almost 34 weeks!

This is my almost 34 weeks belly. As you can tell my belly has really popped out. Up until a few weeks ago I still did not have people asking me the famous question of "when are you due?" and then all of a sudden my loving hubby tells me one night, "wow your belly has really popped out". Of course I couldn't do anything but agree with him. The day after he said that to me I had a handful of people ask me, "when's the baby due?" and the famous question has only grown each day...along with my belly!

As much as I don't like the look of a "big belly" on me I know I have a lot of friends who can not share in this time with me because of the states between us so here is a picture for all of you who have been anxiously awaiting to see my rather large prego belly (especially Chelsea Russell who told me I had to have a picture up by 4:00pm today!)

Enjoy!

We're Moving...

Sometime in April, Brett and I and our new little son will take up residency in South Dakota.

Background:
CAT (where Brett works as an engineer) offered it's employees a buyout option the day before we left to go home to South Dakota for Christmas break. When Brett brought it up to me it sounded as if it was not an offer we were even going to consider and it was basically left at that. A few days before we were to head back to Peoria from our Christmas break we were sitting at the table with Brett's parents chatting and the buyout got brought up. Long story short...it turned into a couple hour conversation which lead into Brett's dad telling us that we should maybe consider doing this since we were planning on moving back in another year and half anyway. I could feel my stomach begin to turn as we sat at the table and finished the conversation. We all decided it needed to be something that Brett and I were really ready to do and that it needed to be taken to the Lord before any decisions were made. We had until the 12th of January to tell CAT that we were interested in the buyout where at that point they would get us the numbers of how much we would actually be taking home with us if we took the buyout and then we would have 7 days after that number was given to us to back out of the buyout.

After calling out to God in prayer for guidance on our decision we finally came to the conclusion that we are going to take the buyout. We are very excited to be back in South Dakota close to family and friends but we know that this does not come without it's heartaches here in Peoria where we will be leaving a church where we have truly found a home and friends whom will always hold dear to our hearts.

Along with deciding if we were going to take the buyout or not we had to make a big decision on when we would move if we took the buyout. Taking this buyout meant that Brett would be done with work on January 31st. As many of you know I am due to have our first child, a son, on March 15th so we had to decide if we would leave basically after Brett is done with work or if we would wait until after the baby is born. We know it is going to be a hard transition to go from having a baby to moving 12 hours away to another state with a newborn son but we decided it was best to stay here in Peoria with our doctor and have the baby here. Along with that it will be a lot cheaper to have the baby here instead of back in South Dakota because we will still be under CAT's insurance for the next 6 months.

Life changes:
Brett will take on his life long dream of becoming a farmer which means I will become a farmers wife! Our plan as of now is for Brett to farm with his dad and grandpa and I will be a stay at home wife and mom. We will move back to South Dakota after I have healed a bit from the labor, so depending on when the baby is actually born we will leave sometime in April.

Prayer Requests:
-Brett to not feel stressed about getting the endless tasks done at CAT before he leaves in a week.
-Our transition from life in the city to life on the farm
-My labor (of which I am really nervous about after last weekends child birth classes)
-Quick healing for my body after the labor
-Finding a home to rent back in South Dakota
-The huge transition of being a family of two to becoming a family of three

Last note:
Since Brett will be done with work at the end of the month and I will be done with my job at the end of the month as well we will have all of Feb and some of March to just "be". It will be filled with lots of packing and preparing for the baby, but we are really excited to just have this time together before life begins to really transition and change for us.

Sorry for the long post but we wanted to update everyone on what's going on in the Huber household.

Prego Friends!

It seems as though there are at least a couple handfuls of people I know that are due within a month or two of my due date. The best news of all...my great friend Cassie Foster and I are due on the same day! What are the odds of that? When I found out that I was pregnant I had tried calling Cassie a number of times only to get her voice mail and to never get a call back. I thought this was a little strange that she was not calling me back but I finally got a call back from her only for her to tell me that she had some news to tell me. She confessed that she hadn't been calling me back because they hadn't been telling people their news yet and was afraid she would slip if she talked to me. Long story short...she told me she was pregnant and due on March 12th! I then took my turn and told her that I was pregnant as well and was due on March 17th! We laughed at how ironic the whole situation was. As the months and weeks went by we were both told by our doctors that our due date had changed some...Cassie's got moved back 3 days and mine got moved up 2 days giving us both a due date of March 15th! I admit that the chances of us actually having our baby are pretty slim to none but hey just the idea of it all is wonderful and not to mention that I have such a great friend to share in all of this "newness" with. I only wish we lived closer to each other so we could really experience all of this together. We have been blessed to see each other a few times over the prego months and last time was just before Christmas and so we took a few pictures of our prego bellies together. I thought it was high time to finally share one of those pictures with everyone. Here it is...

In case you didn't know Cassie and I were paired up as roommates our freshman year of college along with Chelsea Russell. We lived together all throughout college and after. Cassie got married to Brady Foster right after Christmas in 2007 and they just had their first anniversary a few weeks back. Brett and I got married a few months after them on Feb. 16th 2008. We were both bridesmaids in each others weddings along with our husbands having a part in both weddings as well. So there you have it...a somewhat breif story of Cassie and I and our prego bellies.

I had said that I have a handful of friends who are prego too and so I will try and list them...

-Sondra Harcey - just had her baby boy Graham last month (high school friend)
-Jaclyn Taylor - Due yesterday! (met at church in Peoria)
-Erin Wilmoth - Due in Feb. (met at church in Peoria)
-Cassie Foster - Due in March (college roommates)
-Becky Wolcyn - Due in March (met at college - married to my high school friend)
-Kayla Hinmann - Due in March (met through South Dakota friends)
-Amber Gruber - Had a baby boy named Rylan just before Christmas (my sister-in-law, married to my brother Andy)
-Heidi Shearer - Had twins, Anna and Evelyn at the end of Oct. (my sister-in-law, brett's sister)
-Courtney Eastland - Due in August (high school friend)
-Claire Langseth - Due in March (met in college - college roommates)
-Katie Huse - Due in April (met at church in Peoria)
-Shannon Dane - Due in April (met at college)
-Sara - Due in June (met out in Oregon through the Russell's)


I'm pretty sure I've missed a few people and so if I have just let me know and I will add them to the list...my mind is going blank right now.

Christmas Break Pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas break out in South Dakota with Brett's family. Instead of writing a long blog of what we did over the last week and a half I will just post pictures. Hope you enjoy!

South Dakota Road

Chelsea threw me a baby shower...
and made me eat melted chocolate out of a diaper.

Our adorable niece Evelyn


The boys went pheasant hunting.
Brett, Dan, and Austin

Dan got his first pheasant!

no need for words...

Brett and his catch

Brett and his best friend Luke

The Huber's and Shearer's

Brett and his brothers
Austin, Brett, and Clint

Our other adorable niece Anna

Grandpa and Evelyn styling their beanies

Anna taking a nap on my lap...so cute!

First Christmas!

Today was Christmas morning in the Huber house! We will be heading to South Dakota on Tuesday for Christmas with the Huber's so Brett and I decided to have a little family Christmas of our own first. We cuddled in bed last night watching "Elf", said Merry Christmas Eve to each other and quickly fell asleep before even making it a fourth of the way through the movie. We awoke this morning, rubbed our tired eyes and sprinted down the stairs to our stockings. Ok so the sprinting down the stairs didn't exactly happen like that...it might have been more of a walk rather than a sprint but none the less we made it to the tree where Santa (aka Brett and I) left each other sweet goodies in our new stockings.

myself looking a bit on the prego chubby side! gotta love it!



brett looking beyond excited to dig into his stocking!



us and our stockings still with tired eyes!

We were so excited about the combined traditions we can now continue with our family. Waking up and digging into the stockings was first on the list followed by our combined traditional breakfast. Brett's family always has grapefruit with their Christmas breakfast and my family always made pancakes with the first pancake for each person as the first letter of their name. We also always had sparkling grape juice to accompany our breakfast!

Brett did a wonderful job carrying on the tradition of the pancakes!

Our Christmas breakfast!

After filling our bellies full of Christmas breakfast goodness we headed back over the couch where Brett read us the Christmas story from Luke 2. We took in the beauty of our Saviors birth and cuddled on the couch talking about how next year we will have a little guy cuddling with us. Eventually we will get a nativity set and follow the Huber tradition of reading the Christmas story while each member of the family gets to move around their assigned person or animal. Our last tradition that we kept was to open gifts...although this year we decided to do a combined gift for each other which is yet to be decided what that is going to be so we saved one of our stocking gifts (that didn't fit in the stocking anyway) and we opened our gifts! It was such a beautiful morning with my husband...the best Christmas we've ever had.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...at least for now!

Here are a few pictures of our recent ice storm as well...

Ginger Bread Houses and Ugly Christmas Sweaters!

I had a few of my small group girls over this weekend to make ginger bread houses! Neither of them had ever made one and it has been a few years since I have made one myself but a great tradition I grew up with. I had asked Brett awhile back if he wanted to make one with me but he seemed to think it was a "lame idea" so I asked my small group girls to do it with me instead! We had a blast building and of course...eating!

Me, Chelsea, and Kirsten with our sweet houses!



my ginger bread house

We also went to the Second Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party this weekend! Neither Brett or I won the ugliest sweater contest but we enjoyed a lot of really good food and enjoyed being with friends!

What a cute family!



Mike and Brett

Decorating for Christmas!!!

I have been anxiously awaiting for December to come so I could decorate for Christmas. I've never been so excited to put up lights, pick out a tree, and decorate the house as I was this year! Maybe it's because this is our first year in a house together...our first Christmas as a married couple! It was strange to think that not only is this our first Christmas as a married couple but it is also our last Christmas as just the two of us...it feels a bit bitter-sweet right now but I know after our little boy is born we will never look back. We spent the last few days soaking up the holiday spirit going to a parade of lights with good friends, hanging our lights outside, going to a tree lot and picking out a tree, and of course getting the tree home and decorating it! All that's left is a bit of shopping and most importantly soaking in the goodness of the birth of Christ, our Savior!

Parade of Lights!
It's a two mile long stretch of Christmas lights built into different things.



Brett putting up lights outside!
(I was a bit too cold so I watched from our front door)



Picking out our Christmas tree!



Bringing our tree inside!



Our decorated tree!



Our first and last Christmas as a family of two!