Farley Family Christmas, 2011

This year Christmas with the Farley's was different than normal - We ended up celebrating Christmas during the weekend of the 16th - 18th...and in Iowa City at Mike and Lianne's house.  Tradition is always so nice and comfortable, but change always brings about new and exciting moments, so it was neat to have a different Christmas experience!  Mike and Lianne's house is big and beautiful, and easily housed the whole family for the weekend.  No surprise - Lianne is a WONDERFUL hostess, and we stayed in comfort and ate like royalty. :)

All the stockings fit on this mantle too!

Pretty decorations...

The "before" picture of the living room/tree.

WHOA presents.

Pretty ladies in the kitchen!

Rachel's scrumptuous cinnamon rolls

All the Farley girls!

Our totally serious Christmas pose.

And again...

Okay, here's a for real one.

Chris is still surprised by my belly sometimes!

Adorable Santa Ben!

And, winter Ben...

Yes, Brian did get a present from Victoria's Secret.  :)  Don't worry, it was cologne.

Chris with all his geek gear! 

Rach and Ben checking out his new workshop!

And....the "after" picture.  Oh my!

Some pictures of the sweet food from the weekend!

Amy's awesome desserts!

The pretty table - it took us WAY too long to re-discover how to cut snowflakes!

The boys hanging in the basement, playing with the new flight simulators.

Yep, they're all boy.

Seriously scary Santa - Rachel and Santa have a love/hate (mostly hate!) relationship - and this MAY have been Santa's last Christmas with the Farley family!

Christmas dinner - YUMMY!

God bless us, every one!

 

SUCH a great weekend with people we love.  Thanks Farleys!

Reveal/Christmas Date!

 We had a really hard time deciding if we wanted to find out the gender of our baby.  We had people tell us they loved not knowing and loved knowing, but eventually it came down to us feeling like we really wanted to know...that it would make it feel more real.  However, I REALLY didn't want to find out if it was a boy or a girl with goop on my belly in a dark room with the ultrasound technician sitting right next to us.

A little blurry, but I'm happy and excited to see this little stinker!

Here are some of our favorite pictures of our ultrasound - YAY for healthy, beautiful baby!

I love the little face!!!

 Look at those ribs!

We decided to have the ultrasound technician write the gender on a piece of paper, stick it in an envelope, and then go on a special gender reveal/Christmas date.  It ended up being really special - and I even got a new preggers dress for the occasion. :)

Pre-date picture...we were both so excited!

We'd never eaten at Aunt Maude's before...it was SO GOOD!

Close-up :)

Didn't Chris do an awesome job wrapping?!  I was so impressed!

This is what I saw when I opened the box - see "funny story" at the end to explain!

He got me these boots - I was pumped!

Chris posing with his present - I forgot to get a picture of the opened product, but it was a pair of "hearty" dress shoes.

Yummy appetizer!

"Oh my gosh....what will it say?!"

"I don't know, should we open it?!"

It's a BOY!!!

Daddy's so happy!

Mama's pretty pumped!

After supper we went and got some baby outfits. :)  It was so fun!

It fits!

Had to get the classic preggers picture.

Chris didn't want to be left out, so he tried to find a spot for the outfit to fit too..

Pretty pose!

The night was so special.  I love that we decided to do a special date to find out what it was, and also loved that we had a few days where Chris and I were the only ones that knew the gender.  We are SO excited about our new addition, and I'm really glad that we decided to find out what this first one is...it definitely feels much more real! 

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*Funny Story: We went down to Kansas City about 2 months ago with some family friends.  I had saved up some money to buy boots, and ended up getting two pair at the outlet malls down there.  Since everything didn't fit into my bag on the way back I decided to throw some stuff in a shopping bag to take it home - however, as the girls were bringing things up to the car to get packed, they mistook my shopping bag for garbage and accidentally threw it away.  When we called the next morning, the garbage had already been taken away.  :(  The bag included all my make-up, one of my new pairs of boots, my black teacher shoes, and my nice slippers.  It was pretty disheartening, but I definitely learned a great lesson about holding "stuff" with an open hand!  Chris decided to replace the lost boots for a Christmas present (which is also why he filled the box with garbage!) and I was very excited. :)

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All that to say, we're having a BOY, and couldn't be more excited!  

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

Informance = Change!

After last year's craziness I decided to try for a change - and it somehow worked!  Last year each grade K-6 had two on-stage performances.  For those of you that have never planned a performance with 100 kindergarteners that may not seem like very much...but believe me, it was a little ridiculous!  The hardest part was the extreme amount of time it takes to prepare the kids to do well at each performance...it took about 2 months out of curriculum teaching to prepare for each concert.  4 months GONE out of the 9 that we have to be learning about music!  In addition, I have about 30 minutes total of prep time each day...and to plan 16 interested and educational performances in that time WHILE also planning for daily activities AND keeping my room organized and myself sane was a challenge to the say the least.  Time for a change, people!

The hardest part was that I wasn't really sure what I wanted the year to look like, so last spring I made a proposal to change from two yearly "performances" to one "performance" and one "informance".  An "informance" is basically an in-class time when parents get to see what their kids can do, and the kids get to show off their abundant skills (in a comfortable, safe, and familiar environment).  My principal said "go for it", the superintendent eventually said yes, the board said yes, and I found myself slowly figuring out what this year could look like!  I love change...

And it ROCKED!  I was pretty nervous the first night, as the elementary music program has been the same for the last 35 years, and Story City isn't exactly a community to embrace a 'rocking of the boat', but it went great, was very well received, and the year has been SO much smoother.  I feel like the kids are internalizing concepts and learning so much more...AND they got to show off what they can actually do, instead of just a few cutesy songs they learned for one performance!

Here are some highlights. :)

A few of the cuties up close :)

Playing "Christmas is Coming"

And they're ALL on the steady beat!

I love my job...

What's music without some xylophone ostinati?!

Beautiful!

Halloween = Ridiculousness

Totally ridiculous.

We got invited to a costume party over Halloween, and in true Farley fashion, waited until the day-of to figure out what we were going to wear.  One of our friends had said in passing that we should dress up as “trailer trash” (I hate that term, I’m so sorry!), and we eventually thought it would be pretty funny.  While I resist the stereo-type and know it’s totally ridiculous, it was fun to pick up all the ridiculous extremes and put them into one outfit.  For this reason, our ensemble included 1) a beer bottle held by a very pregnant me (not actually that big, and not actually any alcohol!), 2) wearing curlers and a wife beater, 3) my shirt saying “are you my baby dady?” with an arrow to my “belly”, 4) Chris sporting a fu-man-chu, and 5) Chris’ shirt pointing to his biceps inviting everyone to the “gun show”.  

I know - it's really scary.

All the guys!

I swear, we're still the same people!

Like I said…totally ridiculous!

Book #24: "Unbroken"

This book tells the story of Louis Zamporini, an Italian American that served in WW2.  He was first known for his unbelievable talent in running.  He was an Olympic runner, and if he hadn’t gone off to war, many believe he would have been the first to break the 4:00 mile.  However, he did go off to war, and eventually his plane went down in the Pacific Ocean.  This story tells of his survival through 40-some days on a raft in the ocean, Japanese POW camps, unbelievably awful situations, and eventually how he learned to cope with his past and live his life well.

I absolutely loved this book!  I really enjoy historic novels, but especially love historical non-fiction.  The neat thing about this book is that it read like a novel while giving tons of historical information and telling a personal story at the same time.  I totally recommend reading this, it was awesome!

And with that.....(drumroll please)....I've REACHED MY BOOK GOAL for the year!  I'm totally pumped, especially since I didn't reach this goal last year. :)  Yippee!

Park to Park 10K - Only a Few Months Late!

I never posted about this race, but it was so fun!  Originally it was supposed to be a stepping stone in my marathon training – BUT, we ended up finding out about our pregnancy about 3 weeks before this race, so it ended up being just a fun race.  (I thought about continuing on to at least run a half marathon, but ended up just running “gently” after we found out that we were expecting!)  It was especially fun because it ended up being a family event!  My brother-in-law Matt and I ran the 10K, and Amy and my mom ran the 5K.  Good times had by all!

I feel a little sad that I won’t get to cross off the “marathon goal” this year, but the trade-off is definitely worth it!

Matt and I before the race

Getting all set up!

Crossing the finish line...

Amy before the race - pretty happy girl!

The two runner girls!

Crossing the finish line!

YAY for family races!  Excited for the next one! :)

The Belly: WHOA

I don't think I'll be someone that reports often on the "belly progress"...I'll probably keep taking pictures, and maybe do one big post at the end.  However, I've only taken two shots so far, and when I compared them tonight (after taking the second one) felt SHOCKED at the difference.  When it happens gradually you're just not so aware - I mean yes, it feels very annoying that I only fit into one pair of my dress pants right now, and even those are so tight that I'm sporting some serious muffin-top action...but in general, I don't notice that I'm getting that much bigger.  Seeing the difference between the pictures though, it kind of hit home...there's a baby growing in there!

THEN #1: Around 7-8 weeks.

THEN #2: The funny thing is, I thought I was showing at this point.  Oh, little did I know!

NOW #1: 18 Weeks, 3 Days

NOW #2: And there ya go!  Oh my...

I'm going to be doing some serious maternity shopping this weekend, since I'm starting to feel depressed every time I walk into my closet. :)  "Hmm...look at all these clothes that I can't wear!"  Other than the clothes issue though, I feel GREAT, and am excited to actually be feeling pregnant!  I'm not feeling tired anymore, haven't had any sickness since week 9, and am figuring out a consistent work-out routine that fits this stage of life. 

I've been feeling the baby move for about 2 weeks now!  Chris has even gotten to feel it multiple times, which makes it SO much fun.  We're still trying to decide if we're going to find out the gender...but if we do, we've decided to have them put it in an envelope and then go on a special Christmas/"find out what we're having" date.  I think either way will be great!

And with that, I'm off to bed.  Sweet dreams! 

Neff Thanksgiving

We were lucky to be able to fit in two Thanksgivings this year!  The actual Thursday Thanksgiving day was spent with Chris' side of the family, and as always, it was wonderful. :)  The Neffs were once again our lovely hosts, and we had a great time catching up with family!

Neffs are always such gracious hosts...what a beautiful table!

Ben chowing down on the great Thanksgiving food!

Good food and great family.

Not really sure how this picture came about...hmm...

And this is so typical of the Farley boys and Jason.  Oh my.

Good looking guys!

We love hanging with the Farley Family!