December and Christmas

December's been a pretty happening month here at the Kramer household. At the beginning of the month, I went for my normal check up and blood work. The one-hour glucose test came back a little high so I went for the 3 hour test a few weeks later. Unfortunately, those numbers also came back higher than normal so I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I have to test my blood sugar 4 times a day and methodically watch the amount of carbohydrates I eat. I was concerned with the diagnosis because throughout my pregnancy I've been eating healthy with some not-so-healthy stuff but only in moderation. The doctor assured me that it happens sometimes in pregnancies because the body is more resistant to insulin. It's going pretty well so far. I've been able to keep my blood sugars in check with just simple diet changes. I have to say that it's a little weird counting carbs, fats, and calories all the time but so far it hasn't been overly hard. :-) Because of the GD, my doctor wants me to deliver between 39 and 40 weeks (unless I deliver naturally beforehand) so we've decided the best time to have Trinity is February 8th. I'm so stoked that it's only 6 weeks away and then we get to meet our beautiful bundle of joy! Anyway...

I got to do a bunch of volunteer stuff with the PTA and holidays at Kristi's school. I'm the chair of the community service committee and as our first drive of the year, we did a toiletry drive for Once More Ministries. Each grade had a specific item to bring in like toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. The classrooms collected 2 huge boxes! As an incentive to bring in items, the classroom with the most items gets a holiday cookie party in January. The next drive I'm planning is to help re-stock one of the local food pantry's. Since the holidays pretty much wipes them clean, I thought this would be perfect. Moving on...

We had a family weekend where we did movies, made meals, and made gingerbread houses. I think more of the candy went in Kristi's belly than actually on here house but here's the finished products:

Mine

Andy's (love his wreath!)

Kristi's

I think when we do them next year, I'll use different icing. I thought royal icing would be best because it dries hard but man, trying to get it to stick to anything was sooooooo hard! Lesson learned...

Next up was Kristi's Christmas party at school. We started in the cafeteria/gym with the entire school carol sing-a-long. Then we went back to the classroom for her party. She had so much fun playing games and making crafts. She got to decorate a cupcake, make an ornament, unscramble words, and play a game. The next day, the three 1st grade classes got together and had different stations of activities for the kids. I ran the Pictionary station and it was so much fun watching the kids try to draw and guess the pictures. There are some really great artists there!

Christmas was great again this year, although I did miss having my baby girl here. We had Kristi open a few of our presents to her as well as family gifts that were sent before she left on Friday. I think the gift she freaked out the most about was the Victorious t-shirt we got her. She's been begging for it all year!

We spent Christmas Eve finishing the shopping we didn't get done the prior day and wrapping presents for the next day. We went to the Christmas Eve service which was awesome. The choir didn't do a cantata this year so the service was a little different. The children acted out the nativity scene while one of the older children narrated the story. It was really, really adorable! We ended the service with a candle light ceremony which is always my favorite! We spent Christmas day and the day after with Andy's family at his parents. We got to their house pretty early in the morning and had Carol open one of her gifts so she could use it later that day (if she wanted):

After the family arrived, we had breakfast and opened gifts. Here's a few of the highlights:

Sophie loved her gift from us

Such goofs!

I think she liked it?

Loved her reaction to our gift!

My totally awesome new boots

He's a coffee fiend :-)

Trinity's sock monkey

Since then, Andy and I have been hanging out, cleaning the house, and rearranging things. We've been having a really great time having some "just us" time. Well, that's about all I have for now so until next time... Much love and many blessings!


♥Courtney♥

Halloween, Princesses, and a Wedding

It's been a pretty crazy month around the Kramer household. It all started with Halloween, which was a blast. Kristi dressed up like Princess Ariel and we met up with her bestie Caitlyn and her family to go trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. It was a blast getting some mommy time along with the experience. Kristi and her girlfriends looked so adorable in their costumes. 

All the girls were incredibly excited and had a great time. 

Next on the list was Kristi's birthday gift from the Wilt family. They bought her a ticket to go see Disney Princesses on Ice at the beginning of November. She spent most of the weekend with them and had a blast! 

Next up was my sister's wedding. That was a crazy busy couple of days. We spent most of the Thursday before decorating the church. It honestly didn't take nearly as long as I thought. We had a lot of help which was nice. The wedding itself was spectacularly gorgeous! She looked like a princess! Here's a couple of shots:

Rehearsal

Servers I decorated

Table decorations

Head table

Banister in front of the head table (These looked awesome when lit.)

First dance waltz

The beautiful bride

Pretty, pretty flower girl <3

We spent Thanksgiving with Andy's family, specifically at his sister's house. We had a lot of amazing food including perfectly cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, crescent rolls, and stuffing. I took just a little of everything and was so stuffed I couldn't even finish it. Surprisingly, I didn't take a single picture the whole time we were there (I know... What's wrong with me?!)! We drove Kris to her father that evening and afterwards, had some awesome desserts. Even though we ate much earlier this year than normal, most of the desserts didn't even get touched. We had pumpkin pie (which I'm now realizing I didn't get any of), pumpkin roll, and ice cream. I made orange cranberry cookies (click on the link and it'll take you to the recipe) and 2 different kinds of sugar cookies. I wasn't very impressed with the first sugar cookie recipe. I don't know if they just didn't turn out right because I used Splenda instead of "real" sugar or if my taste buds are just off, which is totally possible since I'm pregnant. Even though they didn't turn out the way I thought, the orange cranberry cookies came out perfectly! I again substituted Splenda for sugar and the Splenda-blended brown sugar. The recipe called for a glaze on top but I liked them so much without it so I decided not to put it on. That just means less calories and carbs right? ;-) Even though cookies aren't the healthiest snack foods, I do try to make them "healthier". 

We went Black Friday shopping and found some really great deals. We went out around 7 to hit Toys R' Us first. We found a fantastic deal on a crib and changing table set. The set was on sale for less than the cost of the crib itself! We just got the call today that it's ready to pick up. I'm so excited to pick it up and set it up in Trinity's room. Now, I just have to get started making the crib set. The other thing I wanted to look for was the Leapster Leappad. I know they weren't running a sale on it, but I wanted to see if it was available. Since it's still pretty new, they've been unavailable every time I've tried to purchase one. TRU was sold out but I'm actually happy about it. I didn't realize that VTech had their own type of tablet. The VTech Innotab actually seems better than the Leappad and it didn't cost as much. The only issue with the Innotab is that there is only one game out right now that is rated ages 7-9. All others are 4-6 or 5-7. Kristi has a Leapster 2 right now and the games don't go past age 7. She's unfortunately beat most of the ones she owns and doesn't want any new ones. I thought the Innotab would be a great system for her since I can't see paying the price for an actual tablet. I guess that was a long winded way of saying we got it for her for Christmas and hopes she likes it. We also picked up some more Squinkies and small craft stuff as stocking stuffers. With that, we got Kristi completely finished. :-)

With all that over, not much else has been going on. I completed two scarves for our church's Christmas Bazaar. I'm making a batch of the orange cranberry cookies for that as well. I'm excited to see what families have donated to the bazaar this year. After that, it's mostly just getting ready for the holidays. We got the tree up last weekend and finished most of the decorating around the house yesterday. The only thing I need to finish is the lights outside. I found out that the one strand of icicle lights I bought last year are already out. I tried changing the fuses but no luck. I want to pick up a couple more strands of lights for outside and possibly some of the windows. The last thing I have to do is make the new bows for the wreaths and swags that hang outside. We found a great deal on ribbon at AC Moore on Black Friday. I got the bow maker machine from my mom this past weekend so now I just have to figure out how to use it and what size to make the bows. I'm just hoping that we purchased enough ribbon. I honestly don't know if we can get that ribbon again because we had purchased the last two rolls. Anyway...

Well that's about it so until next time... much love and many blessings!

♥Courtney♥

Date Day

Friday and Saturday were both pretty eventful days. Friday morning, after Kris got off to school, Andy and I headed over to the jewelers to pick up my engagement ring.

I'm totally enamored with it. LoL! I can't stop looking at it! (And I'm sure you see why!) It was well worth the wait. :-) It's honestly a lot heavier than I thought it'd be. Now, I just have to find someone who can make a LOTR band small enough (like 5mm or under at a size 4).

So I told you all about the wedding dress fiasco in my last post. Well, I just had to get out of the house after getting my ring so I took a trip down to J&B Bridals in downtown Chambersburg. I first stopped at Sheetz to grab my low-fat mint latte and some grapes to snack on (yum!). I got to the bridal store with the sole intention of only looking, not trying anything on. I told the consultant about my fiasco with RomanticGowns.com and she was literally as horrified as I was. She took me to the secret upstairs room with all the discounted, discontinued dresses (they're all marked down under $500...Score!). She pulled about six gowns out so I could take note/stock. I told her I liked all of them so she really recommended me trying them on so I reluctantly did. Here's the pictures of the first 3 dresses (sorry about the quality--they were taken with my phone):

This was one of the first dresses I saw and fell in love with.

I really liked the champagne contrasting.

That detail is what I fell in love with...Gorgeous!

My favorite after trying it on... Dress #2

This dress had the most beautiful detailing.

Favorites: The dip in the back and the faux buttons

I liked the simplicity of this dress... #3

Favorites: The pleating and crystal beads = Gorgeous!!

The simplicity of the train allows for a cathedral length veil.

I loved all three of these dresses. It was a pretty tough decision until I put on the last dress. As soon as I saw it on, I knew it was THE ONE. Pictures will have to come at a later date though since he's not allowed to see it until I walk down the isle. Well, after I fell in love I got worried that the dress was going to be out of my price range. I asked the consultant to check on it for me (they didn't have the sale price on the tag because it had literally just been taken upstairs). She came back and told me that it was a little higher than I wanted, but she talked to the owner and told him what had happened and he said that if I could pay for it in full today, he'd give it to me for the same price as the other dresses. I was like score!!! It's mine!!! I completely believe that it was totally God. On a side note: I'm totally going to talk to Casey about taking a picture of Andy's face when he first sees me :-) He's totally going to cry! LoL! So the rest of Friday was pretty uneventful. I took Kris over to her dad's. Just a note to self: I have seriously got to stop drinking so much water when in the car for long periods of time. I swear, if Jay had been any later I would've totally peed myself. Lucky Kris, she can just sit on the side of the car and go! Oh to be a kid again...Then again, maybe not!

Since we knew Kris would be with her dad this past weekend, Andy and I decided to do our Valentine's Day Saturday. He had a meeting at work from 8:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. so I picked up my dress from the bridal shop and took it over to his mom's. Everyone wanted to see the dress and ring, so I got to walk the runway. I felt like a total dork!  Anyway... After Andy got off work, we had a really great discussion with Shari then we braved the windy and cold to walk around downtown a little. We were going to have dinner at the little bistro on Main Street but it didn't open until 4:00 p.m. so we decided on Cafe d'Italia instead. It's a really cute, small Italian restaurant that sits in the corner of the square. We got to sit in the front, where the windows look out onto the square. It was really romantic. So I ordered calamari (I love it but hardly ever order it because it's fried) and bruchetta and was totally stoked about it. She brought the bruchetta out with Andy's lasagna and then brought the calamari. I took one look and about narfed! There were calamari rings around the rim of the plate but the whole inside of the plate had fried squid tentacles!!! I seriously couldn't believe my eyes!! I have NEVER in the 10 years I've been ordering calamari ever had an experience like that! I asked if it was possible to only get the rings so she took it back and asked. Of course, I heard all the kitchen guys laughing (as was Andy). Needless to say, I won't be ordering that again! LoL! I got a salad instead so maybe that was God's way of telling me not to eat the fried food. After dinner, we went into the lighting place to get ideas for lighting in the dining room and kitchen. Then, we hit the mother load of all book stores. This store has over 9,000 books and even has historical books for sale. It was amazing! Every time I turned around, there was an entryway to another portion of the store. Each room has multiple sofas and/or chairs that invite you to cozy up with a book. There's even a room with a fireplace! It's uh-mazing!

Sunday was pretty uneventful. We picked Kris up, ate at Bob Evan's, and braved the snow driving home. We made it all in one piece. Today's been pretty uneventful as well except that Kris has been sick. She was running a pretty high fever earlier but it's thankfully gone down now. We've been having a pj-movie-watching day. Well that's about all I have time for today. Until next time, much love and many blessings!

♥Courtney♥