Bridgette's Baby Shower

Me, Bridgette, and Dawn

On Saturday I attended my wonderful friend, Bridgette's baby shower.  She is due on February 10th with her first baby.  She knows she is having a little girl.  Her shower was HUGE!  Her aunt threw her a beautiful shower in Evergreen Park, IL at the VFW hall.  I bet there were 100 people there! 

Bridgette, Dawn, and I met when we went to Australia together.  Along with our friend Jodie, we were nicknamed 'Team America' by one of the scuba instructors at the Great Barrier Reef.  Jodie was under the weather, so we were missing 1/4 of Team America (we missed you Jodie)! 

To Bridgette,

We are all SO excited for the arrival of sweet, Madelyn Rose.  Can't wait to meet her!!!!

Christmas with the Reid Family

 My mom had a matching stocking made for Cory after we got married.  Can you see the tiny stocking in between ours?

This is Baby Cooper's stocking!  My mom will have one made once he/she is born!

 Our friendly and very tame Christmas morning visitor.

Cory was watching the deer, squirrels, and birds at my dad's feeders. 

 Navaeh and Nastadia LOVE Uncle Cory!  He taught them how to play some fun games on the iPhone and the Nook.  They were in heaven!

 Two of our nieces, Nevaeh and Faith.  Navaeh is such a great, big sister!

Faith sure is loved!

Grandpa LOVES his Faithie!

Nastadia likes to use Uncle Cory as a jungle gym :)

Our sweet, little niece, Faith with Uncle Cory!



Saturday, December 24, 2011: 16 Weeks

Not too much has changed since the last picture.  I feel like a whale.  I slightly resemble one as well!  LOL!  Cory tells me I am beautiful.. He is such a good liar!

Anyway, this was a rough couple of weeks with me getting pneumonia and the flu, but now that those are finished, I am finally getting to enjoy the 2nd trimester euphoria. 

In some ways I feel like the baby's arrival is SO far away and in other ways I think, WHOA, the baby will be here in less than 160 days.  So much to do, so little time :)

We have our ultrasound in about 10 days and we can't wait to 'see' our little one!  We will NOT be finding out the sex.  One of life's final surprises :)

Christmas Shenanigans in the Bloch residence

After celebrating Bobby and Cassie's nuptuals, we had great food and a stellar White Elephant Gift Exchange!  It was wonderful to be with family!!!!

 When my mom and her sisters get together... LOOK OUT!  They like to have a few cocktails and 'belly bump'!!  This is my mom with her sister Sharon.

 The other two sisters got jealous they weren't invited to the 'belly bumping' party so here they are...  all 4 of them in all their glory.  By the way.... They insist on doing this at ALL family weddings too.  LOL!!!!!

My cousin Lauren, my mom, and my cousin Mallory.

My cousin Lauren, her fiance Lee, and their dog Bernie (named after Bernie Brewer).  They are the next to get married!  I am honored to stand up in their wedding this summer!!!!

I tried every way to get this picture to be vertical... I guess it wasn't meant to be.  This shirt was one of the white elephant gifts... It is beyond shameful that Zach is wearing it in this family!!!! I promptly stole it from him when it was my turn and gave it to my husband, who was the only Lions fan in the joint!

My cousin Betty got these sweet finger lights in the white elephant.  They were later stolen by my mother.  She thought they would be a cool accessory to wear at Jimmy Buffett concerts! LOL

The final white elephant gift was for my cousin Lauren.  It was a speeding warning that my two aunts received earlier in the day for going 76 in a 45mph zone.  The police officer let them off because it was Christmas!  This is the first we are hearing of the 'pull over'.

As you can see there were many 'treasures' that resulted from the white elephant exchange.  My cousin Zach took a few of the loveliest gifts and made a 'war horse' out of them.  Impressive!

My brother is the only one missing.  He was still traveling from being at Christmas with my dad's side of the family.  Left to right: Betty, Donald, Cassie, Allen, Mallory, Lauren, me, Zach

I love my cousins!

Cassie and Bobby's Wedding Celebration

My grandparents (my mom's parents) built a beautiful log home in Land O' Lakes about 15 years ago.  They built it with the mindset that we would all come there for Christmas.  We made it a tradition that my mom and all of her sisters and their families would travel to extreme northern WI for the holidays....

Then all of the cousins grew up.... went to college...got engaged/married....had kids of their own, grandma and grandpa started going to Florida for the winter, etc.

Well, this year we decided to have a final hurrah!  ALL of the cousins and all of my mom's sisters and husbands were there.  My cousin Cassie traveled from Texas with her new husband.  They never had the opportunity to have a big, family wedding with Bobby's busy schedule in the military, so we decided to do a joint wedding shower/celebration and Christmas extravaganza.  It was such an amazing time for all!

They got some great gifts for their new home in Washington state.  They will move there when Bobby is all finished with his training.

You could tell this was going to end badly...

I told ya..... :)





What a fun time to celebrate a great couple!!





Annual Christmastime Trip to Grand Geneva

The main entrance to Grand Geneva.  The pictures simply don't do it justice!

 There is an arch for each of the 12 days of Christmas at the beginning of the driveway to get into the resort.  Cory was driving a little fast for me to get more of them on the camera! :)

 This is one of their newer displays. Santa is on a motorcycle and he jumps over the pile of gifts.

 The gingerbread man does a flip over his gingerbread house.

 It is difficult to tell from the photo, but this entire display (inside Grand Geneva) was like a giant disco ball.  There were small, sparkly mirrors on the branches, reindeer, ornaments, etc. 

It was beautiful!

Another display inside.  They change the displays every year.  Can't wait to bring our kids here in the future!  They will love it....

Decorating Gingerbread Houses

Cory and I love to do little projects together.  Cory saw a gingerbread house kit at the store and insisted that we buy it.  I LOVED that idea, so of course I went along with it.  After putting the houses together and letting them get solid overnight, we got to the decorating.

Cory's house looked great until.....

 He was carrying it to the counter to dry and he dropped it on the floor.  This is him trying to put it back together....

 His finished gingerbread house...It looks like it was caught in a tornado.  I'm fairly certain that after he dropped it we laughed for about 15 minutes straight.  In fact, I am still laughing now looking at it!

 This one is mine :)

We had so much fun, but ended up only decorating 2 of the 5 houses.  They are a lot of work and very time consuming!  We saved everything for next year though :)