The last few days

The last few days have been exciting and busy and it's only Christmas Eve! As I write this we are sitting at my parent's, have successfully unwarpped oodles of presents and are watching Mama Mia. Now, for a bit of a recap on the last few days.

Friday, December 19

Last Friday night was my company Christmas party. We had a really good time celebrating at Railside Golf and Country Club in Gibson City. Trever got to meet all of my co-workers and he enjoyed the open bar. We came away with a gift card to Red Lobster! Yummy!

Saturday, December 20

Saturday started out like any relaxing weekend should be. Then, after I got out of the shower and before I got my hair done, the electricity went out. We still headed to Kankakee to pick out my Christmas present. We used our Red Lobster gift card, did a little shopping and then headed home to rig up the generator. We made ourselves look presentable and headed to the Red Door. Little did our friend Nicole know that her life was about to get very interesting. Her boyfriend Kevin had a plan to propose and surprise her with a surprise birthday and engagment party. She was definately surprised and we are excited for their upcoming 2009 wedding.

Sunday, December 21

We headed to LeRoy to celebrate with the Builta's. Since part of the family feels the need to head south for the holidays, this was the only time the majority of the family could get together. For the second year we did a white elephant exchange. I ended up with some soda and beer nuts and Trever came home with a video and some candy.

Monday, December 22

I had my second doctors appointment. It was pretty uneventful, but I got to hear the heartbeat again. It was approximately 160 beats per minute and according to an old wives tale that means this little monster is going to be a girl! We'll wait and see in a few more weeks.

Tuesday, December 23

The last day of work for a few days and I had a little Christmas lunch with my coworkers. It rained and froze most of the day. After work and a quick haircut I headed to the in-laws for another Christmas. It took Kyla, Ron and Caisey about 8 hours to make the typical 5 hour trip back to Illinois. Icy roads and lots of accidents kept them to a creep all the way back. A quick round of showers, some yummy snacks and the unwrapping began. We decided to pass on a slumber party at the Kuipers' and headed back home. The usually routine 25 minute drive took about an hour on the ice covered roads.

Christmas Eve

And now we are at my parent's house. We got here around 11:30, ate some yummy steak and pork chops and unwrapped gifts with my family. Again, lots of goodies for everyone. We're getting ready to head back to Grandma Builta's house for some soup and cheese ball for our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Then, hopefully it's off to Christmas Eve service in Onarga at 11.

Tommorow we're off to Grandma Ficklin's, Friday is a lunch date with Ria, cleaning hous and dinner with Grandpa Kuipers. Then Saturday it's a baby shower for Kyla and Christmas with the extended Ficklin family. It wears me out just thinking about it! :)

*Note...the above pictures are courtesy of my Christmas present from Trever! Yeah for my new Nikon D60 camera! Yup...the same one Ashton Kutcher advertises for!

The word is out!

We're having a baby! We've been anxious to share our news for quite some time but wanted to wait until the time was right to make the announcement.

We actually found out October 12th but had to wait until November 10th to confirm it with the doctor. After a couple of cancelled appointments and playing phone tag with the doctor's office, we finally got to hear a nice strong heartbeat on November 26th. Just in time to share the news with our family on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving morning we headed toward LeRoy a little early to make the announcement to my parents. We gave them a "Thanksgiving card" that was actually a special invitation to meet us at Gibson Area Hospital on ~June 18, 2009 to meet their new grandbaby.

We shared te news with the rest of the Builta's at lunch that day. However, I don't think it really hit them until after we had left. Then Kirk started text messaging me with lots of off the wall name options.

We made an early exit from Grandma's house so that we could make it to Greg & Kathy's before Trever's grandparent's left. We made it and shared our invitation with them as well.

Today we are at 12 weeks and 5 days. Just a couple of more days and I'll be out of the first tri-mester. Overall I think things have been going fairly well. Trever can't understand how I can sleep for 11-12 hours a night and still be tired the next day. Besides being tired ALL THE TIME, I've felt pretty good. I head back to the doctor's on December 22nd for a routine appointment.

We look forward to more updates as the pregnancy progresses, so stay tuned!