Christmas in Wheeling

This is our real Christmas tree that we put up the day after Thanksgiving! I love having a real tree in our apartment!!! We knew we needed to do it soon one because Norah would be here soon and we would not have the time or energy after her arrival and two because we leave for our Christmas break on December 15th or 16th, so we need to get as much Christmas in in Wheeling as we can!

We rearranged (Josh did, not me) the apartment to make room for the tree and to make room for Grandma Elek's rocking chair in the bedroom. That's why Grandma B's (Josh's grandma) davenport is in the living room now, but it is only out in the living room under one condition and this is a condition that Grandma B set up many years ago, "No eating on the davenport!"

I also took a picture of Norah's corner in our bedroom so that those of you who may not be able to make it to Wheeling to see her can see her "crib."

We hope to visit with lots of people over the holidays while we are at our families houses. Feel free to stop by and visit us and meet Norah!

By the way, I will be induced on December 4th if I don't go naturally before then. I am getting a little anxious now that we are a week away from life drastically changing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My family came to Wheeling to share Thanksgiving dinner with us since we are unable to travel 6 days from our due date!!

It was really nice to have everyone hear. It was my grandparents, my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, two nieces and cousins.

Josh made his first turkey and homemade stuffing!! It was really good! I decorated the table as you can see below...

Here we all are at the table in the lounge across the hall from our apartment! Who would have thought we could pull off Thanksgiving dinner for 12 in a college resident hall!

These are my grandparents with my two nieces Ellie on the right and Cora on the left. Ellie is 6 months old and needed glasses, so Cora wanted a pair too. I happened to own 2 pair of fake glasses so i wrapped a pair up for her when she came! She loved them!

I hope everyone had as great of a day as we did! Now the wait really begins as I do not really have anything major to do, so Norah can come any day now!!

Spaghetti Sauce

So here I am 8 days from my due date! I'm feeling pretty good for the most part, but I am having a little bit of lower back pain, and this is really the second day that I have had any, so I'm not complaining.

Josh came home from work tonight and started figuring out what to make for dinner. Now in case you are not aware, I am the number 1 pickiest eater in the United States of America and if there is one thing that I am the most picky about it would have to be spaghetti sauce.

He offered to make some homemade sauce because he knows that's really the only acceptable option for me. Since my back has been hurting we decided to eat in the living room where I could keep my feet propped up and sit in a more comfortable seat. He prepared the plates and drinks and carried the plates out to me first. He handed me my plate and then handed me his and I put his on the end table next to me. He turned to get the drinks and a grated cheese. I quickly assessed our plates and realized that my plate had more spaghetti on it and I knew I probably would not be able to eat it all. I quick scanned to the kitchen to see if he could see me and quickly switched our plates. The reason I didn't want him to see me switch the plates was because I have a million and 1 quirks that he is learning to live with, so I try to spare him the moments to observe that there may be more that he is unaware of!

So we eat our dinner and he turns to me and says,

J: What did you think of the sauce?

R: I liked it but I thought it was a little spicy.

J: (mouth drops) It was a sweeter sauce though and my secret ingredient was grape jelly.

R: Really! Grape Jelly! Well that's weird, because honestly the sauce has a kick to it.

J: I did not put any spices in it! Not even black pepper! Wait....(quickly darting his eyes back and forth between my plate and his)

R: (I quickly realize that I did something wrong and need to confess) Ummmm, I switched our plates!

J: Why did you do that!!! I put alot of red pepper flakes on my sauce! I was wondering why mine was not that spicy!

R: Well, it looks like Norah's coming tonight!!!

We both started laughing so hard because I'm so weird. I told him how I thought he might think it's weird if he saw me switching plates.

Below is a picture of me and how I need to eat my meals with a towel over my stomach. I can't not spill things down the front of me and spaghetti sauce is a hopeless cause when it comes to spilling!

He explained his ingredients, they were as follows: sauce, paste, garlic, salt, a tiny bit of onion and grape jelly. It all went into the blender as any type of chunk produces the gag reflex for me! :)

This is just one example of how hard he has to work to make our meals good for both of us. I usually know that there is a difference, but since I was not in the kitchen the entire time he made dinner I didn't even think that our plates would be different! The funniest part was that the whole time I was eating it I kept thinking to myself, "Why does he have to push it with these spices to get me to try new things."

Ahhhh, marriage....you never know what's going to happen!

Catching up...

It's been awhile and I thought I would catch people up on what's been going on.

We are currently 3 1/2 weeks away from our due date!! I am hoping Norah comes early, but she probably won't. I have been having pain almost every time I stand up or walk in my lower pelvic region, which is annoying. I've been to the doctors twice since it started and there is really nothing they can do for it.

On top of that my muscle disease, Myotonia Congenita (click to read about it if you are interested), is getting worse, which we knew would happen throughout the pregnancy, but it has really cranked up several notches in the last few weeks. My doctors do not really seem to understand it though, so they really only respond to the pelvic pain. They never ask how it is. It's great! I highly recommend seeing doctors that don't understand what your disease is! :) They keep saying, "your almost done," and trust me I know!

I've had a few scary episodes with the myotonia and one involved driving, so I've pretty much decided on my own that it's not worth the risk of something happening that I would really regret, so either Josh drives or I don't go unless I can get a ride with someone else. I'm grateful for the fact that we are completely ready for Norah to come because otherwise, I would be going crazy if I knew there were things I needed to get done right now.

Students have been visiting me more throughout the day and bringing me movies to watch. Even our janitor, Jim, yells at me if he sees me in the hallway. He tells me to go put my feat up and relax! :)

Josh has been really great! He does the grocery shopping, dishes, cooks (which he does everyday anyways!!), gets me my late night bowls of cereal and my glasses of iced tea! I was teasing him the other day because I typically wash the dishes because I love it and it's my domain, but lately it's tiring to stand that long, but the way we do dishes is 100% different. My dish drainer looks like a well oiled machine that stacked the dishes in the most efficient effective way possible. His dish drainer looks like abstract art! I do not know how things do not go flying out onto the floor! It makes me laugh! They have never fallen, which I think is a miracle.

I have also learned the sounds of our apartment and dorm very well. I know exactly who is in the hallway at all times. I know how often the kid upstairs vacuums his carpet (he is OCD about it and I love it! I want to meet him and just have a conversation about the joys of vacuuming!). I hear Father O'Brien singing hymns upstairs. I hear our clock ticking, which often leads to me pulling the battery out! Our tub runs constantly and we need to use a wrench to turn it on and off, but the nut is so stripped that the water will not turn the whole way off!!! That sound drives me crazy so I keep the door shut.

I know what you are all thinking at this point. She needs a life, but I have a lot of time at home lately, so this is what my life consists of at the moment!

We had a joint service last night at our church. The three services combined into one and all of the musicians played together! It was really great! Josh played his djembe (click to see a picture), African drum. It turned out that the one song was mainly him and another guy playing drums and they had a little duet part in the middle of the song. He did so good, I was so proud of him and was tearing up! Everyone loves his drum playing and he does not think he is that good at it. I can honestly say he did not practice for one second for the service, so he had no idea that he would be playing that much. He was really nervous, but did such a great job. I told him that's how you know you are good. You don't practice and then you kick butt on a duet!! He laughs that I call it a duet, but I don't know how else to describe it.

Ok, that was a long update and kinda random, but that's kinda how I talk, all over the place!