Christmas Lane

On Sunday night, a gang of us headed out to Dover to visit Christmas Lane. I was expecting long lines of traffic after last year, but I guess we headed out early enough in the year and we went on a very cold night so we had no trouble finding a parking space and didn't have to fight any crowds. We had a great time! The girls got to ride the train for the first time! They LOVED it. I thought we would have to do a little more coaxing because after a certain point, they had to walk themselves through the line, but they both ran right up! So precious. We ended that night with the drive thru nativity at a local church. All things that I think we are making annual traditions in the Lantz home.

Just for the sake of not labeling every picture, Hannah is in the pink coat and Kate in the purple. I got these 3-in-1 coats at Children's Place for $20 each (70% off the original price)! I searched everywhere for coats and God blessed us with these. Enjoy!

Pe-pe (how they say Grampie) & Nanny
Auntie Erin & Hannah

Riding the train

Waiting in line for the train

Hannah & Grandma

Some of the decorations

Grandpa & Kate

Love this picture! Wish I had it in time for our Christmas cards.

Everyone who went!

That's it for our Christmas festivities thus far. Kate's favorite phrase right now is, "I'm gonna get you!" Sometimes she'll run up to you and try to tickle you as she says it. We watched another princess movie, Sleeping Beauty, tonight and they actually mostly sat for the whole thing. The whole princess obsession helps.

Well, we tried...

Well, we tried to get a good picture with Santa this year. We've been talking Santa up and teaching the girls what Santa says. They get so excited when they see a Santa, but apparently a real, live Santa Claus is not their thing. We visited the exact same Santa from last year and they were all good until Rachel sat on his lap. Hannah had a meltdown. Kate walked up to him, but refused to turn her back to him. Thus, the below picture.

George looked at the picture and called it horrible. I, on the other hand, think it's hilarious. You know, when it comes to Santa, you just got to go with the flow. And if you compare last year's picture to this year's, you'll notice the tears on Hannah's face and Kate's dumbfounded look. Love these little girls!

Big Shoes to Fill

Kate and Hannah love to try on shoes. Here is Kate trying to fill George's work boots.

I have a lot of other pictures to post, including our visit with Santa and from Christmas Lane. Check back over the next couple of days as I will probably post one a day. George has the next couple of days off so my goal is to get caught up on some stuff around the house and finish my Christmas shopping! We had our Bible Fellowship class's Christmas party at our house last Saturday night. That was a lot of fun. 3 parties down, 1 more to go. George volunteered our house for his work group's Christmas party this Friday afternoon. It's definitely keeping my house clean, but I will be all partied out. It's a good thing we are celebrating Christmas at families' houses this year and that I am in my second trimester of pregnancy. I'm feeling so great that sometimes I forget I'm pregnant! Woohoo. This was the blissful part of pregnancy I remember.

Gender Reveal Party

So the moment you have all been waiting for is finally here. Our party is over and all of our immediate family (living in the U.S) has been notified. A friend from church had a party to reveal the gender of her baby and I thought it was a cute idea. Since baby showers aren't really common for 2nd pregnancies, I figured why not throw a little party and have some fun! We kept it very simple with just immediate family. Amy, George's sister, helped me organize it. She made the shirts that we are wearing below.

When we sent out the invitations, we asked people to wear pink or blue based on whatever their prediction for the baby would be. When they came to the door, George or I answered it and everyone thought that our t-shirts were the announcement. Surprise, then they saw the other one and knew that we were still keeping them in suspense. We had little blue and pink candies and I made cupcakes with blue or pink gumballs.

This was a bulletin board we decorated with ultrasound pictures

Belly shot

Me & Hannah (she had a shirt that said big sister)

Nanny & Kate

Hannah & Rachel hugging

Feed us, please!

NOW!!!

My mom supporting the girl team

Team Blue-George's Dad had on 4 layers of blue! Can you tell he really wants a grandson?

Love this picture!

To reveal the gender of the baby, we stuffed a pinata with confetti and candy of a certain color! Krista was ready to whack that thing open!

After only two swings, can you guess? We are having a...

Just in case you can't read the ultrasound picture, it's a girl! Praise God for a healthy, beautiful little girl! We are so very excited. I teared up when the tech told us it was a girl. I definitely would love to have a boy, but I'm just so happy to have whatever God blesses us with & I truly mean that. We have a name in mind, but I'll save that for another post!

P.S. Did you notice my band-aid is gone? I had a check-up this morning and they said it looks great!

It's a...

HEALTHY BABY! Sorry, I know I keep teasing you, but we are having our party tonight with family to reveal what we are having. You'll just have to keep on waiting. We are absolutely thrilled though because EVERYTHING so far about this pregnancy is completely normal. Baby is 10 oz., 9.5 in. What an awesome creator we have. I'll be back with more later tonight or tomorrow morning! The last two "pictures" are actually videos so make sure to press play.