Good things to come

I know I have been awful about keeping up on here lately, but I will try to be better in the upcoming weeks.  As I wrote about on Saturday we had a wonderful time as a family on Jason's birthday. 

We hope everyone had a great Valentine's day and we were so lucky to get to spend the day together as a family.  And we even got a peek at our littlest member.  The doctors were concerned that baby girl was measuring a little big so we got a bonus ultrasound and got to see her chubby cheeks.  After the tech looked at everything it she determined that baby was measuring right on track at about 5 lbs and she is in the 40% for weight.  It also looks like she has hair already and I keep envisioning her looking just like Jason when he was a newborn.  I'm so excited to meet her, but we will have to wait 35 more days, give or take a week or so.

The other exciting thing going on in our life is that Jeff just got the okay for us to move to Tucson!  I know what you are thinking, ya Rachel you guys move more often than some people change their underwear, but this time it may be for the long term.  We are actually looking at buying a house!!!  In fact, we have been to Tucson twice already to look at houses and we are going again tomorrow.  We are trying to keep our emotions neutral, but it has really been a battle for Jeff and I to not get too excited.  Unfortuantly with Elizabeth's upcoming birth we may have to put a hold on house searching for about two months, but we hope to have a new home by June or July.  We will keep you all updated on our move and house buying adventures.

Jason is two!

And what a year we have had!  Jason is such a sweetheart and I think we are getting so close to talking.  He loves everything train related especially Thomas the tank engine.  That was the first gift he got this morning and we had a hard time getting him to give it up to go play outside (his second favorite thing!)  When we did eventually get him away from his trains we took him to the best place that a little boy could imagine...McDonalds!  There he can eat french fries and chicken nuggets and play on a playground!  He almost passed out from exaustion on the way home and we knew it was nap time.  After nap we plan to open the rest of his gifts and have yummy cake after dinner.  I could start saying where has the time gone, but we are so lucky to have such a sweet fun little boy that I don't miss it at all...ok maybe just a little bit.  Every day is an adventure with our little man and we can't wait to see what the next year brings.  For your viewing pleasure we have some recent photos of our 2 year old!

 

 

 

Change is coming

Baby girl is due exactly 2 months from today and I am so unprepared!  I am really ready to hold her and cuddle her and introduce her to her big brother and welcome her into our family.  I am not ready when Jason starts being winey and not telling me what in the world he wants and I can't fathom how I am going to work with him when I am trying to take care of a newborn at the same time, on very little sleep at that.  We are not at all ready in that her nursery is still a very full office.  I told Jeff he had until the end of February to move the office out and the nursery in and maybe it is just the nesting instinct, but I am so restless to get started on making a room for baby!  There are some really good reasons for waiting, one of the better ones being that we don't really have a room for the office so it will just be taking over half of the living room, but it doesn't mean I'm not restless. 

I took this restlessness out on Jeff a couple of days ago.  I found a really great short term deal on an expensive double stroller.  It is the one I have had my eye on for a while, but we had agreed it was too much to spend on a stroller that we might not be using that long since Jason already resists being contained in a stroller.  In a year we hope he will be willing to walk beside us and behave.  When I saw this stroller at about $100 off I called Jeff before making that big of a purchase, and he said no.  I understand his reasons for saying no, but I don't like it.  I worry about being homebound and unable to take both of our children out because I can't chase Jason and carry or push Elizabeth, but we will figure it out. 

Then later that night I was changing purses because mine is falling apart and tried to put all my stuff in an old purse I was planning on using after baby girl was here to lug all of our gear.  It was way smaller than I remembered, or maybe I just carry way more than I realized.  Either way I started noodling around and went back to looking at a diaper bag I wanted early on in this pregnancy.  It is kind of pricy and Jeff talked me out of it before and I figured I could just make due with one of the many bags we already have.  Again, when I heard Jeff say no I was a little disappointed.  There were not the happiest of words exchanged in our house that evening, but the next day I analyzed why I was being so gimmy gimmy grabby and I think part of it is the fact that buying stuff was one way for me to feel more ready for this baby to get here.  I still want those things, but I know that as long as this baby girl is welcomed into our home with love it will all be okay.

Holiday Wrap Up

Please forgive me for slacking, we have had a busy week and I have been a little preoccupied playing with my new toys.  We had a wonderful time over Christmas and really enjoyed seeing our family.  We got to Texas the Tuesday before Christmas and since it was pretty yucky weather we stayed in and played games most of the time (Jeff was in heaven!)  On Christmas Eve we went to the pageant and saw Aunt Michelle and Uncle Michael sing.

Christmas morning started early and was enjoyed by all.  Jason opened his first gift and had to be convinced to leave it to open more.  There was no surprise that Jason was spoiled quite a bit, but his favorite gifts were his Thomas trains, kitchen set and alphabet train.  There was one big surprise in store for me.  Jeff told me that he would be getting himself a new Ipod since his is over 4 years old and on its last legs.  He had some points from our credit cards so I was okay with that.  Little did I know that he actually got us a new Ipad! 

We had fun the rest of the week also.  Jason really enjoyed wandering around while Jeff and some of the rest of the family went frisbee golfing and hiking up Enchanted Rock.  I really enjoyed going shopping for our little girl and getting ready to spoil her.  Unfortunately all good things must come to an end.  We traveled home on the first Monday of the New Year and had to find home for all of our new stuff.  We also took down all of our Christmas decorations and I couldn't help but to remember that next year we will have another little one possibly crawling around and got a little teary eyed.

Christmas is coming!

And I can't wait!  Our big plans are to go and spend some time in San Antonio with Jeff's family.  We were supposed to leave on Friday, December 17th, but Jeff had an important meeting rescheduled for the following Monday so we aren't leaving until that afternoon.  Hopefully the drive will be quick and painless. 

Jason has really been getting into the holiday spirit.  He loves to look at all the ornaments on the tree and really enjoyed the left over sugar cookies from the batch I made to hand out to Jeff's co-workers.  He was even okay when we saw Santa at a holiday party.  We have also been reading The Night Before Christmas almost every day and he is tolerating it well.  I for one can't wait to see him on Christmas morning with the pile of gifts staring up at him!



 

 We have been talking about the real meaning behind Christmas with him also and although he doesn't grasp everything I am glad we have started the conversation.  Every evening we do 2 advent calenders, the first one is a magnetic nativity scene where Jason gets to put a character or thing up.  We have had some flying wisemen or animals in the stable rafters, but Jeff and I help him out.  The second calender is just for fun and the one that Jason loves the best.  He gets a M&M on each night of December and has no trouble reminding us to complete this tradition.



 

As for the rest of the Christmas preperations I have almost all of the gifts wraped and packed up to take with us to Texas.  The Christmas cards got out yesterday, later than I like, but at least they made it out before Christmas!  And everyone loved the Christmas cookies I made for Jeff's co-workers and Jason's therapists.  So all in all I think we are ready for Christmas to get here, but not too fast because the anticipation is half of the fun!

Elizabeth is still a girl

That's right!  The good news is that our baby is still a girl.  The bad news is that our ultrasound tech was terrible!  We were supposed to go in for a high tech ultrasound to check baby girl's fingers.  When Jason was in utero we could see his and knew that he would have Jeff's fingers.  This tech tried for a few seconds then said the Doctor would come in and try.  When the doctor came in she said that the tech had told her that they couldn't see them.  I originally thought we wouldn't find out this time until baby girl was born, but when my OB said that they could refer me to go in I was happy to find out early.  It was just really frustrating that we couldn't see what we were specifically there to see!


You may have noticed that baby girl now has a name too.  We have for the most part decided on Elizabeth, unless something big changes before the end of March.  The thing we haven't decided is her middle name.  Originally we said Elizabeth Ann, but now we are considering Grace or Clare.  We knew we wanted something short since this girl will have a long first and last name.  So we would love to hear what you think.  I am adding a poll, please vote or comment and share your thoughts!

Continuing a tradtion

My family has a tradition of interesting Christmas cards. You will know this for sure if you have ever been the recipient of the Comer Family News. I can’t hope to be as witty as my dad so I have to rely on my son’s amazing adorableness! This year I have decided to use Shutterfly to design our Christmas cards. It is hard for us as a family of three to get good pictures of all of us together. Someone is always looking away or Jason is unhappy to be posed in a photo. So instead of finding a good picture of the three of us Jeff and I decided to instead use one of the many adorable photos of Jason and a good one of the two of us. So we needed a design that would hold two photos and we wanted one that would go with the colors in our chosen photos. Having such a great selection at Shutterfly was very helpful in appeasing my picky hubby. I really liked how we could narrow down the amount of photos and the color on the side Christmas Photo Cards It also didn’t hurt that if you blog about Shutterfly cards you can get a credit for 50 free cards (that has nothing to do with this post, of course.)

I had considered making calendars for family members, but they will be much better when we have two cuties to put in them. By next December it will be outdated to only have Jason in photos! Maybe if I can weasel Jeff into getting more pro shots or I get really good at working our SLR I can ask for one of our photos to be made into canvas wall art. The prices on these Canvas Wall Art don’t look bad and if you know anything about Jeff you know that price is a major consideration

I would share the photos that I have picked out with you, but then they wouldn’t be a surprise when they arrived in your mailbox. I will be sure to scan the ones we get to send electronically to Jeff’s work friends in Australia and Indonesia so maybe I will post it after Christmas. Well, I’m excited to get going on ordering our card so that we can get it out before we leave for Christmas vacation. I hope your family keeps us updated over the holidays.