A Christmas Carol

The Friday before Thanksgiving, and 38 weeks pregnant, I told Dustin that I wanted to have a fun date before Lil'D got here. So Dustin being the sweet and wonderful husband that he is researched and surprised me by buying tickets at Ford's Theater (where President Lincoln was shot) to see A Christmas Carol. It was a fabulous night out. I made us a nice dinner and then off we went. It was COLD!! But so worth it. We for sure enjoyed the play. They did a fabulous job and it is a small and intimate theater and of course just a neat place to see.

Here we are on our way out. We had to take a few pictures for us both to be happy, but both of us liked different pictures....so for your viewing pleasure you get to see all of them :)

Outside Ford's Theater.

Waiting for the show to start. You can see the booth where Lincoln sat in the background.

We loved the play and were so glad to get out and just enjoy each other's company!!

Our Christmas Tree

As part of getting ready for Lil'D to arrive we had to stay busy and I had goals to accomplish every day to keep me from going crazy while waiting for his arrival! So of course we had to get a Christmas tree. There is a nursery down the road that we got our tree from. Next year I'd really like to go cut down a fresh tree, but for this year it worked well to just go down the road.

Dustin is very proud of his Batman ornament. We have a family tradition that we each have a theme for our ornaments, mine are angels, so after we got married I decided that Dustin had to have superheros for his theme. Not as hard to find as I thought! Which is good!!

The finished product!! We are still collecting our own Christmas decorations slowly. I hope I can find a nice tree topper on sale after Christmas this year!! But for now this works!!

39 weeks pregnant and very ready for the little guy to be here!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was as always full of excitement and food! We started out the morning with Dustin, Ben, David and Josh playing some football. Sarah and I went to join mom and dad in getting things ready for the feast :)

Ben scoring a touchdown. Can you tell Sarah had the camera today???

David the chef getting ready to help!

Ben is excited to eat....like I said, Sarah had the camera :)

Mom making Orange rolls!! Yum!!!

39 weeks pregnant.....swollen ankles and all! We were sure glad mom and dad hosted! but don't worry, we contributed!

Carter, the proud carver of the turkey. Dad has been banned from carving the turkey....

Some of the beginnings of the feast.

Yes, we climbed through the window and ate in the unfinished portion of the house....more room! It was cold but sure an adventure!!!

We were glad to have our cousins the Riehls join us for Thanksgiving! And then of course we had to go on our traditional post-Thanksgiving meal walk!! It was full of good food and family fun! And lots of games and football as always!

Stake Service Day

So this last Saturday was our stake service day and we thought it was such a great idea! They had a 5k run, 1 mile walk and 100 yard kid dash. To enter the race the fee was 5 cans to donate for hunger and they organized it with another company who takes food donations. It was a success, we filled 7 trucks of food and every got a workout and had a fun time.

What was even more fun was Dad, Jessica, David and Josh all decided to come out too and run, or walk with us. So Dad and I walked the 1 mile and everyone else ran the Mountain Man 5k course.

Here is Dustin before the race, he's super excited as always!! And it was cold!!

Jessica getting ready for the warm up! You could tell our family apart from everyone else because of the Ohio State gear. LOVE it!

David didn't get the Ohio State memo.....

Dad ended up being the "caddy" for all of everyone's stuff they shedded before the race, but was happy to do it.

And just to prove I was actually there, belly and all.....

So I can't believe I didn't get pictures of everyone crossing the finish line, but I was chatting when we saw first Josh run in, then Dustin, then David and Jessica. From what they say it was a SUPER rough course! We're glad they all made it!

But we got pictures of Jessica running in at the end! She did great! It was extremely hilly, with extreme up and downs, and lots of rocks and roots as they ran through the woods.

Jessica even fell over a rock but being the awesome Shepherd girl she is, just got back up and kept running!!

We want to of course keep running, and doing races together, and I am excited for the time when I can rejoin them!!

But I'm sure you guessed Dad and smoked it on the 1 mile walk. :)

Nursery

So we're of course continually preparing for the coming of Lil'D, and figured it will never end :) But here are some pictures of the nursery thus far. Of course there are a lot of things we still need to do, but we sure are grateful for the generosity of family and friends who have helped us in preparing and given us things to help. And we have gotten more things since. Now he has even taken over our bathroom :)

And of course the finished product of the crib set. I am still working on the quilt to match and the bumpers for the cradle, but one thing at a time! Seriously thanks to my cousin Heidi for helping me out with measurements and how to make everything and I sure appreciate it!

And a shot of the curtains as well. But notice the very not nursery picture above the crib and of course you can't forget Ben's bed :) He's so good to put up with all of the baby stuff that is continually growing! But there is just so much cute stuff!!

Can you tell we're excited?!?

More Projects

So this might not sound like a project, but it has been something that I've been working on since I quite my job a week or so ago. Dustin and I have trying to be better at eating, and eating a wider variety of vegetables and raw things, and of course I have been trying to make different recipes than normal, and trying to keep our fridge stocked and prepared for when Lil'D comes.

So this is the produce we got for our first week of Washington Green Grocers. They email you each week with what is in their box from local, organic produce and you can decide if you want it that week or not. Then if there are things you don't want you can swap it for something else, and decide if you want it every week, every other week, or just when you want it. And then they deliver it to your door on Wednesday.

I LOVE this! I made potato fennel gratin and butternut squash couscous stew and broccoli salad, and we've had spinach dip and all sorts of good salad and raw fruits, it has been great! I'm totally sold that is for sure! And who doesn't want to have to pick up their groceries?!?

Here is the potato fennel recipe. I used left over half and half from my fridge and chevre instead of the cream, but was still very pleased with the outcome!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/potato-fennel-gratin-recipe/index.html

Here is the couscous recipe. I added chunks of beef and more couscous to make it less of a stew (we've been having lots of soups lately) and more substantial. This one was for sure amazing!!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/spiced-butternut-squash-stew-with-couscous-recipe/index.html

Also, it doesn't seem like much of a project, but it has been big for me to try and start working on a food storage for us. I've been trying to get things as they go on sale and again prepare more for after the baby by having more food available, and we hope that we'll be able to stock up and with getting the fresh produce delivered every other week that we won't have to go to the grocery store as much....hopefully. :) But it has been nice already to have, and just feels good knowing that we have lots of options of things to make and eat in the house. This of course is a work still in progress and always will be, but I think it is a learning experience for me for sure!

Happy Halloween

For Halloween this year we were pretty boring. We had high hopes of dressing up as Nacho Libre and the pregnant nun, but I slacked on costumes, and then the day of the ward Halloween party there was a sleet storm and I didn't get home from our baby shower until we were supposed to be there. So anyways, we went as us :)

However we of course had to carve pumpkins, it just isn't Halloween unless you carve a pumpkin! And it isn't the Hinton household unless there is Spiderman involved :)

We got one huge pumpkin this time and just make it two sided, which we probably won't do again. This pumpkin was SUPER thick and hard to carve, but we are quite pleased with the results. This is the symbol for Venom Spiderman.