i have a sweet tooth...

and apparently, that carries over to the gender of my babies....
because it's MORE sugar and spice around here! yep, we are having a

girl!

here's a little peek at her sweet little face... she had her hand up by her mouth just a ready to suck that thumb!
 
we are so excited, and we will spend the next few weeks pouring over baby girl names!

december is flying by!

wow! a week till christmas! i thought i should pop in and say hi before the festivities really get going. what am i talking about?! the festivities have been happening all month long... i just haven't had a spare moment to share them. we've enjoyed our usual christmas traditions around here-- the jesse tree, the christmas cookie making... and this year, we've added some new ones. like mommy being sick the first week of december, which has really made it feel like christmas is approaching at a break-neck speed! (and you betcha i'm praying that sickness is not in the running for a christmas tradition!!)

it's been fun to decorate the new house for christmas, and we discovered how much easier it is to trim a tree when it is not in the corner of a tiny living room next to a big ole' couch! we have a beautiful picture window in our dining room that faces the street, so we also bought a little table-top tree and filled it with spazzy-blinking-colored lights. :) that will have to make up for the fact that we have not yet gotten around to putting up lights outside. maybe next year.

i am so excited that we are hosting christmas dinner at our house this year! we'll see just how many people will fit in my dining room! i'm still contemplating (chocolate) dessert ideas (thank you pinterest!), so if you have any suggestions, i am all ears.

thanks to the cedarmont christmas carols dvd (so sweet, by the way), amelia is loving singing christmas carols. she belted out "three wise men" in the car today, getting most of the words right. her face just lights up anytime she can follow along with a song. it brings me such joy to see her enjoying singing!

in addition to the excitement this month regarding advent and the birth of baby Jesus, our family has been eagerly anticipating my sonogram appointment this upcoming monday morning! we will hopefully find out whether this precious baby is a boy or a girl in a couple of days. it's been neat to talk to the kids about our excitement for this baby and to compare/contrast it with mary's anticipation of Jesus' birth. we discussed how we wonder if our baby is going to be a boy or a girl, who he/she will look like, etc... and then we talked about how much more mary must have been in amazement and wonder over the fact that her baby would be the Savior of the world!

and that reminds me... my mom introduced me to a new children's christmas book this year: song of the starsby sally-lloyd jones. (she is the author of the Jesus storybook bible, one of my very very favorite books.) this book is such a precious message of God's creation anticipating the birth of Jesus. it is so poetic and so hard to describe. if you love Jesus, just buy this book. you won't be disappointed. even if you own 25 children's christmas books like i do, buy it. this one is different.

i pray your family is enjoying this Christmas season!