Christmas day and the snowy day after!

Well just like that Christmas 2015 has come and gone. The holiday snuck up on us very quickly! Let me first apologize for my extreme tardiness on Christmas cards this year. I made an attempt to start them earlier this week, but quickly realized that my ink pads were dried up and I would have to go buy a bunch more plus it was just going to be a bigger headache than I anticipated so I gave up on those and decided to go with just picture cards instead. The picture itself has been a process (you'll see why soon) so we still don't have them out. As soon as that occurs we will let you know, but hopefully they'll be out by New Years. I really haven't been that busy for the last week since my school and work got out, but my mind has been and it's kept me highly distracted. Lame excuse I know, but hey nothing I can do about it now.
Christmas was awfully quiet this year, but we couldn't have asked for better weather and we are fortunate enough to live in the 21st century so we could facetime our families. Christmas day was sunny and clear, absolutely beautiful...and cold. The day after was VERY snowy, warmer, and fun. We started a little early this year by doing Christmas eve with my parents and then took full advantage of sleeping in before we did Christmas morning with John's parents. Facetiming with both of them was amusing, as all of the dogs included themselves talking with each other and their two legged friends through the screen. Ammo always seems to be one of the loudest and most talkative, but everyone was equally talkative this year. Guess everyone was happy about Christmas :) We were excited to see our parents open their gifts and visit for a bit. We were blessed to get A LOT of clothes for Baby Klein as well as some fun toys and nick nacks for ourselves. John and I didn't even talk about Christmas this year, but still managed to surprise each other with some fun gifts including biscuits and gravy for breakfast. After we exchanged gifts and visited with family, we spent the next few hours in the kitchen making apple pie and potatoes to take over to our friends house for dinner. It was a total team effort and fortunately everything tasted great. We managed to finish up just in time to head out and spent the next few hours eating and catching up. We got home much earlier than usual this time of year and did Christmas with my family for the cousin exchange over skype and for the first time got to "open" a gift for a two legged child ;) It was fun to see everyone and their excitement. After visiting the family for a bit, we had a Maze Runner marathon before heading to bed after midnight. I did my meditation about 30 minutes before hitting the hay, doing so peacefully and slightly dizzy. Mission accomplished ;)

 Christmas morning on our balcony

 We each got a piece lol. I pretty much just ate the edge and missed out on the nicely cooked inside :(

 Reading Baby Klein's first Christmas story to him

 Ammo talking to his grandparents

 TJ watching Grandma and Grandpa open their gift

 Catnip overload

 All eyes on dad with undivided attention

 John's new shirt from his parents

 one of my gifts from John

My mom is very creative

Lovin on our Christmas present :)

The day after Christmas, we took advantage of sleeping in again, as did TJ. TJ has decided that I bought the second body pillow for him, not me, and hogs it like it's catnip. I always feel very cuddled and loved on by all of my boys ;) Anyway so we got up and saw the amazing inches of snow outside and the constant beautiful snow that we continued to get and decided it would be a good day to go play in it. I did my yoga, made some yummy breakfast and then we headed to the Glacier with our snowshoes, in case we needed them. Normally in this kind of weather we'd go skiing or head out for a day long snowshoe trip, but being almost 8 months pregnant, not to mention only having a few more hours of daylight left, makes that tricky. Fortunately Juneau has no shortage of safe places to go for a little lady with a big ol' belly. The Mendenhall glacier was packed in the hilly areas where kids were sledding, but fairly quiet on the trail. We took the dogs on the frozen lake and checked out the beautiful ice burgs on the way to Nugget falls, stared at it's power for a few minutes, took some pictures, and then headed back to the car. We didn't end up taking the snow shoes, but they would have been nice in some parts, overkill in other areas so we were fine without them and I got a little bit better workout that way. We had a great time and then spent the rest of the day together at home cleaning up a little, watching movies, and talking baby. It was a quieter Christmas than usual for us, but beautiful and peaceful. We are so grateful for our blessings and can't wait to enjoy Christmas with out bundle of joy next year! We hope you all had a great Christmas as well, we wish you a happy New Year!

Gearing up for some hard play

Dad I'm ready, let's go

Like father, like daughter

Nugget Falls

You can see the glacier, if you look closely

Hi Baby

Happiness

Happy Dogs

Oh my!

Just two days short of 35 weeks

Sportin my new hoodie and headband :)

Being pregnant and making time for other stuff...

For the past seven months since the moment I found out that I was pregnant, I have been completely wrapped around and engaged in pregnancy stuff. I made changes to my diet and lifestyle from the get go. I began looking at pinterest boards for recipe's, safe exercises, and pregnancy/birth pins. I downloaded pregnancy apps with trackers and started on a search for beneficial pregnancy books. I became obsessed with the little peanut growing in my belly and giving them the best chance I could. I've made exercise and nutrition a top priority, even more than it was before. Once I discovered the books that I wanted to read, I read (and still do read) them constantly. I've read many blogs, researched many birthing options and how to have a healthy pregnancy, taking weekly pictures, and read lots of stories to Baby Klein. We've adjusted home, the car, and my body for whatever Baby Klein needs. We've worked on adjusting the dogs to our new family member and look forward to them meeting. I talk about Baby Klein constantly, review research commonly, and get distracted easily. Basically I have become that pregnant mom who won't shut up about her future baby and obsessed with pregnancy, birth, and newborns, specifically mine.

Since August I have been taking two classes and should have spent more time on my courses. Anyone who knows me knows that I have always put 100% into my classes and made school a top priority behind family. This semester however I've really struggled to make it such. Being informed and learning about pregnancy and birth has often taken the time of school simply because I am more interested in it and have a hard time motivating myself to get school work done. Not to mention these two classes have A LOT of work to do for 100 level courses. I've even missed assignments *gasp* which kills me, but I just really struggled to get them done. I've never missed an assignment in college before and I haven't had anything below an A since my last two years of my undergrad. Well I can tell you, that's not going to happen this semester. I often feel amazed at God's timing because he knows I wouldn't have wanted to sacrifice time in my studies or with pregnancy info so he knew after I graduated was the best time for me, because I would have ran myself rampant refusing to give up any time for either, probably sacrificing sleep and getting sick often. The weird thing for me with these courses is that I don't even regret it, because it means that I was able to spend more time on pregnancy stuff including birthing classes, other mommy sessions, and researching plus I was able to stay active. With all of that I was still able to spend time with John and the pups, which would have had to have been sacrificed as well. Fortunately the classes are early childhood so a lot of the information from them and what I'm researching for baby overlap. I am SO grateful for my understanding and experience in researching quality info so I know what is rif raf and what is not. 

I was doing pretty good about keeping the house clean and cooking, but lately since I've been more tired, I haven't been as good. I know this will get even harder when Baby Klein is born and instead of being obsessed with pregnancy, I'll be obsessed with him. So I still have Christmas cards to make, my house to get more ready, my car to be spotless, one more assignment to finish and about a month and a half before I'm due before life gets really fun and crazy. I won't end up with A's, but I will pass and I have gotten good grades on everything I've turned in plus learned a great amount. I won't have a perfect house, but it will be clean and healthy enough for Baby Klein. I might have a perfect car for a little bit, but it won't last for long (I have dogs). I won't have homemade meals every time, but more than I could have and still healthy when they're not. Baby Klein and I HAVE had healthy check ups each and every time however and I feel confident in my body's ability to bring our son to us. That makes all of it worth it to me. I'm used to being a busy b and prefer it that way, but becoming pregnant brought me a whole new passion and desire to be informed and prepared. Being someone who didn't think they could have kids and had given up on the idea, gave me a deeper appreciation for pregnancy and more empathy for my friends struggling with similar situations. My heart goes out to them. I never would have seen myself in this position before May, but I can't imagine ever going back or changing things. Who knows maybe you'll even see a dissertation on healthy and pregnancy later lol ;)  Welcome to mommyhood!