Christmas and all that

Christmas was dandy. We started shopping Thursday night. We're good people. It really didn't feel like Christmas this year. With moving, getting sort-of settled at my mom's, finals, and cold, cold weather...it just made it difficult to get into all of it. Anyhoo, I'm sort of glad it's over so we can focus on house finding to some degree. Having said that, Anders was thrilled on Christmas and enjoyed it immensely, so at least one member of our family had the Christmas spirit. The above picture just might be my favorite of Anders EVER. He was checking out his other presents, but humoring dad by giving a nice fake smile. I love it.

Sickness wise, I'm starting to feel better. I still have a bit of nausea at night, but as long as I have a mint or mint gum I'm okay. My appetite has returned, which I'm very grateful for. I'm still not crazy about sweets and baked goods, but I suppose that's a blessing in the long run.

Nils' family came up Wednesday night and is staying until Saturday. They're staying with Grove and Andi in Eagle Mountain, so we went to their house last night to see everyone and to do the Rasmusson Christmas exchange. We haven't seen everyone since July, so it was a lot of fun. We left at 12:15 a.m. I don't think Anders and Addie have ever been up that late. Everyone was so tired, needless to say. It's almost 10:00 and they are still sleeping. That's nuts.

I just want to give a shout out to our fellow bloggers Dave and Holly- you two are probably two of three people that have read this thing, so thanks and welcome! By the way, yours is fabulous.

Regression

We moved out of our townhouse on Saturday. We close on it this Friday, but Nils has finals this week and wanted to move before all that. Where did we move, you ask? My mom's basement, thank you very much. We haven't had time to look for a house. We've been out a couple of times, but I've been so sick that I can't handle the process. I now associate house hunting with vomiting, and it's just not good. We're hoping that we can start looking for real next week after finals are over and our house is closed on, etc.

I went to the doctor for my first prenatal visit last week. The first thing he did that gave me joy was prescribe me anti-nausea medicine. I'm going to fill it tonight. I haven't had time with packing, moving and all that crap. I'm excited to see if it works. Since I've had pregnancy induced hypertension in the past, and my last baby weighed 4 lbs. 10 oz., I've been instructed to gain no more than 15 pounds, to exercise as much as possible, and not eat salt. Believe it or not, I was really glad to get those guidelines. The doctor was optimistic about the outcome of this pregnancy, so that made me optimistic as well. I've been a little nervous given Addie's traumatic birth and first few weeks of life. Hopefully all will go well with this one.

Anders and Addie are loving living at Grandma's house. Anders got into bed with me this morning and said, "Mommy, I like living at Grandma's house", and this afternoon he said, "Grandma's house is so nice!" Addie woke up this morning and first thing went upstairs looking for grandma. They're funny little whipper-snappers.

Katrina is faking it. She's not even pregnant.

Whoa- everything's different. I'm a bit surprised that Katrina changed the look of the blog. Go Katrina! Right now Anders is hugging me for the third time in the last two minutes.... fourth now. He's not letting go. Aaaah, my Anders. He's really happy because I told him that we could stay up and have a 'Special Night' tonight. That means that he doesn't have to go to bed at 8- instead, he and I get to hang out and stay up late. Last time we watched Cars together. This time we're gonna play a racing game (Burnout Revenge- mostly for Dad) and then we'll watch a fun movie of sorts. You know, like Saw 2 or something. Or The Ring... or Elmo.
So I've been busy. Katrina's last posts are funny. You can tell how much she's enjoying the pregnancy. I do what I can to clean up, keep the kids amused, help cook and most importantly: attend to Katrina's every last need. That mostly involves little trips downstairs or upstairs or to the store for water, medicine, salt & vinegar potato chips, cereal, a blanket or whatever else she stands (or lies) in need of. Sometimes I'm a grump about it but I really don't mind. I'm just glad men don't have to have babies. I think I would pass away. Thanks for having our babies, Katrina. I sure love 'em. Speaking of which, our little one is now 3 inches long. I'm excited. He's got a massive head and looks a bit tadpole-ish, but he's cute. Or so our Baby Center e-mails tell us.
Work is going really well. I've been really busy the last few days because my bosses have tons of crap that they're eBaying off. I mean- I'm eBaying off. I think I've got 24 items up right now, which should bring in about six thousand dollars. Mostly giant gumball machines. The make 'em. Not my bosses, but the people at the company. I've been working a lot on our new company website. Talk about a portfolio booster- check this out. Here's the current website and here's a preview of the new version. It doesn't work in Firefox because the server technology is old but that was supposed to get update today by our host. Sorry. Anyway, I really like doing web design and everyone is really glad that I'm there. They need a lot of help when it comes to design and web presence and anything aesthetic. I'm not the best but I'm alright- a lot better than what they've had in the past. I also get to work on a Mac Pro with dual 2.66ghz DuoCore Intel Processors, which is hooked up to my 30" cinema display. Oh, it's tough.
By the way, if anyone is reading this, check out my company's other site- it's for the gaming simulators that they make. This one looks ten times better but I'm gonna redo it and make it ten times better again. But the product is so cool. I'm gonna have to get one for a Christmas Bonus- or something. They're giving me a $5,000 bonus when we buy our new house but I don't think I'll be able to talk Katrina into letting me use that to buy a game simulator. Oh well. I'll have to play at work instead. Well, Anders and I have some racing to do now. Not on a $5,000 simulator, but on my sweet 27" TV, and my six and a half year old couch. Until next time.