Shedd Baby #2

The other week we went to our 20-week anatomy scan ultrasound of our baby Shedd #2.  With Gwendolyn, we didn't find out the gender because we never did the 20-week ultrasound. 

 

This time, we decided to go ahead and find out, though I've been certain for awhile now that it's a girl, and Dan has been adamant that it's a boy. 

 

 

 

And guess who was right????

 

 

Yours truly.  😁😁😁😁

Gwendolyn is ready for her little sister to come in just four months!

 



A Very Happy New Year 2019

I hope you all enjoyed ringing in this New Year, 2019!  I know I did. 

I was so happy for us to be able to make a quick trip down to Pennsylvania for to spend New Years Day with my family.  See, New Years Day was always the day when my family would celebrate "Christmas", so it is still very special to me. 

 

We drove down on Sunday night late.  I was glad to be able to visit with my grandparents on Monday.  We went to their house, where Grandma prepared an absolute feast for us.  It was nice to be able to spend some time with them.  We made sure to get some photos of them holding Gwendolyn as well.

 

 

 

 

The next day, New Years Day, we all went over to Katie and Ryan's house for a delicious meal and terrific time spent with family. 

 

I took so many random photos, so please forgive the very long post. 

 

Martha with Felicity.

 

Gwen with her cousin Lillian

 

We were able to snap this photo of four cousins together!

 

Lydia and Charlotte

 

Katie always prepares stockings for each of the nieces and nephews over the age of One.  This year there were 12!  SO hard to believe. 

 

Anyway, it's fun to watch them take all the little stocking stuffers out and look at it all. 

 

And then the adults did our gift exchange.  This year the guidelines were to bring either a book or a movie.  It made it nice, because you knew in advance you'd get one or the other. 

 

This is Sarah opening hers.

 

And Billy

 

This present was a jackpot for sure.  Someone gave a whole box full of complete seasons of Little House On The Prairie Dvd's. 

 

Daddy, showing me his dvd.

 

My parents

 

Dan and Mark, conversing.

 

My mother opened 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'

 

Gwennie and I

 

After we finished our exchange, my mother opened the present that was from all of us.  Lydia did all the work to put together a photo book with photos from all of us throughout this past year.  It was a really nice gift and I know my parents really liked it. 

 

Tammy and I, the two pregnant family members.  😊

 

This is our annual New Years family photo using the self-timer on the camera.  It'll be only a few years before it'll be hard to fit everyone in the photo!

 

The next morning, we ate breakfast with my parents and then were just getting up to get ready to head back to NY when a mouse scurried across the floor.  My dad then trapped it behind a wood box and was determined to get it when it eventually came out.  I couldn't stop laughing, and made sure to snap this photo of my dad, armed and ready to tackle the mouse when it showed itself (which it never did). 

 

We said our goodbyes and then headed home to New York state. 

 

I treasure every moment I'm able to spend with my family.  It probably won't be for awhile that I'll see them again, so we try to make a few trips each year. 

 

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year!  As you can probably tell, I'm a little bit behind on my posting these days.  It seems every time I sit down to write a post, Gwendolyn has some catastrophe.  Keep your eyes peeled for a post soon though about our Shedd baby #2!

 

 

Christmas Time Is Here...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends!  Christmas this year was very relaxed and laid-back for us.  On Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church.  We decided to do a small reenactment of the first Christmas and dress up as Mary and Joseph.  That was nice.  I even managed to sew myself a sort of a rough costume. 

I made cookies all morning and we had a nice time of fellowship after the service in the late evening. 

 

 

 

On Christmas Day, we woke up to a little bit of snow!  It was perfect weather; crisp and chilly and just enough snow to look pretty.  After having family devotions, Dan made a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, and French toast for us while Gwendolyn drank her morning bottle of milk.  After cleaning the breakfast dishes away, we read the Christmas account in Luke 2, and then Gwen opened her present.   

 

Actually, a family in the church gave her this present.  She loved chewing on the wrapping paper.

 

This bear makes all kinds of noises and sings songs.  She likes it a lot, but we mostly keep it on the silent mode. 

 

Then Dan and I took turns opening our presents to each other. 

 

Dan is the hardest person to get presents for.  I mostly got him work things; goggles, gloves, some ammo, soap.  Very simple things.  We happened to be walking thru an antique store the other day and he saw some book-ends that were a yellow taxi cab that he really liked.  So I went back to the store later and got them for him.  He was really surprised. 

 

 

 

Dan surprised me with two new Christmas houses for my house collection.  One is a church and the other is a firehouse.  He also got me the little pewter people too. 

 

I loved the gifts he picked out for me. 

 

Once we finished cleaning up the wrapping paper and putting away our new gifts, we took some Christmas Day photos outside. 

 

 

 

After we ate a little lunch, Dan was really wanting to go to the house in town and build me a stable for our nativity scene.  I've been wanting to make myself one since we first decorated for Christmas, but Dan knew that if I made it, it wouldn't look much like a stable probably.  😀😀😀

So we went together to the house.  I lit a fire in the furnace downstairs while Dan started in on the stable-building. 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwendolyn was so content the whole time, as long as she could be in the same room with us. 

 

The finished product.

 

I like how it turned out. 

 

Then, due to my insisting, we played monopoly.  Dan won, like he usually does.  Dan found a way to hold Gwen without her being able to grab the monopoly board and pull it off the table. 

 

Oh, and I think I forgot to make a post about this, but Gwendolyn is going to be a big sister in May! She was very excited when we told her.

 

 

It was a wonderful Christmas.  Right before bedtime, Gwendolyn spent some down time with me, just thinking about what a great day we'd had. 

 

 

This was the first Christmas we've spent with just us-our little family.  It was very nice.  We enjoyed creating memories together and deciding what our family traditions will be like. 

Hope all of you had an equally wonderful time with your families.

Happy New Year!