,,,I guess that's what happens around the holidays.  Or just if you're a procrastinator like me. 

Tons has happened since I last wrote.  Most notably -- the cat is now fully out of the bag!  We told Dave's family, the rest of my family, and some friends we saw over Christmas in Delaware.  We broke the news to Dave's family in much the same way we did to mine - we gave the kids Cousin t-shirts for Christmas.  They got them as early Christmas presents actually, since we wanted to enjoy the ensuing hub-bub with the family for as long as we could. 

Of course everyone is really happy - Dave's mom cried, though we're guessing out of happiness!  Charis, Dave's sister was generous enough to send us home with a bunch of toys she had saved for us.  Dave's dad bought them for her kids when they were little, and they have  a lot of sentimental value.  And with the help of Mom's extra suitcase, we got them all home in one piece.  It's weird to be collecting kiddie stuff already, but I guess you can never be too prepared!

Dave and I made our first baby purchase over break as well.  On our way to visit friends after Christmas, we stopped by Newark, DE -where it all began.  Because we met at the U of D, and we're technically "Double Dels", we stopped and bought a tiny little Delaware onesie.  It's very cute, especially when you dance it around and pretend there's a little baby in it! 

That night we told our friends Annemarie and Jeff, and got a big scream out of Annemarie when she heard the news.  Then we told my aunt and family, along with my Oma.  Oma was having a rough time visiting New Jersey this year, but she did say we made her Christmas for her with the news!  That's a good feeling.  We saw my mom and Charlie too, and let me  just say, Gramma's already been shopping full force!  She's figured out that there's not much gender-neutral stuff out there, but she did manage to find some really cute onesies and a hoodie towel with a duck on it.  They also look cute when you dance them around. Last but not least we went to Brooklyn to visit Dave's high school friends.  His friend Meg has a 3 month old now, and if our baby is half as quiet and as sweet as Kaila is, we'll be off to a good start!

One thing I almost forgot to add...

Isn't it funny that, when you're not looking for something you don't notice it, but that once you've got something on the brain you notice it everywhere??  I never in my whole life noticed the sheer abundance of pregant women out there...until of course I had stock in it myself.  And the saying is definitely true: when it rains it pours.  Friends are having, or have already had babies.  Women on TV are percolating.  Tons of nurses at work have proverbial buns in the oven. Everywhere I look, there's something to do with pregancy, or birth, or -yikes- labor.  (I'm not even attempting to think about the latter yet!)

It's actually kinda fun to be around other pregnant women.  Brianne, an old co-worker of mine, is the same amount of pregant as me. In fact, she's due a day after me.  When she came into town for the holidays, we took the obligatory preggo pics.  A little strange, perhaps, since neither of us were really showing, but hey, we knew the deal! 

The other happening this week is that I had my first visit with my actually doctor, not a nurse, on Monday.  Dave came too, though it was highly uneventful since everything seems to be progressing quite nicely, but the doctor did reassure me that my initial ultrasound measurements all looked good, and the Cystic Fibrosis screen came back negative. 

The baby's heartbeat clocked in at 157, and Baby Horne did a nice flip just as Dr. James was starting to listen for it, or so he said.  Quite the baby acrobatics.  Next appointment is January 8, which will also be our second ultrasound.  I suppose that's when we can find out the sex, but we're still holding out that we don't want to know. Babies are such a good surprise, we'll be happy either way.

In other news, my nausea has finally started to subside and I'm beginning to normalize a bit.  And, moving out of the fruit phase, Baby Horne is now roughly the size of my fist.  From a peach to a fist all in one week - what progress!

...or at least to half the family anyway.  We traveled to California last weekend for my brother's graduation from Test Pilot School, and the whole family was there.  Dave came up with the fabulous idea to break the news to my brother by giving him a t-shirt with Uncle Steve on it as a graduation gift.  So we did just that, and his reaction, actually the whole family's reaction, was priceless! 

He took one look at the shirt, did a double-take, and looked at me...I could see the clockwork ticking.  When I smiled, he just started grinning ear-to-ear and came over and gave me a great big hug.  The whole family wanted to know what the big deal was, so he showed them the shirt.  There was a moment of silence while everyone processed , and then the room erupted in congratulations!  Well, except for my mom, who was crying - Amy's mom told me later it was the first time she'd ever seen my mom speechless!  So priceless.  So we're really glad we waited to tell everyone in person after seeing their reactions.  Now we can't wait to tell Dave's family.  It felt SO good to finally let the cat out of the bag after all that anticipation!