Wow...time, it sure does fly!

Hard to believe that our due date is just 7 1/2 short weeks away (give or take a little, depending on nature)! And what a busy holiday season this has been!

Christmas is always a relatively stress free holiday for us, as the schedules our families have naturally fit together.  We always head up to Clemson for Christmas with his family on Christmas Eve, and also spend Christmas morning with them.  We usually head out from there around mid-morning and head back to Irmo, where we spend the middle part of the day with my Mom.  Then we usually head out to Chapin to my Dad's house around 5:30ish, and we spend the evening there.  This year was all good food, too!  No turkey hangovers for us, as we had Chicken Parmesan and Meatballs in Clemson on Christmas Eve, eggs and bacon there on Christmas morning, had ham and the fixin's with Mom and our usual Christmas surf and turf at Dads.  What a wonderful gift to be able to see some of each of our families for the holidays!  And we stayed at the Clemson Inn (we always call it the Madrin Center, but it's the Inn attached to it), which is in a beautiful part of campus and we get a chance to wake up and spend a few minutes with just us before heading out for the day.

JP keeps joking with me, telling me I stole the Christmas spirit from him this year because I took the Christmas decorations down the day after Christmas!  This is certainly much earlier than usual, but it was all for a good cause....so we could focus on getting the nursery together! :):)  I had this past week off from work, so we took the first part of the week to clean out the spare room, getting rid of everything in there so we could bring the boxes of furniture awaiting assembly in.  We also got a chance to steam clean the carpet in the back spare room, the hallway and the living room, which makes a HUGE difference when you have a dog in the house!  Now the crib, dresser and glider are all set up in the nursery.  We're still trying to figure out the best way to place everything, but it's in there and assembled, which was our major goal for this past week.  Here are some pictures:

The crib is a gift from JP's Mom and Aunt Joan, and the bedding a gift from his sister, Kim and her family...

The dresser is a gift from my Mom (the flash makes it look redder than it is...it's the same finish as the crib)...

The glider is a little darker than I thought it would be, but it is comfortable and works well with the other furniture in the space...

All in all, I am very happy with the way the nursery is shaping up!!

And speaking of happy....we had the opportunity to spend time with JP's sister, Kim and her family for the New Year's weekend! What a special treat!  Kim had the idea to come down and surprise her Mom and has been planning since.  They were originally going to drive straight in to the beach on Thursday, but were able to leave earlier than planned on Wednesday and come and spend the night with us.  It was great!  Then we all loaded up and headed to the beach.  We got into the rental house and unloaded everything, and then headed over to his mom's house.  We all stood at the front door and rang the doorbell.  She was confused for a second when she answered the door, and then it sunk in that it was all of us standing there to surprise her! It was a sweet and special moment.  We've been blessed to see Kim & the kids a couple of times this year, but we haven't been able to see JP's brother-in-law, John, since our wedding, so also having the whole family here was a treat.  It was great to spend the New Year's weekend with everyone, and we were sad that we had to leave.

We've been able to see all of JP's siblings this year, with the exception of his brother, Larry, who lives in Texas and promises we will see him for Thanksgiving this coming year.  We're hoping that we will get to see some of the other family - from both sides of the family - after the baby is born.  :)

Overall it was an amazing holiday season for us!  We are so blessed, and the anticipation of Baby Cole's arrival made it so much sweeter!  It's hard to believe that she will possibly be here in less than 2 months!  We couldn't have planned the timing any better.  It's proof that God's timing is perfect!  Speaking of Baby Cole, a quick update on her activities....

She is moving like crazy!  She still loves to stick a foot out from time to time, but her big thing right now is sticking her little butt out right below the right side of my rib cage.  All the sudden this lump will appear - it's too cute!  I'll pat it and tell her how much I love her, that way she is familiar with it when I do it after she is born.  She will also twist sideways, and sometimes gets up in my ribs.  These are the two that make moving around tough, as the pressure when she is sideways makes it hard to bend over for anything...meaning if she is like that I can't shave my legs, put on socks or shoes, pick up things I drop, etc.  It's interesting! Fortunately it's not like that all of the time, but I am told it will get to be where I can't do those things more often than I can!  JP is good to help me if I need it.  I think it all scares him a little, but overall he is handling all of this change quite well!

Wow!  I just realized how long this post is.  I have a feeling it's going to be like this from here on out...since there will be so much change in such a short period of time!

Thank you for all of the thoughts, prayers, gifts and encouragement!  She will not have a shortage of people to love her (and we certainly don't either!).  I'll leave it here - with a cool picture of JP and I walking down a walkway to a tidewater creek in the development where his parents are building a new home (thanks to his niece, Devynn, who is shaping up to be quite a photog!)....

Love,

Julie & JP