Our Thanksgiving weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. My mom was here, which was awesome!! I love having her around for the holidays :) On Wednesday night, we got off work and went to my grandma's house in Deerfield to pick up my mom and grandma (my grandpa doesn't travel a lot, so he was staying behind and was going to spend Thanksgiving at Tracy's). We headed down to Long Grove, where we had dinner at Lou Malnati's (this excellent deep dish pizza place). So yummy.

Thursday was, obviously, Thanksgiving, and we had a good time just hanging out, watching movies (I think we got through Elf, The Holiday, and The Grinch) and, of course, eating. Here's a shot of us at the Thanksgiving table:


From left-right: my cousins Katrina, Karissa, my aunt Christine, me, Dan, my mom, my grandma, my cousin Matthew. My uncle Mike was the one taking the pic.

On Friday, we slept in; no Black Friday shopping at 4 am for us! But we did go shopping at around 11, and I got some great clothes at Motherhood Maternity; two really cute tops and some super comfy maternity jeans (that I'm contemplating wearing after the birth, since they're so comfortable and they don't have some stupid snaps or buttons poking into my stomach!) We also got some great deals at Victoria's Secret; I was able to stock up on lotion for only $4.50 a bottle, when normally it's $9.50 or more.

That afternoon, we went and saw Hairspray at the Lincolnshire Theatre. It was SO good; seriously Broadway material. Dan even really liked it, and he is not really into musicals. But this was excellent; the singing and the choreography blew us away. Here's a shot of us at the theatre (I am wearing one of my new maternity sweaters and my jeans, although I don't think you can see those):



We came back late Friday night, and on Saturday went to breakfast with my grandparents, Tracy and the girls. My mom's flight had to leave around three, so we took her to the airport around two and then just spent the rest of the day lounging around at the Hines' house. Today I think Dan's going to finish putting up the outside lights and we'll get our tree up as well. I'll post pics when done :)

My doctor's appt.

I'm so excited that my mom is here for Thanksgiving! She flew in yesterday, so I picked her up from the airport (good thing I work so close!) and then we went to my midwife appointment. I was glad I could show my mom around the place where the baby will be born, since she won't be here for the actual birth.

I had to do the glucose test (ick, needles!) to check for gestational diabetes, so I'm hoping everything will turn out ok with that. I'm no longer measuring big, either, which is good! She said I'm 29 cm, which is perfect, since I'm 28 weeks. My mom got to hear the heartbeat, which was nice, and the baby was hiccuping a lot, which was funny.

Now I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Some more pictures...

So today my wonderful husband surprised me with this beautiful bouquet of fall flowers! Isn't he sweet?







And here are some more belly pics (I know, I know, I've been posting a lot of them lately, but I feel like the ones I posted the other day were hideous; these are much better!)

I love getting things done!

We had an incredibly productive weekend, even though it doesn't really sound the most exciting. I got both of my bathrooms cleaned, my master bedroom closet cleaned out (we were able to donate five HUGE bags of clothing to charity), both upstairs and downstairs vacuumed, and Dan is in the middle of putting Christmas lights up right now (no, we won't actually turn them on until after Thanksgiving, but since it was almost 60 degrees here this weekend, he decided to take advantage of the warm weather and get them up now).

Oh, and we finished over half of our Christmas shopping! We went to the mall to get the stuff for my brother and my mother-in-law, but everything else was done online. I love how convenient amazon.com is--and it's so much cheaper!! I got three hardcover books for some people on my list, and my total, even with shipping, was $30 LESS than I would have paid at Barnes & Noble. Wow! I admit, part of me does like going to the mall and hearing the Christmas music, seeing the decorations and the shoppers and everything, but I'm fine only getting one or two gifts there; the rest of me is all about doing online. So much more convenient!

So, with the click of a mouse, I finished my shopping for my mom, my sister-in-law Nancy, and Dan. Since we got my mother-in-law's and brother's gifts at the mall, we now only have to get stuff for my dad and my brother-in-law Jason. (Oh, and Dan still has to buy stuff for me--his words, not mine!) Not bad for it not even being Thanksgiving yet!

I was going to post pictures of our Christmas lights, but Dan just informed me that we are out of some and we'll need to go to Target and get some more. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait until next weekend! :)

Entering the third trimester...

Here's a couple shots of me on Wednesday, November 18, the day that I officially turned 27 weeks, aka entering my third trimester!! Please ignore the PJs (it was right before I went to bed) and the fact that I look huge all over, not just my stomach ;)

Some more pics...

Last weekend, it was so nice here and uncharacteristically warm; mid-60s in early November is not exactly the norm in Wisconsin. So we took advantage of the warm weather and went to the farmer's market (and got some yummy squash--which Dan made an excellent soup out of--tomatoes and cheese), and while we were there, Rori wanted to play around on the capitol square. So here are some shots of her:







On Sunday, my aunt Chris and cousin Katrina came up from Chicago, so we went to breakfast with them, Tracy's family and my grandparents:


Maxine was most excited about me getting my new laptop (for when I work from home) since that meant she had a new box to play in :)


This past weekend was more of just a "stay in and do nothing" weekend, although we did get to go to a Badger basketball game; one of my co-workers had two extra tickets, so Dan and I got to go. It was not a very close game, since we beat then something like 75-43, but it was still fun to go support our alma mater! :)

Some Halloween pics

On Halloween we went over to Dan and Tracy's to see the girls in their costumes; Kirsti was an enchanted fairy and Rori was Alice in Wonderland (and so was Tracy).










The two Alices and the fairy


Dumping out her candy...


Surveying her stash...


Tracy got us these really cute clothes for the baby next year; the purple onesie is definitely for a girl (it says "Ghouls just want to have fun" so we'll save that for the next baby if this one is a boy!) but the hat could go either way :)




On Sunday, November 1, we went to the Grey Rock Mansion for brunch to celebrate my grandparents' 63rd anniversary. Here they are, with Tracy and my aunt Chris (their two kids who were there; my mom is obviously in Utah, and my uncle Alan is in California).



All of us at brunch (except for Dan Hines, who is taking the photo)


And here's Nancy and me at Old World Wisconsin (they visited October 23-25).