My birthday and some math!

Today is my 30th birthday! Happy birthday to me! No I am not depressed. I actually feel just fine about entering a new decade. So as a present to myself I am up early enjoying some time not being a wife and mother and having fun with math. Vi Hart (my favorite math blog) recently posted some fabulous videos that not only are about math, but about my favorite part of math, the golden spiral and Fibonacci. And they are all about math in nature! Biology is my second favorite subject, but the study of plants seemed to be the most boring part of Biology. If only we had studied plants like this! Anyway, I do not know Vi Hart personally but I am considering these videos a birthday gift to myself. I repost here for your enjoyment! (Of course I realize most of you don't care but I'm posting anyway). Happy Birthday to me!

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Part 2:

Part 3:

Christmas and Birthday

Well December has come to an end and we are just now catching our breath. December is a crazy crazy month for us. Between lots of extended family who live far away and want to see us for the holidays, a hubby who gets no vacation time (hospitals don't shut down just because it's a holiday ya know), squeezing in our own holiday traditions, and wrapping up the month with Keziah's birthday, - well let's just say the month was as exhausting as it was exciting! So here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse into our holiday.

Christmas eve at our house wasn't actually on Christmas eve since Michael Paul was scheduled to work. But it was just as special. We eat a special dinner, light our final Advent candle, read the Christmas story from Luke 2, and open a couple of presents. One of the traditions my parents did with us and I am continuing is getting new pajamas on Christmas eve. Keziah loved these and pranced around the house saying "I cute" all night.

After we put the little one to bed, it was time to play Santa - something I've been looking forward to for years. The best part is getting to be the first one to play with all the new toys. Michael Paul had to give that new tricycle a good test-drive.

Christmas morning came and we had quite the smorgasbord under our tree. This shopping cart as well as a new doll stroller were the big hits with Keziah.

I have to draw your attention to her "superman" attire. She got big-girl panties in her stocking and insisted on putting them on over her pajamas. It was really cute. You can also see she was taking off with some of the presents and a few of the wise men from our nativity! So adorable!

But the biggest hit has turned out to be the fisher-price english tudor house that was mine as a kid. If you are close to me in age, you probably remember this house. And yes I still had every single piece of furniture and all the little family. It is in great condition and I am so proud to be able to pass it along to my own daughter. It just delights my heart to see how much she loves it. She plays with it for hours every day.

And as for my favorite gift, Michael Paul made this fabulous mantle for our fireplace. (Our fireplace didn't come with a mantle which I have always thought was odd and I've been asking for this since we moved in this house a year ago) It was up just in time to hang our Christmas stockings from it. My husband is quite talented!

And we wrapped up the month with Keziah's birthday. Can you believe my baby is two? Wow, how time flies. Last year we had a muppet themed birthday party and Keziah would have been content to have another. She has become obsessed with the muppets lately. And to be honest, we are thrilled. We love the muppets too and they are way cooler than most tv characters that kids get into. So here she is modeling her new muppet jacket:

Doesn't she look big? We had a small celebration since most of our family couldn't make it this year. (We've pretty much decided that in the future we are delaying the official party until January). But I did make her a chocolate cake with a bear on it. She's recently latched on to a stuffed bear and gotten into reading Care Bear books. So we did try to pull in something other than muppets. She blew out her candle all by herself and dug into her cake.

We thought this shirt was all too appropriate for digging into cake. In case you can't tell, that's Miss Piggy on her shirt.

We wrapped up the evening with a few gifts.

Keziah opened so many gifts throughout the month, we were kinda worried she would come to expect this as a normal event that's supposed to happen every few days. She has enough new toys to last for the next year for sure!

A fun month! But we are thankful to be back in the calm normalcy of everyday life. I'm looking forward to a few peaceful weeks before our world gets rocked again. Our little bundle of joy is just a few short weeks away from making his/her grand entrance. Hopefully I'll get a pregnancy update out soon. And an updated belly picture!