Santa Clause is Coming to Town

Yep...Santa paid our house a little visit just in time for Christmas Morning. There were many presents for Emily and Ethan stacked nicely under the tree, and stockings full of fun toys and candy. Even though Emily isn't much for unwrapping presents at the moment, Santa had all of her presents neatly wrapped.

She was excited to see that Santa had eaten her cookies and the reindeer had eaten the carrots.

She got many cool things from Santa. All toys to play with!

In the end, yes, she has been a very good girl this year and Emily had a GREAT CHRISTMAS...but...we have NO IDEA where we are going to put all this stuff she got!!

Merry Christmas Eve!

As many of you know, Christmas Eve is equally as important as Santa coming on Christmas Day. In the Swedish Tradition, Christmas Eve is celebrated rather than Christmas Day. So, growing up, we always had two Christmas'...one on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day. It was an AWESOME THING as a kid!!!

And, in keeping with tradition, Emily has had the exact same Christmas I have had growing up. Being in Alaska was no different, with the exception of the absence of family. :0( We were fortunate enough to have Mom, Dad, and Lisa join us this Christmas in Alaska; mom brought Lutefisk, and everything, to help make this Christmas no different than all those Christmas' from year's past.

Emily got some wonderful gifts and I find myself wondering...
WHERE IN THE HELL AM I GOING TO PUT ALL THIS STUFF?!?!?!

She loves it all and is very thankful to everyone for the gifts you sent!

Here are some pictures and video from Christmas Eve.

(stay tuned...pics from Christmas Day to come soon!)

Meet Your New Brother

Emily has been a Big Girl and a Big Sister with her new brother, Ethan. She helps with the bottles and likes to give him kisses and hugs.

She doesn't seem to mind him too much, although there are 3 additional people here to help with the transition, and I believe that's why she is doing so well with Ethan. (Mom, Dad, and Lisa are here for the Holidays.) So, there has been enough attention to be spread between Ethan and Emily.

...I'm sure all the new Christmas toys have helped as well.. :0)

Emily Comes Home

Emily came home! It's been a little over 5 weeks since she went off to California to visit with the family. I know she had a great time with all of you, and I can't thank you guys enough for spending time with her while we brought Ethan home.

It took her just a few seconds to realize who we were, but once she realized mommy and daddy were standing in front of her she was overjoyed!

Here are some shots of her in the airport:

Diaper Run

Thank you to everyone who sent diapers!!!

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A few days before my water broke, more surprises arrived from our family and friends back home. We were once again surprised to learn that Lisa included a Diaper Run as a second-half to the Surprise Baby Shower. Boxes and envelopes arrived, all FULL of diapers!

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I will apologize ahead of time, I was planning to send out Thank You cards to everyone that sent diapers, but then Ethan decided to come early...now, a month has gone by and I am finally getting around to catching up with everything we left behind.

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In the meantime, we arrived home with Ethan after our long journey and, considering that we were NO WHERE NEAR PREPARED to bring him home on account that he was so early, we tore right into those Diaper boxes you'all sent...and I don't think we'll be needing to buy diapers for quite some time.

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Thank you to all of you who sent diapers. We are extremely lucky to have such wonderful, and supportive friends and family in our lives.

We love you all!

Stretchy Pants

I went back to work last week. After being in the hospital for the previous three weeks, just sitting around waiting for Ethan to finally be discharged, I couldn't wait to get "back to life." We got back home to Kodiak on a Sunday, and I went back to work on the following Tuesday. Chris stayed home for an extra week so that I could focus on getting into a routine before he went back to work this past Monday. It's been a transition for the both of us, but I think our schedules compliment each other nicely and things are running smoothly.

Well, since I went back to work I've run into a small dilemma. What to wear?

When a woman returns from maternity leave does she go back to work wearing the old maternity clothes? Or, is a woman expected to be back in her pre-maternity clothes? Or, perhaps, is a woman expected to get a whole new wardrobe?

When the belly started forming I packed away all my pre-maternity clothes to cut down on the closet clutter, which only left me with maternity clothes to wear day-to-day. Now that I'm no longer pregnant I began to unpack the old clothes and work them back into the closet rotation.

This brought up a few questions. Yes, I lost 20 lbs after Ethan was born...but it really didn't disappear; it was just displaced. The odd thing is that I only gained a total of 20 lbs throughout this ENTIRE PREGNANCY, not too shabby. (I think I gained about 40-60 lbs with Emily.) But, now that I've lost those 20 I gained, you think I'd be back to square-one...right?

Unfortunately, I don't think it works that way. I feel that my ass has taken the brunt of the changes, and has just ballooned into it's own timezone. And, the belly; ya...there's still a little jiggle in there. But, seriously...the old pants don't fit.

So, do I wear maternity pants? And, if so, for how long? Perhaps I'm still losing the weight and the 'distribution' will get back to normal. But, when do you give up and just admit that your body won't look like it used to; and then go out to buy a new pair of pants?

(Ok, I'm come to terms that I will never be the same size as I was when we got married...but, that doesn't mean that I need to remain where I'm at, right?)

In the meantime I can always rely on my hometown-favorites - My stretchy pants. Stretchy pants don't care if you are, or ever were, pregnant...that's what makes them so wonderful...they're stretchy!!

A Cord

We've learned a lot since we've been in Alaska. There are many things that, as a Californian, you'd never come-across in your daily routine. Today's latest "lecture" is about firewood.

First, let me say that burning firewood can drastically increase the heat in a cold house, and severely cut down on the high costs of fuel oil. But, how do you get wood? Where do you get wood? Everyone here on the island has STACKS of wood piled up outside their houses...where did they get it???

Chris and I have been on the "hunt" for wood for about a month or two. Wal-Mart sells small bundles of wood for $8.00, and one of those bundles will last you about 2-4 hours. Often times Wal-Mart will be sold out of wood, so we're left to rely on our small electric space heaters for those cold nights.

There is one company on the island that sells large quantities of wood -- They're called "cords" of wood. A cord of wood will cover the space of a pallet, stacked about 8 feet high...it's A LOT of wood. So, this ONE company on the island (Yes, there is only one company that sells wood) that actually sells cords of wood only sells "green wood." This has been another learning lesson.

What is "green wood"? Well...green wood hasn't been dried and is freshly cut from the tree. This matters because green wood doesn't burn well in a fireplace; it does, however, do really well in wood-burning stoves. We have a fireplace. This company was going to sell us a cord-and-a-half of green wood, which may or may not burn in our fireplace. (Wood-burning stoves get hotter than a regular fireplace, which is why green wood will burn in a stove and not in a fireplace.)

We kept looking for wood, and we were able to find a local man who sells "seasoned" wood. Seasoned wood is another word for "dried" wood. It has been dried for 7 months and is ideal for fireplace burning.

Over the weekend we got our cord delivery of seasoned wood. It took a few hours, but Chris, and a friend of his from work, stacked our new found heat-source against the house to prepare us for the winter. Gosh, I just hope this stack will last us through the season.

PS - That stack in the picture is about 6 feet high and 10-12 feet across.