Christmas in Colorado

Christmas, 2013 #2!

After all of our celebrations in Iowa for Christmas we headed to Colorado for some more.  Uncle Greg and Aunt Katie were visiting from Boston and we wanted to be able to see them!

 Aunt Katie got some rainbow loom lessons from Hannah.

 My pretty girls :)

 Great Grandma Bowen opening her Christmas ornament with all of the girls' thumbprints. 

 Great Grandma got the girls these hats that are adorable.  They have a little pump you push and part of the hat moves.  Like on the blue dog, the ears pop up as you pump it.

 Grandma Deb treated us to a yummy hibachi dinner. Hannah ate a TON of her favorites, steak and shrimp.

Christmas in Iowa

Christmas 2013

We had so much fun having Papa with us on Christmas! 

 Later on Christmas day, Nate's family all came over for dinner.  We also got to talk to Hermana Pettitt who is serving her mission in Orsono, Chile!

Two super silly cousins!

 Grandma Pat and Camille were tired :)

 Putting on a Christmas program.

Pettitt gift exchange over at the Briggs home

Science Center with Papa

Papa came to visit for Christmas!  December 23, 2013 we took him to the Science Center because it was WAY TOO COLD to do anything else! He might not ever come back to IA, it was really super cold while he was here!

 Sitting on nails and building an exploding snake out of popsicle sticks.

 They all thought touching the snake was really cool!

Cookie Time!

December 21, 2013

Cookie Decorating day at Grandma Eileen's house! It is a tradition that all of the kids decorate Christmas cookies and they all love it and look forward to it. It is messy and crazy and yummy! Here they are hard at work:

Visit with Santa

December 2013

This year's visit with Santa went MUCH better than last year's! No tears :) The girls got to wear their PJs for a breakfast a church and a chance to see Santa.

Surprise!

December, 2013

Our December started out a little more eventfully than we had planned!

First was this on Dec 11:

I had a kidney stone (which I don't really recommend!) that was much to large to pass on its own (7mm), but it tried to anyhow and got (painfully!) stuck.  This meant a quick surgery for me that left me feeling MUCH better! It also made me super grateful that we live near Nate's SUPER helpful family! Kirby came over in the middle of the night while we went to the ER and between Tiff and Kirby the girls were taken care of for a few days while I recovered. THANK YOU!

 Then this on Dec. 16:

What was all a little stressful was that one of the questions they ask before doing any of the tests in the ER or before surgery is "Are you pregnant?" My answer was "there is a chance." So in the ER they tested and got a negative pregnancy test.  I made them recheck before surgery, still negative. It was just too early to show up.  So after a little bit of panic on my part (I had just been taking all sorts of pain meds, antibiotics, had surgery, MRI, etc while pregnant!) I talked to the OB who switched my antibiotics to a different one, but reassured me that really it was too early for anything to have transferred to baby. A relief, but still stressful!

Baby is due August 23, 2014 and so far everything looks great!