My parents decided that they were going to get new furniture for their living room, so I decided to take this table and refinish it.

I used my new Bosch random orbit sander that my dad AND MOM (thanks mom for setting me straight!) bought for my birthday to strip it down.  What a great sander!  I also used a Skil Octo to do the detail sanding.

I then put a wood conditioner on the table, stained it, and put 4 coats of poly on it.

To modernize it a bit, I put on some new handles.  It now sits in the entry way.  Next time you visit, you can take a look.

Christmas Eve night we stayed at Phil and Sue's house.  We slept in the basement right by the tree but Santa must have been very quiet because we didn't wake up to him delivering the gifts. :)  Christmas morning we ate breakfast and then opened gifts with Phil, Sue, and Jeff.

After that we decided that it was time to make the guacamole.  We were having a Mexican theme dinner with Phil's side of the family and Mark makes a delicious homemade guacamole.  Since we got Jeff a knife set for Christmas he wanted to try them out so this was the perfect thing to try. 

Everyone arrived sometime after 11 and shortly after they arrived we had appetizers and then did the gift exchange.  There was not a lot of "stealing" gifts this year so it was pretty tame.  Awhile later it was time to try the Mexican food.  We had the choice of hard or soft shell tacos, nachos, quesadillas, or taco soup along with all of the fixings.  It turned out fantastic and I think it was a big hit.

Here are all of the pictures.

This year for Christmas Eve we celebrated at Karen and Julie's house.  We were lucky and the weather was cooperative with the roads being fairly clear.  When we got there we were able to munch on many appetizers and chat with everyone.  After a little while we ate some delicious ham, lasagna, and polish sausage along with side dishes.

After the men were nice enough to clean all of the dishes, we opened the gifts.  I think everyone really liked what they received.  Thanks everyone!!

Here are all of the pictures.

We had another snow storm, with a few more in the forecast for the next week.  I ended up staying home today as did Mark, except Mark already had the day off.  It took him an hour and a half to get the driveway cleared!  The snow is high enough to almost hide the snow blower from me while I'm standing in the garage.

In these two pictures you can see how high our drifts were.  Mark had trouble getting the snow blower to actually blow the snow since it was higher than the blades.  Then of course, when he was about done, the plow went by again so he had to do the end of the driveway for a second time.

Mark didn't know I was taking this, but I guess I had good timing...the shovel is on the concrete so you can see how high the snow drift really is.  The picture on the right shows how hidden our mail box is, soon the mail lady won't be able to deliver our mail!

Here are all of the pictures I took today.

We had our next appointment today.  We were able to hear the heartbeat again and this time it was right around 155 bpm.  The doctor also told us that some of the sounds we were hearing was the baby moving.  She said that at any time I might start to feel the baby move and that Mark probably won't feel it move for another 8 weeks or so. 

I have gained about 6 pounds so far.  I was given my flu shot and they took blood to test for a few birth defects such as down syndrome.  We will be scheduling our ultrasound for about 3 weeks so right after the new year.  We will then be able to see the baby and hopefully the baby cooperates and we can find out the gender. 

My last thyroid test results came back normal so all is well with that at this point.  I have to go the last week of the year to get blood drawn again for another test.  I am pretty sure that if the results come back normal again then I am in the clear for the thyroid problem.  My guess is that they will still want to test it after the baby is born just to find out what my normal levels are.

Last night we had my coworker, Dawn, and her husband and daughter over for an ornament party.  We were originally supposed to also have two other couples over, but unfortunately someone in each family became sick.  Oh well, maybe they can join us next time. 

We painted wooden ornaments and played Nintendo Wii and of course ate some dinner.  We had taco soup for dinner and Dawn and Dan brought brownies for dessert.  You can see Samantha painting her ornament and Dan bowling on the Nintendo Wii.

Here are all of the pictures.

We had yet another snow storm and it's not even technically winter yet!  The pictures I took were after I got home from work so it's pretty dark.  You can see how much snow we have but most of what you see is from the snow plow and the snow blower.  I think we have about 2 feet total so far.  In the first picture you can see how high the snow is because Mark just kind of disappears behind it.

Since the weather has been warmer this weekend most of the snow is now disappearing.  We can actually see grass in a few places and can see our back patio.  It's supposed to get cold again overnight so we might have icy roads tomorrow.  Honestly, I would rather have the snow than ice.

Here are the four pictures that were interesting enough to show.

We are still getting snow about every other day so I thought I needed to get a picture of Mark using the snow blower.  It was brutally cold and even though it had already stopped snowing it was hard to tell because of the wind.

You can see all of the snow blowing pictures here.