Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday!

Wow - what a whirlwind this past week has been!  First, my sister and her family came in from Charleston.  They stayed with us Wednesday night before heading over to my mom's house on Thursday.  On Friday, we drove over to Pensacola to hang out with family, and attend the annual "The Night Before The Night Before" Christmas party, hosted by someone from the church Grant grew up in.  Saturday, we did Christmas with my side of the family, before coming back to our house the night of Christmas Eve.

That night, I wrapped presents, filled the stockings, and Grant put together bikes for the girls.  I'm not gonna lie, I was so wiped out that I would wrap a few presents then try to take little cat naps.  Grant ended up wrapping the last few presents after assembling the bikes.

Sunday morning, we couldn't wait to hear the girls reactions when they got up and saw all the presents and the stockings.  They did not disappoint!  They were so excited, but since Christmas fell on Sunday this year, we decided to just have them open their stockings first, and then we'd get ready for church.  And yes, I am that mom that puts new toothbrushes in stockings.  At their age, they get excited about anything!

Oh, we did let them open their birthday gifts from Uncle John and Aunt Sarah. 

Surprisingly, they handled not opening the rest of their presents really well.  They played with their new easel, which was already set up and not wrapped, and the swings that Grant had just put up, and they were perfectly content.

We eventually got ready for church.  Aren't they pretty?

When we got back from church, we still weren't going to open presents, because Grant's parents were coming over later.  So I got some lunch ready and Grant was eager to get the girls on their new bikes.  This picture was taken moments before Cami fell.  Don't worry, her face broke her fall, as you'll see in later pictures.

We ate, they took naps, Grant's parents came over, so it was finally time to open all those presents! 

The day after Christmas was Kendall's party day.  She had been a little confused about when exactly she turned 4.  Periodically on Christmas Day we'd mention it, and she'd say, "I'm not 4, I'm still 3!"  So we explained that her birthday was on Christmas, but her party was the day after.  She still struggled a bit with that concept.  Regardless, when she got up on Monday, she knew she was 4.  She was pretty eager to help me with her cake, so she did.  And like all good helpers, she got the reward of licking the spoon!

It was finally time for the party.  It was pretty similar to Cami's - just family, plus one other family, who have been friends of the Spear's for years.  Grant's been working on a tree house in the backyard for a while, and while it's still not totally finished, he got it to the point that the kids could play in it.  That was definitely a highlight for the kids, I'd say...

This time, my mom helped me with the pizzas.  She was in charge of the dough, and I did the toppings.  As you can see, she was feeling her inner pizza-maker.  And she also had a little help from Cami.

Once everyone had their fill of pizza, it was time to open presents (third day in a row of presents - Oy!)...

Then it was time for that cake Kendall helped me make earlier that day!  Kendall had asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles, so that's what she got.  I used this recipe, by the way, and it was pretty amazing. 

Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, she had a Hello Kitty themed party.  We forgot to get a picture of the decorations, so we got one after the party, when she was wearing her beloved Hello Kitty nightgown (thanks, Michelle!). 

We've had a great last few days, but I'm kinda glad it's all over - I'm pretty worn out!  Now I should be able to focus on getting everything ready for the baby.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...Thanksgiving has been over for a while.  Better late than never, right?

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our families (in-town family, that is).  It was so nice to just be able to drive less than an hour and be at our destination, instead of driving to an airport, and spending all day on planes.  Actually, we got to my parents house the day before Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving Day, we could just relax and enjoy already being there.

My mom has always hosted Thanksgiving Dinner at her house.  From that first Thanksgiving that Grant and I were dating, waaaay back in 1998, it's been a tradition.  Even after Grant and I moved away in 2003, his family would still go over to my parent's house for the day.  I think last year was the only year since 1998 that they didn't go to my parent's house, and that was because Grant's parents visited friends in Alabama.  So, even though not all of our family was present (we missed John and Sarah, and my sister Trina and her family), we still had a great time.  My parents also invited a couple from their church to join us.

As usual, the food was AMAZING!  And PS, I got my brother that "Mullet Do" shirt years ago, and it's still one of his favorite shirts.  We had a fried turkey, ham, homemade bread, quinoa casserole, sweet potato casserole, fried corn, mashed potatoes, and plenty of other stuff that I'm forgetting.  It was all delicious!

Starting with the trifle bowl, my mom made the trifle, Grant made the pumpkin pies (from a real pumpkin - not canned!), Janet, my mom's friend made the cake, I made the pumpkin cookies, and my sister-in-law, Meredeth made mincemeat pie and blueberry pie.  We love our desserts!

And everyone chowed down!

It was a great day, and we were all very thankful to be able to spend it together. 

About A Boy

This poor 3rd child.  I haven't really posted about my pregnancy at all.  But trust me, I'm very pregnant at the moment!

So let me fill in some of the gaps.

We found out Memorial Day Weekend that I was pregnant.  We took our Pacific Northwest trip a couple weeks later, and moved across the country about a month after the trip.  So my first trimester was mainly made up of long car rides.  The worst of it hit when we were leaving Albuquerque on our move, on our way to Oklahoma City, and I had to pull over a couple of times to throw up.  As far as sickness in general, I've noticed that I've gotten progressively more sick with each pregnancy.  All 3 pregnancies, morning sickness has stuck around for about 17 weeks, but the intensity of the sickness has gotten worse with each.

When we finally got to Florida, the timing was great, because I was still in the sicky part, but we were living with my parents, who were more than happy to help watching the girls while I was not feeling so hot.

We kept our little secret for a while, knowing that we were coming to Florida, and actually had the chance to tell our families in person, which we've never really been able to do before.  So when we pulled up in my parents driveway, the girls were wearing shirts - Kendall's said, "I'm going to be a big sister again," and Cami's said, "I'm going to be a big sister."

My mom noticed the shirts after about 5 minutes.  Then Grant's parents came over, and I think Grant had a feeling his parents might not notice the shirts, so he drew their attention to them.  Then my brother and his wife came over the next day, and it took them seriously like 3 hours to notice the shirts.  And then when my sister and her family came for a visit, my sister noticed pretty quickly.  It was fun to see everyone's reactions and be there in person for the big reveal!

Time went by and before we knew it, we found out that we were having a boy!  I actually had two ultrasounds.  The first one was around 16 weeks, and our ultrasound tech was pretty sure that it was a boy.  I needed to go back in a couple of weeks, though, because they couldn't get all the measurements they needed.  So when we went back, it was even more obvious that it was a boy.  That second ultrasound was amazing.  I felt like we got to see so much of his personality - he even waved to us!

And it should be noted that he was doing squats in the womb - at least that's what it looked like.  His Uncle John should be proud!  A future CrossFitter in the making!

Then we bought a house, moved in, went to New England for John's wedding...this pregnancy has been a whirlwind to say the least! 

The girls are so excited to have a baby brother.  We talk about what his name should be (Grant's been telling the girls it will be either Kiefer Sutherland Spear or Herbert), but we haven't made any decisions yet.  Kendall's pretty obsessed with my belly, and the other day she asked me if she was going to have a belly like mine when she grows up, and then told me how much she wants to be a Mama.  Cami loves to poke my belly and give it kisses.

As far as preparing for the birth, we've decided to go with a home birth this time around.  We're all pretty excited about it, and actually, the people we bought the house from had a home birth here, using the same midwife we're using.  I was at the midwife's office for an appointment and was looking through a photo album of some of the births she's assisted in, and I came across pictures from our house!  That was kind of weird. 

I'm due in early February, but given my track record of going a little late, I'm counting on it being close to Valentine's Day.  That's what I keep telling Kendall to give her some sort of time frame, because she wants this baby out now!  So it helps when I put it in that perspective.

So that's about it!  We haven't really taken any belly pictures this time around.  Although Grant did take one of me the other morning at breakfast.  But it's not very flattering, so I won't be posting that one on the blog.  I'll try to get a decent one soon.

Cami Turns Two!

Cami is such a sweet, funny, happy girl, and I have been so blessed to have her in my life! I can't believe it's been two years since I gave birth to her - the time is really flying by!  We've had a great birthday weekend for her here in Florida. Her pumpkin-themed party was on Saturday, and it was a big success! 

Our new house has a brick oven in the backyard for making pizzas, so pizzas were definitely on the menu for the party!  My brother is somewhat fascinated with our brick oven, so he was very eager to help out with the pizza making.  I think we had 5 different pizzas altogether, one of them was in keeping with the pumpkin theme, and had pumpkin dough (I'll link up to all the recipes I used at the end of this post).  The pizzas were a hit, and were gone as soon as they came out of the oven!

Then of course, there were presents.  Cami was so funny with her reactions.  When she opened this one present that was a Hello Kitty outfit, she literally freaked out.  Yeah, my kids are obsessed with Hello Kitty.  She got some really great presents and loved opening all of them.

And then the cake.  I didn't do a traditional birthday cake this time - instead I made mini pumpkin cheesecakes.

And here's some video of everyone singing Happy Birthday.  I love her reaction at the end, and then I love what Kendall says about the candles.


Untitled from Kelly Spear on Vimeo.


And then today, Cami's actual birthday, I wanted to do something special, so I made cake batter pancakes.  I think these will become our birthday tradition breakfast for everyone's birthday!  The sprinkles make them so much fun!

Grant had to go to work, of course, but before he did, Cami got changed into her new Hello Kitty outfit that she was so excited to open on Saturday.

We had a great weekend!

As far as the pumpkin theme for her party, I guess you can blame that on Pinterest.  I had been seeing all these great pumpkin ideas, and I needed an excuse to make everything I was seeing!  So here's the links for everything I used...

By far, the best response I got as far as recipes goes was for this Pumpkin Fluff Dip, served in a hollowed-out pumpkin. 

The mini pumpkin cheesecakes.  I didn't use a mini cheesecake pan like the recipe called for, so they weren't exactly bite-sized. 

The pumpkin dough.

The pumpkin cooler to hold drinks.

Pumpkin Candle Holders.


And then the cake batter pancakes I made this morning.