So much for a Christmas Baby

We're still in a holding pattern, just waiting for the arrival of baby number two. In the meantime, we wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

In the meantime, Nola thoroughly enjoyed her last Christmas as an only child.

Aunt Jaimee and Ron Jeremy

So Jaimee's engaged.

Her beau, Beau, is back in Louisiana, and Jaimee just got a job selling pharmaceuticals throughout the Central Coast of California. Part of the long distance arrangement is visiting each other often. Upon returning from her last visit, for Thanksgiving, she sat next to a celebrity (of sorts), who was happy to walk out of the plane with her, and even asked for an eskimo kiss to remember her by.

Never fear, Beau, Jaimee declined, and she said all frisking was done exclusively by the TSA.

Oh Christmas Tree!

With our second baby's due date looming, we thought it wise to get the Christmas tree early this year. We returned to the cut-your-own-tree-place nearby, but that experience wasn't nearly as exciting as the fact that our tree just wouldn't stay up when we got it home.

Here, Nick and Nola hunt down the perfect tree

Looks like they found it!

Note: Nola's rock/dirt clod collection continues to grow with each outing.

Poor Nick, it took nearly three hours for him to maneuver this 10+foot tree into our little tree base (as Nola and I could only watch and offer him an occasional, "Good job, Daddy!")

After all that, it still managed to topple over during the night,
so Nick finally conceded and tethered the tree to the curtain rods on either side.

Good job, Daddy!

We've missed you, Blogspot

Unbelievably, we still have some unpacking to do. Most notably (well, with concern to our blogging frequency), we just unearthed this magical little cord that enables us to upload images onto our computer.

Hallelujah! Blog readers, prepare yourself for some serious catch up. That is, if mommy's third trimester energy levels permit...

In the meantime, we thought it best to share a little bit of our October with you all.

Nola picks her pumpkin at the Pumpkin Patch, as well as 1 of about 250 clumps of mud she dutifully collected along the way.

Bee at the Zee? No, Boo at the Zoo! Nola met up with her cousins in Santa Barbara for some trick-or-treating and awkward pictures with strangers dressed as fairy princesses. This was so much fun, thank you, Smiths!

Here, Kim and Taylor's crew poses with the fairy stranger. Although the picture is grainy, I thought it was cute to note that both girls are dressed up as ballerinas/princesses, which seemed to inspire the remaining days of the month for our little princess...

...whose biggest milestone, as of late, seems to be contributing a generous helping of slobber to any drink mommy has on hand.

Oh that, and hoarding lots and lots of dirt clods.

All Boxed Up and No Place to Go

We closed escrow two weeks ago, but have some minor home improvements going on at the new house (to be blogged about later), so we are in a funny kind of holding pattern. We were supposed to get over to the new house to start cleaning up and moving in, but the painters were still hard at work, so we decided it would be best to have a Nola photo shoot back at our current house.

Nonnie, who came down from Aunt Kim and Uncle Taylor's house, just to help with the move, took these pictures of our precious cargo. Thanks, Nonnie!

The Farm

We joined the Princes on their most recent trip to Underwood Family Farms, as Sarah and Tony take Wednesdays off to spend time with their twins, Fallon and Fletch. The farm in question is about 7 miles southeast of our new home (well, the home that will be ours THIS WEEKEND!) It's filled with all sorts of animals and activities for the kiddos. Our activity level is a bit below the twins, but I still got an action shot of Nola (thanks to Sarah reminding me to take pictures.)

In Escrow

Part of my nesting for the-very-recently-blogged-about-little-Akl has involved some serious stressing out over our 940 square foot slice of heaven. While pregnant with Nola, we house hunted, but decided that the three of us could fit into our cozy little home. Now that we are growing (well, I guess I've been doing most of that lately) we've decided it's time to broaden our square footage. Here's a street-side picture of our future house, and the reason we won't be doing anything crazy like eating out for the next several years.