It's the most wonderful time of the year!

This year we were blessed, because of me being on bedrest & Eric being forced to take leave, to travel to the great state of North Carolina to spend Christmas with my brother Mike, his amazing wife Michelle, and their two kids.

The drive up was great, there was no traffic and it only took us 11 hrs. Koa freaked out for about the first 3 hrs in the truck, and finally when I moved to the back seat and put him on my lap, he slept the rest of the way. Mike and Michelle gave us the entire upstairs and even went the extra mile to get an air mattress that sat higher off the ground due to my pregnant state :o)

The kids LOVED Koa, but Koa is a very mellow dog that spends most of his days moving from the couch, to his kennel, or our bed in search of the most comfortable spot to sleep. When we were decorating gingerbread houses Jacob was under the table with Koa, and we asked him what he was doing...and he very clearly said, "I'm touching the doggy's mouth!" Jacob just LOVED chasing Koa, but I'm still sure that Koa would have much rather been chased the entire time, then have to spend Christmas in a kennel!
Here are some pix I stole from Michelle's facebook & blog of our gingerbread houses (I forgot to bust out my camera, so she has all the pix on hers). I used mini nilla wafers to do my roof & I think it turned out pretty awesome...and Eric had fun decorating the walls & making the walk way. Mike & Michelle did the cute train on the right, and Dez made the awesome house on the left.

Lizzie is such a little character! She has a scowl that you wouldn't think possible for a kid under 2, but she never got tired of giving us the evil eye. We later learned that if you scowl back she will smile :o) As requested by my brother, we brought our xbox, and up until the last day this is as close to Uncle Eric that Lizzie would venture.
Michelle, who we now call Martha Stewart, did an amazing job with snowman-shaped buscuits & gravy for breakfast, and Christmas dinner. Eric did the turkey, which somehow always turns out amazing, and I made my Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie, which was a huge success...and second only to Michelle's Apple Pie. (Michelle, because of your mad kitchen skills, Eric has now requested that "since you're not working, it would be really nice if you could have dinner ready when I get home." I blame you for this!)

Michelle and I were able to go catch a movie, after everyone else went to see Avatar, and even though I had already seen it, I thoroughly enjoyed watching "The Blind Side" a second time. We had plans to go out to eat after, but instead we decided to hit up Motherhood Maternity at the mall, and both found something adorable!

We went along with their tradition of filling each other's stockings with goodies from the Dollar Store. I got Eric some silly puddy, little army men, and transformer stickers which are all in his ruck sack and headed to work with him...I can't wait to see where they end up.
Also, as many of you know, we are a house devoted to the Colbert Nation of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. He has an "on notice" and "dead to me" board that is always being updated, so when I saw this on their website, I knew Eric would get a kick out of it. He LOVES it, and can't wait to put it up at work and start adding people.

I'm pretty sure Eric and I entertained everyone with our "that's what she said," comments, and my on-going game with my brother of, "ya know how I know you're gay..." and Mike even called us, our last morning there, to thank us for making the trip. We had a blast!!

Our drive home was much different than our drive up. We spent an extra 4 hours in traffic on I-95 through South Carolina & Georgia due to accidents, but we made it home safely, very early Monday morning.

My appointment at the perinatalogist went well and I'm happy to report that both boys (yep, still boys!) are doing great and over 2 lbs each...that means I have over 4 lbs of baby in my belly...and still have 3 months to go! Wish me luck!
Here is Michelle and I Christmas morning...I think we're two hot mamas!