late Christmas night

 After spending most of Christmas day at the in-law's, me and Caleb checked out a little early because I was absolutely exhausted. When we got home I got a sudden burst of energy and a powerful craving for fresh waffles. We headed out to go to Waffle House but I predicted it would be pretty busy, so we went to Ihop instead. Dang good choice.

What really made the evening exciting was that this was the first time it's snowed in the area on Christmas day since like... well ever.

I ordered a super cheap special with crepes instead of waffles and when I got my food in I realized  "Um at 37 weeks pregnant, I'm going to need more crepes. I'm a hungry, hungry hippo." So I ordered an extra plate of crepes. No shame. No shame at all. 

... and I ate it all.

I was miserably full afterwards, but those darn crepes were the best.

I'll post more about Christmas day maybe tomorrow.

Right now, I gotta go fetch a lasagna outta the oven.

Happy Holidays!

to you and yours

Winter Maternity Fashion Inspiration #8

Holiday Cheer Maternity by hollie-black-ramsey featuring old navy maternity

Long sleeve cardigan
$36 - lavishalice.com

Old navy maternity
$15 - oldnavy.gap.com

Old Navy ballet flat
$20 - oldnavy.gap.com

Chain necklace
$36 - myflashtrash.com

Christmas tote bag
cafepress.com

Radiohead's Winter Wonderland

This is new to me! Radiohead's rendition of "Winter Wonderland". I didn't know such a thing existed until I came across a blogger's tweet a while ago. 

In case you didn't know, I'm a huge fan of Radiohead as well as Christmas music so this tickles my fancy in so many ways.

Doomsday/Christmas/Birthday Celebration

Here are a few photos from our Doomsday/Christmas/Birthday party last night. 

 Attendance was pretty low- but it turns out a lot of people had to back out because of viruses and all kinds of grossness going around.

I was so proud of myself for coordinating my husbands Birthday/Christmas attire in less than five minutes last night.

Shirt: Target

Vest: Thrifted

Singing Tie (early Christmas present): The Dollar Tree

This is where presents go. Right under the imaginary Christmas tree.

Good guy Josh. I was in a band with Josh a few years back and he's been a pretty great friend every since.

I was pretty stoked last night that the swelling in my legs had gone down enough for me to wear my festive stripey penguin socks!

So have you ever blown up a bunch of balloons for a party and then think "Dang. Now how am I going to get rid of all these balloons?"

I joked about using my husband's .22 to shoot the balloons in the house to get rid of them and that somehow inspired him to try something a bit "Caleb-ish". He dug up an old beat-up BB gun and attempted to shoot the balloons. I was a little worried about him doing this in the house until I saw that the BB gun was so crappy, the BBs were just bouncing off the balloons.

I spent hours making paper chain out of plain white printer paper the night before the party. I was just going to make a little to hang up in the kitchen just for fun, but I loved the way it looked so much that I decided to make more... lot's more. 

I'm going to keep it up until after the Holidays- It's sooo cute and festive!

Once again we had waaaay too much food for the party. I didn't buy much food for the party this time, but a couple of guests brought some. We were stuffing our faces all night long with tacos, cookies and chicken strips... er, well- at least I was.

I served my own special recipe for "Mayan Doomsday Hot Chocolate" and everyone loved it! 

It's hot chocolate mix, chili powder, cinnamon and a little nutmeg. I can't give you the exact recipe because I just spice the hot chocolate mix until I like the way it tastes. 

If you want to try your hand at making it, be sure to add in your spices just a little bit at a time- these are very powerful spices you'll be working with and it's very easy to over-spice if you're not careful.

**********************************************************************
The aftermath
So this is what the kitchen looks like now after my pathetic attempt to clean up last night.

Winter Maternity Fashion Inspiration #7

Crazy Casual Christmas by hollie-black-ramsey

Old navy maternity
$15 - oldnavy.gap.com

H m
$41 - hm.com

Christmas necklace
$18 - etsy.com

Shoelab "Attack" Hi Top Boot
$49 - topman.com

Pier One Holiday Red Bird Mug
$7 - pier1.com

a little bit of the evening in black in white

Yup. That's me and that's my fat juicy hand. I'm 36 weeks pregnant now and I'm swelling up like a balloon. My legs are swelling and my blood pressure is starting to go up a little so the midwives are watching me pretty closely for preeclampsia. The great part about this is I get to collect my urine in a bright orange jug for 24 hours to be analysed.  I'll probably start on this tomorrow- I haven't been much in the mood to pee in a jug today.

 These two elephants are on my list of my most prized possessions so of course they get the special Christmas garland treatment.

  Every evening we let Binky the Bunny out of his cage for a little exercise around the living room. Lately he's been wanting to hang out under the coffee table. The problem with that is, it's hard to get him out from under there when it's time to put him up. So when we go after him to put him back in his cage he gets very angry with us for disturbing his peace. It's best to just keep him from going under there in the first place.

 Aaaand here's a little bit of our Christmas decor. I've never decorated our home for Christmas before. The decor is sparse and simple but the less I put up the less I'll have to take down, right?

pregnant AND uncool?

Last night I started a Facebook event page for a Doomsday/Caleb's birthday/Christmas party that we will be hosting at our home this Friday.
I always do an event page so I can keep up with who's coming- it's so handy.
Together we invited many, many friends to the party.
Today only 2 people have responded that they are coming: A guy I was in a play with and Caleb's sister who lives just mere yards away.

I sent out a mass message to our invitees reminding them to respond to their invitation...
On Facebook, the mass message is very much like a chat room- everyone can see all replies to the message.
Facebook also lets you know when someone has removed themselves from getting further notifications when someone replies to the message. It's called leaving the "conversation". SEVERAL of our friends left and didn't respond to their invitation at all- not a text, phone call, email, nothing.

Once upon a time, no one would decline an invite to one of our parties. Our parties were frequent, spontaneous and dang good fun. We had a list of at least six good friends who were always first to respond with an enthusiastic YES. I did a play with a community theater a few months back and made several new friends. Hooray for more friends!

We last attempted to throw a party at Halloween this year and that's when I noticed the strange lack of response from our friends. About six people showed up and only one of them could be considered a "close friend". I was pretty upset about the turnout- I worked my butt off decorating and making food but I let it slide thinking maybe it was bad timing on my end- maybe my party clashed with other parties that were going on that night.

I haven't told my husband how I feel about this (mostly because I feel silly thinking this way), but I honestly think we're losing a lot of our friends because we're going to have baby.
I'm not just saying this because no one wants to come to our parties anymore-
We don't get invited out to do anything anymore.
No one calls us up to just "hang out" anymore.
No one seems to want to be around us period... and it all started when I got pregnant.

We're still the same old Hollie and Caleb, so what's the deal?

I hope I'm wrong about all this- but I just can't help but feel that I'm right when I say: our friends think we're uncool now.