trusting God & thanksgiving.

Whew, what a whirlwind of a few weeks...I thought the last couple months of this pregnancy would go slow and I'd read a lot and soak in a lot of free time...wrong. They've FLOWN by and now i've got pretty much 4 weeks until my due date! I've decided, ready or not, here she comes and truly, ready or not, we are so excited to meet her. The more I feel her move around my belly the more I try to imagine what she will be like, look like, grow up to be. I also hit these moments of "oh my. I'm going to be a parent forever now, there is no turning back"...that can be pretty overwhelming at times! We've recently been to the doctor quite a bit with some, at times discouraging, news. Many of my friends can attest to how i've always been afraid of having a huge baby because all 5 of my brothers and I were over 9lbs and one was 10lbs (thank you momma for having such big babies, haha :)). I've asked my doctor at least 5 times "Are you sure that no matter what I eat or how much I exercise, it doesn't matter for how much she is going to weigh?"  Every time she comes back with "Nope, it's usually genetic." Oh dear. Well, last week at the OB's office, little sweet Gracie here was already measuring at 6.5 lbs....and I still had 4.5 weeks to go...Oh dear. Next we found out that she has flipped into a non-delivery-friendly position- she is supposedly sideways (transverse for you medical people) in my belly. I read in my pregnancy book that this happens in 1% of pregnancies. I almost had to laugh at that- of course if there is a 1% we will find a way to make that statistic! Thankfully after crying to Seth, my doula, and my mom I was reminded that we serve an awesome God who has the full ability to turn Gracie if/when/how He wants. If she doesn't turn, we face the option of having her externally turned by the Dr in a couple weeks or having a C-section. I was/am terrified (to be honest) of both of those. I've heard it can be extremely painful to turn her and I also have been prepping and planning on trying a natural labor this whole pregnancy only to find out in the last few weeks this might not even be an option. We've been doing lots of processing and crying (me) and praying. We are presenting our requests before God and trusting He has a perfect plan for this delivery- it may not be what I want and that is hard to admit and hard to type. Because truthfully, I really don't want a C-section. really. Especially for my first baby. But this is out of my control and though there may be different techniques I can try naturally to turn her- it's really in God's hands and He's ultimately going to do what is best. I told seth that I want to come to the point where no matter how this baby gets here that i'm not disappointed in my birth experience but that I can look back at it with excitement and joy.

On another note, my heart is so full because my parents were able to make the trip down to celebrate Thanksgiving with us! We were so excited they could make it work and spend 3 full days together! They arrived Wednesday night and left Sunday morning. We had such a fun time soaking in the last time of hanging out as the 4 of us because next time I see them we will have a baby (crazy!!). Thank goodness my mom was here to help make the Thanksgiving meal....there's nothing like her cooking. We had a FEAST for 4 people (but that was intentional so we could eat leftovers all weekend and freeze extra food)...we had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn, veggies, rolls with cinnamon butter, mom's homemade applesauce, and of course pumpkin pie. We also dived out into some of the black Friday shopping- it's a tradition that my mom and I have done together for as long as I can remember and the past few years we have brought along my dad and seth- which makes it even that much more fun. This year was great- because all the stores opened at midnight or before, when we went in the morning there was practically no lines and no crowds to work through- it was great! We just have fun seeing if we can find good deals and spending the time together! We also set up our Christmas decorations and took a hospital tour with them. I was so happy they could come down and so thankful we had those few days to spend together with them, they were priceless. Here's some pics:

                                                                        Homemade pumpkin pie!!

                        Seth and Mom are on Turkey cleaning duty! (Glad I can blame pregnancy for not wanting to do that job :))

                                                  We received this BEAUTIFUL surprise bouquet from Seth's parents!!

                    I made some rolls in the breadmaker and seth had the great idea of making cinnamon butter (mix together softened butter, cinnamon, and some honey)- it was awesome!

                     We got this idea from a friend- each day we write something we are thankful for on a leaf and put it on the tree, it's been a good perspective changer- some of the things are obvious/big things like God and family and some are small things that we overlook often.

                                 One of the turkeys! (we made two this size, I told you we wanted to freeze leftovers ;))

                                                                         The pro turkey carver!

                                             The amazing master chef, my mom! We couldn't have done it without her!

                                       The mashed potatoes- made just like grandma made them, yummm!

                                                                           The three chefs!

                                                     Here's the table complete with sparkling cider :)

                                                                  Getting ready to dig in!!

                                                 My awesome parents- so glad we could spend this time with them!

                                                                 Grammie, Me & Gracie Mae

                               We made some homemade pizza for their last night here- we were turkey-ed out by then!

                                                           Our stockings- it goes Seth, Ang, Gracie

                                                             Our nativity set- we plan to add to it over the years

              It is so fun to have a big tree this year! We've always had a small tree and this year our friends told us we could borrow their tree because they were going to do a real tree- we jumped on the offer and though it takes up half our dining room, we are LOVING it!

                            We miss our dishwashers- these two were so diligent at doing dishes all weekend! We love you mom & dad- thanks for coming to visit us!


Now begins the wait until Gracie Mae makes her appearance. I have a feeling these last few weeks are going to FLY by and before we know it our lives will be forever changed in so many ways!

This is about a week ago!