Blessed

I haven't been able to post for awhile because Don and I sold our computer. We decided to cut down on our gadgets and gizmos for a little bit. Lots has happened since I last posted!
We spent Thanksgiving with Don's family and a few of his cousins. Which meant TONS of food and lots of kids for Carter to play with. I love this time of year.
At the beginning of December, Carter and I spent a week at my mom's in Idaho. My sister also came and I got to meet my new adorable nephew, Levi! It felt nice to squeeze on a little baby that doesn't crawl or run away from you. My little brothers loved playing with Carter. We had lots of fun goofing off. I also got to spend time with my best friend, Kasey. I would like to post our trip with pictures some other time. Hopefully soon!
This Christmas season I have felt especially grateful for everything that I have. Going to Idaho and seeing my old friends and loved ones who helped shape me into who I am today made me feel so blessed and loved. I also recently had a friend who's husband passed away suddenly. She wasn't a close friend, but once I heard I immediately fell to my knees bawling and praying for her. The next day was the Conneticut shooting which also brought me to my knees. I was in a daze for a few days. These incidences just put me in shock of how precious and fragile life is. It's times like those where I feel so selfish like what do I have to complain about?
I have the world at my feet.
I live in a beautiful, free country.
I have a loving family.
A sweet husband.
A son who I get to squeeze and love everyday.
I have awesome, fun friends.
A healthy body.
A roof over my head and food on the table.
I've got it good. I am blessed more than most people in the world and often wonder what I did to deserve it. I just want my friends and family to know how much I love them and want every happiness for them.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Trip

 "Mmmm...that beard looks tasty"

At a ward party. We had to hurry and grab him before he got a hold of Santa's beard.

 Don and I decided to spend Christmas with my family this year in Idaho. It might be one of our last trips for Christmas now that we're starting a family and starting school. It was quite an eventful trip. We left at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon and didn't make it to Salt Lake until 7am. IT WAS HORRIBLE! We're never doing that again if we can help it. Don and I ate so much crap to keep us awake we both felt sick the day after. We ran into some real bad fog in between Prescott and Flagstaff so it made our trip 2 hours longer than it should have taken, but Carter was great! He slept the whole time and it was awesome! Except there were a couple times where we just wanted to pull over and take a nap, but Carter would start crying as soon as the car started slowing down. Eventually, we pulled over and I held Carter so we could take a 30 minute nap, we were desperate.

Ava. She's just a couple weeks younger than Carter. I just want to squeeze her!

We made it to Ruth's (Don's sister) house and the girls ran out to see us. It was worth the trip.

Don had never seen the temple lights so we went to temple square and took lots of pictures. It was gorgeous as always. I can never figure out how they put so many lights on every single branch on every tree!

Ruth and Peter's 4 girls: Brenna, Maren, Emeline, and Ava

They're lots of fun. I love playing with them.

Carter and Maren

I LOVE this picture.

Ruth and Peter are our favorite to hang out with. We went shopping, went out to eat lots and played games. We played mario cart and mario party one night on their game cube and I lost horribly every single time. Luckily Don won mario party, he was happy to finally beat Peter haha.

Friday we drove up to Idaho. We stopped in Kimberley to see my sister's new house, which is way cute!

Then we followed each other to Meridian. We had lots of fun over-eating and hanging out.

My little guber brother, Ryan being the inn keeper

Christmas Eve we did our usual acting out the birth story of Christ. It's always my favorite.

 Mary, Joseph, (or a terrorist?!) and baby Jesus

Santa came Christmas morning then we went to church where my mom, sister and I played our violin trio. I love playing with them and really miss it around this time of year. It was the highlight of my Christmas.

My mom also convinced me to sing with her in the choir. One lady sang Mary's Lullaby. I can't sing or hear that song without crying anymore. I can't imagine what it must have been like for Mary to hold her baby knowing he was going to lead nations and die for mankind.

My nephew, Jed, my mom, and my brother, Michael

After church we opened the presents under the tree. Jed's first present was a big Tonka dump truck and he wasn't too interested in opening anything else. That kid is hilarious!

We had a great Christmas. Monday, Don and my brother in law, Bron (yeah...Don and Bron haha) set up my brothers basketball hoop while my sister, my bestest friend Kasey and I went shopping. We had a lot of fun. Later that night I went over to Kasey's mom's house and showed off Carter. I really miss hanging out with Kasey. She will always be my best friend. Later that night I also had a couple other great friends come visit and hang out for awhile. It was a great ending to a great vacation.

The day we left to go back to Salt Lake, Carter started to get sick. He got a runny nose, cough, diarrhea. and vomit. We stayed the night at Ruth's again then left for Arizona the next morning. The trip home was a lot better aside from the vomit getting all over the Carter and the car. Carter slept the whole time cause he was so sick. He couldn't keep anything down except pedialite. We got home around 2am. When we got Carter out of the car he looked really pale and really sickly. Don was really worried so we took him to the hospital to have him checked out. He was fine, he just had the stomach flu and a cold.

We had a wonderful Christmas, but it's always good to be home. Now that it's 2012, my goal is to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight (hopefully more), run my half marathon in good time, and celebrate Carter's first birthday! It's gonna be a good year!

Today I am...

This is something I've done before and I need to do more often on my blog, it's a cute idea. Try it!

Today I am:

Loving: the cold weather and snuggling with my boys!

Excited: for Christmas. I'm finally going home to Idaho for Christmas. It's been 2 years since I've been home and 3 years since I've spent Christmas with my mom. My mom is the epitome of Christmas spirit. Through the whole month of December she's always cooking goodies and singing Christmas songs. The part I'm most excited about is playing the violin with my mom and sister for church. I always miss it so much this time of year!

Laughing: at Carter. Lately he's been making this super weird noise. It's a cross between the noise off "The Grudge" and throwing up. He thinks it's really funny and laughs at himself. It makes me laugh every time and I have yet to catch it on video. He's a little weirdo already. It seems like just this last week his personality has started to really come out. It's so fun!

Nervous: about Don quitting his job. Yep, you read that right. Don's last day is December 16th. It's time to go back to school. His supervisor told him she would like to talk to him about staying part-time which would be amazing!! So cross your fingers they can figure out a schedule so he can go to school and work there part-time. Otherwise, he'll just be doing plumbing.

Feeling: like a whiner. Carter's going through a bad sleeping phase. He wakes up several times a night and occasionally has what might be "night terrors." He'll sometimes wake up screaming about an hour after I put him down and I can't go in and calm him down because he's so out of it. I hate it. It's only happened a couple times though. It's hard going from having a great sleeper to waking up every few hours, but I hear this happens a lot around this age. 

Proud: that Carter is sitting up really well. Not by himself yet, but I have a feeling it will be happening soon.

Admiring: my dishwasher. I seriously want to cry when I look at it. I love technology!

Listening: to silence! Blissful nap time.

Thinking: why do I insist on making holiday treats? Last week I made an apple tart for the first time because I had a bunch of apples that were going to go bad. I didn't eat a single bite! I just gave it to my mother in law because I knew I wouldn't eat it. Don and I are really weird. If I make cookies we won't eat them. If I make a birthday cake we won't eat it. Last year I made mini cheesecakes that were a hit at a party and had some leftover and we didn't eat them! It's not like we eat healthy or anything. I'll gladly eat desserts someone else makes. Maybe it's because I spend so much time making it, I don't want to eat it. Or maybe it's because I grew up on eating pie for breakfast, eh mom? ;)

Merry Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! This Christmas was a little different for us Thompsons, but it was great as always! Don had a shift change at work Christmas weekend so he had to work 2 p.m. - 10 p.m. Christmas Eve and 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. Christmas Day. It was kind of fun waiting to open presents till the afternoon although Don and I were itching for him to come home.
Monday night we had Don's family's Christmas Eve get together. Like every year we ate mexican food and the grandkids acted out the Christmas story. I was in charge of the music and had the kids play chimes to Silent Night and Away in a Manger. Surprisingly, for having 12 kids banging on chimes it went rather well. I played my violin and then we went on a hay ride.
Christmas Eve my in laws, Don's granny, and I had some dinner and drove around Thatcher looking at lights. We barely got to Thatcher from Pima and I already had to pee. So in the middle of looking at lights my father in law took me to the nearest gas station bathroom haha. Needless to say, we didn't look at lights for too long (this pregnant body of mine is making me a party pooper!) We went back to Don's parents and dipped strawberries, pineapples, bananas, and marshmallows in chocolate and strawberry fondu! Every craving was settled that night mmmm...
Christmas Day I slept in till 9 and went to my in laws for waffles covered in strawberries and whipped cream with my nieces and nephews. The grandkids opened their presents from their grandparents and I went home, took a shower and twiddled my thumbs till Don came home.

Don wears his santa hat every year and hands out the presents.

(Sorry the pictures are dark. Don wanted it to seem like Christmas morning :)

Baby's first book from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

Don's mom showing off her new glasses



We were so excited to finally get frames for our wedding pictures. Thanks mom!


Don made me so mad. When I had his presents under the tree he guessed every single one of them right!! So I had to buy him a couple more presents and wrap them differently so he wouldn't have a clue. This picture is of him putting the presents to his head using his psychic abilities to guess what the presents are.

I laughed so hard when I opened my present from my mother in law and this was in a box with a gift card for a maternity store.

Don had me open this last. I about fell over. Isn't she a beaut? She's heavy duty and yellow!!! Bring on the baking!

Thanks everyone for making this a great Christmas!

11 weeks

I had my 2nd doctor appointment yesterday. The doctor originally tried to find the baby's heartbeat with a sonogram (? is that the right terminology?) and he couldn't find it. Apparently, my uteris is behind my pelvic bone which is normal, it's just hard to find sometimes. It scared us for a half a second till we did an ultrasound and saw everything! Wow has the little monkey grown! In fact, he/she doesn't look like a monkey anymore. The baby was moving around like crazy and nodding its head like it was dancing and I was all, "Yeah, that's my baby!" So everything's fine and the baby is perfectly healthy.
And I can't wait till I don't have to call the baby "He/she" or "It." I'm also really excited to get bigger cause right now I just look chubby and it's really lame. I took a nap with my 5 month old nephew yesterday, it got me so excited to have one of my very own who I'm gonna love 10 times more which almost seems impossible.
Oh, and I got almost all my Christmas shopping done! All the decorations are up and I even went on the roof with Don to put a star and other lights on the roof. (Don't worry, I won't be going up again.) It's crazy to think this time next year I'll have a little 4 month old!
Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. I made yams (which is a new Thompson favorite), green beans and an apple crisp to contribute to the meal. It's fun spending it with Don's family. They're loud and a lot of fun. We played games, watched football and ate and ate and ate and ate of course. I couldn't eat any turkey cause meat makes me sick to my stomach but I had a tiny slice and it was the best turkey I've ever tasted. Don's parent's and neighbors cooked it in a pit overnight and it was so juicy!
I tend to get pretty homesick around this time of year. I put up my Christmas decorations and I thought, "I wish my mom could see this. She'd be so proud!" Cause she's a Christmas spirit guru. I also miss all the Christmas music my mom, sister and I would play on our violins. So even though I don't play the violin as often as I sing, I bring it out every Christmas and play for Don. I also am participating in Handel's Messiah this year again (my mom often took me to go as a kid) and I have a solo. And I also got asked to play my violin and sing a solo in church this month. I am grateful for all the opportunities I get to sing and play my violin around this time of year to share my family traditions. Hopefully I'll get to spend Christmas next year at home! I love you and miss you, family!