Christmas, Wii, and Avery.

Christmas was great around the Allen/Williford homes. We had dinner on Christmas Eve with TJ's parents and sisters, and then Christmas Day with my parents, Evan, and Grandma. Grandma and I each had a little cold, and Typhoid Evan had what appeared at first to be the flu (visualize me and a Lysol can frantically cleaning every surface he could ), but turned out to be something bacterial, as it responded immediately to some strong antibiotics. Viruses, as I am sure you all know, will laugh in the face of antibiotics as they mutate to invade their next host. (I promise that is the only dorky pathogen comment of the day.)

TJ and I are so fortunate to have such wonderful families! We received several gifts from them that are most beneficial to the baby! We got a pet-hair vacuum cleaner that is by far the best darn one I have ever used! (Who would have thought I would be so excited about a vacuum cleaner? Oh, how times have changed!) TJ got a new camcorder (since Scout chewed up the old one), to record every waking (and some sleeping) minute of the baby's life! We got our car seat and the stroller that it is compatible with, which are so cute!! Here are pictures. They are both in the aqua color of the car seat. Big Greg has already decided he wants to be the overseer of the installation of the car seat (Yeah, as in he doesn't want to actually do it, but he wants to make sure it's done right). Poor TJ.

But I digress...back to Christmas Day. We opened all our presents, and had a quick lunch before we launched a Wii marathon, interrupted only by a brief visit to the Bait Shop house. For some reason Dad and TJ decided it would be a good idea to take Luke and Humphrey (for protection I suppose). However, they forgot that Luke is not the brightest dog and so he decided to do a nose dive out of the back of the truck on Carter Hill Road. He skinned his chin up really good, but I bet he won't be trying that trick again anytime soon. Here is the duo.

And this is Humphrey telling me exactly how he feels about Auburn's new head coach Gene Chizik. He is so opinionated.

Lastly, I feel like we need to discuss a time frame for Avery's birth. I have decided to use the two due dates as a window, and go with the average for calculations. Originally it was February 6th and then it was changed to the 11th. By my own calculations, the 6th is really more accurate but she is measuring more like the latter. So we will use the 9th for all intensive purposes. This is 6 weeks from today (42 days). We are so close! The medical professionals consider a baby full term anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks. So if she comes at 37 weeks, then we are looking at the 19th of January (21 days). In the event that she comes on the last day of full term (they usually won't let you go this long for fear of placental abruption, so expect me to be kicking and screaming for an induction long before this date) which is February 23rd, then we are 56 days out. So, basically she is anywhere from 21-56 days away from making her grand entrance into the world. On a positive note, a friend at work, who I don't see every day, swears that Avery has "dropped". And, after careful peripheral glaces into shiny elevator doors and windows as I walked to get my sandwich today, I think she is right...my belly looks significantly lower than it did last week. Maybe its wishful thinking, but the books do say that it can happen several weeks before the baby actually comes. Get excited!!