Our Christmas celebrations are over! We had a busy but fun weekend spending time with Jake's family. Lydia seemed to enjoy gifts, although she was more interested in throwing away the wrapping paper than opening gifts. :)
Here are some pictures to sum up our Christmas weekend:
Christmas morning....
Peanut enjoying her Christmas bone:

Lydia getting ready to open her first gift:
Her reaction to the gift we got her...she likes it!:
She REALLY liked the egg carton that Daddy used to disguise my gift though:
Look, another one!:
Playing with her new necklaces:
Christmas afternoon....
Great Great Grandpa and Grandfather chattin' before lunch:
Christmas lunch!!:
A lion!:
Throwing away paper:
Nana got Lydia a neat-o caterpillar!:
Playing with the caterpillar:
Saying 'bye' to Great Great Grandma and Grandpa:
Having fun playing with Grandfather:
The day after Christmas at Uncle Brian and Nancy's house....
Reading with Uncle Joe before her nap:
And that is the only picture I have from that day because she basically ate lunch and went to bed then we went home so she missed the gifts and fun there. I'll have to take a picture of her with the bear Uncle Pudgy gave her though...it is super cute! :)

I took down our inside Christmas decorations, including the tree, yesterday. I left up the snowmen and other winter decorations though. I felt the need to get things back to normal! Today I got out our gender neutral 0-6 months baby clothes from the basement. They are in the wash now! There isn't as much as I thought there would be...there is a TON more girl stuff still down there though. I sooooo wish we knew for sure if Anna is Anna so I could get out the rest of the stuff and get it ready too. I'd rather not get it out then have to put it away again, but I also would like to have it all out and ready for her if she is Anna. What a dilemma! :) Oh well, at least she'll have clothes to wear when she comes home. :) :)
The last few days I've started feeling a little bit bad for Lydia and the adjustment she is going to have to go through when Anna is born. I know she'll be just fine and I'm pretty sure she is going to LOVE having a baby here (mostly) but she is going to have to give up quite a bit of her Mommy attention for Anna. I don't give her 100% of my attention all day long now but it is going to be a lot different in three more months. Well, I'm not going to worry too much about it. I know it will all work out and Anna will fit right into our family! :) :) I think one reason I've felt bad for Lydia the last few days is because she is getting more new teeth and has been extra cuddly. Hopefully those little teeth get through in the next day or two and she'll be back to normal. After this round of teeth we only have two more to come in until her two year molars (which isn't really all that far off!!).
....time to put all those baby clothes into the dryer.... :)

Nothing really new to report but I'm trying to keep my blog more up to date so I thought I better check in.
Little Anna was 26 weeks yesterday so we took our bi-weekly picture. Actually, our picture taking weeks got messed up and we ended up going three weeks between the last two instead of two. But you can see she has grown quite a bit in the last three weeks. Here are some pictures....
First is the 20 week mark (half way!):

Then 23 weeks:


And yesterday's 26 week picture:

From what I've read she should weigh right around 2 pounds now and is starting to put on her baby fat. She could be born now and have a pretty good chance of developing normally outside the womb...although I much prefer to keep her in at least another 12 weeks. I can't believe it is only 14 weeks until she is due! It's so exciting! And scary, lol. :)
I also can't believe Christmas is only three days away and 2009 is almost over! I was completely not prepared for Christmas this year in the way of gifts and such. Others I have talked to have said the same thing. But I got on the ball this weekend and got a few things sewn up for gifts and am going to do some baking in the next few days too.
We have a Christmas party at church on Wednesday evening this week. Thursday, Christmas Eve, Jake is off of work but we have no definite plans for that day. Then on Christmas day we plan to have Christmas with Grammy and Grandbuddy on Skype in the morning then we're going over to the farm for Christmas with Nana and Grandfather for lunch. Saturday we're headed down to some of Jake's family for Christmas with all the Aunts and Uncles and such. Looks like it's going to be a busy weekend. :) Lydia has had a runny nose the last few days so I'm really hoping that clears up in time for our festivities.
On Saturday morning Lydia got to open her first gift of the Christmas season. It was her Master's Club gift, which I thought was very thoughtful of the Phelps since she isn't actually in a class yet. She was pretty excited about it- as you can see here:

Yesterday we all went up to Tim's house in Peacham to get our Christmas tree. It was a cold day but we bundled up and went for it anyway.
Lydia rode through the snow in her sled while we looked for a perfect tree. And Tim was on hand to take a picture of us all together. It was fun, even though I doubt Lydia had any idea what was going on. She doesn't even seem to care much about the tree being in the house...yet. She hasn't seen it since it's been decorated. I have a feeling her thoughts on the tree will change once she sees ornaments on it. Jake and I just finished decorating it while she took her Sunday afternoon nap...her very much needed Sunday afternoon nap. The poor little girl's eyes were closed almost before I got her strapped into her carseat to come home from church. She pulled her arms out of her coat without even opening her eyes when I brought her in and laid her in bed. She did fairly well in nursery for being very over tired though...she didn't cry (much-or so I'm told), just sat and cuddled and ate cheerios. She will pretty much anything for a cheerio I think. ;)
Anyway, back to the tree....here are some pictures:

Heading out to the trees:


Cutting down our tree: A family self-portrait:


A picture of us that Tim took:

Loading the tree into the van:


Hot chocolate!: Starting to decorate...before realizing we didn't have enough working lights or ball hangers:

Lydia 'helped':

And the finished product- complete with a few gifts under it (thanks to Grammy, Grandbuddy and Aunt Judy!!):

We finally got some snow this winter. Honestly I haven't missed not having snow but it is nice to have it brighten up the landscape. :)
We got about 6 inches on Wednesday and it is snowing again now. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio or anything so I have no idea what the forecast is! It is more fun to just see what comes. :) I LOVE not having to worry about driving in bad weather for work anymore...I don't know how I did it for so many years!! Alice always told me I'd look back and wonder that but I didn't believe her until now. :)
Anyway, Lydia and I went out and played in the snow a few times on Wed. Here is a video of her very first walk in the snow.




After this I got her little red sled out and pulled her around. She was a huge fan of that! We did it again in the afternoon for maybe a half hour and she still wanted to go more!
We'll definitely be doing more "sledding" (i.e. Mommy pulling the sled) this winter. :) We plan on taking the sled along on Saturday morning when we go to cut down our Christmas tree (that Jake traded 5 dozen eggs for, lol). That should be fun, I'm looking forward to it!! :) :)

Today we had a WIC appt. Lydia was 27 pounds, 9 ounces and 32 inches long (tall?). That puts her in the 90th %tile for weight and 89th for height. I'm not sure if she might even be a little longer than that since she was crying and squirming for the measurement. She was sure I was going to leave her with the lady for some reason and as soon as I stood up to help get her measurements she started crying. She calmed down quickly after I sat down again. ...still waiting for her to get over this clingy stage. Although, on the other hand, I am glad she doesn't trust people she doesn't know too. I'd much rather have her clinging to me than being willing to go to anyone and everyone.
Over the weekend we turned her car seat to forward facing because we thought she might be getting close to 30 pounds. I would have preferred to keep her rear facing longer but our car seat's limit is 30 so we switched her. It is nice to be able to look back and see her face now and I think she is more comfortable not having to sit with her knees bent now. One down side is that when she drops a toy it goes on the floor instead of hitting the back of the seat though...she's gonna have to learn to keep them on her lap now. :) So, she made it to 17 months rear facing. Maybe Anna will be lighter and make it longer than that. ;)

Nothing much going on around here. I got the house clean and laundry almost done this morning so far. Lydia is taking her morning nap so I've run out of things to keep me busy at the moment. I thought I'd share a few pictures and a video...

Here are Great Grandma and Grandpa Stine holding MaCayla and Lydia. Lydia was trying hard to get down but we managed to get a picture of her still on Great Grandpa's lap. :) Taking pictures of kids is so much easier before they can run!


Here are MaCayla and Lydia in their matching dresses from Grammy. Lydia just loved MaCayla, but wouldn't smile for a picture with her.
A picture of our family. I love my family! :)
And a picture we took yesterday of Lydia. She did not want to sit in the chair for a picture but we finally got a decent one. Jake was pretending to "get" her so she is actually about ready to take off running in this picture:

And a video from when we were in PA over Thanksgiving.
Lydia was singing with Grammy and Grandbuddy. You can't hear her very well but she was 'singing' right along! :) I tried to get a video of her singing by herself but she wouldn't sing unless Grandbuddy sang too.




In Anna's world...she's growing. Yesteday at church two people said something along the lines of "oh, I didn't know you were pregnant". I thought it was funny...apparently I look pregnant now. I guess that is a lot better than just looking fat, haha. ;) At one point during Sunday school Anna jumped and my belly pushed out into my arm. It's funny how it seemed like my whole belly moved but really it probably wasn't very noticable if someone else had seen it. I love feeling her move around. Only three more months and we get to meet her in person!!!

Two's 23 week checkup was Monday. It was about the quickest doctors appt I've ever had. They were *almost* on time, only about 20 minutes behind! I talked with an intern for a few minutes then the doctor checked Two's heartbeat and measured me, said everything was perfectly normal and went on her way. Sometimes I wonder how necessary all these OB appts are, but if something was to go wrong I certainly would be thankful for being checked on every four weeks. Our next appt is the end of December, I'll do my glucose test and get my rogam shot after that appt then pretty soon after that we'll be starting our every two week appts. I think it is crazy that we only have 16 and a half weeks left till Two is due! This pregnancy has gone so fast (so far!). :) I'm looking forward to meeting our new little one! :) :) I have started calling her by her name now, even though we aren't 100% sure she is a girl. So, Two is now Anna Grace. If 'she' happens to be a boy I'm sure he'll get over it and acclimate to his own name just fine. :) I did ask the dr about getting a second ultrasound since the other doc didn't show up for our first one but she was doubtful it would happen. I'm sure if I made a big fuss about it I could have gotten it but I'm not the type to make a big fuss. ;) I'm thinking about getting out some of those cute little baby clothes here pretty soon...maybe next week. I'm still hesitant to get out pink but I can still get out the yellows and greens and such. :) Little Anna is getting pretty big I think. She can kick my ribs now...such a lovely feeling. ;) She's not as active as she was earlier on though so my worries of having a hyper active child are calming. She does move around quite a bit still so I know she is happy in there. :)
Lydia is doing really well too. The last two days she has really been into playing pretend with her food and pots and pans. She'll set her little table and sit down to 'eat'. Yesterday she sat all her hamburgers out and sat down, closed her eyes and said a few 'words' then said "amen!". Apparently praying before meals is having an impact on her. :) Even though she doesn't really understand the concept of being thankful to God for things yet I am very happy that she is on the right track towards being a thankful little person. I know I am very thankful for my sweet little girl. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
She is also saying quite a few new words lately. She says 'ni nite', 'bu bye', 'uh oh', 'mom mom'...and others I can't think of. She is putting together two or three words also like 'i drop it' and 'i do that'. Her words are becoming more in context of what is going on around here also. Like the other day she wanted to swing in the blanket, which is something only Jake does with her. I told her she'd have to wait for Daddy to get home from work to do that. She then walked around the house saying "daaa da? da daaa?" It was very cute. I am having such fun watching her grow up and learn things!
We've been working on the potty quite a bit more lately...I should say *I* am working on the potty, Lydia does not seem to want to work on the potty. ;) She is beginning to understand what it is for and does go in it sometimes but I think we're a pretty long way from total success. We're going to keep working on it though with hopes that she'll warm up to it and hopefully be trained by the time she's 2. That's my goal...we'll see. :)
One other pretty neat piece of news...Jake got a nice monetary bonus this past week at work. It was based on his performance so it says a lot for the quality of his work. He always strives to do a good job with whatever he is doing...one of his best qualities. I'm proud to have a husband who has integrity. Good job, honey! :)

We're back in Vermont!! I have to say it is really nice to be home! As much as I enjoy time with family in PA there is nothing like being home again. We were in PA for 18 days I think, which is the longest we've ever visited for. I think maybe we'll limit our visits to 10 days or so from now on. Most of my feelings probably come from the fact that Lydia was sick for a whole week that we were there so we were unable to get out and visit anyone or really do much of anything except stay around the house so that didn't make for a very fun vacation. I was very upset about not being able to visit with Matthew, Missy and MaCayla nor my Grandparents either except for a few times. I certainly didn't want to spread the nasty cold that Lydia had though so I know we made the best choice in keeping her away from others but it was hard. The hardest part for me was (and still is) the fact that she got the cold from church nursery (not our church) and that the mother of the child with the cold came to church the next service talking about how sick her kid was that weekend. I don't mind so much that Lydia had a cold...kids get colds, that's normal and even good for them to an extent...but that she got it because of someone's irresponsibility and inconsideration of others really bothers me. I know it is hard to miss church (I hate it when I have to stay home) but bringing your child into nursery when he/she is obviously ill is just dumb. I don't have any hard feelings towards anyone in particular about it....just the situation in general bothers me. I don't think Lydia getting a cold would have bothered me either if it hadn't pretty much ruined our vacation. But, enough said about that...I'm trying to get over it. ;) Lydia did start getting over the cold just before Thanksgiving day and we were able to spend that day with family so that was good. Thanksgiving was a lot different this year than what I remember. I can't even remember the last time I was with my family for Thanksgiving but I think I must have been fairly young (like, in college maybe?). But in my memories of Thanksgiving and Easter (they were always at the same location) I was little and running around having fun. This year I wasn't the one running around...it was Lydia running around and four other little ones too (although they aren't all running yet). I guess that means I'm growing up. :) It was still fun though, just not the same kind of fun as I remember.
We did manage to take two little trips while we were there. One afternoon Jake and I went over to Gettysburg and drove on the auto tour road thing for a while while Grammy and Grandbuddy watched Lydia. We didn't get out at many places, but it was fun to get out for a few hours. Then we all went down to Harpers Ferry one afternoon too and walked around for a few hours. It was a spur of the moment kinda trip so we didn't have a lot of time there but I definitely want to go back sometime! It is a really neat place to visit!! :)
So, other than all of that it was a pretty uneventful vacation. It was really nice to be back in our own church today! Lydia had a little bit of a hard time with me leaving her in nursery this morning (another reason I think we were away too long) and was ready to start bawling when we walked in this evening but I was one of the workers so she just clung to me until she realized I was staying. Even when she finally let me put her down she didn't run around and play with the other kids too much but I think it helped her to start to re-adjust since I was there to encourage her. Hopefully it doesn't take her too long to get comfortable there again. She did remember Monica and wanted her to hold her this evening after the service so that's good! :) She certainly didn't want me out of her sight though. If I started to walk away from her at all she'd say "mom mom" and hold her arms out to me. I guess it makes me feel pretty good to k now my little girl loves me and feels secure with me. :) :)
I guess I better head to bed...tomorrow we're on our own again, me and Peanut and Lydia and Baby Two. :) We have another checkup on Two tomorrow afternoon so I'll probably post about that tomorrow or Tuesday. :)