Christmas

Christmas Eve.

Christmas Morning.


December 5, 2010


This has been a very busy month for our family. On December 5th, Lucas and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary. We went to eat at Lucille's BBQ and went to a movie. It was a wonderful date and I can't believe it has been 7 years. I still remember our wedding day like it was yesterday. It was a fairytale. I can't say all 7 years have been a fairytale, but we are truly blessed. Lucas is the perfect man for me. He is my partner and equal in life. He cares so much for me and our children and works so hard for us. I'm so blessed to have married my best friend as well as my knight in shining armor :) I love him tender. Ok, so enough sappy stuff.
I wanted to rewind a bit and talk about our new little addition. We found out in October that we were pregnant. It was exciting and grueling at the same time. I have never been so sick and miserable in my life. I had morning sickness all day long for almost 4 months. I had a feeling it was a girl, Lucas was sure it was a boy. We even took a "home gender test" you buy at the pharmacy and the result said Boy. We decided to keep the baby a secret from everyone and surprise them with the news at Christmas. We had a 4D ultrasound on December 20 where we found out that we were having a little girl. I was overjoyed as was Lucas and I have to admit I was a little smug because I knew all along :) It was awesome to see our baby in the 4D ultrasound, moving around and holding on to the umbilical cord. Lucas always makes a slideshow dvd for Christmas eve for his family and her makes one for my family for the day after Christmas. He compiles photos of each family and puts it to music and we watch it with the Abbott's on Christmas Eve and the Devine's on St. Stephens Day (Dec 26th.) At the end of the slideshow, Lucas put the 4D ultrasound pic of the baby and had her name and that's how we announced it. Everyone was so surprised, it was awesome. So, we decided to name our little one, Isla (Eye-la) Maeve. We are so excited for her arrival in June. By the way, Isla means Isle and Maeve means intoxicating. She is an active baby and already so strong. I am so happy Niamh will have a little sister to play with. Sisters are awesome. Brothers are too, but I love my sisters!
Christmas was wonderful, we decided this year to really focus on teaching the kids why we celebrate Christmas and to steer them away from all the commercialism. I think we actually got through to them and I think they really understood why it is so important we celebrate Christ's birth and what a wonderful gift it is that he lived and died for us.
Lucas' sister Amanda and her family came to visit from Michigan for Christmas and Lucas' grandpa also came from Utah to spend Christmas with us. It was a wonderful time, making memories and eating way too much good food. The day after Christmas is St. Stephens Day, it's a catholic holiday celebrated in Ireland which we have continued to celebrate since we came here. As children, we always went to my nana's house on Stephens Day and had Christmas dinner. So keeping with tradition, we headed up to Alamo and spent the day with my mam and her husband. My sister Trudi came from Idaho with her hubby and baby and my sister Kim came from Vegas with her hubby and 4 kids. We missed my sister Bev and her hubby in San Diego and my brother in Utah. It was a wonderful day and we had lots of food and lots of laughs.
We had a wonderful Christmas and a wonderful year over all. We look forward to this coming year with lots of changes along the way. Hope you all enjoyed my end of the year novel.