This Sunday I will be 38 weeks, so at present i am just over 2 weeks til baby's due date.

January 15, we had a baby shower to help celebrate ... and spoil ;) ... the new little BOY that will be arriving shortly. 

It was a GREAT day, with some great food and drinks, fun games and a lot of visiting with good friends and family. 

Below are a few pictures from the baby shower...

My hospital bag is getting packed tonight, almost everything is sterilized, washed in Dreft, folded, sorted, stacked, etc. We are almost ready to welcome our new little one, the girls are VERRRRY excited too. They can't wait to have a baby in the house! Daddy and I can't wait, either :)

Below are some pics of some of our Christmas projects... First up... the "Reindeer Food"

This consists of oatmeal and green and red christmas sprinkles. The reindeer love it. :)

 
Of course, we also had to make some cookies for Santa. The first batch... we won't talk about. So all we had left was some gingerbread cookie mix. The kids have been begging me to let them make and decorate some more soon. It was very fun, and if you can imagine... very, very messy!!

 

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas this year! In fact, we just plain ole had a great YEAR this year. 2011 was full of many, many blessings and good times. Below are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas. :)  This is just the first post,  I am actually splitting up the Christmas blogging into 3 or 4 posts because i have SOO many pictures that I want to include. 

My little fashionista. :)

                                             I give you, the Combs Family Christmas Tree.

                                                                My gorgeous girls :)

                 

                                                               A daddy sandwich

                                                 We had to try our hand at making 'turtles'

                                                                    Present Time!

                                                                         xoxoxoxox

                                                          Sophia's new ballerina outfit.

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas, too. 

Happy New Year

I Dream of Diapers

We have really been working on our diaper stockpile. I wish I was one of those people that could do the cloth diaper thing, but since I am always on the go, and will be working at least part time, there is just no way its going to happen. So, the old reliable disposable again. :)

There is no feeling quite like running out of diapers... and trust me, Ive been there a few times. I actually got the idea to do this from my brother and sister-in-law. They were super-prepared in the diaper realm by the time their baby arrived because they bought a package of diapers each time they went to the store. I am a procrastinator, so I did not follow that plan exactly. I am 30 weeks, and up until 29 weeks I only had 2 packages of Newborn size... so I knew I had to get cracking! Last week I was on Target.com and they offered free shipping (since I don't like anywhere near one.) Someone told me that the Target store brand worked a lot better than the Walmart store brand, and they were actually cheaper too. In the picture below, you can see the yield. 

I think I will need a few more packages of size 1, for sure. I have the most of size 2 & 3. Then I will need to start working on Size 4. To be honest, its been so long since I've had a baby I can't even remember what size they tend to be in the longest. Very interesting stuff, I know. But, it amuses me to no end, it really does. :)

Decorating for Christmas :)

Its the most wonderful time of the year.... ding, dong, ding... :)

We have had a lot of fun over the last week, and have all been very full of Christmas Spirit. We decorated the outside first, with the help of our ever-manly daddy who climbed on top of the roof and put up the outside lights. 

Then, we decorated the inside, aside from the tree which we went and picked out the day after Thanksgiving. 

While the girls watched daddy put up the lights on the house, they shared some hot chocolate (warm chocolate, of course)... they now have a new addiction! Who doesn't love hot cocoa, though, right?!

Risking his life in the name of Christmas cheer... ;)

Just a couple black and whites of my pretties :)

Ahhh, the Combs Family Christmas Tree... Bella and Sophia had the very best time decorating the tree, we had about a hundred ornaments, but when they were all on they were trying to find more things to put on there! I have to agree... its fun putting them on. Taking them off, not so much.

'S' and 'B' ornaments, which I used as a prop for potential Christmas card pics.

 Of course, 3/4 of Bella's ornaments had to be relocated because she really took a liking to a certain lower limb (see below pic.)  While it was adorable and made for some cute pictures, the tree looked a little off with ten ornaments on one limb.

Enjoying a cookie in front of their masterpiece... right before Christmas movies. I love making these memories, realizing that in 20 years these were some of the best times of my life. I thank God every day for these kids, what a blessing they are!

Hope you enjoy the Holiday Season, too.

Nov 2011

 Baby Boy's crib is set up, just got the bedding in this week! I have to admit, its pretty exciting seeing it in the corner, knowing that soon there will be a sweet little bundle of joy in it.  BUT... I am still glad we have 3 months left, because I really still have a LOT of things to do before he gets here!! ;)

 

 Below, Sophia's kindergarten picture, which i think is absolutely precious, look at my big girl... so pretty :) I am so proud of her. Then we have my Cutie Cat and Giesha Girl for this Halloween.

The next news item... Brandon got his first ever big buck, and with his bow! He is of course, absolutely thrilled! The night he got it, my camera broke. :(  Sooooo... the only pictures we have of his deer are a couple from our phone a few that his mom took. I was beside myself, I really was, because the camera had to be sent off to get fixed. Anyway, short story long.... I sold the camera to Brandon's mom and she sent it off to be fixed and I got a new camera. Its a Canon t3, and i loooooove it! Its a Christmas present that I got early, because i need it FOR Christmas.  None of the pictures on this post are from the new camera, but there will be some in my next post.

 Bella thought that the deer was pretty darn cool!

...but not as cool as the iPad, which she is in love with. We have a couple of silly games, and a lot of educational games that she likes... but mostly she likes to watch youtube videos of horses. :) 

Today, I am going to see Breaking Dawn Part I... I am hoping that I like Breaking Dawn better than Eclipse, which I barely liked at all. The first two movies are the best so far. New moon is my favorite of the books, and my favorite of the movies, too.  BUT I am still excited to see this movie!! :) Yay!

Then tomorrow, we are going to start decorating the inside of the house for Christmas so that we can squeeze and extra week of the lights and decs, but we won't get the tree till after Thanksgiving. Its the most wonderful time of the year, right?.... :)