Getting Ready for Christmas

The kids have been having a great time getting ready for Christmas around the house. We began the day after Thanksgiving by decorating the tree. I let the kids decorate the tree first ... then I went back through and re-arranged (to put it nicely!)!!! I tried to get a picture of how well the kids decorated those 2 branches on the tree with ALL the ornaments, but a picture just never seemed to do it justice!! So here is what I did capture:

Last night Mason decided to tackle the Gingerbread house with the kids. I tried it for the first time in my life last year and it was an UTTER disaster so I had personally decided not to even mention it this year. I figured if I didn't bring it up, the kids wouldn't remember and it could just die a natural death. However, Mason thought it would be a breeze and decided to create one with the kids with the hopes of putting my mess last year to utter shame (not that that was hard to do!!) I guess I will start with the really bad picture of the really bad gingerbread house from last year:

Now Mason's "looks" neater but not near as decorative!!! Here is the one created last night:

Mason decided that it was harder than it looked! The kids had fun and I guess that is all that matters!

Now on to me and Baby. Today I am 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant and miserable. I didn't make it this far in either of the other 2 pregnancies, so this is new territory. I am very ready for this baby to come out but he seems to be very content where he is. I was thinking the other night about how the Lord uses 40 quite often ~ you have in the Bible 40 days/nights, 40 weeks, 40 years and it just hit me that a baby is suppose to be in the womb for 40 weeks. I don't know why it took me this long for that to dawn on me, but it did! And then I remembered how my friend Jen had reminded me at the beginning of this journey to try to find peace in the sickness and discomfort for this is the one thing I can do to help God create a miracle. So I am hanging on to that with every fiber of my being (and also trying to remember that when Baby does grace us with his presence, I have to get up every 3 hours to feed him!!). But, I just feel like screaming out to God "I know it is not 40 weeks, but isn't 38 weeks and some days good enough??"!! Well, the little guy is still hanging on and, to continue with the 40 theme, probably will be until he is 40 years old!

I have had some people ask for more pregnancy pictures since most loved ones are not here in Georgia to experience this with us. We went a little nuts last night: