Our low-key Thanksgiving

Last week on Sunday, we realized we didn't have any set plans for Thanksgiving and neither did my parents.  So we invited them to join us, since we certainly weren't up for traveling this year or hosting anyone other than family.  They decided to come down just for the day so they met us at church for the Thanksgiving worship service, then stayed for a non-turkey meal, and my mom did ALL of the dishes afterwards :)  Thanks, Mom!

Plus, my dad brought down a great shelf/coat hook combination that he made for our family.  Since Matt's biking gear takes up a lot of the coat closet and the girls can't reach the hangers anyway, we were in need of some way for them to be a bit more responsible for their own winter gear.  So far they've been very good about the new system.  Hooray!  Less bending down to pick things up for me :)

Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday.  So far so good, but my blood pressure is starting to creep up again.  It had been the lowest of all our pregnancies so far with this baby, but here towards the end it's just getting harder and harder for this mama's body.  My doctor ran all of the preclampsia tests and everything came back well in the normal range, but she told me I needed to "take it easy" over the weekend anyway.

So I did.  I sat around on Thursday while my family made the meal and cleaned up.  Friday late morning Matt took the girls to Bouncytown for a few hours.  He brought along their lunch to eat in stages and it sounds like they had a wonderful time, staying for several hours while I got to take a real nap.  Saturday he had agreed to help some friends move and brought the girls along to help (a little), see people besides our family, and play, play, play.  Again, I got a real nap, plus some good resting time.  Sunday we decided to take the girls to the family swim at the McFarland pool since being in the water has felt so good to me in this pregnancy and poor Kate hasn't had any swimming time since we took down our pool.  Anna had just finished up swimming lessons last week, but hadn't had a chance to just play in the water in ages.  We think this was the first time that neither Anna nor Kate complained about being cold in this pool!  In fact, I was the first one who was ready to head home.

The girls definitely got some good, quality Daddy-daughter time over the weekend.  Matt has been simply wonderful these past few weeks (not that he isn't the rest of the time, but he's really had to be on extra dad duty lately).  Sweet Kate is still a mama's girl, but definitely loves her Daddy a lot now, too :)

We've started getting out some Christmas/Advent decorations slowly.  We just don't know how each day is going to go, or when exactly this baby is going to make his arrival, or how things will go after he's born, but we want to make sure the Advent and Christmas seasons are special for Anna and Kate nonetheless.  The girls each have a little 3 ft. Christmas tree this year for their own ornaments.  They absolutely loved getting out the different ornaments they've received over the past several years.  They've also enjoyed having control over where the ornaments are placed and rearranging them whenever they want :)

Another hit this year has been my Precious Moments nativity scene.  The girls were allowed to play with it last year as well, but the scene is a favorite toy right now.  They're very good about following the rules of how to be careful with the figures and they love telling and retelling the Christmas story with them.  I think our favorite quote from Anna with this play so far has been "Jesus is born in Bethlehem!  What are you guys waiting for?!"

Another good quote from Anna came last night after Matt had put up the Christmas lights.  The girls could see them from their room when the lights turned on.  Anna came out to say "Mom, I know why people put up Christmas lights.  It's because they look like the angels telling everyone about Jesus."  I'd never thought of it that way before, but I like it :)

The first day back to routine life went well.  We think Anna was truly grateful for the break from school over the holiday weekend, but also ready to go back today.  She came home with the learning part of her brain up and running again, whereas over the weekend her brain was all about playing and moving.

Tomorrow I have another doctor's appointment.  We'll have to see how my blood pressure is doing.  We're almost hoping for it to still be a bit high so then we can talk about an induction.  This mama is ready to be done and this family is ready to meet our baby!