Happy December!

I can't believe Christmas is 3 weeks away. This year has really gone quickly and the holidays are coming too fast for me to feel ready!!! Last year we did a Christmas project from Ellison for the grandparents/great grandparents, had Christmas pictures taken, made photo books, sent Christmas cards...no way we will have time for all of that this year! I feel like we are constantly busy, and this time of year it is even crazier.

Thanksgiving was a nice day. I spent a lot of it asleep since I worked the night before. I had been planning to get up at halftime of the Packer game, but once I saw the score I decided on more sleep instead! Then we headed over to my dad and Nancy's. Almost the whole Graham family was there, which was great! Ellison tried to make friends with one of the cats...he wasn't as into it as she was. She was running around yelling, "are you, Ryno?" and attempting to crawl under whatever piece of furniture he happened to be hiding under. She ended up getting hissed at and swatted, but she just thought it was funny. The food was delicious, of course!!!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we headed up to Green Bay for a birthday for Ellison's cousins, Isabella (3) and Olivia (1). She talked about going to "Bella's house" all week! She really loves her cousins...and playing with different toys than the ones she sees at home every day. We stayed overnight at Grandma and Grandpa Miller's on Saturday and on Sunday, we went to get our first REAL Christmas tree! It was a pretty mild day which was nice, and the tree looks awesome in our big living room window. Jay is happy he finally talked me into a real tree with white lights (we have always had artificial with colored lights). I didn't realize how much harder it would be to hang our heavier ornaments on a real tree - the branches aren't as sturdy as the fake tree! Next year I hope to put the artificial tree up somewhere else with some of the heavier ornaments and do a fancier real tree in the living room. We'll see what happens!

We had to find a new home for the Christmas village this year since we don't have a window ledge in this house. I think the extra bookshelf we had in the basement works perfectly! Ellison LOVES the village and wants it turned on at all times. 

Ellison continues to learn more and more words and string them together better every day. She has also started to sing her favorite songs! Her favorite sayings right now are "whoa, Tin Man" and "oh yeah".  She is obsessed with the Wizard of Oz (she calls it "Foz movie") and would watch it every day if we let her. She absolutely loves to color, but needs some work on the sharing of crayons. And not breaking several each day. She also likes to count (usually goes something like 1,2,5,8,9,10...needs a little practice!), "clean", and dance!

She loves the Christmas decorations!

In other Miller family news, we are converting our oil heat to gas this month. Very exciting stuff...haha. The workers got the gas put in today and the furnace should get installed December 17! 

Baby Miller is 27 weeks along! I'm now on an every 3 weeks schedule for doctor visits, so I went this week. Managed to gain some weight (thanks Ensure!) so the doctor was happy. Still a little under where I started, but getting close. I passed my glucose test, so that is a relief. I don't think I could get by without hot chocolate and Christmas cookies at this time of year! Baby is measuring on track, my blood pressure is good, and apparently I have a higher hemoglobin level than the doctor has ever seen. Now if only I wasn't still periodically getting sick after eating and wasn't so exhausted...just have to keep reminding myself that he will be worth it. Only about 3 months to go!!!

More Ellison :)