Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! In case you haven't gotten your christmas card from us...here's a copy of the letter that was inside. And here's our Christmas Eve picture :-)


Double click on the letter to make it bigger.

Traditions

We decorated our christmas tree after Thanksgiving (not the day after like usual, but a couple of days after). Gregory had a blast helping and it was fun once again to reminiscence about the memories behind so many of our ornaments. This years new ornament is one which holds a picture - which says it all - this christmas was one of expectation - baby Joshua especially.

Here are a couple of highlight pictures from that evening...oh and the pic of me...I was STUCK behind the tree :-) fun times :-)

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

So it seems that when I sit down to blog I get on a roll and end up with a few different posts...just wish I could spread them out over time...for some reason that doesn't happen.

Anyways, here's another one...snow...we've had some, not too much, but we've had some...and we've had some fun playing in it too - not outside too much, but we've still gotten to play in it :-) with a little creativity.

Here's a little work that comes along with the snow :-)

And here are some shots of playing with snow indoors...it was too cold to go outside, so we brought the snow in to us :-)












I decided to make our downstairs bathroom a "seasonally" decorated room in our house, so I used my Craft Robo to "decorate" the bathroom...with the theme, "Let it Snow".

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Just because I didn't post anything for Thanksgiving doesn't mean we didn't stop to be thankful and also enjoy some yummy food. We did! Just lately (better late than never) Gregory has decided he likes to voice what he is thankful for and then turns and asks us what we are thankful for...pretty cute. He is thankful for his mom, his dad, his baby brother (not here yet), his friends (and then he lists them all) and so many other things. I am so glad he is learning to be thankful and we will gladly encourage this habit.

Here's a picture from Thanksgiving day...

Baby Shower

This past weekend my sister and mom came down to help throw a baby shower for us. Along with our youth pastor's wife (a great friend of mine), Ruth, they did a wonderful job making me feel special and celebrating the upcoming arrival of our son.

That night we decided to announce the name of our baby boy, Joshua Thomas. We picked Joshua because of who Joshua was in the Bible (a very dedicated man of God) and one of my favorite verses is Joshua 1:9 (...Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.") Whenever I say the name Joshua it will help me to remember this verse and to trust in God more.

There was yummy food, fun games and a special prayer time for me and baby Joshua. My sister and mom made all kinds of yummy appetizers and Ruth came up with some great beverages. They decorated the house in red and brown (with many balloons) to match some of the colors we'll be using in the baby's room. My mom made a special wall hanging that matches the theme in the baby's room. On top of that she made and decorated a beautiful cake that was the same as the wall hanging.


Raquel (my sister) included some fun games that were not your "normal" baby shower games...these were especially fun. After the games Ruth led a special prayer time over me and our baby. Raquel wrote down the blessings and prayers so we'll treasure these forever. And then afterwards we opened presents. We received so many things that will be so useful and we were so blessed by the thoughtfulness of everyone. It was such a special time to share with so many friends who came...thank you to each of you who shared in this special time.


We have a little over a month to go with this pregnancy and I am looking forward to meeting our son and being done with this pregnancy...I'm pretty sure Tom is ready to be done with it too, so then I can move on and find other reasons to complain about all of my aches and pains (maybe just old age will work) :-)

To see the rest of the baby shower pictures go here...http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com/

Where to start?

Well, it's been a busy month since my last post, but I did warn you that it was going to be a busy month :-)

And as you can imagine the next month will be just as busy minus one activity. This past month it was decided to discontinue our mom's group, Refreshed. I'm not going to go into any details on this, but just thought I'd share that I should technically be less busy. I think I am still busy with other things, just less motivated currently.

So what exactly have we been busy with this past month--doctor appointments, church, winter weather, pregnancy stuff, bible study, Pampered Chef Party, Shutterfly Photobook Party, Youth Group Leaders meeting and a wonderful Baby Shower!

The Baby Shower deserves it's own post, so I'll leave that for a separate post.

I just realized I really don't have any great pictures from this past month to share, so I guess this is it for an update.

Baby Update

So I am not that far behind on my posts...this is just from over a week ago. I had my 30 week appt and the doctor had another ultrasound scheduled to make sure everything was ok and that I wouldn't need to have a c-section...and praise the Lord everything IS ok. Our baby boy is about 3.8 lbs and doing good. We could see him moving his mouth during the ultrasound and the pictures were so clear where we could see so much detail. I didn't have an ultrasound with Gregory when I was this far along, so this was something new for us. So now I am 31 weeks and getting ready to get an appointment for pre-admission. Wow, it seems like things are moving right along. I guess it helps when you're busy like us. In the next month I have so much going on, but it's mostly fun stuff, so that should be good :-)

Oh and to cap it all off a week before Thanksgiving a special friend of mine is throwing us a baby shower and my mom and sister are flying down for it! This will be a special time. It's not too often that just my mom, my sister and I get to be together so I am looking forward to this time.

Here is one of my favorite ultrasound pictures...and as always there are more at Shutterfly.

Oh and here are a couple of recent pictures too...one of me and Gregory and how big I'm getting and another of my recent haircut.