Is it any wonder that my office said we could work from home today?

Dan's car....



My car...

Yeah, it's no wonder we have a snow day today! Dan's working from home, too; I told him yesterday (since we knew this big blizzard was coming) that he better bring everything he has in order to work from home, since he has to drive 40 minutes in good weather; I don't even want to think how long it would take him (or how dangerous it would be!) to drive in this. Plus, there's all those warnings on weather.com saying, "Absolutely do not travel. Travel is extremely dangerous," etc. etc. So here we are working from home, and I love it! It's so much more productive!

Oh, and here's a shot after the plows came; this drift would be so much fun to play in if one was little!

Our weekend

We got quite a bit accomplished this weekend, which is always nice (although my living room is still a mess from getting the tree up--boxes and tree needles are everywhere!) We picked out our people for the Angel Tree; we got a nine-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl, and we had SO much fun shopping for them. (Well, I did anyway; Dan just dutifully tagged along and only said, "Can we go now?" once or twice.) I like shopping for the older kids, because I feel like everyone wants to buy for the 2-5 year olds, so the older ones kind of get left out. So we've always tried to pick out older kids, and it's just as much fun shopping for them as it is for toddlers!

We were also able to pick out an eight-year-old boy, because on Friday I had mentioned to some co-workers that we were going to go shopping for our giving tree/angel tree (people call it different things) this weekend, and they both asked, "What's the giving tree?" I explained it to them, and they both said they would participate if it wasn't for the fact that they wouldn't have time to go shopping. I just said, "Hey, give me your money, and I'll go shopping for you!" I was surprised (but so happy!) that they said, "Sure!" So we picked out an eight-year-old boy who likes Legos, and Dan was having SUCH a good time finding just the right Legos for him. So that's how we spent our Saturday night...

Yesterday we went over to Tracy's house, since it was her birthday. That was a lot of fun, too; we just hung out and ordered pizza and chatted. Then we woke up this morning to a couple inches of snow; not much, but enough for me to get excited! I love the way our Christmas lights look with snow!

Our Christmas Decorations

We finally got our tree up and decorated; I'm so excited!






This is this beautiful Irish nativity set my mom got us. We're not even religious, but I love nativities; they seem so traditional! And this one is especially beautiful; I love the way the green and white looks.

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! :)