Fun with Family!

So on Tuesday, I got to pick up my sister-in-law Charlotte and her son, Keido. I must say, pretty cool to marry into having nephews (and a neice). Keido's a lot of fun. It was just so cool to see family again, it's been a while. I really enjoyed chatting with Charlotte about preparing for Junior, hearing the tips from someone whose just been through it herself. Charlotte's always a great person to see.
I think my favorite part of their visit though, was seeing Rod and Keido interact. I think Rod looks enough like Boyd that Keido wasn't scared away from him, although he might have been a little confused at times. Rod loved it so much! He was so excited to see Keido and play with him. It was fun to see Keido smile too, with his two front teeth, with a great big gap between them. What a cute-albeit somewhat redneck-smile! After they left, Rod had a huge grin on his face as he told me how much he just wanted to pick Keido up and hold him. Keido, being who he is, was too squirmy to be content with much holding. Rod helped Keido take a bath too. It was really cute to watch them, and look forward to Rod taking care of our little one. I may be nervous about being a mommy, but I can't wait for Rod to be a daddy!

Junior's first photo op!

So, we've had our first doctor's visits now. Now I can officially say that as of today, we are 6 weeks 5 days along. That puts our due date on July 25th. I went to the first doctor's visit and they weren't sure how far along we were, so they ordered an ultrasound. We had the ultrasound today, and that was a really fun experience, seeing our little blob that will one day be our child, the newest Tamanaha!

Junior is the little dense spot between the two marks in the photo.
Looks just like us, huh?

I suppose future ultrasounds will be a little more exciting looking, but for now, we have this. I can already tell, I'm going to end up showing pictures of my children to anyone and everyone I meet... oh, well. Can you blame a woman for being a proud mama?

Unfortunately, as pregnancy has progressed, I have developed morning sickness. I had a miserable week last week until we found something of a cure.... eating food. I feel like I eat all the time now, mostly fruit and veggies. Junior can't stand meat or sugar much, it makes me nauseous. For being so little, he already causes a lot of trouble!

Getting the ultrasound has made us both much more excited to welcome Junior into our world. I look forward to his growth and arrival! Only.... 7 1/2 months to go. :D

And Hilarity Ensues....

Our first Thanksgiving feast- and yes, we had a real turkey,
 Jared was not the stand in, as much as he looks it.

So, Rod and I have now had our first Thanksgiving together. I am so proud of how it all came out. I cooked the turkey, and it came out so moist! It was a very interesting process, trying to find the neck, being grossed out by it and throwing that away, and then being unable to find the giblets until I started stuffing the turkey. Rod helped me do alot of the cooking, and we made quite a fine meal. Rod made the best pie though. He made his family's recipe for the chocolate haupia pie, and it is SO delicious!

Then today, we decided to start our own family traditions. Considering it's black Friday, and the first day we can officially celebrate Christmas without too many people getting their panties in a tangle, Rod and I decided we'd kick off the Christmas season officially with some service. I can't stand the Black Friday rush, so we slept peacefully through that--Junior let me sleep all through the night last night, finally!--and then when we crawled out of bed we got ready and went to the mall to go pick a name for sub for Santa. Then we did some shopping for that, dropped off our gifts and went to go get our Christmas tree. This is where life gets hilarious.

So, since we decided to buy the tree at Smith's, we figured it was close enough we could walk home. We bought a stand and a tree. Rod laughed because it was the first tree I saw, he thinks it's funny because I don't shop around once I think I've found what I want. Then Rod carried the tree and walked the three blocks to our house while I carried the stand. (We also bought oatmeal because since becoming pregnant, I've developed a passion for oatmeal.) When we got home, we were faced with a dilemma, because we needed to cut one inch off the bottom of the trunk, but no one we knew in the area had a saw handy. We tried drilling holes in it to get it to come off, but Rod's drill battery died. Then we tried the chisel technique, but figured that would take until next week. So Rod went at it with the curved side of a hammer. Laughing, he said he could never call Jared a redneck again. It took some time, but we did actually hack an inch or so off the bottom of the tree using this method.

Now to bring our tree inside. It wasn't too bad, I just brushed everything off the refrigerator as we walked by and the tree shed all the way in. We set it in our new stand, which we discovered was too big--explains why it was the cheaper of the two!--and tried to steady it there. Now the trunk was too short, which we discovered after trying to steady it three times, unsuccessfully. We steadied it once, wrapped the lights around it; which we discovered were too short for the smallest tree we could find, which was probably still a little too big for our house. We made do, and began to move it into the corner. As the tree fell out of the stand yet again, all we could do is laugh. I crawled under the tree to try to steady it yet again, unsuccessfully. Finally, we decided to chop the lower branches off, so that it could sit down in stand properly. So, using wire cutters and hacking with the hammer again--we tried the exacto knife, but it didn't work--we got the lower branches off. Now there were needles and wood chunks all over the floor. But finally, using the blocks of wood we'd hacked off of it earlier, we could steady the tree in the stand. Decorating it with the ornaments, hanging stockings, placing nativity sets and placing gifts under the tree were short work after that.
Of course, I still have to go through and do the vacuuming. But now we have our house decorated for Christmas! I am so excited for the Christmas season coming!

The glow of pregnancy...

    Oh, yeah. I haven't announced it yet.... Rod and I are PREGNANT!!! We're so excited. It's a new, exciting experience. A very...appetite building experience. I'm so hungry, all the time! I feel more connected with my husband now though, I completely agree, food is always on topic.
   So, you know how they say that pregnant women have a certain glow about them? That they look so happy and healthy? I'm discovering that this glow in it's infant stages looks a lot more like acne. That's why we're not starting with a current photo with this blog, though I'll add some as there's more to see with our pregnancy progression.
   We're pretty early right now, so there's not much development there to share. We estimate about 6 weeks, but the first doctor's appointment is next Thursday. I mostly figured it was just time to start a blog so that you all could stay connected with the updates in our new family life.