Christmas at Home - WF that is...

Typical Christmas morning celebration with breakfast and presents at my parents house - who managed to avoid pictures... My grandmother Nin came over for the big celebration along with my bro and Lacey and puppy - we need more dogs for sure!


Typical family picture

OKC Christmas

The weekend before Christmas was spent at Greg's grandparents house in Oklahoma with his rather large family. We ate, ate, Santa came, "dirty Santa"... little cousins bonding - with two more next year to play with. I don't have a picture, but I'm the awesomest aunt ever with Nate "the mouse" getting a mouse - you'd have to be there I guess :) We were serenaded to jingle bells via the new guitar with microphone.

Pa and Kara
This is NOT Nate putting on lip gloss

Faith and Nate "reading"
He did like the baby doll the most I think - gift for next year perhaps? He can just play with little sisters :)

It snowed the night of our Christmas and, thankfully, we all made it home safely!

Tobey had fun but have you ever seen more pitiful faces?


Cousins - Tyler, Pam, and Melinda

36 weeks

Don't kill me Sam - how often do sisters-in-law get to be preggo together?
If you look closely, you can see the little flat part where my belly button is... Greg is so disappointed I don't have an outie. Next to the kid, I think that was going to be the highlight of the whole journey.

36 week for Christmas - with Greg making fun of my angled photo taking habits. I'll be so ready for a kid in the picture with me... too awkward.
And doesn't thiscute little closet o' pink make it all worthwhile? Amber, note your fuzzy outfit at the beginning - should feel special!
So (less than) four weeks to go until the official due date. Craziness!

Graduation Day

I officially graduated from UTMB on December 14th!
Mom and Dad came down for the weekend while the in-laws met up for the big night. I think they should have had a graduation just for the spouses who survived!
The fam
My biggest fan :)

Research group with Dr. Ayachi

My big and official looking diploma... just needs an office to go in - with a job

Lots more pics elsewhere but these will have to do. I do accept donations from my PA buddies who ended up with good group pics since I managed not to have them. All finished - now just waiting to take the big test in less than a week... then waiting for the results! Assuming I don't chunk my book across the house before then...

"I am Legend" Warning...

No this is not graduation pictures cause I need to go to bed...
But a note that might be worth reading.... I decided we needed a date night, and we had a gift certificate to Star Cinema Grill - where you eat and watch the movie. For some reason I wanted to go see the previously mentioned movie...
Not an "enjoyable" experience for me!
Greg of course thought it was awesome.
Pretty much a glorified zombie movie made credible by Will Smith. Granted, still much better than the other zombie movies that I have sat through in the name of love and being a good wife. But still! Don't say you weren't warned!

Graduation Banquet

The night before graduation, the whole class, spouses, and faculty had a celebration dinner in downtown Houston - fancy on the 43rd floor!

Sounds impressive right? Some people win awards for their scholarly endeavors or career development or community service. I, however, am nominated by my class as most likely to have 7 kids - tied with the Mormon I personally voted for :) . Greg was proud and glad he could help me with that goal. I like to think that inwardly I deserved the other prizes but didn't need a bigger head, right? :) I did service and such and didn't flunk out... and I'm still here!
My girls: Haley, Tien, Teresa, Christine, Meghan, Alli, and Isa
Stacie, Brenda, Allison, and moi
Nice teeth make good PAs!
Katie, Lauren, and Lindsay

Graduation pictures to follow... I know that in high school and college at least, it was a sappy time. So many people you think you have real relationships with and wish you had known them better... blah blah. And for some reason, you feel sad and cry. And most of them, you won't talk to again except maybe every couple of years or so -

I'm more sentimental than I sound I promise!

This time, got a little sappy when Isa and Teresa were leaking, but other than that... Sadness is for people you won't see again! I'll see the ones I want to see - just takes effort - since a lot of us live near each other - or at least in the same vicinity. Happiness is for friends that mean a lot to you who you will see at least semi-frequently and know that even if you don't, getting together will be just like the old times and you still care a great deal about each other!

Love you guys!

First Girl Weekend

Honoring the star of the show!
The weekend of Haley's wedding, we spend the weekend at Wade and Kristin's house where we had bonus friends of Amber and James. Always interesting when James is around! And since she was making her debut, the belly bump got a lot of attention.

We all got together again two weekends ago for a full BJAKK reunion complete with spouses, kid, and bellies, but my pics aren't working (ahem Wade). Until then, just look at JoDee's :).

Bah Hum Bug!

In the spirit of all things Christmas, we have decided to forego all the decorations. We won't hardly be here, neither really wanted to mess with it, tons of other stuff to be doing, and then I'll just have to take it all down when I'm even more pregnant. And who wants that?

Not to mention, this is the last year until we are non-kid again to be able to choose not to put them up without being nominated for worst parents of the year!

So eat that! :)

I do worry that all our over-the-top neighbors will think we're even more anti-social than otherwise.

I am wearing a festive red shirt - does that count? My smile lights up the room more than any Christmas lights ever could! If only it would shine more often...

PS: To all you who say I'm too small baby-wise, my 33 wk appt today went perfectly and I'm right where I should be. And not only was my GTT negative last time, I whooped it at like 103 or so... Not even close to diabetic! She did say that having hips keeps you from going forward - I never knew those would come in handy.

This pic is in honor of my roomies I'm seeing this weekend -
we haven't all been together since Kara's wedding I don't think....
Dallas here I come!

Red-y to Roll!

This is Greg driving his new car...
This is Greg hoping the coolness of his new car will

compensate for the uncoolness of BabiesRUs...

And this is his new car's butt!

I really meant to take more and better pictures but he leaves before I get up (unless I'm really study-dedicated) and gets home at night. So these will have to do. I guess it's about a week old now? 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid with leather interior, sunroof, cool keyless starter, and of course the Sirius radio it got when it was only 2 days old. When we picked it up, it had a whole 8 miles on it. Greg loves his car; I'm paranoid of un-prettying it, too dumb at times to even get it to start right, and trying hard not to be an annoying passenger. It's first drive went to BabiesRUs to look at strollers and it defintely took up the whole trunk -the hybrid part (something) it back there making it smaller. But they all seemed the same size (the strollers that is) so I guess I just need a new minivan :) . We took it to LA last weekend and went like 500 miles or so on a tank of gas - Greg would know the specs. I think she/he really needs a name to quit calling her/he "it" - just sounds mean doesn't it?

Time for Jello!

This last weekend Greg ended his 29 year streak as a gambling virgin. I pushed a button on his slot machine a couple of times so maybe I'm halfway there - thinking I'm as far as I plan to go though cause the whole thing was a waste of time in my opinion. Every dollar was another cute outfit I could buy my kid... and lets face it, I get a lot more pleasure buying even just 2 pieces of scrapbook paper for that dollar that joining the masses wasting theirs! Truly amazing how quickly you can go through money when you just push a button every 10 seconds or so...
It was Greg's work's Christmas party at L'Auberge du Lac (which translated means "Inn of the Lake" - better in French) in Louisiana. They paid for two nights at the hotel (an expensive one at that), and the dinner and brunch Sat and Sun. Our price? Watching 40 and 50 year old co-workers with the intent on drunken behavior and dancing. And there were only like 30 of us there - so the dance floor would have been awkward had you known the people to start with. Worse so when it just meant watching the same 5 women dance while everyone else watched. Granted there were funny moments. And thankfully this ended when we snuck out at the wee hours of 9 or so. Only to hear the stories of stumbling back to their rooms at midnight during brunch the following morning.
I told Greg it's ironic that the only time I've actually been around actual Jello shots were those created by a 55-ish grown up who passed them out to the others.
At least it got me out of the house, got to stay in a nice hotel, eat expensive food - and be reminded why Greg and I go together so well and glad I didn't marry someone "fun". This would be an instance why "can't I'm pregnant" is beneficial - otherwise they might actually realize what boring non-alcoholic, non-dancing (non-gambling) people we really are!
Greg did end up $100 ahead - most of his coworkers were in the hole - and he said he had fun... even though he reaked of cigarette smoke from the slot machines... :)