Long overdue generic update

Where has the last month gone? I have been a lazy blogger lately.

After our exciting/frustrating time of getting out of the snow, we made it safely to the midwest and spent two wonderful weeks with our families. We had a lot of fun and Anya enjoyed all of the attention. The long drive home was pretty uneventful. Anya did wonderful in the car, entertaining herself, sleeping a lot, and just generally being very happy and cooperative. We couldn't have asked her to be better. The drive was extremely long, but I would imagine that with two kids and now being required to buy a plane ticket for Anya, we may make the drive again some day. But I'm definitely not ready to jump in the car any time soon.

It has felt really nice to be back home. We were finally able to find a place to stash almost all of the things we accumulated from our travels - mostly toys for Anya. Today I just packed up a big box of baby toys that will go down to the basement for another six months until our new baby is ready for some plastic entertainment.

Since being home I have felt like I have a lot more energy than before we left. I think I just really enjoy being at home and I am starting to feel the countdown to the new baby. I know we still have three months until our due date, but several things have started prompting me to start making some to-do lists.

First, I am just a detail person and making lists makes me feel organized, motivated and more in control.

Second, we have been around two people lately who are/were very close to having their own babies and it has got me thinking about it a lot more. Over New Year's, my sister had a couple false alarms with "almost" having her baby a month early. She isn't due until February 8th, so now we're just waiting again, but the excitement of it all made me get really excited for her and for me. And we have friends out here that just had their baby last night. We spent a lot of time with them this weekend before anything happened and it got me really excited just knowing that they were going to have a baby any day and then it made me excited to have my own again. Also, our friends had a boy AND Hilary found out through another ultrasound that they are having a boy, too. Add that to another friend of mine who is due to have a boy in June and it suddenly feels more normal to be giving birth to a boy. Still scary and unknown, but not as strange to think about.

Third, I am realizing that we only have three months before the due date and I do have some things I would like to get done in that time. Besides the fact that I am still planning on taking a trip back to Chicago to see Hilary's baby when it arrives and we have a couple groups of people coming to visit us in March and early April. And did you recall that we are still trying to finish our basement before April!? Whew!

I actually don't feel overwhelmed, just motivated, so that is good! I hope I can keep up my energy long enough to actually get some things done.