Christmas Part II

For the 2nd part of our Christmas holiday, we headed down to Columbia, TN to spend time with Matthew's grandparents, parents, brothers and their wives, and of course our favorite nephew Sam!  We hadn't all been together since Benj and Morgan's wedding, so it was so nice to be able to catch up in person!

We spent our time there mostly eating Grandma Eva's delicious food and desserts....If you want to taste the closest thing to heaven bottled up in a jar, you need to have some of Grandma's strawberry preserves (M would say the peach)...  Either way, I firmly stand by that statement. 

Monday the 26th, some of M's extended family came over to his grandparents house for the annual "26th Hardison Lunch"...  I was at the "Big Table" again :)  Not to make anyone else in the family jealous, but I've always gotten to eat there :)  I'm sure it has nothing to do with my shining personality but more likely due to the fact that because of my work schedules over the years, I've only made it about every other year...but who's really counting!

Uncle Neal...Aunt Kay refused to be in the pic :)

Vising Nannie

All the Kids

On the move for presents!

Christmas 2012 has some big shoes to fill!  But who am I kidding, because of baby girl, all Christmases from now on will be infinitely better!

Merry Chris Smithmas!

If Dad ever happens to say his name quickly, it always happens to come out sounding like Christmas...hence the blog title.  Smith Family Christmas came and went way too fast... of course anything would seem short compared to the 2 weeks we spent at home the first Christmas we were married.  M hadn't been in Nashville since June, so we also had to try and squeeze time in to see some of our friends during our stay. 

We kept saying that this would be our last Christmas as a family of 2, and that next Christmas we would be celebrating with our 7 MONTH OLD!  Too fun.

Before the Christmas Eve service. 

Yes, we still think it's cute.  Somehow next year we will have to find baby girl matching ones too!

Even Lex had her pajamas!

 

Mom and Dad totally surprised M with a new Xbox and Kinect.  He was thrilled!  I on the other hand fell asleep the other night to the sounds of machine guns firing from our living room.  :)

 

Dad's Christmas consisted of a bunch of new running gear.  Yawn!

Sums up my mom.

Heath, Maddie and I also got to go by and meet Katie Bug's new baby boy Carson!  Best friends and our babies!

Thanks Mom and Dad for making this Christmas so wonderful!   It was VERY hard to leave...as in M had to practically bribe me to get on the airplane home.  We love you and are very thankful you put so much effort into making Christmas special every year. 

Pictures coming soon from Christmas Part II. 

IT'S A....

SWEET BABY GIRL!!

Matthew and I are over the moon excited about our precious baby girl.... To say we were shocked would be a total understatement!  Now that we know it's a she, we cannot wait for this little girl to get here!

We found out Friday, Dec. 23rd with both of our families..minus J and K and Benj and Morgan.. Hate that y'all couldn't be there!  As I said before, my good friend Kelly called Puffy Muffin a couple of days ahead of time to tell them the sex of Baby H.  I could not WAIT to cut into that cake. 

No one expected to see pink.  At dinner, we polled the whole table to see if anyone thought that it was not going to be a boy.  Not a single person raised their hand.  Ha!  Baby Girl you are already full of surprises!   Dad took video of the whole process, but I will have to wait until I get back up to Nash and download it to our computer.  For now, the pics will suffice!

And no...we have not picked a name.  We currently have a Word document with a list of our top picks.  We're going to mull them over for a few days, heck maybe a few weeks... this little girl has got to live with this for the rest of her life! 

I cannot wait to see my sweet husband with this little girl.  No doubt she will be a big daddy's girl :)  After it was all said and done and M and I were falling asleep that night, he looked over at me and said, "I secretly wanted it to be a girl".  Precious.  I love him so much.  So incredibly thankful for my little family.  God has blessed me so much. 

21 Weeks

Absolute favorite!  You can tell M is about to say "GIRL!"

 

Trying to get a better view!

M wanted to be the first person to get clothes for the baby, so he surprised me with a little UK dress!

Christmas posts coming soon!  Probably after the weekend.  Ash and Laura are on their way here from the airport with M to stay for a few days!  Cannot wait!

20 weeks! Halfway There!!

Yesterday I was exactly 20 weeks pregnant!  It's nice to be on the other side of 20, now we're really counting down... We went to get an official anatomy ultrasound yesterday to make sure Little Bean is developing like he/she should.  Happy to report that everything looked great.  It was amazing to be able to see baby's heart (all 4 chambers), aorta, liver, bladder, up close of hands and toes, mouth, etc...  We were still able to avoid finding out the sex...only 3 more days!

I was telling someone at work today that most of the time I hope that the next 20 weeks fly by...then I remember that our "nursery" is currently a pile of unused frames, boxes of winter clothes, and our pieces to Rock Band...  I think I'm going to need all that time to get ready for this baby to get here. :)

Here are my 2 favorite pictures from the ultrasound yesterday.

Baby is limber!  Knee to Nose!

We didn't realize that we were going to get any 4D pictures.  I always kind of thought they were creepy looking.  But this picture changed my mind.  Look how sweet that face is!...With those little hands....

20 weeks.. I put a picture like this in the last post, but with the lighting in this one I think you can see the bump a little better :)

Merry Christmas My Dear!

Matthew and I celebrated our own Christmas last night by driving to Galveston to eat at Willy G's (right on the water) and see a showing of Tuna Christmas (the funniest play ever written).  I had seen Tuna Christmas a couple of years back in Nashville much to the insistence of my parents...I was convinced that there was no way the show was quite as funny as my parents kept saying...but I don't think I have ever laughed that loud at a show.  So, last year, Tuna (the 3rd smallest town in Texas) was playing again in Nashville, but I realized it too late, and the cheapest tickets I could find were $200 each.  I wanted M to see it badly, but not enough to spend that!

When we moved here, I figured that the 2 original guys had to do at least 1 show somewhere close...I was prepared to drive to Dallas...but to my surprise, they were doing a week stint in Galveston, a short 50 minute drive from our house!  Christmas plans sealed, I couldn't wait.

It was nice to get out with M last night and take the time to both get dressed up, enjoy a nice dinner, and stay up later than 9:30 :).  M had already spoiled me enough this weekend by making me homemade chicken parmesan Friday night (which was the first meal he ever cooked for me when we were dating).  Spoiled even more by finally getting me a great steak...something I have been craving for weeks!  Thankfully, Matthew thought that play was hilarious, I hadn't talked it up too much...although I don't really know how you could, it's that funny.

Merry Christmas to my incredible husband!  Next year we will be celebrating our own personal Christmas with 1 more!

20 weeks!

Cast of Tuna

Little Bean at 19 weeks!  My gender is secretly sealed in an envelope...and my parents are dying to know!

18 and 19 weeks and Missing the Magic City

19 weeks today.  Almost halfway!  Another doctor's appointment tomorrow.  Anatomy ultrasound next week.  We are super close to knowing pink or blue....and I can hardly stand it!

Feeling pretty great except that my energy level hasn't really bounced back from 1st trimester misery.  Thankfully I'm awake enough to make it through the day at work, but once I'm home, it's all she wrote.  Weekends I take a nap everyday to try and catch up.  My home was DEEPLY cleaned for the 1st time in a long while...obviously, knowing me, you know that it's not like I hadn't cleaned in 3 months...but this time I really went after it...and it felt so great when we were done.  I think it was the highlight of my weekend :)

We spent Friday night finishing up our shopping at the Galleria (the BIG mall).  Saturday we cleaned and fnished decorating for Christmas...I was on call and didn't get called in.  Another highlight! Sunday was church, small group, and then I took a 2 1/2 hour nap :)

We've officially reserved our parking spot at the airport for Christmas. Lexi has her reservation made as well.   Hoping I can survive the next week and a half. 

Missing the Magic City (Bham) more than usual today.  As I was walking through the OR today, I heard a visiting Sales Rep say, "Well I'm originally from Tuscaloosa"...  I just had to, I couldn't help, so I interrupted their conversation to say, "Roll Tide!"...to which he replied "I heard that!".  It led to a conversation about Birmingham, and I lamented to the whole crew of strangers how my husband and I missed our old home a lot.  As I sit on the couch in my Bama sweatshirt...here are the reasons why today:

1.   Every year while we lived in Birmingham, I would go up to Kristen's school at Christmas to help her 1st grade class decorate gingerbread houses...This event happened to take place last week and of course due to a mere 650 mile separation, I was unable to be there.  Xmas Tradition missed.  Still hoping that there will be another day where we will live within 5 minutes of J, K and Sam :)

2.  Christmas season in Bham also brings Ed and Shawn's Christmas party.  Missing any kind of party at their place is a big disappointment.

3.  Matthew and I started the Christmas tradition every year of going to eat at our favorite Birmingham restaurant, Chez Fon Fon, and then going to the Alabama Theater to see It's a Wonderful Life.  There's no Fon Fon in Houston :(

4.  Swapping creative gifts with Geoff, and our Christmas celebration consisting of take out Little Caesars.

5.  And then there's our sweet dear friends.  You know who you all are.  Hoping to see you soon. 

18 weeks.  Wearing maternity jeans and shirt... Thanks to my good friend Kelly :)

Our UK tree!  We ordered a white tree online and found some blue lights at Wal-Mart.  Perfect edition to our bedroom.  Apparently it was bad luck on Saturday... That's all I can say about it.

After 4 married Christmases, I finally found a place to hang out stockings.  Still not monogrammed...

Bought some new sparkly Gold chargers that I am obsessed with!  Cannot wait to get some Christmas china...but for now our wedding china will do.  And yes, I did set a whole table for 8 even though I still don't have dining room chairs.

19 weeks!

18 Weeks

A lazy weekend was just what M and I needed, and thankfully that was what we got.  Friday night, I willed myself off the couch when M got home to go eat and finally pick out our Christmas tree.  I was still having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit... It had been in the mid 70's all day.  But once we got the ornaments out and put the Christmas music on, I started to get into it.  I was on call Friday night until early Saturday morning, but was fortunately not called in... So we spent the whole evening decorating.

Early Saturday morning I woke Matthew up at 6:15... "Baby wake up!  I just felt the baby move!"  I know, I'm awful to wake up my husband that early, but it was the first time I had felt the baby, and I was just too excited not to share.  Since we were already up, we decided to head out and get some Christmas shopping done before the crowds got too bad.  It was a great decision.  We spent the afternoon at the Russells watching UK beat UNC!!  And the SEC Championship game.  Much needed lazy Saturday.  

Nothing else much going on here.  We're counting down the days until Christmas and finding out what Baby Hardison is!  Our ultrasound is December 19th, but we're going to wait and not find out until we are with our family on Christmas Eve.  Don't know how I'm going to wait 5 days, but my friend Kelly is taking the envelope from me and calling the bakery to get a cake made....I know, a million and one people have done gender reveal cakes in the last couple of years...but ever since I heard of the idea a couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to do that when the time came for us.  So, I don't care that it's "old", I'm incredibly excited about it!  Then we will start the difficult task of cleaning out our catch all room that never became a guest room and will now become the nursery so that our child will actually have a space in this house.  It may take a few weeks :)  Hope everyone has a good week.  At least the hard part (Monday) is over!

Able to go for a 7-8 foot tree this year.  Loving the extra height!

If this isn't a face saying, "I can't wait for Christmas"..I don't know what is.

18 weeks.