The Announcement and The Holidays

our $6 tree (tree=donated, ornaments=$6 at Target)

Boy, am I behind! Here is our post about our holiday season and our pregnancy announcement.

Cody and I found out we were pregnant on the day we left for our anniversary trip to Branson. It made our whole anniversary weekend full of amazement and wonder for the future. Cody and I decided to wait to tell our families of the pregnancy until the holidays so that we could announce our little mouse in my trap in person. And we did it in person for selfish reasons: we wanted to see our families reaction and celebrate the news together, not individually one call at a time. So this meant we had to tell my family over Thanksgiving while we were in CA and Cody's family at Christmas in UT. Talk about a big secret to keep for my family!

We announced the pregnancy by handing out our Christmas cards early with a pregnancy announcement card also in the envelope. We weren't very inventive in our delivery method, but the card was super cute and goes along with my life theme, birds. Don't ever look online for ideas of how to share pregnancy news for Thanksgiving. Too many involved displaying a positive pregnancy test. Now many of you readers know that I am all too comfortable with germs. I'm a rare hands washer and a let-me-have-a-sip-of-that-drink kind of girl. But, I just thought it bad taste to share such joyous news with a urinated stick in the turkey or cornicopia centerpiece. Talk about losing your appetite, right?

Here is the announcement.



My family couldn't have reacted better. We went to a Wednesday lunch at Bennihana and right after the food was cooked, Cody passed out the cards. Margot, was the first to see the card, "Is this for real?". Brooke, the most boisterous , said, "I knew it! You LIAR!!!". My mom kept saying, "What is it? What is it?" while trying to open the card faster. After reading the card, she had tears in her eyes and came right over to give me a kiss. My dad told Cody, "Good job." It was so fun, really.

Pictures of lunch before the cards were passed out.



The rest of Thanksgiving was a blast as always, but I don't have many pictures on my camera. We went to a USC football game (in the pouring rain!), went to breakfast at Ruby's on Balboa Pier (pictures below), went Christmas shopping, had dinner with some friends, and upon my sister's insistence, we went to Babies R Us of course.





Christmas was three whole weeks later and we were dying to tell Cody's family. After arriving in Utah and spending the first night at a Orvin extended family Christmas party (hotels are fun), the entire family gathered at Mom and Dad's for a Sunday dinner and game night. Unfortunately, Cody's family was either really expecting an announcement or were just joking that we would be making one while in town, but they guessed we would do it THE EXACT WAY we were planning on doing it! So we had to improvise.

Cody decided to put our Christmas card on the fridge next to his siblings, with the announcement under it. It took awhile for anyone to notice, but finally his brother and sister came out to the living room where both Cody and I were playing a card game with his parents and other family members and said to his mom "did you see Cody's Christmas card?", and then handed her the card. She read it and with a tear in her eye jumped up to give us hugs. She then said these beautiful words ... "well, I thought you might have an announcement for us, but then when you guys got here and I saw Robin I thought there was no way because she looked like she had lost weight." Connie scored major Mother-in-law points! Actually, I had lost about 10 pounds due to morning (a.k.a. everytime) sickness.

Pretty drive to Logan:


Here are some pictures of game night, Connie's tree, Cody baking his famous rolls for Christmas, ice skating, and our Christmas break in UT.








I'm such a gamer (of the board and card variety - NOT the video type)! Watch out Rummikub, Monopoly deal is a new favorite!