Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Yet another year where I didn't manage to get out a paper Christmas card, so I suppose this virtual one will have to do.
At least I am actually writing this before 2012 ends, unlike last year.

The Amazing Winsors 2012:
We had a lot of Firsts:

First time flying on an airplane

First Birthday

First time crawling, walking, sleeping through the night, and talking for T

First "real" job for Seth

First time out of the country for Janette (Second time for Seth)

First time being left overnight with family

A few Seconds:

Second time moving

Second time graduating

Second time being pregnant

And a Third:

Our three year anniversary in August

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
-Love Seth, Janette, T and newbaby.

Books: 2012

This is almost embarrassing for me to post. I did a terrible job at reading this year. I also did a terrible job at keeping track of the books I read, so maybe there were a couple I missed? Although if I can't recollect them at all I'm thinking they were probably not that good. 

Oh well. Here's to next year. 

Fantastic

1. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

3. The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

4. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Great

6. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

7. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

8. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Good

9. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

10. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

11. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Fine

12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

13. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm

14. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Meh

15. The Client by John Grisham

16. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. (Does this make me a terrible person for not liking a classic? I couldn't even finish it.)

I am currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and it is really good. 

On my to read list I have Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. 

Any other recommendations?

A Day in the Life

I saw the idea somewhere on the internet to take a picture of what you are doing once every hour.
So yesterday I did that.
This has forced me to admit my life is pretty boring. But that's not going to stop me from writing a whole blog post about it anyway. Curious what we do all day? Now you'll know!

Eight o'clock

T and I (and my cabbage patch doll that she has claimed as her own) eat breakfast. Seth has already left for work.

Nine o'clock

T has been changed and dressed and now I am puttering around cleaning up the kitchen and starting laundry and doing other house-worky things. Also we watch reruns of The Office.

Ten o'clock

I hop in the shower, so T decides this is the perfect opportunity to empty the contents of my purse, which I have unwisely left on the floor instead of hanging up.

 When I'm done getting ready we read some books together and then stare out the window looking for the cat that sometimes comes in our yard.

Eleven o'clock

The more pregnant I get the more boring I am to T, so I decided now would be a good time to make a cardboard ball drop for us to play with. I found this idea on the internet somewhere a few months ago and unfortunately I now can't find the original tutorial. I decided to make it anyway and it turned out pretty ghetto. T is interested for about 30 seconds.
But then I decided to put away the marbles we used in a ceramic mug and she loves the sound they make being dropped in. This activity takes up a good half hour, which is EONS in toddler time.
Also later when Seth gets home from work he finds this cardboard monstrosity totally awesome and plays with it for a while.
So win-win for me.

Twelve o'clock

A package arrives from my mom (Thanks mom!) and T starts trying to unwrap the presents as soon as I pull them out. I have to retape three of them before sticking them under the tree. Strangely enough, she doesn't touch them once they're under there.
Instead she quickly moves on to the box, and the styrofoam pieces in it.
Seth normally comes home about now for lunch but today he has decided he will stay at work because there are copious amounts of delicious food from his work holiday party that morning.

One o'clock

T has been put down for her nap and I am doing the one of two things I normally do during this time: eating. (The other is sleeping.) I promise I have more than just sugar cookies.

Two o'clock

T wakes up much earlier from her nap than I was planning. I spent too long eating and now I don't get a nap in.
I give her a snack and then we putter around. I do housework and she either helps me or plays on her own. Ok and I waste some time on the internet. I'll be honest.

Three o'clock

 We (including the stuffed snowman) go play outside for a while.

Later on I will catch her with the camera holding it out in front of her and grinning in a parody of this moment.

Four o'clock

We go inside and start making cookies (Chocolate crinkles this time) and dinner. Also, more of the The Office (as you can see in the background.)

Five o'clock

T gets bored with helping me cook and instead decides a better use of her time would be to spread all of her books out on the floor.

Six o'clock

Seth has gotten home by now and we eat dinner. We both love when Seth gets home. I get adult conversation and T gets a playmate that can actually play with her.

Seven o'clock

One of these two is having a meltdown because they are not allowed to go play in the garage. Guess who? We decide bedtime needs to be pushed up a bit tonight.

Eight o'clock

T is in bed. Seth sits down to work on his Seminary lesson for the morning. I start working on this blog post.

Nine o'clock

We both keep getting distracted by the endless pages of the internet so it's taking us a while to finish. I think we get to bed around 9:45, which is actually late for us. One of us gets up at 5 every morning and the other is pregnant, so we like to sleep.

And that's our day. Fascinating, right?

I'm going to pretend everyone who read this responded with: Right!

Sugar Cookies

This year was the first year we could actually sort of include T in our Christmas fun. 

I thought she would love to help me make sugar cookies. She did actually enjoy making the dough, but when it came time to roll it out and cut shapes with it, this is what happened:

She apparently didn't appreciate being shown she could eat the little scraps of dough, and then having her parents not let her just eat dough by the handful. 

Luckily she did enjoy the decorating part.

But the best was, of course, the eating part.

I've created a monster.

A week or so ago I was trying to get T to finish up the last few bites of her dinner and did so by pretending to feed them to her doll first. She thought this was AWESOME and promptly finished off her food.
I congratulated myself on being a genius mother.

The next day for breakfast she gathered up one of her stuffed animals and insisted on me feeding both of them. How cute, I thought. She remembers.

Then she insisted on it again for lunch. And dinner. And all three meals the next day.

It's been a week now and if T is eating, her stuffed animals are eating too. Most of the time she refuses to take a bite until I've fed them.

What have I done?

Remember? I'm pregnant.

When I was pregnant with T it was the only thing I thought about, blogged about, read about, talked about....
Little did I realize it was only gonna be like that with the first one.

I am 33 weeks along already (due January 25th) and I have barely even blogged about it, nor have I done any browsing on the internet about anything baby-related, nor do I talk about it incessantly with Seth, nor have I done much of anything to prepare for this baby, and I've barely taken any pictures of myself.

So there. Now I've done at least one of those things. This is actually from a few weeks ago - I'm 29 weeks in this shot. (Also: I spy a little person getting into my drawer.)

For comparison's sake, this is me at 28 weeks with T. I think this justifies my suspicion that I am larger with this kid.

Actually, this baby already seems very different from her big sister. T was pretty mellow with the occasional kick and punch; plus she got the hiccups almost every day.
This baby has had hiccups twice for just a minute or two, and doesn't so much kick and punch as she just moves. Constantly. She just wiggles around and around and around. It's like she can't figure out why she is encased in something so restricting and she is moving around trying to get comfortable in it.

And let me tell you, it is UNcomfortable for her mother.

I'm pretty much over being pregnant. I want this:

And I want it now.