Of mice and babies

4am. Why not update your blog that you haven't seen since July at 4am on a Monday morning. I see no good reason not too! I am up with a quiet dark house, save for the Christmas tree. Love that. And a mouse. Don't so much love that. I can hear him prowling around.... don't judge, I live in the country. Mice are practically housepets. If you attempted to kill your housepets daily... which you probably don't. Why am up you ask?? Bc one of my dearest friends just recieved her baby. In China. Which is amazing. The rest of us back here can't hardly the stand the wait... I don't know how she did it for 18 months or so of the adoption process. Which is now over.... and I am sooo glad and happy for her. It has been fun following her in China, she blogs at Madmousel.blogspot.com. I love a good adoption blog.

In other news. Its been a big weekend. Friday night we took the kids to a singing Christmas tree performance at a nearby church. The kids did pretty well... I like for them to learn how to sit through and enjoy such things. Then we drove around and looked at Christmas lights which I love. The largest town by us... 25,000 or so 40 min away has this park where they set up Christmas houses. So you drive by slowly and roll your windows down and listen to the music and check out the Christmas houses which have moveable characters in them. Very cute.

Saturday was shopping in a town 1.5 hours away. Because I am pretty sure I can't do Christmas without Target. Any of you who live 5 min away from a Target, you take a moment and say a prayer of thanks for your geographical location. I'll wait. Ok now. Doesn't gratitude feel good? After shopping came a visit to my Grandma's house... which there is nothing better than a trip to granny's. After that, we dropped the kids of at their other granny's and then we went to a card party. Where, frankly my partner and I dominated. Pitch is super fun. And we really only won half of our games... but we won when it counted the most. Ie... we were paired up with the cockiest players of the party. (including my husband who shall remain nameless.)

Sunday would normally involve church, save for the cows. Any excuse I have for missing church, ALWAYS involves livestock. Because unfortunatly, cows still need fed on Sundays. But we got to hang at my MILs house, where she fixed us lunch, which I never mind not cooking on Sunday... so it was all good. We came home, just relaxed and watched Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer while eating popcorn. We love popcorn on a Sunday night.

So that brings us to Monday. Here we are! The start of a brand new busy week. Tonight I get to go learn how to bake bread from one of my fave homemakers. So looking forward to that. I know how to bake bread, and do... but this involves a Bosch. Which is serious. And involves grinding your own wheat, a level of bread baking that I have yet to attain. But that I want to... because my family is expanding. Which brings us to one more paragraph and then I'm done.

We are approx 10 wks 4 days pregnant. I must say it like that, bc I am type A in certain areas. Not a lot mind you... but a few. Because if I said 3 months, that would be giving myself 2 extra weeks and when you hit 3 months you should be past morning sickness, which I am decidely not, thus, I feel the need to say 10wks 4days. Due July 7 which is my oldest childs birthday. And while we are on the subject.... lets talk briefly about what NOT to say to pregnant people. Or at least this one. Since I already have 3 boys.... please do not say...."maybe its a girl" with a hopeful glimmer in your eye. This is extremely hurtful. Every mom of boys has at one point wished for a girl. Every mom of girls has at one point wished for a boy. But sometimes, it just doesn't happen... and to say "I hope you have a girl now" is like saying "a girl would be the best thing that could happen, but I guess if its a boy, thats ok." I want to be excited about my baby. I AM excited about this baby. I LOVE little boys. And big boys. Having another boy is not "less than." And then if you find out the sex and you tell people its another boy... its like "oh, well thats fun too." Even though the look on their face, makes it appear as if a root canal would be more fun. No one needs to point out that it could be a girl.... of course I know that. The. End.

Not really the end, just the end of that soapbox. The unfortuante thing is that basically just my mom reads this, and she already knows how I feel! Anyway. Well, now its 440. Do I go back to bed? Do I just stay up and read the Bible by the light of the tree? I am going to be soo tired by bread baking time... I don't want to miss something key. I will try and come back and post any bread baking tips I learn. Have a great Monday!!