good news, great news, and a surprise!

I had my 32 week appointment last week. Fletcher is head DOWN. What a good little boy. Everything is looking great. He is growing like crazy and so am I.

Great news! I found out about my pregnancy/maternity leave and it turns out that I get 12 weeks off 100% paid. 4 weeks before my due date-pregnancy leave and 8 weeks after Fletcher is born-maternity leave. I wish I could just do all 12 weeks after, but the law says that you can only have maximum 8 weeks after the baby is born. I'll take what I can get though! especially when I still get 100% of my wages for the time I have off.

What an amazing blessing.

Brandon finished his first semester of Medical School!!! WOOHOO!! moving right along. The semester seemed to fly by. He got amazing grades and is enjoying his break from studying.

Brandon got to go deep sea fishing with some members of the branch twice in the last two weeks. The first time he went was during the day and so it was nice and hot and he caught a bunch of huge fish! the second time was at night and it rained the whole time. Everyone was freezing and didn't catch anything. He loved it though and is still telling people about it.

I also got to make Christmas sugar cookies with the Sister Smith and Barbel, while our husbands were night fishing. It was so much fun to get together and visit and make and eat cookies together. Christmas just isn't the same without frosted sugar cookies.

The best part of the week was my Christmas Surprise from Brandon. I came home from work Friday night--Brandon had already left for fishing-- to Christmas music playing and a beautifully decorated tree set up in our bedroom with a bunch of presents under it!! There was also a sweet little note from Brandon. How romantic, right? Best Husband Ever Award? I think so.

I don't have any pictures this week--still waiting on some fishing ones to get emailed to us, but I will put some up next week for sure!

Week of Celebrating

The first thing we celebrated this week was Sinterklaas!

For those of you who aren't Dutch, Sinterklaas and his helper Zwarte Piet come on the 5th of December on a boat from Spain and leave goodies and little presents for good girls and boys in their shoes. Zwarte Piet job is to take all of the bad girls and boys and put them in a sack and take them back to Spain. 

This is how to celebrate Sinterklaas and December 5th "Zwarte Pieten Stijl"

If you want, you can learn more about Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Sinterklaas even made it to our house and got Brandon a new watch and left me a chocolate statue of himself! Thanks Sinterklaas!

someone found my chocolate Sinterklaas before I did.

Branch Party

We had our branch party this week and it was a lot of fun! it was a combination of a reenactment of the nativity story and a piano recital for those in the branch that are taking piano lessons from the senior missionary couple. They did great!

Baby Shower

I also had my baby shower this weekend! it was tons of fun. we played fun games like seeing who could change a baby's diaper the fastest blindfolded, who could tie their shoes the fastest with a balloon underneath their shirts without popping it, who could drink out of a baby bottle the fastest, and who could eat "baby poop" out of a diaper the fastest (don't ask).

We also ate a bunch of food, had a delicious cake, chatted, and got to spend some time by the pool.

Thanks everyone that came and an even bigger thanks for all of the gifts!

I got two diaper cakes, a diaper motorcycle, more diapers, wipes, baby clothes, baby bath supplies, some mula... feeling super blessed and jealous of Fletcher. Everyone loves him so much and he's not even born yet!

Unfortunately I don't have a ton of pictures because my friend that took all the pictures on her phone jumped in the pool to save a child from drowning with her phone still in her pocket. Good news is, she saved the kid.

We also celebrated Brandon's last soccer game of the semester and me finishing my online classes! 

Brandon scored an amazing goal in his last game and I got A's in both of my classes. BOOM!

Busy week. Fun week. One week closer to celebrating baby Fletch.

couple things

my innie has turned into an outie. 

I saw my first bonairian double rainbow. #nofilter

randomly our landlords told us that they "accidentally" paid our electricity and water bill for us this month. they are so awesome. plus they have fed us delicious food the last 4 sundays in a row.

we love them and are so grateful for them. 

 B-lessed.