Quick Announcement & Christmas Update

Announcement

This holiday season Brandon, Owen and I received the very best gift we could have ever asked for. You guessed right, Brandon and I are expecting Baby Burgess #2! We tried to keep it a secret for as long as possible, but the word has officially leaked out. Owen is so excited about being a big brother and points to every ones belly and says "Baby" every opportunity he gets. We are so blessed that God has entrusted another one of his children into our care and will be anxiously awaiting his or her arrival in early August!!!!

Christmas Update

On another note, many of you are probably wondering why I haven't posted any Christmas pictures yet. Well, it may be another week or so, but I promise they are coming. The holidays weren't quite what we had expected. Here is a quick recap of the past week. (Warning: this is a really long story!) It all started on Sunday, December 20th. Brandon, Owen and I got onto a plane and headed up to Denver to spend the holidays with Brandon's family. We got there safe and sound and spent the first couple of days with Brandon's Dad. Brandon was set to come home on Christmas evening and Owen and I were going to stay until Tuesday, December 29. Well on Wednesday we headed over to Brandon's mom's to stay the remainder of our trip there. I started to feel a bit sick, but tried to ignore it since we were on vacation, and O' yea, it's Christmas! Well, Thursday morning, Christmas Eve, I woke up (or not since I tossed and turned all night) with a terrible stomach ache, head ache and just feeling extremely yucky! Brandon and I decided since it was getting pretty bad that I should probably be seen, so we headed out to Urgent Care. Well, we came home with some meds and I was diagnosed with a Urinary Tract Infection, an Upper Respiratory Infection and the Stomach Flu! Well we went over to Brandon's Grandparents house that night as planed and lucky me I got to watch everyone eat his Grandma's delicious home cooked Christmas dinner. We opened presents and went back to his mom's. Well, during this whole time, I am progressively getting worse and worse. To the point I could barely even walk, I was basically hunched over in a ball on the couch. We decided it would be best to switch my flight for Owen and I to come home with Brandon instead of staying longer since I may need to get home since I was so sick. Well, Christmas morning, we woke up opened presents, packed up and headed to the airport. Wow, what an adventure that was. I could barely walk and was so sick to my stomach, but somehow God helped me pull through and make it home, flight delayed and all. Our good friend Gavin picked us up from the airport and dropped me off at the ER on the way to drop off Brandon and Owen at home. Well, I spent Christmas night in the ER for about 7 hours while they pumped me full of fluids and ran a few tests. Thank God, they said Baby seems to be doing very well and diagnosed me with a Urinary Tract Infection and Gastroenteritis and sent me home with some more meds. Gastroenteritis is a condition that causes irritation and inflammation of the stomach and intestines. I haven't ate a decent meal in about 5 days but I do feel like I am making some really small progress and have strong hope that I will get over this very soon. Thank You everyone for all your prayers and for everyone that called to check in on me and baby and all the assistance everyone has offered to us. We are so blessed to have such amazing Friends and Family by are side through extremely tough times as these. Well, I promise to post some Christmas pictures soon, but my main priority as of now is making sure baby and I are taken care of. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Years to you all in case I don't get back to blogging before than.

Small Group Christmas Party!

So blogging is the absolute last thing in the world I should be doing right now, but O' well. Seriously, we leave for Denver tomorrow and I have nothing packed yet and my washer and drier are beeping at me to fold my laundry and I am seriously trying to tune it out. I am in denial about everything I need to and should be doing and I really hate packing. So I am choosing to blog instead. This past Wednesday, Brandon and I hosted our first Small Group Christmas Party. We actually combined our small group with our old leaders small group and made it one big giant party! The theme was a Crappy Christmas Sweater and a Cookie Exchange Party. It was a blast! Most everyone, with the exception of a few party poopers, came dressed in some pretty nasty looking Christmas sweaters. It was pretty funny, even Owen had a crappy Christmas sweater on. At then end of the night we voted on the ugliest sweater and that person got a little gift from Brandon and I. We also had a cookie exchange. Everyone brought a dozen cookies and we all pigged out on junk food and then everyone got to take a dozen assorted cookies home with them. It was a lot of fun and super delicious. On top of everything we even had a fun White Elephant gift exchange. That is always fun watching everyone open ridiculous gifts. Here are some fun pictures from our night. Merry Christmas!!!!The Burgess' all dressed up in our Crappy Christmas Sweaters. Like Owens? It was way too small and we bought it at Goodwill. He was such a good sport and made that ugly sweater look good!

He loves posing for the camera!

The Williams' family dressed in their Tacky T-Shirts. Brandon & Blake. Yes boys, you look very tough wearing your wonderful women's sweaters? Me and Jess. Don't we look awesome in our sweater vests?And the White Elephant Gift Exchange begins. A Rubber Mallet anyone? Or the always wonderful Nuns Having Fun Calendar!Or the always intriguing used sports equipment!
But seriously, what could be better than Aqua Globes?Wow! Check out that sweater. I haven't seen one like that since the early 80's. Anyone remember the cupcake decorating book I got for my Birthday. Well I decided to try it out! Here are the ornament cupcakes I stayed up all night making the night before the party! And here is our wonderful assortment of cookies. They were all so delicious!

Chick-Fil-A Santa Cow!

A couple days ago a good friend of mine and I decided to take our kids to family night at Chick-Fil-A. We had heard that the Chick-Fil-A cow was going to be dressed up like Santa! How fun right? Well, Owen didn't really think so. He loved talking and shaking hands with Mr. Santa Cow but totally freaked out when I tried to sit him on his lap. Here is a picture of Owen trying to wiggle out of Santa Cow's arms before breaking into tears! Maybe next year will be better, I guess he still has a little stranger anxiety, especially strange men dressed up like cow's wearing Santa's outfit! I guess I would be freaked out too...

Outside Lights

So the lights on the house have been up since the day after Thanksgiving, but I am just now getting around to putting pictures up. Yes, the Burgess' have been super busy lately. Well hope you enjoy the beautiful lights Brandon put up

Great Grandma's Christmas Dinner

This past Friday was my Grandmothers annual Christmas Dinner at her assisted living facility. She is allowed to bring four guests and since my sister and brother-in-law went last year with my parents, it was Brandon and I's turn this year. They served a delicious dinner, Salad, Lasagna, Steamed Veggies, Shrimp and Brandon's favorite, Key Lime Pie! Everything was amazing. Owen however, was not really into staying seated while we were eating dinner. So as all parents know, we all ate in shifts while someone was off running around with Owen. After dinner we went back to my Grandma's apartment and spent some time chit-chatting with her before we headed home. Owen had a blast in her apartment since she had tons of Nick-knacks to play with and lots of singing Christmas decorations. He also enjoyed playing the piano down in the common area! Enjoy some pictures from our night. The Burgess' with Great-Grandma ThompsonMy adorable parents

Brandon eating him yummy food, minus the shrimp of course, we all know Brandon and I hate seafood. I actually kept mine on my plate to be nice, but Brandon scraped his off immediately on my dad's plate, just like a kid, but I love him dearly!

Owen playing with my Grandma's Santa the plays the saxophone! He had so much fun dancing to it! Owen playing the pianoThe Burgess Family posing in front of the blow-up nativity set. LOLMe and my hunny! Awe

Household Chores

So lately Owen has been very into helping out around the house! I am not really sure if it is mean to have him start doing chores at such a young age, but I figure if he is willing I might as well let him. I am sure there will be a day when it will be like pulling teeth to have him do his chores. Here are a few pictures of Owen sweeping the floors for me this morning. I had just finished giving him a hair cut that's why he is in his diaper and socks. He was so fascinated with the broom! He loved pushing it around and reminding Mommy how long it had been since she last swept!

I know he looks a little anorexic here, but I swear we feed him, he just burns off more calories than he eats right now. He is one busy boy and never sits still unless Mickey Mouse is involved!

River of Lights & Our No Good Day!

Last night Brandon and I took Owen to see the River of Lights at the Botanical Gardens with some very good friends of ours Jonathan, Jessica and Abby. I am sure you are all familiar with them, you know Abby's parents, Owen's BFF who is often blogged about along with Owen. Anyway, Yesterday was one of those days! You know those days when you begin to wonder how in the world God decided you were responsible enough to be in charge of a child? Yeah on of those days! Beware this is a long story about our No Good Very Bad Day! We were supposed to go over to our friends house at 5:30pm to eat dinner over there and then head over to the Botanical Gardens to see the Lights. Well, Brandon and I had a few last Christmas errands to run so we had planned to leave the house around 3:30, do our errands and then head over to our friends house across town. So I packed up all of our stuff, Hats, Mittens, Jackets, Long Johns, scarfs, etc. and had them all ready to go when we were ready to leave. So around 3:20 we packed up the car and headed off for our afternoon. We finished all of our running around early and were headed over to our friends house. Okay all sounds good until we realized that we forgot to grab all of Owen's stuff to keep him warm! Ahhh. Somehow we managed to grab all of our stuff minus Owen's. Needless to say we were no longer going to be early. We made a pit stop to the mall and ran in to get Owen some long johns and mittens, luckily I had his jacket and an extra Hat in the car. I left the diaper bag in the car since Brandon had his wallet and we were literally running in and out. Well, when we were about half way down the mall Brandon realized that Owen had soaked him entire pants and we had no diapers with us, so we were walking around the mall with a kid dressed in pee and nothing to change him with. Well, we finally get his stuff and headed to the car. On the way the handle of the bag I was carrying broke off, UGH!!!! We make it to our friends house, threw Owen's clothes in the drier and ate a delicious dinner and headed over to the Light show. When we get inside the Botanical Gardens we realized that Brandon and I didn't dress nearly as warm as we should have and also that we forgot one of my gloves in the car that we spent about 45min. early trying to find. Wow, I know its a lot to take in. Luckily the Lights were awesome and Owen loved it, I don't think he blinked once the entire time we were there. O yea' one last thing. The pictures aren't the greatest since I took them all with my cell phone since I realized once we were there that my camera battery was dead! Sometimes when you think you are all prepared and ready to go you are quickly suprised at how much you don't have it all together!

The carolers that sang were awesome. Owen loved clapping for them at the end of each song!

This was Owen's face the whole time. He was bundled up so tight that his cheeks were warm every time I touched them. I was so concerned about making sure he was warm that Brandon and I almost froze! Lol, parenting!

Even though it was a stressful no good day we did really enjoy ourselves and it sure makes for one heck of a story!

Here are our friends Jonathan, Jessica and Abby who was way past her bed time!

Play Day with Abby & Cami

This past Wednesday Owen and I had our weekly play day! His friends Abby & Cami came over and they made a nice mess of toys all over the family room. I don't really get it, he plays just fine in his play room, but when he has friends over they always drag all the toys to the family room? Crazy kids. O' well they had so much fun together and actually played pretty well together. There were only two incidences to report. First, was when Owen and Abby were chasing each other around the Christmas tree and Owen accidentally bumped into Abby and knocked her under the tree. She wasn't hurt, just a little traumatized. And second, was when Abby was on Owen's back on the couch trying to hug him and they both rolled off the couch and smacked heads together. Other than that the day was awesome and we all had a great time! They had so much fun playing in his toy storage bins! Really who needs toys?Seriously adorable!

Here is Owen's friend Cami. She is 8 months old and such a little sweetie! She just started crawling and is very interested in keeping up with the older kids. Owen and Abby are so good with her and really enjoy tickling her tummy and handing her toys to play with

Gavin's B-Day!

A few days ago was our very good friend Gavin's Birthday. You may remember him from my Blog from Thanksgiving, you know the guy that kept falling asleep! Anyway, since his mom was up visiting from Las Cruses, NM we decided to have them over for a Birthday dinner. I made my famous Kickin' Chicken Soup and Cornbread! For dessert I made a Chocolate, Cookies 'n' Cream Ice Cream cake. Here are a couple pics.

Owen made friends with Gavin's mom Kathy pretty quickly, especially since she let him eat all the cake he wanted. Spoiled little boy!