Pictures and Bullet Points

These were taken a few weeks ago, for the Christmas letter I have yet to write, much less print and mail. Anyone want to bet on whether I'll actually get those in the mail before Dec. 25? Yeah, I didn't think so... :-)

Other stuff we've been up to lately:

School - The semester is over - yea! Thank God I listened to R and only took one class instead of the two that I was contemplating, because I barely pulled off the one. I got a B, thanks to a very generous teacher who gave me far more credit for participation than I actually deserved.

Sick - People warned me we'd be sick a lot this first year since Miss A is in day care, and boy they weren't kidding. She came down with another cold the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we wound up coming down with it the night before Thanksgiving. We were planning to go to R's parents' house that day, but we stayed home and kept our germs to ourselves. We had planned to have Thanksgiving part 2 that Sunday, but we still weren't well enough.

Adventure - To make up for my lameness in birthday presents for R's last two birthdays, this year I got him a gift certificate to a half-day high performance driving experience that involved lead-and-follow around a track, autocross, and go kart racing. It was scheduled for the first weekend of December, and he felt up to participating, so we went. He had a blast!

More Sick - R and I have not yet recovered 100% from the Thanksgiving cold. It just seems to sort of wax and wane. Miss A did recover, but unfortunately came down with it again a few days ago. That does not tend to do great things for her weight. She'll be 9 months on Monday, and she's only up about 1.5 pounds from her 6-month weight.

Christmas Preparations - We're doing pretty decently on the shopping, having completed most of our gift-buying in November. And what we have bought is wrapped, with the exception of one thing. I usually do a huge amount of baking in December, but this year I resigned myself to the fact that slicing up two logs of store-bought, pre-made dough is going to be the extent of my baking. The tree is up, but does not yet have lights or ornaments. And two tall, skinny trees that we put up outside on either side of the front door are already pre-lit but not actually plugged in. We'll see how far we get. I am determined to at least get the tree done, because I want to see Miss A's face light up when she sees all the pretty lights. And we already have a bunch of ornaments to put on it for her (a couple from us, a few from my mom, a few from other people).

Oh, and how's this for a laugh - the Christmas letter (or New Year's letter, depending on how quick I get moving on that) will also include Miss A's birth announcement, because I got those ordered in late August but never actually managed to get them into the mail. I told R the other day that apparently I should have ordered "Look who's turning 1!" announcements rather than birth announcements... :-)

In case I don't post again in the next couple of weeks, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!