Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year anyway! This will probably be a much longer post than normal since we've had so much going on. Let me try to give you a quick recap of our holiday events. Friday, December 22nd, we started driving to my family's Christmas in Ohio. I think we picked the busiest travel day of the year... not to mention it was rainy that day too. So it took a lot longer than we had expected.

Our plan was to make it all the way to Cincinnati, OH that night and stay with our friends, Pete & Rosanna. Well, that didn't happen. We ended up driving 12 hours that day and only made it just into Kentucky. Just prior to stopping for the night, we were on this big mountain in Tennessee. It was extremely foggy and we could barely see in front of us. Some tractor-trailers and other crazy people started zooming past us and I thought I was about to get car sick. I told Doyle that I wanted to stop for the night as soon as we came across the very first opportunity. I was so stressed out being on top of that mountain and not being able to see a thing. I swear my whole body just tightened up. I'm sure it didn't help things that we had already been in the car for such a long period of time anyway.

So once we came off the mountain we saw a motel and stopped for the night. It took a while to get checked in because Doyle was upset that they wanted to keep his credit card number available until the next morning. Once we got to the room, at least the place looked clean. We figured it was fine for just sleeping. When we got up the next morning, I went to take a shower but there wasn't any hot water and I had let it run for well over 5 minutes. So I went to call the front desk to complain but there wasn't a dial tone on the phone! Well, Doyle noticed that the phone wasn't plugged in. So then I was able to make the call. The guy pretty much said, "well, what do you want me to do about it?" when I told him there wasn't any hot water. So I suggested letting us try the room next door to see if they had hot water. So Doyle runs down to get that key. Nope, their water was just as luke warm as ours was. I ended up trying to do a partial spongebath at the sink and Doyle swore the water wouldn't be all that cold. So he hopped in the shower and let out a couple of shrieks. Yes, the water was pretty cool!

Doyle was able to get us a discount on the room and we left. I thought pancakes sounded good for breakfast but we needed it to be quick so we just stopped at the McDonald's there in the same town. We got our breakfast to go and once again were on the road. I started to divy out the food and realized they hadn't given me any syrup for my pancakes. Needless to say, we won't ever be stopping in that town again for any reason!

We ended up making it to our friends house at 11am. We had a great visit... it was SO good to see them again! They had just bought their first house together in the past year so we got the tour and got to see all the improvements they had made on it so far. They've done a really nice job! Plus Pete's parents were there visiting for the holidays so we got to meet them as well. They are such nice people! I ended up eating this sugary bar cookie that Rosanna made from scratch, which was REALLY good but a little while later I had a little episode. She and I were standing talking in the kitchen and all of a sudden... I thought I was going to pass out! I just sat on the floor and everyone did such a nice job of getting me back to feeling well! I was really hot so they put a fan on me and I ate some cheese and crackers then some wonderful soup that Pete had made. Once I got that all in my system I felt fine. So thanks you guys for feeding us... that wasn't why we stopped in to see you! :)

Since our camera died at the NJ baby shower, we took some pictures from their camera. As soon as I receive them I'll post them. We got some funny ones!

Once again we were on the road. We made it up to my Aunt Ila and Uncle Butch's house in Montpelier, OH, around 6pm. Just in time for dinner! Notice how pretty much everything I do these days centers around food? Ha! We ate and just relaxed. Mom and dad were picking my brother, Aaron, up at the Indy airport and we didn't expect them to roll in until later. Well, apparentely they did rather well on time and made it a little earlier than we expected. Dad arrived with a grin on his face. He had gotten pulled over, but the cop only gave him a written warning. WHEW!

Yes, everyone was very happy to see each other and to see how much I'm showing! Again, since we don't have a camera I've had to rely on receiving copies of everyone else's pictures. Here are a few from the time there.

Aunt Ila made us a baby shower cake. She set aside time for us to specially celebrate the baby, the day before Christmas. Isn't this cake just cute! I thought she did a really good job on it.

Here is my side profile for those of you wanting to see how big my belly is getting.

This is a beautiful baby blanket that my mom made. She really knows her stuff when it comes to knitting and crocheting. She did a VERY good job of picking a pattern that wasn't too "froo froo" for me. :) She also made some crocheted animals for the baby's room. I'm sure I'll get pictures posted of those when we get the room all setup.

This is the matching hamper that Butch & Ila got for us that goes with the crib bedding. It's going to look really cute in the room and will no doubt gets LOTS of use!

Butch & Ila also got us a really cute little outfit set. The bib has a little airplane on it and it even came with a little pillow that you hang on the door knob that says the baby is sleeping. The booties are too cute too. They look like little bears. I'll be sure and get pictures of him wearing that outfit!

Here we are relaxing after cutting into the cake and eating all the other goodies Ila had made.

The next day was Christmas morning. As usual, Dad was the worst "kid" at wanting to open the presents right away. I on the other hand had preferred to take a shower and let everyone look respectable before starting to take pictures! I do realize that once little baby Cooper gets old enough to understand Christmas, then we'll no doubt be opening presents first thing in the morning. Until then, dad can just wait! :)

It's an annual tradition that dad plays Santa and hands out the gifts. He is also supposed to wear the santa hat every year too.

Here is Aaron trying on his new racing gloves.

Mom and dad thought it would be funny to give me my Curious George from when I was a baby. Mom had re-stuffed it years ago and it's been sitting in their attic ever since.

Here is mom and dad opening up some gifts.

It was funny because at one point in time, everyone had their cameras out at the same time, taking pictures of each other taking pictures!

Here is the official Christmas 2006 picture. There was another picture that everyone else liked better, but Doyle's eyes were almost closed in it. Aaron's eyes are pretty much closed in this one, but hey, I've got to go with the picture that my husband looks the best in! :)

Ila wanted a turn at feeling the baby kick.

She definitely felt that one!

Mom and I played Jenga that night. We hadn't played it since last year and no one was there to supervise us. We started playing but obviously hadn't remembered how to do it because whenever we took a block out, we were putting them to the side in a pile. We got a good laugh out of that. I think we ended up getting it higher than this picture shows.

Here's dad making one of his usual funny faces.

And here's Dad, Aaron & Ila... just hanging out in the kitchen like we usually do.

The day after Christmas we drove to my parents house in Winchester, IN. A few days later, we had my dad's side of the family over.

This is my Aunt Cheryl, her boyfriend and my cousin Kim. It had been several years since I had seen Kim. Below is her son Caleb. I hadn't seen him since he was just a little kid!

This is Aaron and our Aunt Linda. Aaron ended up coming down with flu symptoms while everyone was still at the house. He had gone to his in-laws for 2 days prior to this party. Apparently everyone there ended up getting the flu while he was visiting. He thought since it had been 2 days and he hadn't gotten it, that he wasn't going to. Bad assumption!!

My friend Heather and her daughter Ashton came over too.

Ashton was pretty quiet until most everyone left. Then she came out of her shell and was the life of the party!

This is my cousin Bernie and her daughter Avery. This was the first time I had gotten to see Avery. She's a cutie!

Here is Dad swinging Avery around. From what I hear, she really likes her Great Uncle Larry!

Here is Doyle, Bernie and Rowena. Our family adopted Rowena as our token grandparent years ago. We love her! She just turned 98 years old and is sharp as a tack!

This is Aaron after he started feeling better.

And mom's Christmas tree! She said she didn't put nearly as many ornaments on it as she usually does. Looks like plenty to me!

Okay, so the morning after the party, Doyle and I hit the road to come home. I was really afraid that either of us or both would end up getting what Aaron had. So when we set out to drive, we knew we wanted to at least try and make it home that night. We also took a different route going home that went around Atlanta. I think that helped shave off quite a bit of time. Everything was going along just fine when about 3 hours from home, my stomach started to not feel quite so good. I kept telling myself that I was just hungry and needed to eat. After all, that is a common occurrence for me if I've gone too long without eating. So we stopped and I got something to eat. Well, things only started feeling worse.

We made it home around 11:30pm that night. I felt absolutely terrible by then. Doyle's parents were at our house and had waited up for us. I had to excuse myself as soon as I got in the door and went straight to bed. About an hour and a half later, after I had already fallen asleep... the symptoms starting hitting me. I ended up being sick for about 2 days. Doyle's parents flew back home on New Year's Eve. We had plans to go to a friends house that night, but I definitely wasn't feeling up to that. Later that night, I started to feel a little better. The next day I was ready to get some food in me and luckily, it stayed in me.

This weekend we've been really busy cleaning the house up and taking down all the Christmas decorations. Doyle has been busy working on getting the baby's room closet finished too. Plus we went ahead and bought all the little details we still needed. Boy, all that stuff really adds up! We walked out of the store and realized just how expensive having a baby was going to be! We are fairly prepared now. We do still need to set some things up in the room and buy the car seat still... but other than that, we are pretty much good to go. At least we have the needed supplies to change a diaper anyway!

Okay, it's taken me about all morning to get this post finished. They definitely aren't normally quite this long! Well, we hope everyone has a great 2007 Year and many more to follow!

Happy Holidays! Love, Doyle & Aimee