Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.... Einen Guten Rutsch

Knee deep in snow in Chamonix

Yummy hamburger in Chamonix!

Opening her duplo train

So we are a little late wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, but right on time for the Happy New Year :)  This year we did not fly back to America since I was 37 weeks pregnant, so we had our first Christmas as a family, without seeing any extended family. It was nice and relaxed, well relaxed for us. That is one thing we have learned about ourselves this year is that we don't know how to relax very well and we like to be time efficient with our activities. Simply put we are not gemütlich people, but trying to learn just a little bit how to be!

Christmas morning walk

Hiking in Chamonix

John would typically have about two weeks off for the Christmas holiday, but his project at work had some deadlines this year so he worked 3 days of the holiday. Which works out good because of working those extra days he can take a whole week off after the baby arrives, without using vacation!  Since he worked some of the holiday and we didn't want to get too far away from home, being that I was 2.5 weeks away from my due date, we decided to rent a apartment outside of Chamonix, France. This town is an outdoor lovers paradise and is situated at the base of Mt. Blanc. We enjoyed a lovely hike, snowfall, snowshoe hike, shopping, and good food. We would love to go back in the summer for more hiking. It is also a very kid friendly area with daycares available for children on the ski slopes and in the town, so maybe we can take advantage of that next time :)  Plus it was a nice last trip as a family of 3.

As we look forward to the next year, the obvious thing that we are awaiting is the arrival of "Baby Brother" in January. We are excited, nervous, and realize that our fairly simple life is about to get crazy again..... oh the joys of the newborn stage :)

Enjoy the photos!

Snowshoeing yesterday... John and I had the day off while Hannah had fun at daycare.

Hungry for a snack

snow day in Chamonix

We hope you all have a blessed 2015!

Baby boy 34+ weeks

  I had just finished typing a nice long pregnancy update and for some reason it didn't save... Talk about frustrating. So this version will be much shorter. I haven't written an update since 25 weeks. To be honest not much has changed with how I feel: still tired (maybe getting slightly worse), still able to hike, run, swim, ride bike, and still nervous to be adding a second child into our family.... Especially since Hannah seems to be going through a stage... Miss independent we will call it. Her phrase is, "Hannah self." We just pray for guidance as we discipline and teach her and also pray that she wants to be very helpful when baby brother arrives. 

Some things/symptoms that are starting to develop: heartburn, slight difficulty breathing (I think his bottom is in my diaphragm), and the feeling that he can't possibly get any bigger and take up any more space. Nothing too awful, but definitely physically looking forward to the next 40 days going by quickly but not quite ready to experience the craziness of having two kiddos.... I am wondering what his personality will be like since he is much more of a mover and shaker in there than Hannah ever was. 

To wrap things up I finally have a baby bump picture and some throwback photos to my pregnancy with Hannah.

 34 weeks with baby boy

 35 weeks with Hannah 

  At a baby shower at 32 ish weeks

  Baby Hannah at 3 days old, I wonder if baby boy will look like her?

Big girl

I wanted to wait a bit before I posted about Hannahs newest step towards becoming a BIG girl. We started potty training about 3.5 weeks ago! We basically stayed home the first two days and let her run around with no diaper on. She really caught on after the first day as to when she had to go potty...as long as there were no distractions :) After two days we did take short trips out, but since she has a bit of a fear of big people potties we always were close enough to run home. Then after 4 days at home she went to daycare for 10 hours, diaper free (well they put a diaper on for nap time there), they were quite shocked that she showed up diaper free. She has only had 2 accidents at daycare which we think is quite good since the workers A) speak a different language as our home potty training language and B) the workers don't know her bathroom cues quite as good as us and C) she is there 10 hours. Now after 3.5 weeks she has very few accidents and also does pretty well at nap time (up to 3 hours) staying dry.

What she really had difficulty with in the beginning was pooping. For about 2 weeks before starting potty training she actually was holding it in, even with the diaper on. Thankfully, now after several tears she does quite well most days. She still holds it in occasionally, but it is much much better! That makes mommy and daddy also much happier.

She has even conquered going potty in the woods while we are out hiking! She is ready for backpacking!

I will leave you with one pregnancy photo that was taken on one of our hikes this weekend. I have my 34 week appointment this week, after that appointment I will post another baby update and pictures from this pregnancy as compared to with Hannah.