My Favorite Things...

I saw this idea on some of the blogs that I visit and I thought it might be fun to try. Therefore, In honour of the "Sound of Music" that I recived from Ron this Christmas I thought it would be fun to list some of my favorite things in no particular order...
1) A clear sky full of stars
2) Shooting stars
3) Sitting by the ocean
4) The sound of children laughing
5) Holding Newborn babies
6) Any babies
7) My friends kids (you guys are so cute!)
8) Lazy Saturday mornings
9) Warm fire on a cold day
10) Earl Grey Tea with milk and sugar
11) Inspirational quotes
12) Singing
13) Good conversation
14) Taking pictures
15) Anne of Green Gables
16) Being Ron's wife
17) Our unborn child
18) My family (Klassens, Penners, Kliewers, and Borns)
19) Family gatherings
20) Church
21) Faithful friends
22) IKEA
23) Reading a good book
24) Chocolate
25) Learning new things
26) Our wedding day
27) Comming home to a clean house
28) Entertaining
29) Laughing so hard that I start to cry
30) Stationary
31) Christmas traditions
32) My relationship with Ron, I love you!
33) Our home
34) Summer vacation
35) Acomplishing something that was difficult
36) Sound of Music
37) Handmade Quilts
38) Homemade strawberry jam
39) Weddings
40) Willow Tree figurines
41) Feeling our baby kick
42) Ultrasound pictures
43) Going out for dinner on payday
44) The smell of clean laundry
45) Les Miserables
46) Hugs
47) Childhood Memories
48) Answered prayer
49) Reminising
50) Graduation
51) Divine Appointments
52) Watching my favorite movies over and over and over.....
53) Good hairdays
54) Freshly baked buns
55) Giving compliments
56) The smell of freshly cut grass
57) Finding a prime parking spot
58) Black and White photography
59) My Old comfortable sweater
60) The way the house smells while baking cookies
61) A cold glass of milk in the morning
62) Psychology
63) Long drives in the country
64) Running into old friends
65) A good debate
66) Giving gifts
67) Reading other people's blogs
68) Learning to play the guitar
69) Looking though old photographs
70) Sushi
71) Talking to strangers
72) New clothes
73) Finding money in an old wallet although this rarely happens to me
74) A few momments of solitude
75) Being saved!

It is better to give than to recieve

We had a great Christmas time with all of our family and friends. It was great to spend time together and to indulge in all the goodies of the season. We feel so spoiled with all the wonderful gifts that we recived. Thank you all so much.
It seems that as I get older I am getting much more excited to GIVE people thier gifts than to recive them myself. I love to look of joy on other peoples faces when they open the gift that we have selected for them.
A belated Merry Christmas to all and to all a blessed New Year.
PS It is nice to see who is checking out our site so please leave a comment if you like :)

First Day

Well as promised here is an update of my first day! The work is fairly mindless, basically copying information from one form to another. I know it does not sound that interesting, but I must say that it is a welcome change from the pace that I have been used to going at. The hours are great and the people I work for are awsome. On Friday the branch manager took me and Victoria out for lunch and then later the Head Office people were visiting from Vancouver and had a Chirstmas party for us. We all stopped work at 3pm and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying a chocolate fountian and hot appy's. They even offered each employee wine! (needless to say I did not have any). Everyone at the office assured me that this party was not a regular occasion and warned me not to get used to it :) I start my first full week tommorow, who knows what other surprises are in store.

Holiday... and Celebrate

It's Christmas Time!!!!!!!!
The house is begining to look great filled with holiday decorations and cheer. We had a wonderful time last Saturday decorating the tree.

We got this wonderful tree from our friends Christian and Victoria when they moved this fall. Thanks guys! I love decorating the Christmas tree each year. I especially enjoy looking at all the ornaments before finding the prefect place for them on the tree. Many of our ornaments bring back special memmories of people or things that we love. One of the ornaments that we put up each year is the one that my mom gave us the fist year that we were married. It has a picture on it of us on our wedding day.
This is the other great addition to our Christmas decorations this year. I love these Willow Tree figurines. I have always wanted to have this set to display during Christmas time. My wish came true! Last Thursday Ron came home with this special gift for me...

You may ask why a gift when it is so close to Christmas.
The reason is.........
It is time to celebrate.................
I AM DONE!!!!
That's right I am offically finished my Bachelor's Degree in Psychology! Today was my last exam and I handed in my last take home final. It feels strange to be completely done a four year degree. It seems like I am only on a short break before I have to get back to doing papers and projects..... but no!
I won't have much time to rest because tommorow I start a new part time job. I was prepared to spend some time resting at home before our baby comes in March however I could not resist the oppertunity to make some extra money during the few months I have left to work. A partner at Assante Financial was looking for an administrative assistant to fill in some paper work as they are going through an upgrade in the next few months. It will be mostly filling in forms and scanning documents. It seems pretty easy but I won't mind the change from the stress that I have been used to. I will let you all know how it went soon.

24 weeks and counting

Here I am getting ready to leave for Ron's work banquet. I can't believe that I am already 24 weeks along!

What a big difference from week 17

First Pictures

Here are the first pictures of our little one!

The Face! So cute... ok, I guess it looks more like a scary skull right now, but it is still a beautiful sight

Look at those long legs! Do we have a future basketball player on our hands?

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...

It is hard to believe what I am seeing outside my window right now! "Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow". When the weather chanel said that it was going to snow, I immediatley thought of the small sprinking of wet snow that we get a few times in the winter. It is nice for about 1 hour and then it turns into a slushy, muddy, mess, and is gone by the next morning. I could not have been more wrong! It started snowing last night and has not stopped since. I am begining to wonder if Ron will make it to work tommorow, or if I will brave the roads to get to school! Only time and the rising snow will tell!

Ron braved the weather and went out to get some groceries for us... Thank goodness he went when he did... from the looks of things we may be stuck in the house for a while. At least we will not starve!
We are all warm here in our house enjoying the rare oppertunity to stay home, drink tea, do homework, and of course watch football! I must say that I much prefer the view inside to the one outside right now (wink, wink).

Our Ultrasound

I don't know what I expected when I went in for our first ultrasound on Tuesday. I was excited and anxious to see the baby and to know that everything was going to be ok. Our appointment was for 1pm so I began to drink a lot of water! Can you believe that they ask you to drink 8 cups of water in 1 hour before your appointment. This works out to 2 liters! Needless to say I had to pee, badley. We got to the clinic and waited for our appointment. When my name was finally called Ron and I both got up to go in, however the technician asked Ron to stay in the waiting room untill she had taken some measurements of the baby.
The technician began the ultrasound and told me that the head was on the left side of my stomach and the feet were on the right side. As the ultrasound continued I began to get nervous. It seemed to be taking a really long time! The technician was silent and did not say anything to me. She kept sighing and repeating the same actions over and over again. By this time I had bee in the room for about 1 hour! I soon realized that either there was something very wrong with this baby or the tech did not know what she was doing. Finally she told me that she was having trouble getting a good shot of the heart. I began to worry that it was too small or malformed! She left to find another tech to help her.
Meanwhile, poor Ron is left in the waiting room wondering what is going on! He even asked what was taking so long. They told him that sometime it takes a while longer because the baby is in a bad position. All Ron could think about is that they were counting how many babies were in there! 1,2,3,....
Finally another tech came in an completed the tests. It only took her a few minutes. She corrected the false meausurements that the other tech had made. She reminded the other tech that false readings on the ultra sound could result in the doctor ordering an amnio, which has major risks of misscarriage. I was glad that this second tech came in. She assured me that everything was fine and that I dont have to worry. This made me feel a lot better.
When Ron finally got to come in it was so wonderful to see our little one! The baby had its arms crossed on its chest and then moved one arm back and forth in what seemed like a wave hello. What a beautiful sight to see our small child move! We are so excited to become parents, we can hardly wait! What a blessing to have this kind of technology.
I know that every mother would say this, but I feel that our baby is the most beautiful one in the world. Praise God!
"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Psalm 139:13-14)

The Last days of School

I can hardly believe that in only a few weeks I will offically graduate from my post secondary education! Yeah! It has only taken me 5 1/2 years to complete my four year degree in psychology. It is strange to think that it will all be over soon. It will really be a transition for us since I have been a full time student for as long as we have been together. I am ready for a nice long break from writing papers and assigned reading. I am already compiling a list of books to read for fun starting in January. If you have any suggestions please let me know!
There are many people who are asking me about my Masters Degree plans now that we are expecting a baby. The answer to the question is "I am not sure"!, how is that for clarity! I would love to complete my degree however I know that I first want to focus on starting a family, and spending time with Ron, without the pressures of school looming over me.
I will recive my degree and walk across the stage in April. This will hopefully give me some time to recover from labour and get into the swing of things. It will also be a great chance to show off our baby!
Anyway, there are papers and reading to be done, so I must go! God Bless!

The Baby Preperations

We had a lot of fun setting up our baby crib. It only took us one and a half hours! Wow, we began to wonder if setting up the crib was a test of our IQ or if it was measure of our readyness to be parents. I have never read such complicate directions in my life! Oh well! As you can see we were able to figure it out! I sure hope the rest of the baby preperations will be less complicated.

Hello

This is our first post on a blog. We thought that it would be nice to keep in touch with our friends and family who live far away as well as those who are close by. We hope that you enjoy our ramblings and expereinces. Anyway, bye for now. I will hopefully be able to post some pictures soon.