Merry Christmas from the Swensons

Seasons Greetings! The tree is up and the halls are decked. We once again hit up Prairie Restoration in Princeton during Thanksgiving weekend to find the perfect tree...which of course we did! Will has figured out that the candy canes are at his level for a reason...he loves them! Surprisingly he is not that messy with them. A little sticky, but not bad. He is also pretty hands off with the tree. I was a bit worried and put the breakables up high, but he really just likes to watch the twinkly lights and search for candy canes. We started an Advent Calendar with him. My little sweet tooth boy loves his bit of chocolate everyday and likes to look at the picture on the calendar. I went with Santa on the cover to get him used to that image so we would have success while visiting the Jolly Ol' Elf...more on that in a minute :) He points to Santa on his calendar and says "Ho Ho Ho" which is so cute!! So we have some fun traditions started and Will's dancing skills to Christmas carols are top notch...not to mention he has tried eggnog, likes it and has lefse as his 'after school snack'...I think we are ready for Christmas!

Now Santa on the other hand...Zach and I took Will to see him last week and he was having so much fun watching all of the other kids. He even enjoyed watching Santa interact with the kids before him. He walked right up to Santa, no problem, until...Zach set him on Santa's lap. Now our kid is really not one (yet) to throw tantrums...which truthfully would have been funny. Instead he panicked on the inside and went all 'deer in the headlights' as you can see! After the picture Will warmed up to Santa because Santa was handing out coloring books. They were fast friends and I wish I had a camera that works!! (see post about camera going in the toilet)
Will has not been given much opportunity to play in all of the snow because the temps are just too low for anyone to be out there! Hopefully we will have milder weather over Christmas break so I can pull him around in his sled.

Baby Girl Swenson is growing along and rolling along. Though this pregnancy has been much kinder to me, I am already feeling uncomfortable and a bit more miserable in general. I don't remember really feeling this tired and uncomfortable with Will until the very end. I have less than 10 weeks to go though! Final stretch! I started this blog when I had 10 weeks before Will's arrival, so I know that these last weeks will go so fast.

We are about 10% ready for baby, much more behind than the first time around. But I am not too stressed...whatever we don't have done i.e. nursery, etc we can work on later...we'll have to. I have clothes and plenty of supplies. A trip to the store for some newborn diapers and the baby will have all she needs. I have some wonderfully pink clothes from our niece Nevaeh plus all of Will's supplies. Car seat is ready to go in and bottles are in the cupboard. Zach seems to think that we can get a lot of the prep work done for a room in between Christmas and New Year as we will both be home. More demolition and construction! Now let's just hope this babe wants to stay put for awhile. Not so good news with the gestational diabetes testing. The three hour glucose test showed that 2 out of the 4 blood draws were a little raised...sooooooo...at this point all I know is that I have to make an appointment with the diabetes nurse and get a little schooling on monitoring my blood sugars. That appointment isn't made yet, but I see my OB for my 31 week appt tomorrow and will make it then. After tomorrow I have 2 more appointments at 2 weeks apart then I am down to once a week for the last month! I am not sure what kind of repercussions go with gestational diabetes, but I am really hoping and praying that baby is ok, that I won't have to be put on bed rest (I could barely stand it for the 2-3 weeks I had it with Will) and that she won't have to come really early. So we are just sitting tight, staying warm and preparing for the celebration of the birth of our King Jesus! Hope you all have a very peaceful Christmas filled with all kinds of wonders!