to do with 2 people.  Saturday afternoon we went bowling which was a blast!  Here's a couple pics of the all-star bowler... my 3  yr old nephew!  He was actually pretty good.


Isn't he cute?!


He held this pose the entire time the ball was going down the lane each time!  It was hilarious.

We left Columbia to head back home on Saturday after dinner (after enjoying those delicious perogies!!!)  We got home late Saturday night and spent Sunday relaxing and catching up on housework.... gotta love being an adult ;)

 Hope you had a Merry Christmas and was able to celebrate the birth of our Savior... the real reason for Christmas!!!

Happy New Year!

{Stay tuned for a 32/33 week baby update... I have lots to share!}

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Our Christmas tree - with the lights off

With the lights on... still looking for that perfect topper after 3 years!

Here's a little back-story on this itty bitty Christmas tree.  I bought this last year to go outside but this year when I put it out there, it got knocked over by the wind and the stand broke.  The same day I was begging Tyler to let me get a smaller, tall & skinny tree to put downstairs to put his childhood ornaments on it.  When I came home from work later that day, Tyler had fixed the stand and put this little tree in our basement.  So I figured - I might as well decorate it.  ;) 

He got to go to Hallmark each year as a child and pick out a different ornament... it was fun unpacking these and seeing the different things he was into each year!  Although the vast majority of them are Star Wars/Star Trek!  What can I say... I love him anyways. ;)  I'd love to do the same for Jaxon... go and let him pick out his own ornament each year.  I'm looking forward to all the new traditions we'll start as a family.

Some of the little details around the house...

Greenery/Ornaments above the sliding glass door

I LOVE my red vase I got last year for Christmas... (did you notice my fabulous stripes on the wall behind it?! More to come from that later...)

Picked up these cuties last year on clearance!

And these too! 

I'm hoping to pick up lots of decor this year after Christmas once it all goes on clearance... the small amount of things that I have went a lot farther in our little townhouse, but doesn't quite fill all the spaces in our house this year! 

So that's it!  Hope you enjoyed the little Christmas tour of our house!  Feel free to stop over... I make a delicious hot chocolate! 

Merry Christmas!!

Be afraid.. be very afraid.

It is -14 here with the windchill, and unfortunately I have seen an abundance of these day:



All I can do is hope and pray that these suckers are not making a comeback, because I guarantee I will not be wearing them. 

1992 called... they want their earmuffs back.

Update to being a slacker.

A couple weeks ago I posted about how far behind I was on numerous things, from writing thank-you's to decorating for Christmas.  I honestly think that gave me some motivation (I'm good at embarassing myself lately!) because I'm happy to give an update on those things.  And here we go...

- My baby shower was 2 weekends ago.  Normally my thank-you’s would have been completed and in the mail by now.  Definitely haven’t even started on them yet, but I promise to have them done by the end of the week.
Update:  They are now completed, and everyone should have received their thank-you by now!  Phew... now I don't feel so guilty looking at all the fun stuff we got!

- I promised you all picture of my house over a month ago… still haven’t even taken the pics, much less uploaded them.  Sorry…
Update: Ok, so I haven't done this one yet.  Maybe this weekend after I give it a swift cleaning job.

- I haven’t ordered or even found Christmas cards that I like this year yet.  Last year they were stamped, addressed, and ready to go by Thanksgiving.  (Side note: if you design or know of a designer willing to make some for me, I’d love a name and recommendation!)  I’m seriously debating not sending them at all this year… maybe no one will notice. 
Update: I found some fairly inexpensive ones on mpix.com... they are not my favorite, but they served the purpose.  And I'm happy to say they are now complete and I dropped them in the mail this morning. 

- Last year my Christmas decorations were up the day after Thanksgiving.  Granted, we were out of town this year, but I had all day yesterday to do this.  Instead, I sat on the couch and got caught up on Grey’s.  And the thought of doing this tonight or any other night this week does not sound appealing at all.  (What is wrong with me!?)
Update: I had a terrible day at work one day last week and Tyler somehow convinced me that by decorating for Christmas would help put me in a better mood.  Dang it, he was right.  I got all of our decor up... pics coming soon!

This weekend we don't have any plans... sometimes I think those are my favorite kinds of weekends!  Although I have to work tomorrow until 1.  The hubs and I have both been working tons of OT (I've put in 15 extra hours this week alone already) so we're both exhausted and I can only hope this weekend will be boring and nothing will happen.  Isn't that sad when that's all you can hope for? ... Relaxation?

The to-do list for this weekend:
- Laundry
- Quick cleaning job (maybe "pick-up" cleaning job would be a better term)
- Quick, small grocery shopping trip
- Start organizing and sorting baby clothes
- Take a couple naps
- Relax!

Hope you have a great weekend... and as always, TGIF!

My Christmas list.

Glider & Ottoman from WalMart

Anything off my baby registries, but if we're being specific...(hehe)

Car Seat Base

Diapers!!SwingPack 'n play
Board games

Starbucks coffee mugs

Baskets for storage in the nursery:

A few tupperware items:

 

Gift cards

Childrens books

New Life CD "Counting on God"

Grey's Anatomy (seasons 2-4) on DVD

What about you?  Do you have anything fun on your Christmas list this year?

The post you've been waiting for!

First off, a belly pic.

This is 28 weeks, 3 days.

Here's our christmas card picture... (isn't my hubby hot?!  I love him!)

And the baby's name?  Ohh yes...

Jaxon Daniel Keith

"Jaxon" came from an email that I got from my Grandma!  She loved sending me lots of different baby boy names after we found out the sex, and as I was reading the list outloud to Tyler one day, Tyler loved it and never gave up on it.  It wasn't my first choice, but I figure since he's probably gonna end up being so much like his daddy and looking so much like his daddy, that I don't mind letting him choose.  :)  I do really like it and of course it's growing on me the more I associate this little guy with the name.  Tyler's middle name is Jackson - so obviously that had a part in the decision too... even though we're spelling it differently.  And "Daniel" (middle name) is my Dad's name, and it was also Tyler's Dad's name before he passed away.  So that worked out - almost too perfectly.  :)

So that's it!  Our little Jaxon Daniel!  Hope you like it! ... and if it's not your fav or you don't like the middle name or don't like how we're spelling it, don't tell me!  Cuz seriously - I don't care. ;)

Calling all designers:

Anyone want to do a blog makeover for me?  I have no idea how to even go about doing this.  Apparently I'm computer-retarded.  I just want a new header and a facelift.  C'mon... you know you want to. ;)

Looking for my motivation... anyone seen it?

I don't know if it's pregnancy related or not, but my motivation to do anything or get anything done is so minimal, it's ridiculous.  Here's a few examples.

- My baby shower was 2 weekends ago.  Normally my thank-you's would have been completed and in the mail by now.  Definitely haven't even started on them yet, but I promise to have them done by the end of the week.

- I promised you all picture of my house over a month ago... still haven't even taken the pics, much less uploaded them.  Sorry...

- I haven't ordered or even found Christmas cards that I like this year yet.  Last year they were stamped, addressed, and ready to go by Thanksgiving.  (Side note: if you design or know of a designer willing to make some for me, I'd love a name and recommendation!)  I'm seriously debating not sending them at all this year... maybe no one will notice. 

- Last year my Christmas decorations were up the day after Thanksgiving.  Granted, we were out of town this year, but I had all day yesterday to do this.  Instead, I sat on the couch and got caught up on Grey's.  And the thought of doing this tonight or any other night this week does not sound appealing at all.  (What is wrong with me!?)

So... my fellow bloggers, I don't know what to say other than... Maybe I'll try harder?  The good thing is at least I realize it and can make it my goal to get these things done.  :)

And one last side note... I owe you a new belly pic and a post with our baby name!  Coming soon, I promise. :)

Happy (day before) Thanksgiving!

As we are heading back to Iowa this weekend for Thanksgiving, I am wishing more than ever that our families lived closer to us.  I am so jealous of the people who have their parents and family within minutes of them... such a luxury that most don't even realize.  Granted, I'm happy to be back in the MidWest and not in California where we were 24 hours from family, but 2 hours and 5 hours is still too long.

I am thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving... here's a few of them.

- An incredible, supportive, amazing husband whom I love more than words can describe.
- Our growing healthy baby boy who I can't wait to meet!!
- Family... I could go on for days about how great they are.
- Our warm, beautiful house that we love!
- Our stable jobs... even though most days I hate it, it is very stable and I'm beyond thankful for that.
- Reliable & safe vehicles
- Financial security
- New friendships
- My relationship with God... without Him, I am nothing.

What about you?  What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Baby shower pictures.

Both of our baby showers that we were given this weekend were beyond incredible.  We were spoiled rotten by friends and family and have an incredible start on all of the things we need for the baby. 

Here's some pictures from the first shower!


Ashley putting my corsage on


The yummy cake! 


Me and my SIL Kaela, me at 27 weeks, Kaela at 25 weeks

 
Opening gifts


The diaper cake :)


Some highschool friends


With the Keith ladies


With the beautiful ladies who threw the shower! ;) Kaela, my Mom, and my sister.

And here's some pics from the second shower!

 
The awesome decorations... diaper cake and an airplane made out of diapers!!


Tyler and I in front of the cake/food

 
Playing games... (gotta love the game that everyone guesses how huge you are! lol)

As you can see I didn't get as many pics at the second shower as we did at the first... somehow Ty's family snuck out of getting group pictures taken because I completely forgot about it!  Ugh! 

Thanks to all of our friends and family who were able to come to either of the showers... we felt very blessed and appreciated everything.  :)