White Christmas

This Christmas, all of my family--well most of my family--is coming to town. Now that we finally have enough room, we're hosting for the holidays. I would be thrilled about it, but right before Thanksgiving, my work more or less exploded. Meaning that we haven't done a single thing.

No tree, no ornaments, no lights, no menu, not to mention a serious lack of furniture

We were planning on sorting it all out this weekend. Sure, a little last minute, but at least it was a plan. That was until my husband came told me, with nothing but delight in his voice, that it could snow up to 10 inches tomorrow. Now this is DC, so there's still the very likely chance that we'll get no snow at all, but if things go the way they have been going for me over the last couple of weeks, we're going to have a can't-leave-your-home-to-do-your-900-errands kind of a blizzard. Goodbye plan.

I'm thinking that our decorations (with or without a snow squall) are going to be a bit lackluster, so I'm going to need to distract our dear guests with food and drink. And since they may be eating it on the floor, it's going to have to be really delicious food and drink.
Does anyone have any really tasty holiday recipes they'd like to share to help a seriously floundering gal out?

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Above are some shots of my burgeoning belly. I was diligently documenting it each week, but took a hiatus when it seemed that nothing much was changing. Now that I can no longer comfortably fit into my pants, I figure it's time to break out the camera again . . .and yes, that is the mouse keeping me company.

emerging

via (lotte scott)

Hello. So nice to see you again. It was far too long, but, I needed to take that break from posting.

I suppose that I didn't really know how I would react to being pregnant.

I'm typically quite an optimistic person and I attribute that to my uncanny ability to compartmentalize any worry and more or less brush it aside.

But the worry associated with this particular little bean was unshakable. Really rather consuming. I've basically been a bit of a wreck. Compounded by the fact that we were keeping it all a secret from family and friends.

But, the secret is out.

And at nearly thirteen weeks, I'm feeling the anxiety loosen. Maybe it was because we saw the little one wave to us during this last sonogram, or because my belly is starting to round out, but it's all starting to feel real. real enough that I can begin writing about it again.

here's a little picture with some handy little labels: