Baby Emma

Welcome to our newest niece, Emma Rae Woolley. She was born last Wednesday to my brother and his wife. This is only the second time I have become an auntie, and Clara is so excited to be a cousin again, at least in concept.

The baby is absolutely beautiful. Good job guys. Of course we went to the hospital to hold the baby after she was born. Clara held her for about 3 seconds, then declared "I'm all done." She was really interested in the balloon in the hospital room though. I wonder if she'll have any interest at all in her baby brother.

Congrats to Ben and Tosca. We love you guys.

Overnight getaway

Our due date is fast approaching (not really fast enough, but what can you do?) so we decided to do a little overnight getaway this past weekend to unwind and get a good night's sleep before this little guy joins our family. We wanted it to be low key so we just stayed at a bed a breakfast in Midvale in a Romeo and Juliet themed suite. We both kinda hate the story of Romeo and Juliet, but the room was nice with the just right amount of cheesy.

We had a great time. We ate out without our toddler in tow, which was relaxing and just divine. We stayed out past 8 PM. Ha ha. We got some water ice at Rita's and went shopping. We took the time to just peruse the aisles at the store without hollering at a little girl to stay nearby, don't touch that, no we can't buy that, etc. Then we headed to the bed and breakfast for tons of junk food, a movie (we finally watched Frozen), and as good a night's sleep as you can get at 35 weeks pregnant. In the morning, we got breakfast in bed, which was absolutely delicious (we forgot to take a picture because we scarfed it all down so fast), the headed to home to see our girl. We missed her, even though it was fun to take night off.
So I guess this means our batteries are all recharged and we're ready to do this whole baby-having thing.

Who needs lunch...

when you can have a Leatherby's sundae instead?

Christmas

I was lucky enough to get both Christmas Eve and Christmas off work this year. Since I have been so sick/tired/miserable with this pregnancy, we decided not to decorate for Christmas at all this year. I figured Clara will never remember and it was not worth the effort. I love Christmas and I am really not all bah humbug or anything. It has just been a rough few months.

We did our own little family Christmas on the evening of Christmas Eve. Here's a picture of the set up, in front of our entertainment center due to lack of a Christmas tree.

 Here's Clara walking in to see her presents for the first time.

 She had a great time opening gifts, and wanted to play with each one before moving on.

We split Christmas Day between Zack's family and my family. It's nice to be close to both families so we can share these special occasions with all of them. We enjoyed opening gifts, eating lots of junk, and just relaxing with people we love.

Thanksgiving

I've decided to just get through Thanksgiving and Christmas, then cut my losses and pick up at the present. 

So Thanksgiving was pretty low key for us. I had to work so Zack and Clara spent most of the day with Zack's family. In the evening after I got off work, we headed to my parents' house for the turkey dinner. 

Here's some cute pictures of Clara in her Thanksgiving getup.