Ice Storm, Christmas, and 18-19 Weeks

To my faithful readers (my mom and Ashlee!), sorry for the lack of a blog last week.  Merry Christmas!

We have lots of photos from the ice storm and from our many, many Christmas celebrations.  We are just two days away from finding out if we're having a boy or a girl, too, so don't forget to vote on the right hand side of the blog!  So far, there are a lot of votes for a boy!

Our first Christmas celebration was with the Zehnacker side of the family in the middle of an ice storm.  That couldn't deter a good Vermont family from getting together, though!  Evie was a little nervous about meeting Santa, so cousin Carly went with her, and then Evie warmed up quickly.  We all got a good laugh with this conversation that Evie had with Santa:
    Santa: "Have you been a good girl?"
    Evie: "Yes, except for when I cried when Mommy and Daddy left me in the car!"

The ice storm was very significant, but strangely, it was a welcome reprieve that we were housebound for 24 hours when all the roads were impassable.  We got some wrapping done and had a quick breather before beginning the Christmas whirlwind!  We were fortunate that we didn't lose power and we didn't have any damage to our house in the storm, but many of our trees are still bowed over under weight of the ice and snow.  Matt took the opportunity to ice skate on our road when it was covered in ice, which gave us a good laugh from inside the house!

We had the chance to see many of our friends and family over the next few days, and we all have a bit of a Christmas "hangover" now!  Poor Evie's schedule had to get shifted every-which-way, with early naps, late bedtimes, missed naps, and lots of activity.  She was a trooper through it all, but I think we are in recovery mode now, and she has a tantrum every time we try to leave the house (even to go fun places, like going sledding!).  I guess we'll just stay home and enjoy the Christmas toys, so if you want to see us, you know where we'll be!

We did Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at home, and it was incredibly magical to see Evie discover that Santa had come on Christmas morning.  Her big gift from Santa was a craft table and chairs for her play room, which we all are enjoying!

We then made the 1-mile trek to Aunt Pea's house on Christmas morning to celebrate Christmas with my family, and Evie got to spend time with her aunt, cousins, and grandparents.  Seeing all the kids enjoying Christmas was awesome, and the brunch my mom made was phenomenal, as always.

From there, we went home and Evie had a good nap, and then we had Christmas dinner at our house with some of Matt's family.  It was nice and low-key, and it made us thankful that so much of our family lives nearby!

Then, the next day, we were on to Christmas celebration #4 with Grandpa Tom!  Phew!

We also had visits with a few other special people, including Grandma Barb, Evie's godmother Ally, and friends Ashlee, Emilee and Carlee!

 

And, lest we forget that the pregnancy is moving along, here are the belly shots from the past couple of weeks.  I'm 19 weeks along, and while my energy level is good, my nausea has not left yet.  I thought I was out of the woods, and then I had a weird evening nausea spell and threw up again just this week.  If I can whine for a minute, I miss being able to wake up and enjoy breakfast with Matt and Evie, and I am tired of having to think about food so much.  Oh, and I would really love a drink with all of the holiday festivities going on!  But, I'm almost halfway through the pregnancy and feeling the baby move all over the place, so I'm grateful for those things!  The baby is 6 inches long and about 8.5 ounces at this point, and the baby is now sensitive to sounds.  Too bad this little one is hearing less flute playing and more temper tantrums than Evie heard when she was in the womb!  

Check back on Monday to see the results of the big ultrasound!