I Can See the Finish Line

So many things have come close to completion with these final days of 2008. Christmas now seems like a distant memory since I have already taken down the very few decorations that I put up and my empty tree is staring at me waiting for someone to drag it to the tree cemetery -- a Gaiser Family Tradition where all the trees of Christmas past are laid to rest in the same location. Alla and I found where our new cemetery will be today, it is just the actual effort of getting the tree there that eludes me. The only real evidence left of Christmas is the stack of Amelia's toys that only two weeks ago was half the size it is now.

Our house is almost finished. We have almost finished unpacking. We have almost finished the area for the baby (he doesn't even get his own room, he has to share with my crafts.) Matt has almost finished our kitchen cabinets. I have almost finished hanging pictures and shelves, ect. I think you get the picture.

We are very close to having our baby. I am scheduled for my c-section on January 15th (no time yet) which is two weeks from Thursday. I only have one more predelivery appointment left next Thursday.

I am very much in agreement right now with the Christmas letter from my friends Andy and Emily Smith that basically said that everything in 2008 was just leading up to 2009. They said that 2009 was their year. I am going to claim the same thing.

So here's to 2009, may it be your year too.

Merry Christmas Mamaw

This Christmas morning, we got to open presents with Matt's parents and grandparents and my dad and grandparents. My mom is in Cincinnati with CJ and Michelle and Joshua. Since she can't be here to celebrate with us, we want to wish her a very Merry Christmas and post these pictures for her to enjoy and everyone else to see.


This is our tree on Christmas Eve. Amelia went to bed around 9:30 and Matt and I put together all her presents and her new bed.

This bed and Dora sheet set was a gift from Matt's parents (Nana and Papa Gaiser). Amelia spotted it first thing this morning and had to try it out. When everyone arrived this morning, she took them back to see it.



Amelia loves Dora the Explorer. She got this backpack from us and a Dora doll from Alla.

Our New Home

Our house is finally starting to feel like a home. We have moved everything from our old house in Portland and have finished unpacking a majority of our boxes. I even managed to put up a Christmas tree. Our kitchen is still an empty shell, so those boxes remain in our garage waiting to be unpacked. We do have a refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven in our kitchen so we are now able to eat in a little more. Because the house we moved into has smaller bedrooms then our last two houses, we have a lot more stuff to put in storage like summer clothes. Our basement is doubling as a storage space and we also have a long-term storage unit that I hope to empty some day.

This is a picture of the back of our home. The front door opens to a hillside and does not have a real walkway up to it so we use the back door. The pine tree in the front is going to disappear as soon as possible. It is way too big for where it is. We have some really nice flower beds and landscaping, but they are completely overgrown. Hopefully this spring we will be able to spend a little time and money on them.

This is a picture of what we believe was once an Indian mound that was used to fill in the swimming pool on our property. As you can see, the trees that are growing out of the top of this mound are decades old so we know the mound has been there for a while.

Here is our living room. A vast improvement over the last picture we posted. We still have work to do like painting the fireplace and replacing the fire screen and mantle. We are also going to mount our flat screen TV above the fireplace and hang a few pictures.

We are really happy with our new home. I especially like that in the mornings, Matt is able to make phone calls and answer emails from here at home and have access to the Internet and be only a few minutes from the office if he needs to go in. In the moments between calls and emails, he gets a little more time with Amelia which is one of the main reasons we moved back closer to his work.

Trying to be Organized

These last couple of months have been focused on getting our house organized and ready for Christmas and a new baby. We have finally gotten internet service at our new home so hopefully I will be able to keep my blog a little more up-to-date.

Looking over my calender for the next few weeks, I realize that I must have forgot that I am going to be 35 weeks pregnant when I was planning my schedule. There is not a day between now and Christmas that is not marked with something to do. Most of the events include traveling like going to pick up Alla at college and Christmas in Newark and my nephew Joshua's surgery in Cincinnati. I thank God constantly that I have had a very easy pregnancy. My only problem right now is that it is starting to get hard to get up off the couch or out of bed. I miss being able to bend at the middle.

We had an ultrasound on Monday and everything looked great medically. The baby did not cooperate very well though. He hid his face behind his hands. We got to look at his ears and fingers. Also, when we did the check to make sure he is in fact a boy, he tucked his feet in and would not let us have a look. I tried turning on my side and tried getting him to move, but no luck. The ultrasound technician was pretty confident at my 20 week ultrasound that he is a boy so that is how we are planning.

He is a pretty big baby. He is about half a pound heavier then the average baby and the technician kept saying how long his feet and legs and fingers are. I was scheduled for delivery on January 15th, 2009, 4 weeks from tomorrow.

I promise to soon post some pictures of the house and Amelia.

Merry Christmas to everyone.