D-Day

Well, today's d-day and nothin's happening yet. Ya never know I suppose, I could spontaneously go into a quick labour for the first time - but I'm not holding my breath. For some reason I'm thinking it's just not going to happen until next weekend at the earliest.

The girls are going to start getting impatient. They know today is the day the baby is supposed to come. I've made sure to emphasize that the baby might not come that day - it might be early or it might be late. And they do know that, but now that the day has come, I think they're going to be mighty impatient from now on!

Looks like the votes are an overwhelming consensus on using both middle names. Nathan and I talked about it more on our date night on Friday (dinner and a movie - The Keg & 27 Dresses) and that's what we're going to go with.

Did I mention yet my feet have totally swollen up? This has never happened to me before, but I literally cannot wear any of my shoes anymore. Thankfully my friend Candace wears a bigger shoe size so I borrowed some comfy boots from her for our date night on Friday. You can hardly even see my ankles anymore - ugh.

I have to say, I'm definitely in the "ready for this to be over" mindframe by now. I think I've just been so big for so long (at 6 months I already looked like I was going to pop). I've just found this pregnancy to be much more physically tiring (course moving at 6 months probably didn't help much). I'm still trying to treasure the moments - but looking forward to holding this precious baby in my arms soon!!! And finding out if it's a boy or a girl!

Christmas Hoopla

My sister Andrea tagged me to do a Christmas Hoopla - here are the rules.

1. List 12 random things about yourself that has to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.

OK, here we go - hopefully I can come up with 12 things!

1. I played piano for one of Nathan's cousins at Christmastime so I got to play all Christmas songs at the wedding.
2. My favorite Christmas "carol" is O Holy Night.
3. I recently downloaded (it's legal in Canada!) Josh Groban's Christmas CD Noel. It's great!!
4. We went to Mexico to visit relatives for Christmas one year - no snow - it was tragic. (No, not the resort areas of Mexico - 5hrs drive south of Texas - no beach in sight!)
5. We have an artificial tree and will always have an artificial tree, now and forevermore.
6. I'm teaching our oldest 2 girls piano and they are loving playing Christmas songs right now - Emma (6) is learning Jingle Bells and Sophia (4) is learning Away in a Manger.
7. Just like ValleyGirl our entire family got violently ill last Christmas. It started at a family gathering - what great timing! And lasted the whole way home - let's just say we had to stop at the side of the road a few times, and all night long. Oh, let there not be a repeat of that this Christmas!!
8. Favorite Christmas baking, to eat (not necessarily to bake!) - soft white cookies with lots of icing, cinnamon buns and raisin tarts.
9. To help teach our children the real meaning of Christmas we have given more gifts to those who truly need them this year including a larger Family gift for our sponsored child, Jonathan, from Compassion - I can't wait to find out what they used it for!
10. On my side of the family us "kids" take turns deciding what the Christmas meal will be, and what charity we will all sponsor instead of buying each other gifts. This year my brother choose Siloam Mission - an excellent choice!
11. I love to decorate early for Christmas - this year our Christmas tree was up by November 24th! Everything comes down as soon after New Year's as possible though. Once it's over, it's over.
12. I was totally scared the first time I saw The Christmas Story - when Santa pushed the poor kid down the slide with his boot!?! Scarred for life I am.

As far as who else is tagged, hmmmm, how bout my friends at Crosswalk, especially those addicted to the Pregnancy thread. I think Andrea already tagged everyone I know IRL.

Movie Recommendation

In direct contrast to our last movie fiasco, we thoroughly enjoyed Saturday's dinner and a movie! We went to see The Bourne Ultimatum - and, as we expected, it was fantastic!! We went to Pasta La Vista for supper - but I have to say, we weren't overly impressed. We'll stick to Olive Garden for Italian food that's for sure! But we had a fabulous time!

We had a moment where we thought we might not be enjoying our movie so much - as a couple with a baby sat down in our aisle! A baby?! Didn't I get a babysitter to get away from babies? :) Thankfully the baby only cried a few times, and was pretty quiet. Whew!

D and E in the A-Z of Me!

D is for Dinner & a Movie!
Dinner & a movie is pretty much our traditional date night. We love eating and we love movies! We usually go to either The Olive Garden, Tony Roma's or if we really want to splurge we go to The Keg. I love The Keg - hmmmm, the bread! I think I could eat a whole one myself! And of course, at The Olive Garden - it's their breadsticks that do me in! Tony Roma's is all about the ribs of course. I'm not exactly an adventurous restaurant orderer. I always gets the same thing - why mess with a good thing, right?! At the Olive Garden I get the lunch portion of Chicken Alfredo on whole wheat linguine. As though the whole wheat makes up for all that cream! With the pasta fagioli soup and about 3 breadsticks. Tony Roma's it's the Honey Garlic ribs. And at The Keg it's the Teriyaki Sirloin steak. Hmmmmmm, good! For movies - we always use our Airmiles for 2 tickets, one popcorn and 2 drinks - not that I need more food after all that bread! We're planning on seeing The Bourne Ultimatum this weekend - can't wait!


E is for Emma Marion
That was a no-brainer! Our firstborn came into the world on March 30th, 2001 - exactly ON HER DUE DATE! I know - pretty rare! My water broke the day before. And when I say broke, I mean broke. I do not mean trickle. We're talking another global flood. You could SEE the difference in my stomach afterwards! Anyway, we went to the hospital and nothing happened. No contractions, nada, nothing, zip, zilch. So, after waiting and walking, they induced me. And she was born sometime around 1am (I have a horrible memory and I'm not getting up to verify the time!). She was 8lb 1oz and the cutest baby ever (until a few years later when she was joined by Sophia & Olivia of course. It's currently a 3-way tie until January!)

Anyway, Emma is quite the character. Her imagination is incredible (she certainly does not get that from me). When she just turned 2 she was already pretending to take her stuffed animals to our local amusement park, setting up a big production in order to do so. She loves to put on shows for us - ballet, singing, you name it she loves it! And she is an excellent singer too. Her music teacher at school actually told us that she'd never heard a Kindergartener sing as well as she does. I could totally see her auditioning for Canadian Idol if they had one for her age. :) A little performer that one! I think I can take credit for her inheriting a love of music. I've been starting to teach her piano and she's taking to it very well. I've been far to lacsedaisical (sp?!) about that though, so I'm determined to be more regular with her lessons this year.

Movie Review - or rather, movie warning!!

Do not, under any circumstances, go see the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. You'd think the whole idea behind the movie would've clued me in. But the previews actually made it look pretty funny....like they were mocking the whole gay marriage thing. And the first half of the movie WAS like that, and it WAS funny. The second half, on the other hand, was complete gay propaganda. We went with my SIL and BIL - and all four of us were sorry we hadn't walk out.

I HAD read some Christian reviews on the movie. But, knowing that often Christian reviewers can be too conservative at times, I thought surely it couldn't be that bad. I was wrong. It was worse.

Crosswalk's reviewer very accurately states

Under the guise of comedy (and there are some funny lines) Universal Pictures and Director Dennis Dugan are now bringing audiences two hours and twenty minutes’ worth of gay party-line preaching.

Christianity Today gives the movie zero stars, and they don't rate the movie on it's morals, they rate it on it's entertainment value and how well done it was. From their site

Our star ratings are only assessments of the quality of filmmaking, acting, cinematography, screenwriting, etc. A high rating is neither an endorsement nor a gauge of the "moral acceptability" of the subject matter.

But they definitely comment on the moral acceptability factor in the body of their reviews - about this one they state

This so-called comedy doesn't bother trying to hide its ethical and political platforms under anything resembling humor. Thus, this isn't just a film that represents anti-biblical views on marriage and homosexuality; it aggressively forces these views upon us, and paints anyone who disagrees as an ignorant bigot. Devoid not only of truth but of any kind of craft, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is the kind of pure-and-simple propaganda that doesn't lead to any kind of compassion or understanding; it only leads to anger and divisiveness. Of course, the movie's star power—the ads bill it as Sandler's long-awaited return to blockbuster comedy—ensures that it will make big bucks at the office, but responsible Christians would do well to simply pronounce this the most despicable marriage to ever be seen on the big screen.

I couldn't have said it better myself. In this case - the Christian reviews were not too conservative - they were dead on.

Do yourself a favor, save yourself some money and don't waste your time on this movie.