It’s really easy to forget what Christmas is all about, so the title is an extra reminder. We had a great Christmas, and while I got some really nice gifts, my dad had one of those moments again. He said, “we need to be thankful for friends and family, that’s what’s really important, not all the material stuff.” Don’t know if I can really expand on that too much, but I just want to take a moment to mention some of the ‘important’ things I’m thankful for before I post some pictures of all the presents and such. I’m thankful for my wife, and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins (all of them, even Afton…). I’m thankful for the little girl that’s on the way, and I’m thankful for my friends, at work, at church, and anywhere else. And I’m thankful for Scooter, Roo, and Oliver.

Now that I’ve gone all serious on you, there’s some completely unserious pictures and one of Amanda at seventeen weeks along (she’s in week twenty now) in the gallery.

It’s a girl! And not a puppy this time. As mentioned before, due in late May. The ‘awesome’ ultrasound machine was broken today, but we still got to see some pretty neat things. She was sucking on her fingers for a bit, and yawned several times. We got to see her little heart pumping away at 153 beats per minute, and even were able to see the four chambers of her heart.  It was incredible the amount of detail that could be seen, even with ‘old technology.’ The scanned images are over in the gallery.

Some of you already know, and some of you have heard inklings trickling around the etherspace. Now, we can officially tell you… We’re having a baby! The first ultrasound was today, and according to the doctor the little one is eight weeks old today. After much finagling with the old scanner I bought this summer at a garage sale, I was able to scan the printout we got from the doctor. Somewhere around here, we also have profile pictures of Amanda, although she’s not showing yet, so I won’t bother posting any until she is. She might post them on her Facebook page if you’re lucky…

I was in such a rush the first time, I forgot a couple things I was going to mention. Our due date is May 25, and as you can see in the picture, the baby is 1.64 centimeters long, about the size of an olive. Amanda likes to call the baby ‘our little crustacean’ because of how it looks in the picture. We should know if it’s a boy or a girl by Christmas time, which will be nice timing.