For Unto Us a Child is Born...in 5 Weeks

This was the busiest pre, during and after Christmas I can remember in a long long time. If you know me you know I'm planny-plannerton but this year there was zippo time for planning. Luckily SP convinced me in November to get a super big jump on our Christmas shopping so the majority was done early (glory hallelujah)  

My family came and stayed with us for a week which was lovely, but once again, no time for planning. Luckily they are the lowest of the low key and therefore are open to take out dinners and afternoon marathons of netflix. It was a family, cookie filled week and I'm so incredibly glad we had the chance to "do-over" Christmas with everybody having working limbs.

Some scenes from the insanity of Christmas celebrations with both mine and SP's family:

 Decorating Duchess Sybil! 

 Christmas morning with the Squinty Family

 Beard Baubles and Pregnant Lady Stocking Stuffers!

GIANT Peanutbutter cup!  YUM!

 Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating!

Christmas Dinner Goobs!

 Christmas Part II:

 The Present Mountain! And the Make-It gifts

 Newest Baby Newphew!

 A new high chair for all the new babies!

This Christmas season has been a little extra special as we eagerly (and terrifyingly) await our first baby.  Advent, traditionally, is a waiting period in the Christian church.  A time of preparation and meditation on the coming of the Christ child to the world. And with SP in a very pregnant nesty mode we have had a physical manifestation of that waiting period. And it has definitely opened something deep inside of me. I think for the longest time I thought my dream of being a mother was going to remain just that...a dream. It just seemed that there were so many obstacles (biological, financial, familial etc etc) to this dream. I think even when SP got pregnant I couldn't 100% wrap my mind around the fact that this meant I was going to be a mother. It has slowly becoming more real as little dippitydot grows and SP changes. If you're the pregnant one there is no denying that things are changing, but as the other mother there is a way in your warped brain that you can sort of forget that it's going to be real. But the last month has brought everything into stark clarity - a baby is coming. My baby.  Mine and SP's baby. The soul that has been waiting up there is making his or her way to me...finally.

Amongst all the business and flash and crazy its been a beautiful season. A season of anticipating. A season of small moments and stolen joys. A season of waiting and preparation for a child. A child who will change my world.

Merry Christmas my loves! And all the love and light from my soul to yours!

A State Of My (Mental) State Address

You guys. 

Did you know that in just 2 weeks it will be 2015?

I.can.not.wrap.my.mind.around.it.

The time is flying by at extra uber warp speed and I think I'm in the middle of my annual holiday melt down.  Things feel too fast, too busy, too tiring. But at least I can get these crappy feelings out of the way before the actual holidays ;)

One of the many things sucking away all my time - I made 8 thousand caramel chocolate dipped pretzels.     They were amazing I'm not going to lie...

Last week we had 2, count em' 2, more baby showers. It was incredible and definitely grew my Grinch heart by at least 2 sizes. This new stinker is so well loved and he/she hasn't even made his/her debut yet. I have to say, the support and generosity of our friends and coworkers has been truly overwhelming. Thank you peeps near and far who are helping us to understand and prepare for this crazy change in our lives. Some days I can't believe how quickly this kid is coming and some days I'm giddy with excitement and some days I'm just terrified out of my mind! (par for the course right?!...RIGHT?!)

I can't even describe how much cake I've eaten in the last 3 weeks...

Mah Peeps!

This...accompanied by a "squeeee" all the time!

We have a jam-packed next week with the holidays and my parentals and brother coming to visit and stay at our house.  Typically, every other year we go down south for Christmas.  But this year SP is pretttyyy pregnant and we're sort of doing a do-over since my poor brother was a hot mess last year...so we're staying up here. And honestly I'm pretty excited about it - not traveling around the holidays? Uh Yes Please! Plussss...It's our first Christmas in our first home!  Which we're still trying to figure out...decorations, tree locations etc - but it's exciting none the less.

Christmas in the new house!  I name the tree Duchess Sybil just in case you were wondering...

Smore's in the fireplace with this beauty, how lucky am I?!

Ok kiddos, I think that's all I've got in me today.  Happy happies near and far!

P.S. 33 weeks yesterday! 
P.P.S Is anybody having major issues commenting on other blogger blogs? I'm reading all your blogs I swear but every time I hit the "publish" button on my comment it just disappears!  I don't know what to do!  Ayudame!

A Shower of Love (31 Weeks!)

Yesterday our amazing friends threw us a beautiful baby shower.  It was a fantastic afternoon filled with friends, love, and terrifying realizations that a real.live.baby will be in our house in approximately 8 weeks (yikes!)

One of my closest friends from childhood hosted the shower (in the home of some of our other closest friends!)  She took care of every detail and it was so personalized to us. She made the shower book themed (to reflect my love of reading). So not only did we get completely spoiled with baby gifts everybody brought children's books to build Dippity Dot's future library! Fantastic.

Our beautiful host with my newest nephew

We started the afternoon with a sweet ceremony. We went around the room (tossing a ball of string) and honored the strong fabulous women who came before us and each woman gave us advice, or a blessing, or a wish for the future. At the end we cut the string and were asked to tie the string around our wrist and keep it on until the baby is born. The idea being that every time you look at it you send good wishes and love to the mommies and baby to come soon. I absent-mindedly touch it often now and remember the strong, beautiful women who help to hold us up.

 Celebrating our strong community

We spent the rest of the afternoon eating cake, playing games, opening a ridiculous amount of gifts (crazy generous friends), and decorating onesies! It couldn't have been more "us" and now we're even more excited to welcome this little nugget into our family and into this world.

Custom onesie collection!

Babyshower palooza continues in the next couple of weeks as well (with 2 work babyshowers coming up!) and a "meet the baby" party being planned in the spring so my parents can celebrate too! (they just got home from living in London for 3 months...lucky ducks!)

So it's pretty certain to say that this baby is already so incredibly loved. And while it's pretty hard not to freak over every detail and try to go with the flow (hard for 2 control freaks...) I'm feeling more supported than ever. We can do this - and we have so many lovely people to hold us up when its a little too much!

Future Mama Face

Besos my loves!