I guess just a few random thoughts here tonight. Things have slowed down enough for me to blog twice in one week! Ha!

So Christmas was nice and busy, and I was so looking forward to New Year's. We planned a weekend away while leaving the kiddos with family. Ha, I say planned in the loosest sense. In my lofty head, it meant anything from impulsively flying to the farthest, strangest, newest city anywhere, to eventually settling for just staying home without the kids. Well, turned out to be neither. Dominic had a stuffy nose for a couple days, and crazy me wasn't on the offense to obliterate it. It turned into a barking cough at night, and landed us with a sick kid by new year's eve. Oooo, was I ever bummed. Sadly, it began there, and just kept me down new year's eve, and most of new year's day. I had such an array of sad feelings over everything (pregnancy hormones again?). I feel like I could write volumes of all those feelings. But that's all I'll say about that.

Saturday went better, and we all went out and ran errands in the truck (kids love a joy-ride in the truck). I was so happy that we came home and had an easy meal, instead of eating out. Then Dan, for some reason, was playing around with some of his oldies songs on i-tunes. Before we knew it, the kids were in their jammies, and we were having the best dance party in our little living room! So fun! The kids were just jumping up and down to the music. Sam was the cutest when he tries to jump. Dan took turns holding Sam and dancing with the kids, and I took turns dancing with the kids, then sitting down when contractions would start! It was a great way to end the night.

Rose and I went to Old St. Mary's for Mass this morning. It was funny because we didn't have to leave too much earlier than normal, but just had to drive an hour. I guess I was clinging to that one last thing. Somewhere in the "childless" weekend plan was to go to OSM. We didn't get to go for Christmas. I wanted my music fix. Things changed. It didn't happen. I kinda hoped against hope Dan would just somehow produce a babysitter out of thin air and at least we could go out for a couple hours. Telling him this would've been helpful, rather than candidly hinting. So by Sat. night I was losing hope fast, and figured I'd at least go myself to OSM and do one thing I wanted to this weekend. Don't get me wrong...Dan would've gone, and wanted (I think!) to go, so it wasn't like going alone was a crucial part of this plan. Instead, Dan realized he made a commitment to help out with something after Mass at OLR, and he felt obligated to do it.

Funny how hard it was to leave this morning. I mean, I don't think Dan was in agony over me not going to Mass with him. I was seriously debating just going to Mass with him same as always. We kinda have this unwritten rule that we just do that. I really like that. Very seldom do we split up to go to Mass. Very seldom do we do it voluntarily. And here I was doing just that. I felt almost guilty. Like that feeling I get when I go out to do something I want to- finally a night away- only to see all the kids laughing and having a great time with Dad as I leave. But, but, maybe I don't have to go. I want to stay and share in that happiness. Well that was what it was like this morning. But I went anyway. I know myself. I feel that tugging when I leave, but when I'm gone, things are fine and I am happy to get away for a bit. I know that if I felt this strongly about going to OSM, it's probably not going to go away any time soon, and it's good I take this little trip before the baby comes.

So we went. Rose was great, and Mass was...cold. Yes, it was a frigid 4 degrees this am, but the church was cold inside too. That was Rose's assessment. I, on the other hand, am just slightly less picky. I'll admit it wasn't this great 'Ah-ha' experience I kinda thought it might be. Only because Dan wasn't there. I know. I'm so goofy. The Mass was lovely, and the music beautiful, and the church astounding. I was very glad I had come. It had been a long time since I had been to a Sunday Mass (as opposed to Christmas Mass), so there was a little less grandeur. So anyway, I was glad I went, got out with my Rose one on one, and returned home to two, well, three boys that I couldn't have been happier to see. Had a much better frame of mind and a really great rest of the day.

I feel like in some ways Christmas this year was something we just kinda did to check off the list, and now that it's over am looking on toward other things. I have no doubt it has to do with having a baby next month (yeah! that close!). I felt like we were doing a lot of things during advent to prepare, yet when Christmas came, it turned into presents and family, and parties, and fun outings, and more family, and lots of sleeping in. I feel like I didn't do a very good job carrying over spiritually from advent to Christmas...through Christmas time. Something I'll have to work on for next year.