Christmas Eve Already

It's hard to believe that Christmas is almost here. It seems like just a couple days ago that it was Thanksgiving, and now another month has already passed. Maybe I should revise that statement - for me, the time has flown, though for Tam, it seems like each day brings on a newly discovered discomfort of the third trimester.

So here we are tonight, relaxing a bit and enjoying our last Christmas together as just the two of us, since we'll have a little extra help celebrating next year. The presents are wrapped, Christmas music is playing, and we'd have a fire burning if it wasn't 70 degrees outside. We're off to Jax in the morning to spend the day with my family, and this will likely be the last trip out of Gainesville for Tam until Ava makes her arrival. We're at 33 weeks now, and she could decide she's ready in two weeks, or she could wait as long as another ten. We're hoping she makes her appearance around week 37, because this kid is pushing and kicking and putting pressure on some pretty sensitive places.

In the time since Thanksgiving, we've gone out for a couple of maternity portrait sessions - one at Jax beach in the 40-degree early morning the day after Thanksgiving. Yes, I made her walk barefoot in the cold wet sand while I was nice and warn in my jacket, but as you can see from the sample images below, the results were well worth it. The second session was here in Gainesville, in the very same park where we had our engagement photos taken five and a half years ago.









We also had a second baby shower in Jax a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of my sister. This was a smaller affair than the one we held in Gainesville in November, and was more of a get-together for longtime friends of the Johnson clan. Tam and I are grateful to everybody who came to the showers, and we appreciate everybody's excitement about Baby A.

I don't see how anybody could be quite as excited about her as we are, though. I'm already shoving my blackberry in people's faces to show them pictures of our 4D ultrasound on the blog, and she's not even here yet. I am going to be that guy who says "let me show you some pictures of my kid."

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and Tam and I will try to update a little more frequently now that the nursery is all done, the baby showers are over, and we're reaching the home stretch.