Christmas Candy Lane & C'ville Reunion...

I haven't been to Candy Lane in a few years and completely forgot how cute it is! We had pretty great weather until the very end when it started raining and both Chocolate World and Candy Lane were pretty empty, which was so nice! I was pleasantly surprised at how many rides were open and how many cute things they had to see. Owen's highlights were the carousel and the train ride and he even gave the Hershey bar a hug...huge surprise after being petrified of him this summer.

On the train

This picture (below) cracks me up cause the ride had not even started moving yet and you would think, by looking at his face, that we were going pretty fast!

On Saturday "the C'ville girls" came over from all over the place and we had a great time eating, laughing and catching up! I always get a little bummed when they leave cause it's sad that we don't all live closer, but I love the times that we do get to spend together. We missed you this year, Amy & Kristen!

Owen had to pose for every picture...sadly, he'll be cropped out when it's time to print them!

Amanda and I are due 2 weeks apart (I'm first) and she got me a gift that is the latest trend for nursing moms called a "Hooter Hider" It was shortly after this was opened and described that Ryan left for the rest of the day! Anyway, it's a pretty cool little apron-like thing that helps keep things from being exposed and has lots of breathing room for the baby...maybe a picture of it is needed??

One more event to post about that I'll try to make a LONG story short...as everyone was getting ready to leave, I felt my ear "pop" It was bugging me, but only after an hour did the unbelievable pain start, which quickly turned into a headache. I hate any kind of medication and avoid it at all costs, and when I'm pregnant, I'm even worse with the whole "would rather be in pain that put anything foreign into my body" thing. Around 5 my mom called and at that point, I actually started crying from the pain...I have to say, with Owen, I labored for 13 hours and pushed for over 3 with no epidural and not a tear was shed...but I'm crying now and thinking my eardrum burst. After a stern lecture from both my mother and Ryan about calling the doctor, they told me to be seen within 24 hours and put olive oil drops in my ear. Yea, right...I am not dropping olive oil in my ear and I figured if I'm going to have to go somewhere on Sunday, I might as well go Saturday night and figure out what in the world was going on, so I headed over to the HMC after hours clinic (SO thankful that I go to a Hershey affiliated doctor that has an after hours clinic rather than go to the ER, which I would have dreaded...long wait and crowded rooms) and was seen in less than 10 minutes! They said I had a bad sinus infection and all the fluid built up and pushed my eardrum out and one more hard blow of my nose would have ruptured my eardrum. Yikes! After driving all over trying to find a pharmacy that was opened on a Saturday night, I finally got everything I needed and headed home. I am feeling better now and the sound of ringing and the ocean has lessened in my ears, but what an ordeal! And I have to share my absolute favorite part of the whole night...as the doctor was ready to write out the prescription, he looked at me and said, "Is there any chance that you might be pregnant?" I thanked him (and would have hugged him for what I took as a compliment of not looking like a blimp if I hadn't felt so horrible) and told him that I was, in fact, 30 weeks along! Too funny...although my dad burst my bubble later when he told me that they have to take precautions of not offending people cause (and I quote) "They probably have some huge, 400 pound women go in there and aren't sure if they're pregnant or just large and in charge." Thanks dad! So that was my fun ending to my favorite reunion day!

Owen's newest thing is giving "fierce hugs" I love how tight he squeezes!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

How can it be over already?

I have to admit, I'm suffering from "Post-Christmas" let-down. I love getting ready and making plans for the few months before and when it's all over, it's a little sad. We do have a couple more get-togethers to look forward to, but the bulk of Christmas activities are over.

My new guitar from Aunt Joelle & Marc

Ry had days off saved up, so he's been home all week, which has been wonderful. Here's a short re-cap of the week:

Saturday: I had my family over for brunch and to open their gifts from us (one of my top favorite traditions) and it was here that Owen got his favorite gift of the year...a Mr. Potato Head from Jackson. (More on this to follow)

Sunday: We had church in the morning and went to Journey with Jesus in the evening. Owen LOVED the animals and was cracking people up as he talked to them like they were his life-long friends. ("Hi Donkey, How are you doing? Good? Hee-haw Hee-haw" and so on with every animal we saw!) I'm always impressed with the huge camel they have, but Owen's favorite, by far, was the donkey. (Apparently he was a biter, so I don't have a close-up of the two!)

Monday: Christmas with the Hostetter family. We spent the whole day at Ryan's parents and Owen had lots of fun playing with his cousins and all the new toys that were opened. He missed his nap, so when we left around 6:30, he was asleep 5 minutes into the trip home. We ended up missing the Christmas Eve service, which was a bummer, but a good night's sleep and a good mood for the next day were essential. Owen opened up his new Christmas PJ's and was in bed by 8.

Tuesday: I may have been more excited than Owen for him to come down and see presents under the tree and his new 2-wheel bike all shiny and ready to ride. Well, he got up and first thing out of his mouth (and for the record, this has been the first thing out for the last 3 days) was, "Go down, see Mr. Potato!" I made him wait until I was positioned on the couch, video camera in hand. He came down and said, "Cool bike! Where's Mr Potato?" So much for topping the potato! He was cute opening his gifts and I was thrilled that he wanted to play after opening each one. He didn't have too many to open, but it still took 2 hours. Hopefully this is a trend that lasts for a long time...I hate the thought of just ripping and tearing after all that work of shopping and wrapping! Anyway, we headed over to my parents for lunch and spent the rest of the day there. More family came in the evening for dessert and game playing. We learned that Owen is still at the age where the boxes are more fun than the actual gifts...how long does this trend last?

Wednesday: A HUGE thanks to my mom for keeping Owen while Joelle and I did some after Christmas shopping. I had 4 places on my list (Pier 1, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids & Bombay Outlet) and got to all 4 before lunch and naps! I ended up getting lots of stuff for the house next Christmas and only managed to spend Christmas money...if you can believe it, I still had a gift card from last Christmas that needed to be spent. I even got Owen a cute Pottery Barn sheet set for $9...unbelievable! I was able to get everything on my list but new stockings. They were really picked through at P.B. I guess I'll wait until next year. Ry spent the day at the land chopping wood and burning stuff.

Today, tonight, tomorrow & beyond: Today we're organizing (I feel like it's Christmas all over, doing my favorite thing!) and cleaning and doing laundry. Owen has been playing with Mr. Potato Head and has now figured out that mommy laughs really hard when he sticks the pieces in his own head and dances around. Ryan, yet again, reconfigured Owen's GeoTrax set...I think he likes it more than Owen. Tonight we're going out to eat with Ryan's parents and then spending the rest of the evening with them. Tomorrow we're finally doing Christmas Candy Lane (We rescheduled twice...once for sickness, once because I scheduled two things for the same night.) I'm hoping it'll be less crowded since it's after Christmas, but we'll see! I'm excited for Owen to see all the lights and everything else. Saturday is another one of my favorite traditions of the season...a day with my college friends. They're coming from all over and it's always a time with lots of memories and laughs. I can't wait!

Well, back to organizing and I'll post one more picture where I found Owen between loads of laundry...until next time!

Santa Clause has come to town...

It has been awhile since posting, but there has been so much going on...festivities, sickness, a mile-long to-do list, last minute shopping, get-togethers, etc. Anyway, last night Santa officially made his stop at the Hostetter house. (Actually a friend of ours doing his yearly rounds as Santa...pretty convincing Santa too, complete with the wire-rimmed glasses and jingle bells around his wrists) We weren't sure how Owen would react, but once he got his bag of gifts out to look through, he was pretty pumped. He even gave Santa a hug before leaving and posed for a few pictures.

If I don't post again for awhile, have a Merry Christmas!

Rejuvenated...

This weekend, Ryan and I headed to Philly to:
1. Get the bulk of our Christmas shopping done
2. Visit Joelle and Marc
3. Have an actual conversation and a few meals together...you would think that by living in the same house, we would run into each other every once in awhile, but lately, it has been one of us staying home while the other one has a meeting or an event every night for a couple weeks and this week is already jam-packed.

We had such a great time! We got there Friday in time to meet Joelle and Marc at the Olive Garden for dinner, then went to the mall and crossed a few people off the list, then headed to some random stores and crossed more people off the list. Saturday morning we did a little shopping before breakfast and had the list almost depleted and then headed to breakfast to once again meet Joelle and Marc.
*Story of the weekend: We were already 20 minutes late because of taking a little bit too long in Target...one of those "need one thing, walk out with 10" deals. Anyway, we were meeting them at this great little diner/pub that we always eat breakfast at and since we were already in a rush, I saw a diner sign and yelled, "That's it, pull in!" We parked, went in and looked like idiots searching everywhere for Joelle and Marc, who should have been saving us a table. We finally gave up looking for them and sat down. I (kind-of annoyed at them for not being there) called Joelle to see where they were and at the same time looked at my menu which read Blue Fountain Diner NOT Great American Diner & Pub. I obviously got that sinking feeling and when she picked up, there was no "Hello", just a "Where in the world are you? We have been sitting here forever." Oops...I told her we were saving them seats at the wrong diner a half a mile away. Ryan was very gracious (as he usually gets embarrassed when I ask for extra napkins or no mayo on my sandwich) and we quickly scooted out, me starting to get silly already. (Amanda, I was thinking how great it would have been if you and Kevin would have been there...I can imagine you laughing so hard and him wanting to die of embarrassment) All to say, we made it to the right diner (who would have thought that there would be 2 diners on the same side of the street within 1 mile??) and had a great breakfast. I blame the whole thing on "Preg-o brain."
After that, we headed to IKEA (Ryan's great idea) for the first time ever and spent a good couple hours there (eating ice cream while shopping...how great is that??)before stopping at an outlet center and my favorite, Uno Chicago's for dinner before heading home.
So a HUGE thanks to Peeps and Nena for making us take the time to go and keeping our little ball of energy. (Kind-of sad when they brought him in and we were beside ourselves excited to see him and he just hugged his Peeps with a face that said, "I don't want to go back to reality!" It took a few minutes before he was walking around saying "Daddy, Mommy and Owen" over and over in a sing-song voice.
And a thanks to our tour guides for a great weekend with lots of laughs...more at the way Ryan and Marc revert back to middle school-style antics when together than anything else. Have you ever seen grown men jumping from the up escalator to the down and back again? (where they meet in the middle) Not my proudest moment as a wife :-)
So, I'm officially rejuvenated and ready to tackle the last few "impossible to buy for" people on the list.
Until next time...

The one we didn't use...

Yeah! The Christmas cards are done! In an hour, I had all 120 pictures off my camera card printed and my 150 Christmas cards were done. The AWESOME guy at the photo place (who helped me out big-time last year too) edited and cropped and made my Christmas card, I approved it and he printed 150 and had me on my way...and for the 40 minutes I waited for them to be printed, I went around to the million sample stands (there are way more around Christmas, I noticed) and gorged (great word, Leah!) myself on everything from chimi-changas & chips and dip to meatballs to pizza and even got a free tube of toothpaste and a handful of Dove chocolate! It was seriously a prego's heaven! The picture above is the "one we didn't use." I was choosing between 2...one had the adorable hat with the matching sweater and the other one had no hat, but a better, more genuine smile...I went with the smile.

Last night was the E-town holiday parade and it was LONG! We stood with some friends in the same spot we congregate to every year, which is right by the big clock with the temperature...it was 28 degrees and the parade lasted for 1 hour and 20 minutes (in addition to the 20 minutes we were there saving our place). Always trying to be the over-prepared mom, I wore double pants on Owen, with a thermal shirt, a fleece and a winter coat, plus a hat and hood and I FORGOT THE GLOVES! His poor little hands were freezing, so about 45 minutes into the parade we had a melt-down...screaming "Candy! Candy!" Oh, did he ever cry...my new jacket is now a snot-rag and it'll take a year before he's ready for another parade...but it was fun! It was super-long, had great floats and good candy...other than the melt-down, a nice night!

Tonight Ryan and I are going out to eat and to the Hershey Bears game. I'm very excited to go out with him...it's been a long time since it's been just the two of us...actually Jon and Angie are coming to the game too, but they don't need my assistance for anything and keep the whining pretty minimal! I'm cherishing every opportunity to go out with Ryan alone, cause I know mid-March it'll come to a crashing halt! I'll welcome that change too though!

I am itching to continue addressing cards and now have another seemingly insurmountable of pictures that need to be scrapbooked...so until next time!

P.S. Happy December!!!