November in Review!

I've gone much longer then a month before without blogging so this isn't too bad! We've enjoyed a fun and surprise filled month. Living in Santa Maria is always interesting, looking at my pictures from the month we have swimming pictures and raining pictures. I can't believe how quick the month went buy. Baby boy is due two months from tomorrow and it seems like the time will fly! Of course not fast enough when I think of how uncomfortable it is to sleep and how I'm starting to get a mean waddle. But I will miss feeling him move around in me and I'm sure I will miss only having one kid to take care of. I will really miss the way that Noelle interacts with my belly. I guess that's why I have two more months to enjoy it! She's become really protective of her brother already. The other day I rested my hot chocolate mug on my belly and she told me "Careful of my brother, that's hot!" And yesterday I was poking at my belly trying to get him to move around and she said "Be gentle with my brother, he's tiny in there, in your tummy" She likes to include him in things. She usually checks in with him in the morning, cuddling in bed and always lifting my shirt to see him (it's not really him unless it's my skin) so after the snuggled with us she jumped out of bed and and said "I wanna go get a snack, come on brother" So it's a lot of fun to watch her love him more and more even though he's not here yet. Anyway, here are our pictures from the month.

All summer (and fall) we've had random hot days where I told myself over and over again to get a pool for Noelle to play in. Since Santa Maria isn't known for heat I always talked myself out of it thinking it was probably the last hot day we'd have this year. Well November hit and we had a couple days in the 90's and I finally gave in and got one. As you can probably predict it really looks like that was the last hot day so it's stored away for next year. She really enjoyed it though! Kaley and Josiah and Eli came to play with us, Noelle loves having her friends around.

A couple Saturday's ago we went to a friends first birthday party and Noelle loved the pumpkin cupcakes and I couldn't resist a bunch of pictures with her face covered in orange frosting.

Two weeks after our heat wave and pool day we have two solid days of rain. Noelle loved the rain and was really excited to put on rain boots and a rain jacket just to go greet Nick outside when he got home from work.For thanksgiving we had dinner with my dad's side of the family and Thursday we headed down to Santa Barbara to be with my mom's side of the family. While we were there we went down to the harbor to see a replica of one of Christopher Columbus's ships the Nina. It was made with no modern tools and was pretty neat although REALLY small! I can't believe that a ship that small can make it across the entire Atlantic.

After the harbor and some cooking we gathered around to pray and eat. We sat at the cousins table which you will notice is all girls except Nick and Casey who is getting married to my cousin next week. There are 10 girls (9 of which are between 18 and 27) and 2 boys and the boys are younger so it's always a party to get together with all the girls. Nick is grateful there is another guy at the table now that Natalie is getting married. Noelle LOVES being there and plays all day with my 6 year old cousin Alanna.

Friday we busted out the Christmas decorations (and Santa Socks) to go and get our Christmas tree. Noelle colored a picture of the tree in the morning and talked about going to get her Christmas tree all day until we went. It was a fast trip and the first tree we looked at was perfect.

Noelle didn't remember her nativity set from last year at all so it was brand new to her all over again.

Our thanksgiving weekend was finished off with a surprise appendectomy for Nick. He work up Saturday feeling fine and about 2 hours later got a stomach ache. It got bad pretty quick and we left for the ER at 1. By 5 he was in surgery and 7:20 he was in his recovery room. He came home the next day at 11:30 and has been doing pretty good since. He's really sore and I think I'm working hard playing nurse but we are really grateful that we caught it in time. In the surgeon's words "That think was about to burst" which would have been horrible. All in all he got a funny belly save, lots of bloating, a swollen belly button and a couple days on the couch in exchange for a organ.

We are looking forward to Christmas and the new year. December is so much fun and Noelle is really excited about everything Christmas so it's a whole different level of joy to experience Christmas with her. Since we talk about the baby a lot and when her brother will get here she talks to Mary and baby Jesus about how "Baby Jesus came out". It's pretty cute. Hopefully I'll be better at posting since there is a lot going on this month!