Patiently Waiting

This past week was quite the whirlwind, but I love this time of year! Thanksgiving is such a enjoyable time, it's filled with much needed family time, amazing food and shopping. Wednesday night we had our families over for pizza and to decorate t-shirts for the 3rd Annual Helleen Family Fun Run! We woke up early Thanksgiving morning to a house full of people ready to start their holiday off right, with a 5k! 

The Whole Crew for the HFFR

38 weeks and feeling large and in charge.

We spent the remainder of Thanksgiving evening hanging out at the Helleen House, enjoying great company. My parents and Austin stayed in town this year and joined us in the festivities. We spent most of the day snacking on hors d'oeuvres, watching football and planning our Black Friday trip. Dinner was delicious, and I ended the meal with a excellent piece of Bob's apple pie and vanilla ice cream. 

We headed back to our house with Nick and Tori around 10pm Thanksgiving night to tackle the Black Friday crowds. Paul and Kody met us and we headed to our first stop, Best Buy to let the doorbusting begin. We got to the Best Buy in Maple Grove around 11:40pm and the line was back by Houlihan's (for those of you who aren't familiar with the area... that's far!). It was a beautiful night, probably in the mid to high 40's so we didn't mind standing outside. We had also created Black Friday bingo cards for everyone to make our shopping experience more exciting. We made it into Best Buy shortly after midnight, and the rushed around the store finding the items on our list. From there we headed to Kohl's which was chaotic mess - so we went on to Target and Wal-Mart before heading home to catch some Z's. We woke up the next morning to head to breakfast, this "midnight opening" stuff wasn't going to ruin our tradition! Overall, it was a successful Black Friday. However, I hope they do away with this midnight shenanigans, and go back to opening in the wee hours of the morning. We'll just have to wait to see what next year brings! 

It's also part of our tradition during Thanksgiving weekend to decorate the house for Christmas. I love the way homes look when they are decked out in garland, trees and lights. We always put our "Charlie Brown Tree" upstairs along with garland on the stair railings. Downstairs we decorate the mantel with garland, ornaments, stockings and little Christmas trinkets and put up our big Christmas tree. I always enjoy the process of putting the decorations up, but come January 1st when I convince myself the holidays are over... it's always more difficult to find motivation to put things away.  

Our "Charlie Brown" Tree

The Mantel 

Downstairs Tree full of ornaments!

I think it's pretty safe to say our little girl is running out of room in this belly of mine. Every move she makes I feel like my belly may burst. I don't think she has dropped too much, so there are times when she can make it a little challenging to breath. We still have 11 days until our due date - so at this point patience is key. We did have our weekly appointment tonight and received a little bit of an update. I'm effaced 50% which has changed since last week, but still dilated at 1cm. We'll see how this week goes and visit again next Monday to see where we're at. My Dad is traveling overseas in Denmark this week - so he has informed me I'm not allowed to go into labor until he returns. I'm pretty convinced he has nothing to worry about. I think Baby H might be very cozy in there and it may take some convincing to get her to join us. 

11 days - we're patiently waiting for her arrival! 

Until next time...

The Helleen's