Our trip to IL

We had a good time in IL. It snowed a lot and made everything so pretty. I REALLY love the snow, even if driving in it scares me sometimes - like when the car slides sideways around corners...

It was good to be home with Mark there with me this time. (Last time I was by myself.) My parents remodelled living room is very cozy now with the new fireplace. (Mark is hogging the new computer that he put all our pics on, so I can't add pictures to this blog since I'm on my laptop and he's busy on the other one.) I got to play my piano some and I got TWO new Lorie Line music books. (She's my favorite pianist.) When I was younger and home by myself I would play the piano for hours. I really, really miss that. But I was spoiled by that piano, so now when I play others it's just not the same. I'll post pics of my piano later too. Sorry I didn't play for you Donna. Next time I will. I should have but I have never liked playing in front of people. If everyone is in a different room, I'll SOMETIMES sit down and play for awhile, but I usually freeze up if people are staring at me. It took me quite a while to be comfortable enough to play in front of Mark even, and he jokes about how when he was at my parents house, as soon as he'd go upstairs, he'd hear my playing the piano and by the time he got back downstairs, I was done. I wish I was more comfortable playing in front of people, but I'm not... especially since I rarely practice anymore.

Saturday the Browning's came over to my parents house and we all ate and played Dirty Santa. It was nice to have our families together.

I got to see some of my childhood friends on Sunday and Monday, which was really nice. My friend, Emily, who I've known since kindergarten, showed us a bunch of baby wearing wraps and slings, which Mark and I REALLY enjoyed. I've heard of the maya wraps and ring slings and hot slings and mei tai's, etc, but I couldn't have told you the differences between any of them. Emily had 4 of them and she showed us how to use each of them by demonstrating with her most adorable, 6 month old, Sierra. (Emily, what was the first one called again? We can't remember. It was the big long piece of fabric that you had her in when we got there.) Emily said she was going to MAKE us a mei tai and we are both VERY excited about it. Mark is all about the "baby wearing" too, which I think is great. I can't wait to see him with our little one.

About the baby - I think I've been feeling it lately. I feel these short little flutters every once in a while, but I'm not sure if it's the baby or something else. I've gained around 7 lbs I think, and that's kind of depressing me. The getting bigger part doesn't really bother me, since so far I think it's mostly in my belly, but when I see the number on the scale going up, that pretty much freaks me out and then I feel really fat. I'm worried about being able to lose this baby weight afterwards. I don't want to be the fat girl with the really skinny husband, and I feel like we were already "that couple" before I got pregnant. I'm going to try to start walking or doing light weight lifting or something now bc I'm getting really self conscious about it all. Mark is reading "The Expectant Father" and he was telling me how pregnant women get forgetful sometimes (or it said that in the book anyway.) I was thinking, yeah, that probably happens to other people, but not me... Wrong. I made beef stir fry last night with pot stickers, but I COMPLETELY forgot about the fried rice that I ALWAYS make with stir fry. I felt like I was forgetting something as I was cooking, but I couldn't, for the life of me, remember what... until I was serving up the plates. Duh. I felt like an idiot, but luckily Mark thought it was hilarious.

If I can pry Mark away from the new computer, I'll try to post pictures later today.