Get Carried Away

Yay for Christmas 2007!

I felt SO unprepared for Christmas this year (see blog below for further proof) and, of course, everything turned out wonderfully. Nick left on Friday the 21st to join his family in Tahoe for his sister's wedding. The wedding was VERY last-minute, so since I had to work on both Friday AND Monday (yes, that would be me working on Christmas Eve) I stayed home. Although I was super sad to miss the wedding, it gave me the much needed chance to finish my shopping, wrap presents, and enjoy hot cocoa in front of a fireplace. Okay, I was drinking chocolate milk in front of the TV with a picture of a yule log crackling, but a California girl can dream...

Nick arrived home on Christmas Eve just in time to open his Christmas PJ's (a Grove family tradition- we all open PJ's Christmas Eve, wear them to bed, and stay in them pretty much all of Christmas Day. One of my favorite traditions!) We sped over to his parents house for a delicious dinner, and then I spent the night at my parents house as we were planning to attend 6am mass on Christmas morning. Came home, had a wonderful breakfast, opened presents and vegged. The day ended with a room-full of stuffed Grove/Brauns watching the Simpsons movie.

Nick and I dragged our exhausted selves home, and we had a present from Santa (aka- Me) waiting! Angels onesie's- perfect for our little one's first official baseball season. Nick was WAY excited. And Santa (aka-Nick Braun) left me a giant box of Hot Tamales in my stocking!

We had a wonderful, crazy Christmas 2007- hope you and your family had a beautiful and blessed one as well!

Here's Hollis and I at Disneyland during Christmas time... you can tell from all the children in the background being dragged around by their parents :)

So there are 8 days until Christmas and I have never been more unprepared than I am this year. And I am blissfully unstressed. I think as I get older, I've adopted the mentality that, "Anything that absolutely needs to happen will happen, and anything that doesn't need to happen won't. And I'll still live, even if we don't send out Christmas cards or decorate our house or put lights on our tiny Christmas tree. And anything that didn't happen that needed to can be solved with a good apology and a box of See's chocolate."

So there's my new life mantra.

Side note- dad had knee replacement surgery last week and is at home recovering beautifully. Thanks to everyone who said a quick prayer for him!

Life is so amazing.

Today has been a great day so far, and it's only half over! It rained throughout the night and a bit into this morning, and I thankfully got to sleep in a bit today and enjoy the pitter patter for an extra hour. There are few things I love in life more than snuggling in bed during rain (especially with my new body pillow!) I finally had to drag myself out of bed to get ready to go to...the Dr.! I think pregnancy is the only time in life that I'm excited for doctor's appointments.

I'm 13 weeks, and today was the day to hear the heartbeat! Yay! So Nick and I arrive at the office, I do the obligatory pee-in-the-cup routine and they weigh me (yippy skippy) and then the doctor comes in with the doppler! If you haven't had the pleasure of having one of these devices jammed against your growing uterus, it looks like a big walkie talkie and the doctor puts some KY on before smooshing your lower belly looking for the heartbeat. The word "doppler" always makes me think of the "Doppler 700 HD" from ABC's weather guy, Garth Kemp. ANYWAY, after a few minutes of smooshing, the doctor flips off the doppler and says, "The baby's hiding and we can't find the heartbeat just yet, so let's do a quick ultrasound to make sure everything's okay." And I'm like...SWEET! You would think I would be nervous that the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat, but my belly is totally growing and I have every other symptom in the book, so I was just way excited to have an ultrasound! Nick looked concerned and he kept grabbing my hand and saying, "It's okay..." and I'm like, "I know! How rad is this?" So we head into the ultrasound room and she puts the thing on my tummy and, lo and behold, baby Braun appears! There's like a real baby in there! And we can clearly see the head and body and spine and the little heart beating and its legs are kicking around- it was amazing. And its little heart is beating at around 160 beats per minute, which is exactly where it should be. I wanted to sit there all day and watch our baby squirm and kick.

Walking out of that office, holding my husband's hand, after just seeing the first pictures of our baby... I felt totally and completely in awe. It's overwhelming and humbling to come to grips with the fact that in a few short months, I will be responsible for someone else's life and well being. I can't wait for the day that I can share my love of rain with this new little person who will bring so much joy, excitement, and undescribable blessings into our life. Motherhood, here I come!

If you ever have the opportunity to go to the Candlelight ceremony at Disneyland, GO! It was so amazing. They invite choirs from across the county, and they process down Main Street at dusk, holding candles, to a stage in front of the train station. Jane Seymor, the celebrity guest, read the Christmas story (and I mean, the REAL Christmas story, like FROM THE BIBLE) and the choirs sing beautiful songs. It was an amazing experience. Hollis and I decided it could take the place of Christmas mass for this year.
People are starting to guess that I'm pregnant, which I assume is coming from the constant look of extreme fatigue and the fact that I roll into work at 9 a.m. wearing flip flops :)
I have done absolutely NOTHING even related to Christmas as of yet- anyone else in my sinking boat?