Christmas in Oregon

We just returned from a 10 day trip up to the Oregon coast, where my parents live for part of the year since they've retired. Their log-cabin house is incredible and very comfortable, which made it not only hard to wake up each morning while we were there, but also very hard to leave yesterday.

This is the house - viewed from the lake on our boat-ride between rain storms (FYI, Oregon gets something like 70 inches of rain a year!)
Here we are on my parent's boat, snuggled up and enjoying the time outside!
Dylan loved "driving the boat" with his grandpa (who he calls his Tapa).
Dylan in front of the Christmas tree that my parent's got for us to have downstairs during our stay and wake up to on Christmas morning.
Time to open presents... Ready, set, go!
Lots and lots of presents.

Sidenote: When we arrived at LAX yesterday, we ran into the paparazzi at the baggage claim. Who were they looking for? None other than Larry Birkhead (the daddy of the late Anna Nicole Smith's baby). As I stood waiting for our bags, I chatted with the camera-man for TMZ who said that the celebrities actually tip the press off themselves to get publicity. Gotta love LA.

Christmas Cutie

A Christmas Visit

Last Saturday Ryan's parents came up for a visit and to celebrate Christmas together. Dylan enjoyed the plethora of gifts, his and ours, excited to open anything and everything.
His favorite gift: a Cars racetrack. If he could have taken it to bed with him, I'm sure he would.
Grandma brought me some cookie cutters, along with some sugar cookie dough and a variety of colored sprinkles.
For as many sprinkles those suckers had on them, they actually turned out pretty good. Dylan, of course, was very impressed with the product!

Pandora

A friend of mine told me about possibly the coolest website EVER tonight. It is called Pandora and is basically a website that you can register with for FREE that creates personalized internet-based radio stations via a 'music genome' project. You type in your favorite artists and songs and it creates stations that match that type of music interest for you, saved to your profile. I tried it and love it. Hooked already. Trust me, if you like music at all, you'll love it too.
If you haven't gotten a present from me this year and haven't heard of this yet, consider it my Christmas present to you!

Oh and comment me with some of your recommendations. I'd love to have a few more to add onto my list.

Update: Week 9

This past week was difficult, but I think I've got my head above water again.
I was in the ER on Monday night for tests and IV fluids after a day-long bout of extreme nausea and vomiting (hyperemesis strikes again!) that led to my OB advising me to go into the ER. My dear friend Kathy took me so that Ryan could stay home with Dylan (bless her heart, sitting there beside me for 7.5 hours, no dinner, in an ER busting at the seems with crazy people, dislocated shoulders, sick babies, and worried family members). It was a LONG night, but thankfully I got the fluids I needed to feel better and get ahead of the nausea again. And as Kathy said today, the night was long, but ended well with a nice movie. Movie? Well, the doctor ordered full abdominal ultrasounds, checking my gallbladder, kidneys, liver, and spleen, along with the baby (of course). I was excited to have Kathy there with me and she got to see not only all my organs on the screen, but meet the littlest member of our family. I know Ryan would have loved to have seen that extra ultrasound, but the good news is that because I work at the hospital, I can get copies of all my scans next week from radiology to keep. The baby measured well, looking good with arm and leg buds and wiggling around like a happy camper in there. It was a good thing to see after such a long day of stress and feeling lousy.
At 1:30am, I was discharged home, hydrated again and with a blood pressure back up to near-normal, but tired.
A friend of mine commented to me today that my body just doesn't do well with pregnancies and perhaps I should have considered a surrogate. I agree, my body doesn't like being pregnant, but this time around I'm determined to try and enjoy the moments between the nausea (wherever they may be!)

Trimmin' the Tree

Sunday night we trimmed the tree. Christmas music was playing, ornaments came out from hiding, and little boys got giddy with excitement!
Dylan seemed to have a favorite branch (loading all the ornaments he could get his hands on - all together). And don't you even try to convince this toddler that he may like to spread them out. No way!

Back to his little branch.
And 'ol Thaddeus assumed the position most cats do at this time of year.

Deck the Halls!

We ventured out on a mission today as a family: Find a new tree. We found one. But only after 6 hours of wading through store upon store, trying to find what tree went with what box and what price tag.
We settled on this one at good 'ol Target. Love that place. I should have known better and not bothered with Home Depot, Walmart, and Kmart with the holiday shopping frenzy out there.
Dylan had fun in the stores, touching all the trees with us as we felt for one that wasn't too 'fake' feeling (he copies everything we do). And we found a couple little gifts to wrap and put under the new tree for him, which will be fun to add later tonight once it's 'trimmed'.
And he even went down for a nap without a fuss once promised that the "tree would be up and ready to decorate together" once he was up from his nap! He smiled and said, "ok, mommy!"

Time-outs

Here is our little man in a time out, kitchen-corner style.

And here is what we found the other night, carefully placed in a time out of it's own: His MACK truck. And when I asked if his Mack could come out of time-out, he readily agreed, telling him "all done time-out, Mack" like a little boy who clearly understands the routine. I have no idea what Mack did to earn his spot in the corner, but I'm sure it made perfect sense to Dylan at the time.

The funny part was when we turned around a few minutes later to find this one. I guess his Lightening McQueen deserved one too!