So long 2009...

Dear 2009,

I do not like you and I am not sad to see you go. You have brought us much pain, sorrow and way too many tears to even count. I am so glad that we only have to endure you for 1 more hour. Overall, you have not been kind to us or the rest of my family. I wish you good riddance!

To all our family, friends and blog friends...Happy New Year! We wish you all many blessings and happiness in the New Year! We couldn't have made it through this past year without you. :-)

Lots of love to all of you!

Whew...what a week!

We had an AWESOME time with my family this past week! I was so sad to see them all go. My little 4 year-old niece kept telling us that she didn't want to go with this sad little face. :-( Broke my heart. She is at such a fun age. Chris and I had so much fun with her. Christmas is definitely more fun and a lot sweeter with little ones around. We just hope and pray that it's even sweeter next year! :-)

On Tuesday night, Nana (my mom) agreed to babysit so that me, Chris my sister and brother-in-law could go see Avat.ar in 3D at the IMAX theater. It was soooo good!! We had a great time hanging out just the four of us...something we don't get to do very much. The next morning we made gingerbread cookies with my niece. She was covered in flour by the end but we all had so much fun! We decorated the cookies that afternoon and I think my niece ate her weight in cookies. She is sneaky when it comes to sweets! :-) My kinda girl! That evening we went to eat at one of our favorite restaurants...Pappa.sitos! It was so good! It is a must whenever my sister and brother-in-law are here visiting.

Christmas Eve was busy but full of fun and we definitely made lots of fun memories. My sister, mom and I all came together in the kitchen for the first half of the day to cook for the Christmas Eve dinner at our house that night. I had so much fun cooking with my mom and sister! We got all dressed up that evening and headed out to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. It was amazing! They even had fake snow falling from the ceiling during one of the songs! My niece thought that was pretty cool! Berkeley came down to sit with me and Chris during part of the service and I got to hold her while we sang some Christmas carols. It was such a sweet time with her as she laid her head on my shoulder and hugged me. I absolutely LOVE that little girl!

After the service was over, we headed home to finish getting everything ready for dinner. Thankfully, Chris' family was able to come over while we were still at church and they helped to warm up the food. This was the first time that Chris and I had hosted a nice, sit-down dinner at our house and we were so excited to have dinner with both of our families for Christmas. We worked really hard on decorating our table and it looked pretty spectacular if I do say so myself. :-) Dinner was great and we finished by singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blowing out the candles on the "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake that we made with my niece that morning.

Before Berkeley went to bed that night, she left milk and cookies for Santa by the fireplace. The next morning she woke up and was so excited to open all her presents. Chris and I had so much fun shopping for everyone!

We had such a great week and now that Christmas is over I am really looking forward to starting a new year. I hope and pray that 2010 brings many sweet blessings our way!

Here are a few pictures from this past week with the family:

Total slacker...but I have a good excuse

I've been a total slacker the last several days, but I will try very hard this weekend to catch up on all my commenting for ICLW! My family is in town for Christmas and I am just trying to soak up every minute that I can! We've had a great time so far. My niece is 4 years old and we have had lots of fun playing games and making Gingerbread cookies! I will post some pics soon.

We have a long day tomorrow, so I'm going to keep this post very short and sweet. :-) I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and I hope that 2010 is a great year for all of us!

The Reason for the Season

The holiday season has definitely been different this year. Infertility sure does have a way of putting a damper on things, but so far we haven't let it steal our Christmas joy. I know that we're going through this journey for a reason and hopefully one day soon we'll be able to say that it was all worth it. One positive thing out of all of this is that this situation has really strengthened my faith and brough me even closer to God. I've always felt like I had a good relationship with God, but infertility has brought things to a whole different level. Chris and I have both had to learn to give up the control and to just have faith and walk this path that God has set out before us. It's a lessen that we're still learning everyday.

I've been thinking a lot over the last several weeks about the birth of Jesus and the incredible gift that He gave to all of us. This has really helped me to keep the Christmas joy this year. Putting up our decorations and shopping for Christmas presents is a lot of fun, but I've still struggled throughout those activities this year. I can't help but think how much more fun those things would be if we had a little one to share them with. One thing that infertility cannot hinder, though, is the excitement I feel over celebrating His birth! My family will be here this year and my sister wanted to carry on a tradition that they started with my niece. We will be having a Happy Birthday Jesus cake! How cute is that!?

I want to say congratulations to my bloggy friends who have recently found out that they are pregnant! I also want those of you who have recently experienced losses to know that I am thinking about you and praying for you. I can't even begin to imagine the hurt that you are feeling right now. For all of you that are still waiting for your miracles, I hope that we are all celebrating Christmas with precious little bundles next year!

Blog Slacker

I'm sorry, I have been such a blog slacker over the last week. There really hasn't been anything exciting going on and then the last couple of days I have kind of been in a funk. I'm still trying to focus on enjoying the holidays right now and I am starting to look forward to our embryo transfer in January. Our Christmas decorations will hopefully be complete by this weekend and then I'll be able to post some pics.

Oh wait, there is something exciting that happened recently...it SNOWED in Houston last Friday! Now, I know that there are several of you who live in states where this would not be considered exciting, but I live in Texas and it hardly EVER snows in the southern parts of Texas. It looked just like a winter wonderland on Friday. My bosses let us go before lunchtime on Friday, but unfortunately Chris was not able to leave until that afternoon. :-( The good thing, though, is that Chris works right beside the Galleria shopping mall so I just went there and did some Christmas shopping for a few hours while I waited on Chris. Getting off work early, SNOW, and shopping...what more could a girl want?! I must say, it was pretty fun getting to watch the snow fall outside and see all the pretty Christmas lights and decorations while I was shopping.

Thank you to all of you who prayed for my migraines to stay away. I am happy to report that I was migraine-free all weekend long!! Thanks again for all the prayers, sweet comments and support! I hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas season!

I LOVE this time of year!

I am so glad that it's December. I absolutely LOVE this time of year and I'm determined to enjoy the holidays this year and not let this battle with infertility put a damper on things. I keep reminding myself that Chris and I don't need a baby to be happy and we don't need a baby to be able to enjoy the holidays. Now would having a baby make life more enjoyable and the holidays better...ABSOLUTELY. I just don't want to miss out on enjoying life with Chris and making sweet memories during the holidays. It is definitely hard to see other people out and about with their little ones and to hear parents talk about buying presents for their kids and decorating the tree with them, but I refuse to let infertility steal all my joy.

We still need to finish decorating the inside of the house. Hopefully we can get that all finished this weekend. My killer weekend migraines just need to stay away, though. The last two weekends in a row I have woken up on Saturday morning will a killer migraine that has hung on until Sunday evening. I sure hope this weekend breaks the cycle. I am so useless when I get a migraine. Hopefully I will be able to post some pics soon of our Christmas decorations.

I will leave you with an adorable picture of my four-year old niece, Berkeley. I am so excited that we get to see her and the rest of my family for Christmas this year!