Reconciliations

Marshall indulged another one of my pregnancy cravings today and agreed to go with me to Flaming Amy's for lunch and some of their famous pineapple jalapeno salsa. Yum! After lunch we stopped by my Mom's office to pick up her leaf blower from her in order to try to make some headway in our backyard. It's unbelievable the amount of leaves the few trees in our yard deposit every year. Of course, it doesn't help that all of our neighbors also have huge trees that border our fence on every side. Since we were nearby the Walmart in Monkey Junction we decided to take another stab at finding an ugly Christmas sweater for Marshall for our party. Success! Yes it isn't really a sweater but more a sweatshirt made to look like a sweater and yes it was found in the women's department, but he likes it and more importantly is willing to wear it so we got it. Plus, it was only $10 so you really can't go wrong there.

Today also ended up being a reconciliation day for Marshall and his family as he spent hours upon hours talking to first his Dad, then his Mom and eventually ended up talking to his older brother. In between phone calls (and Marshall's cell phone battery dying) we started going through things in the nursery finally. We hadn't so much as looked at all the stuff since the day we put it all away. We honestly had no idea what all we had or what we still might need to get. So we started with the closet and pulled everything out of there to see what all was in boxes. Then as Marshall took another call from his family, I went through all the clothes that were in dressers. All of them still had tags on them. It certainly is a good thing we are having another boy for there are so many cute little boy outfits in here. I did realize we were lacking in anything newborn sized. Our closest thing was a few 0-3 month old outfits, which I have been informed are not the same as newborn. Yep, holding them side by side I can surely see they are not. I have no idea how big this baby will end up being, but so far he is not measuring big or long. Nolan always measured really long, although not big. Still though, even at 34 weeks he already weighed 5lbs 3ozs. So with this baby measuring on target or perhaps even a bit small and the fact that he will be born a few weeks early, I think we might need to obtain a few more newborn outfits before he graces us with his presence.

Once I was done sorting all the clothes, I put them all back in the dresser and went into the kitchen to bake some sugar cookies. Marshall was still talking to his brother but started talking to his niece Colleen while I was baking. She is so sweet and ended up talking to her Uncle Marshall for well over an hour. They talked about everything from what she wanted for Christmas to surfing. I even had the chance to talk with her in between batches of cookies and she informed me how much she missed us and wished we could come there for Christmas. She then also told me she couldn't wait to come back to Wilmington in the summer and go boogie boarding and maybe even surfing with her Uncle Marshall. When Marshall finally got off the phone with her and called it a night with his family he breathed a sigh of relief saying it appeared that everything was better with them all and he was glad. It's no fun to argue with your family but especially during the holidays.

Marshall was in such a good mood it didn't take much persuading to get him to help me decorate the sugar cookies. He laughed as he did it and told me not to dare post this on Facebook. As the last batch of sugar cookies were nearly done and I was starting to clean up the kitchen, Marshall decided to go back into the nursery and put the BOB stroller together. He then put all the attachments on it and figured out how to even install the carseat on it. I was impressed that Marshall took the initiative to do it since he's been so anti doing anything for this baby for fear it will all be in vain again. Maybe he has decided to reconcile with some of those fears in order to have some happiness and excitement associated with this baby. He even took me into the nursery to demonstrate to me how to attach and detach the carseat. Once all the cookies were done, we settled into bed and turned on the movie Safe House. I think I saw 15 minutes of it before I fell asleep.