Showers and Lights

The last two weeks have been a lot of fun here at the Miller household! We've been wrapping things up at school for the holiday break and keeping up with some of our Christmas traditions. To start things off, the first couple weeks of December were "shower days" for us! Our dear friends Molly and Felicia threw us a baby shower December 5th. Felicia was Nate's mentor teacher and adopted us as her own children our first year in Texas and Molly has been a close friend and co-worker of Nate's since he started teaching. They made sure to make the shower fun-for-all! We're so grateful for such wonderful friends!

The first game had melted chocolate bars inside diapers and you had to guess the candy bar.

Nate had to work for our gifts. They made him put on this backpack and then asked him questions about pregnancy. For every question he got wrong, they'd put a few potatoes in the backpack. Then, he had to do everyday household chores while I opened each gift. By the end, he had about 30 pounds of potatoes in his backpack.  :) 

Nate with Felicia

 

Molly made us this beautiful wall hanging. It is from the same material that Felicia had a quilt made for us with. They look awesome in the nursery!

Hall threw me a shower on December 8th. Clearview also threw Nate a surprise shower on the same day! We went to two different showers after school that day! Hehe. I don't have pictures from Nate's shower, but here are some from Hall's shower.

My Co-workers. From left to right (Deaf Ed team) Mandy, Roxanne, MaryBeth, Zandy, Sharon, me, Mendy, *(5th Grade team) Robin, Jennifer, and Debra.

 

Nate and I have been saying that we'd like to go to the Kemah Boat Parade ever since moving to Texas and we've missed it every year. This year we finally made it!! :) It's definitely going to be a fun tradition for our family. Here's some of the better pictures we got.  

Elvis and his dancers

Charlie Brown Christmas

My birthday was this past weekend and as a "surprise" (not really a surprise, because it's unsafe to surprise a preggo this late in the game) Collin and mom stopped by for a short stay on their roadtrip from San Diego to Avon. Collin will be leaving for Japan early in January, so my mom flew out to San Diego, helped him pack everything up, and then drove his car back to Ohio with him. It was so nice to have them here for a few days!! I'll post pictures in a future blog update. :)

We've been majorly slacking on belly pictures. Here are some from week 33. 

 
Only a few more weeks!! Today marks the start of week 35!! AND the countdown ticker is 35 days til due date!! While we don't have an official "pool" going, my peeps at work have dibs on Dec 27th, Jan 6th, and Jan 10th. Anyone else want to steak their claim on a date? Feel free to post it in a comment!! :)

The Belly You've All Been Waiting For!!!

Since coming home last weekend, Nate and I have hit the ground running and haven't stopped since! Literally...I mean, the suitcases are still not unpacked. (And I'm trying not to think about it as I type this update... :)

It's been a tradition of our to go out in hunt of the "perfect Christmas tree" the Saturday after Thanksgiving, after our annual Black Friday scramble. We got back into Houston Hobby Airport at 9:30pm on Friday evening and spent Saturday morning tying up the loose ends from being gone for a week. But, because it's tradition, we borrowed truck from a friend, loaded the dogs and headed out for our annual outing Saturday afternoon. This year it was much warmer than it was last year, so we took our time browsing the tree farm for our 2010 masterpiece!

Giving our newbie the instructions..."it needs to be about 6-7' tall, not too fat, equal fullness all the way around, straight trunk, no holes bigger than what our biggest ornaments can hide, and a straight lead branch for our star on the top." 

Photo Op (I think our dogs secretly wish to be farm dogs)

 We found it!!!! 

My lumberjack!

 Flesh wounds come with the territory.

 And.....TIMBER!!!!

 Dragging it back to the hayride.

Waiting for our ride. (And we could count this as belly picture for week 31.)

 This is how Texans go sledding...I kid you not.

 You can also purchase your own bag of marshmallows for roasting.

 Daisy was so happy! She shared the bed with the tree on the way home.

Our current living room setup. (Notice my new glider and ottoman!)

And, here's belly pictures from week 30:

And 31 / 32:

I had my 32 week appointment yesterday and Dr. Rivero said that everything looks good. But, if you all could remember to keep me in your prayers, I'd appreciate it! I have both sciatica and round ligament pains in my right hip. I've been in so much pain the past several days and it just makes it miserable to be up and moving...especially at school where we're preparing for the annual GBCHI Deaf Ed Christmas Play. Today I tried to teach my girls how to sign, dance, and keep beat to Glee's version of "Proud Mary." The girls are SO in love with dance and learning the rhythms, but man it hurts to do it with them! It breaks my heart because they keep asking if we can practice again and again and I just can't.  :(  On a brighter note, I also met my long-term sub today! I'm getting so excited as things start falling into place for Abram's arrival!!!