Merry Christmas from the Orosz Family!

Merry Christmas from the Orosz Family!

Our Christmas card from this year. We took the photos in Old Town Alexandria back in October. 

Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas! 

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Day and so far it has been a relaxing and beautiful day. No Clare in sight at this point, but it was very nice to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning all together (instead of a hospital visit). I got a little worried the night before Christmas Eve that I would miss all the Christmas action when I was feeling sort of funny, but Clare has held on and we are home relaxing now. 

Christmas Eve we sprinkled our reindeer food out front in the morning. Buddy the Elf made his last appearance for the year and left the kids a nice note. William and Grace really love the Elf. He's a very fun addition to the holiday season. Then we had a delicious dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Orosz at their home that evening. And when we got home we watched a Mickey Christmas movie and prepped for Santa's arrival. We put out chocolate milk, gingerbread men and carrots. Half of each cookie was missing because Grace insisted on biting the head off of every single cookie. William stirred up the chocolate milk. Both of them hit the hay with ease that night knowing that Santa doesn't deliver presents until everyone is SLEEPING!

Buddy's last day

Sprinkling reindeer food

Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's

Setting up Santa and reindeer's tray of food

Christmas morning I was up at 4:30 a.m. Oh boy. I prepped for breakfast, had a cup of coffee, watched the Homeland finale... I thought for sure William would pop out of bed early, but he stayed in bed until 8:30 a.m. Grace slept in too. It was a foggy and dark morning - very much a sleep in day. Matt and I had breakfast bread pudding together before the kids even got up. So it was actually a very peaceful and relaxing early morning for the adults. 

Breakfast for two!

Present time! William and Grace got a lot of wonderful goodies. The big Santa gifts were a tricycle for Grace and a bike WITH pedals for William. We bought William a balance bike several months ago and he hasn't been able to get over the fact that there are no pedals... the reviews are spectacular... I thought it would work. SO bike with training wheels it is. I'd say their favorite gifts were random though. Grace loves the Made in China Elsa and Anna plastic toys in her stocking and then William is loving the Batmobile Plane that shoots Batman out the front. 

Grace loves her Elsa and Anna

Batmobile plane for William

Spin on the bike

Tricycle with streamers!

I went back to bed at 10 a.m. (4:30 a.m. wake up call had me wiped). Took a Kat Nap for an hour then we all headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Orosz's house to open presents with the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I wish I had the energy to take photos over there, but you know I'm totally exhausted when I can't summon the energy to wrangle the kids for more pictures. They all had a lot of fun and came home with even more wonderful goodies. 

Christmas morning the four of us

An amazing Christmas and the excitement continues... when will Clare join us? 

Teddy bear and baby Jack Rogers for Clare

39 Week Appointment

I had my 39 week appointment this morning with Dr. Dukes, but I wasn't sure last night that I would make it to this appointment! Last night I laid in bed with cramping and pressure that I was neeearly ready to wake up Matt. Instead I decided to get up and walk around the house to see how I felt moving around. This was at 2 a.m. I cut up strawberries for breakfast prep, organized the kids' stocking stuffers, wrapped the gifts Matt hadn't wrapped for his Orosz Family Secret Santa, setup Buddy the Elf for his last day, pulled out the reindeer food for Christmas Eve... amazing how productive one can be at that ungodly hour... But the pressure stopped, I got sleepy and went back to bed at 4 a.m. 

Nothing happened and so I went to my regular appointment. Dr. Dukes checked and progressing along - I'm now 2cm and 30/50% effaced, she's a bit lower too. William and Grace were at that exact point at their 39 weeks checks too! 

So the waiting continues. Talk about suspenseful! Christmas and not knowing when your baby will arrive is pretty exciting. We are ready though and happy to see her when she's ready. Dr. Dukes is on call Christmas and the rest of the holiday weekend and I'd be very happy to have him deliver Clare. Next week early in the week are a couple random doctors on call from the practice I never see, which would be fine - but it would be nice to have a doctor I'm fond of. I'm still perfectly fine to wait - physically it's not comfortable, but so long as my feet are up and I'm sitting there isn't a problem. 

If she doesn't arrive this weekend then I go back on Monday (due date) and play it by ear. They wouldn't let me go beyond a week from my due date and Dr. Dukes said I'm a perfect candidate for induction (because I'm already progressing and this is a third). So he'd let me pick a day next week. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though. It would seem so strange for a third delivery to go late and end up induced when the first two came early and on their own. Stranger things have happened though. 

When will Clare arrive...?