My little man...

As I'm laying here with one hand on the huge mound of flesh that is my growing baby I can't help but smile. Despite the fact that I'm extremely uncomfortable and HUGE (Did I mention huge already?) and regardless of my longing for the day that I can sneeze, laugh, and cough without peeing my pants, roll over in bed without the use of a crane, and shave my legs on my own. I'm basking in the moment. Enjoying every kick, nudge, and roll. Thinking about what he's going to look like and praying that some of the Scott genetics for height will have sneaked into his little body. I'm wondering what his name will be and why do boys names have to be so hard to pick out anyways? For now it doesn't matter, he's just my little man.

The blessing of IMAGINATION

I love watching Sadie as she learns more and more about the world. Her imagination is growing so much lately. I'm totally jealous about it too. I remember being little and being able to go anywhere, do anything, and have whatever I wanted just with the use of my imagination. Today Sadie got a taco, a bottle of Ketchup, and a spoon from her play kitchen and set it up in the front room on a plastic tote. I watched as she folded her arms, mumbled some words from her little toddler language, and then pretend to eat her food. I'm so excited for her to be able to experience her imagination and see where it takes her!

Play time!

Today I HAD to get out of the house. Sadie woke up at 6 am and after a couple hours of Sprout I was ready to pull my hair out.

Don't judge! If any of you have any bright ideas on how I can entertain her ALL day EVERY day without the use of any TV I'm all ears! My prego body doesn't let me get around like I used to so...TV it is. It's not like I let her watch ALL day.

I think I was saying that little rant to the little voice in my head that tells me I'm a bad mom for letting her watch TV. I try to limit it, but sometimes...sometimes I just need a little time to sit. I know that sounds incredibly lazy but I do a lot of crawling around on the floor playing "lions" and running from "snakes", we have dance parties daily and heaven knows I read her plenty of books. I like to think it would be different if I weren't pregnant. That I would be super mom and we would do all of these amazingly fun things together. For now I'm happy just to sit every now and then. Plus I get to sneak in a little cuddle time while she watches, maybe I'm not such a bad mom after all. So there little voice! Did you hear that?? I'm NOT such a bad mom AFTER ALL!!

Anyways...

Today we did go out and do a fun thing. The day wasn't looking good at the start. The Bug needed a nap starting right about the time we left for the museum. Luckily in the 20 minute drive she did end up falling asleep for about 10 minutes. I guess it was enough because she had a good time. It helped that her little friend Griff was there. They're cute friends. It was fun seeing her explore all of the exhibits (even though she was too short to really enjoy most of it). My favorite was when Ben was playing with the puppets. Sadie got scared and hid behind my legs. She did manage to yell out "Hi" like she does when she's nervous. The alligator puppet scared her the most. It didn't help that Ben snapped it at her when she got close. It was kind of funny though :) It ended up being a great day!

Clam Chowder recipe!

4 slices bacon, cut up
2 6.5-oz. cans clams
5 potatoes, diced
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1/2 cup celery, finely diced
3Tbsp. flour
1 cup milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Cook bacon in soup pot until crisp. Do not drain bacon fat. Drain clams, reserving liquid. Add enough water to make 2 cups liquid. Add liquid and vegetables to the cooked bacon. Cover and simmer 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Blend flour and the 1 cup milk together, stirring the milk in slowly to prevent lumps. Add flour mixture and clams to soup. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Add canned milk and Worcestershire sauce. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Enjoy! It's definitely not the healthiest meal but it is GOOD!

Soup night!

Tonight's soup-Clam chowder and homemade bread bowls. I've been craving this for a while. I was surprised at how easy it was to make. OK the bread took a while but it was easy. And so so good. Well the clam chowder was good. The bread only so-so but all sufficiently satisfied my craving.

Sadie liked it too.

So much that she put it in her hair to save for later. mmmmm....

"Togetherness"

Christmas

OK so I know that I haven't blogged much lately. I blame it on Ben. One night I was typing up one of my literary masterpieces (sarcasm?) when he started teasing me for blogging! I'll be honest it put me in a bloggy funk but I think I'm getting past that now. I have to talk about Christmas because I loved it so so much. I'm always so sad when the month of December comes to a close. I feel like the whole month is a holiday and I love it!



We started out with our traditional ginger bread house making. This year we included the Roberts family from our ward. It was fun to have them over and their house looked awesome! (as did ours of course) My Mom sent me another tradition which is the candy she makes every year. My tradition with that is stuffing my face with the delicious holiday treats.



I made the traditional sugar cookies and had the Walkers over to help me decorate them. They were delicious and I'm sad to say that I probably ate most of them. This month has been VERY bad for my health. It was too easy to say "Well, I'm pregnant so it doesn't matter." I'll suffer for that one later.



Christmas eve was great. I had an absolute blast! I was so lucky to marry someone that didn't have a lot of family traditions so I get to use all of mine! We had the traditional slush, hot dogs, smores and Doritos! We even got to roast the hot dogs and Smores in our fireplace which is an added bonus. The Wengert family joined us in our traditions which made it even better. After they left Ben and I watched movies, played video games, and baked our Cinnamon Rolls. We stayed up until after 2 in the morning which is incredibly late considering I usually crash around 9ish. It was so fun to spend that time with him. We both felt the new baby move for the first time which was amazing. It never really feels like you're pregnant until you can feel the baby move.



Christmas morning Sadie woke us up bright and early. We opened presents and ate our cinnamon rolls, but the best was watching how excited Sadie was about her new toys. Her favorite was her new doll and stroller. She had a hard time figuring out how to push it so most of the time she would just end up carrying it or hooking it around her arm and dragging it down the hall.



Ben and I were both exhausted from staying up so we traded off sleeping and watching Sadie. It was a VERY lazy day. Once we were both awake we Skyped with our families. Its sad to be away during the holidays :(



On Sunday we woke up to SNOW! I was so surprised! It made me happy to have that little taste of home. It would have been nice if it would have come a day earlier but I wont complain. Church was cancelled so we spent another lazy day curled up in front of the fireplace while we watched the snow fall outside. I was sad that we don't have any snow clothes for Sadie. It would have been fun to go outside and play. Ben and Missy had fun though. Ben made a hilarious snowman. I'm not sure that the neighbors appreciated it very much!



I hate it that December is ending but I'm so looking forward to January. We get to find out what the baby is! But sadly for all of you we'll be keeping it a secret. Or trying anyways!