Stephensons Nov-Jan

Apparently I never wrote about November? In a nutshell, Jacob had a pretty busy rotation. He made the decision to switch medicine specialties and thus began the process of applying to programs all over again. He's switching from internal medicine to psychiatry. We found out (on Election Day!) that we're having another baby, due mid July. So excited about that. I worked like crazy to get the 1st grade morning work book finished and up in our shop for the after Thanksgiving sale. Thanks to Jacob and my family for all the help with Addie while we were in Utah because I spent the majority of the time working. I was so glad to see that project done. And so far it seems to be doing well in our shop. Thanksgiving was great and we loved spending a week in Utah. Dinner at Moultons was delicious and fun as always.  I started getting hit with morning sickness during the trip and by the time we got back to Fresno I was pretty much out on the couch for weeks. Poor Addie! She's as busy as ever though and just found lots of messes to make.

We started off December with Jacob doing a couple weeks of night shifts. In some ways it was nice, but it was hard on him. He's a morning person and hated sleeping the day away. But we usually had a few hours with him in the late afternoon/evening before he went to work. From nights he went to MICU which is one of the more time intensive rotations. Addie and I headed to Utah on the 15th but before we left we had our Christmas morning here. We didn't want to haul Addie's toys to Utah and back and the morning before we left was the only time we could find to do it with Jacob's schedule. Addie got a new fridge to go with her play kitchen and some more fun play food to go with it. Then her want/need/wear/read gifts. The baby also got want/need/wear/read gifts as well (which was tricky to pick out since we don't know the gender yet!)

It was a relief to get to Utah and get so much help with Addie while I was feeling so sick. Addie loves to be at Gamma and Gampa's house and got so excited every day when Gampa and Ian got home from work. Her sleeping has been troubled lately anyway so in Utah she ended up in my bed every night. I was so grateful to Mom for letting me get a nap most days!

Jacob was able to come up for a few short days before Christmas. We went out with Addie one night and tried bowling for the first time. She loved it at first but lost interest fairly quick. But she's asked to go again since then! He was here for the Family Party which was really nice this year. Fun to see Addie playing with Sophie and Luke (or more often, Nic and Rob!) Jacob had to work Christmas Eve. That morning we went to an early movie and lunch at Brick Oven before I took him (in the snow storm) to the airport. We sure missed him on Christmas but were glad we got to see him at all.

Christmas was wonderful! Addie was ever so spoiled. She absolutely adored the Little People princess castle from G&G and played with it a lot while we were in Utah. She also loved her tutu, wand and fairy wings. Ian got her a big Grover that she loved and Heidi gave her a really fun play wallet that has seen lots of action. I was really grateful for it on the plane ride home because it saved me for the part of the flight when you can't have the ipad on! Jacob and I got an Apple TV and have been using it a lot.

Addie and I stayed until Jan 5th. We mostly just hung around home but I did get to head to Springville one day with Addie to visit Heidi and some friends. I also got to meet up with a couple of med school friends in town for Christmas. The day before we left we went to the kids haircut place (Cookie Cutters) to get Addie her first official haircut. She lost a bunch of hair in the front when she got cradle cap last summer and it's growing in straight up, of course. It's finally getting long enough to tame. She, as I expected she might, freaked out and was not happy at all about the process. But as soon as it was done she was proud and talked about her "princess hair". We're loving it in the short, curly bob now.

We got back to Fresno just as Jacob was starting 3 weeks of residency interviews (using all 3 weeks of his vacation for the rest of the year, how depressing!) He was gone 4-6 days of every week traveling all over the country. So tiring and so expensive. We're pretty hopeful we'll be able to land a 2nd year spot in Psych. It sounds like he has one more interview in the works and then he'll be done done done. Then it's just the waiting game again until March for match day. I so did not expect to be doing this whole process two years in a row!!

I'm starting to feel a bit better these days which is nice. Addie is talking up a storm and singing and dancing like crazy. And we're looking forward to finding out the baby's gender in a couple weeks!