Christmas is coming... and so is Baby

Well... it's been about 17 months since my last blog post. Clearly, I am no blogger. But my little family is growing, and stuff is happening, and it's probably time for a small flurry of blog activity... which will probably be followed by a long period of blog silence. This is the pattern that's been established; why change now?

And now, for the updates...

BABY NEWS
Baby number 2 is due on Christmas day. We are hoping for a slightly earlier arrival, so that Christmas can be spent with family and snuggling a new little one. That sounds much better to me than Christmas at the hospital. In labor. I'm just sayin'...

ROSEMARY NEWS
Rosemary is growing and changing every day, and I can hardly believe she is almost 20 months old already. She is very chatty and loves to color (scribble with crayons) and write notes and lists (scribble with pens or pencils). One of her most frequent phrases lately has been "Go play downstairs?" Which means, "Mommy, why are you making me hang out upstairs while you cook/clean/whatever - all my toys are downstairs and we need to go down there so we can play!" Another common phrase to be randomly uttered: "Stupid squirrels. Make grandma mad." Ha! I love it! But what I love the most is her singing. She is starting to catch the lyrics of a lot of the songs we sing to her, and she sings them to herself or sings along with us on occasion. "You are my sunshine" and "Eidelweiss" (sp?) are big hits, but she also enjoys "Bang bang, he shot me down..." thanks to repeated watchings of her favorite dance number on her favorite show: So You Think You Can Dance.

OUR LIFE RIGHT NOW
We are settling in to our new house, having taken possession at the beginning of September and having finally moved our stuff and ourselves at the end of October. We still have a lot of boxes to unpack, but it is definitely feeling like home. Our new home has a split entry, and Rosemary loves the stairs. I, on the other hand, am quietly (OK, not so quietly) cursing the fact that we moved into a house with stairs to climb just in time for my third trimester. Nothing like getting winded after a short flight of stairs to make you feel completely ridiculous.