On the 3rd I had a sonogram. If we were going to find out the sex of the baby, this would have been the time to try to do that. Luckily we had made up our minds not to find out, becuase the baby was not cooperating, or actually, I guess it was. It had its legs crossed and curled and there was no budging it.

It was moving a lot though. There was one really neat shot of the whole spine were with the way it was moving, it looked like a dinosaur skeleton. Kinda neat. The lady doing it, I guess you’d call her a technician, not sure, was so helpful. Other times people haven’t really told us much about what we were seeing. She explained everything and took all of Patrick’s curious questions. She even drew an outline around the forehead, nose, and chin on the picture of the face to make sure that we could tell what we were seeing. So far, everything is going well and normal and according to my count down we have 3 months and 19 days left. The doctor does say it should be anywhere from May 8-15.

The fist picture is the baby’s arm. The second is the head and body and the third is the profile of the face.

Ever since we got home Patrick and I have been debating what kind of car to get and doing some comparison shopping. What I really wanted was a Escape hybrid. When we started looking at the prices though, we thought maybe a Civic Hybrid or even a regular Civic, which still gets really amazing gas milege, would be a better choice for our budget.

Our big debate though centered around did we want another sedan, which would be more fuel efficient and economical, or did we want a small suv which would allow us to transport bigger things every once in a while. We really couldn’t make up our minds.

Finally, we realized on the 31st that it would be good to buy on in 2005, so we headed out on a serious mission. It came down to the Civic or the Saturn Vue. We’d stopped by to look at something else at Saturn previously and discovered the view was nice and affordable. We went to test drive the Civic and it was nice, but I knew I couldn’t make up my mind until we test drove the Vue too. So off we went to Saturn, and the next thing I knew I had a new vue.

I really like it. There are a few things I’m not crazy about, but in general it’s very nice! I get leather, xm radio (thank goodness!), on star (at least for a year) and stero controls for a year. I even have a little jack to plug in my ipod and play it, I just have to find the cable I need to do that.

I’m very excited to have my own car again. Sam got to go for a ride to the vet and he seems to approve too!

Christmas was great as usual! And even better than last year because we didn’t have to travel to get home.

Christmas Eve day we spent the day with Patrick’s family eating too much good food and watching football. Ok, I wasn’t really watching the game as much as I was watching in amusement how worked up people were over it. From there we went to Andy’s (Patrick’s best friend and second family) family first in Oklahoma and then to his parents. I got to hold his newphew who was born in October.

Patrick and I had volunteered to host Christmas for my family since I’d had so much fun doing it the year before we moved. My parents had passed their 9 ft christmas tree down to us to put up in our front window, but sadly it didn’t fit. So I put up two trees instead and the house was nice and festive. Everybody worked hard to help me get ready by bringing food and helping heat it and set it up. Patrick cooked ham and deep fried a turkey. He was in charge of the meats!

I got to see my brother and his family who I’d missed in all our running around last year and my sister was in town too. My aunt, uncle and cousins came as well as my parents and grandfather. It was great to have a full house. I love to play Martha Stewart, though ever so slightly less graceful under pressure.

My aunt and uncle got all the women these scarves, so Mom, Rach and I had to model them for the camera. Picture to follow when Patrick reminds me how the heck to get it in there.

It was a great holiday and my favorite time of year. Patrick was off for just over a week, but finally went back to work on Tuesday and gave the dogs and I the house back!

(If you click on the picture you can see a version where our faces don’t look so funny.)