And His Name Shall Be Called...

Well, we told our fams on Christmas, so now you can know...
Each family member received a personalized version of this card "from Baby Sumners":

With this inside:

So now you know. And knowing's half the battle.

Merry Christmas!

So I didn't post any more this week about ornaments. Oh well. I looked at them and thought there were a bunch of cute old ones, but not any with really good stories like that first one. So we'll leave it at that. We're going to have a long Christmas tomorrow. We're starting at Jon's parents' house with all of them at 10:00, doing presents, eating lunch, and then driving to Ft. Worth. We'll get there around 7:00 and have presents and dinner with my family. Yay! Long day. Then I think I'll be making us do stockings Friday morning because you have to be in pajamas for stockings. It's the law. We'll be coming back to Little Rock Monday or Tuesday. At some point along that timeline I'll post pictures. They'll be great, I'm sure.
But for now, here's just one. It's December in the ridiculous "Jack: The Calendar" that I made online. One of my friends told me about this great website, artscow.com. It's for making junk with your pictures. When you join you get TONS of free stuff and only have to pay shipping. My first free thing I got was an 8x8 photo book, which I used to make a new better version of our honeymoon book I made online a few years ago. The second thing I got for free was a calendar. Since we're a couple of months away from the kid, I decided to go ridiculous and make a calendar of Jack. The other night I took pictures of him for the whole year. You'll see them through the next year, but I'll go ahead and show you December now.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree!

I FINALLY got the Christmas tree up on Monday. Because the icy weather was starting on Monday afternoon, the family I work for let me go home early after picking up the kids from school early. I had multiple hours to be at home and finally get up decorations. When we moved into the house, we talked about that we could get a full-sized tree this year, since we'd only had a four foot one up to this point. I figured that one more year with Shorty would be fine and we could get one on clearance after Christmas and save some money.
Due to Jack's love of chewing things up, I put the tree up on a short table last year. (Two years ago, he had chewed up an ornament Jon's mom made with flowers from our wedding. Yes, the glass, flowers, and everything.) I did the same thing this year...

I know some people like to have a color theme or whatever to their tree, but I like colored lights with the cornucopia of random ornaments from my whole life.

It's so pretty with the lights off!

When I moved out after college, my mom was gracious enough to let me take all of the ornaments from my childhood with me. Over the next week or so, I want to feature a few of them and tell their adorable stories. Here's number one:

When I was six years old, I got a letter in the mail one day from Santa! He had sent me this small brass reindeer ornament and told me that he wanted to be able to see it on the tree when he came to see us on Christmas Eve. Every year, the reindeer was hung on the side of the tree facing the chimney, so he could see it! When I moved into my own place after college and got Shorty the Tree, the reindeer was still hung facing my chimney. When we got married and were living in an apartment without a fireplace, the reindeer was hung facing the front door, because, of course, that's Santa's only way in. A few days after we moved into the house this year, I was a little sad to realize that there wasn't a fireplace. (Yeah, I was slow.) So the reindeer ornament is still facing the front door, so that Santa can see him when he comes to visit. The End.

Caution: Bridges May Ice In Cold Weather

Neither of us had to work today because all of the schools in the area were closed! Yay! But I had my 28 week appointment at the doctor. Jon offered to drive me since it was icy out and the roads were dangerous. We went to the appointment, then went to Target and by the library (which was closed because of the weather.) We were on our way back home and driving down I-30. There were small patches of ice along the way, but nothing major except along the edges of the bridges where nobody drove.
Well, our left tires got on some of that ice on one of those bridges and we started to swerve. Jon tried to get out of the swerve, but we hit the retaining wall, which sent us spinning. We then spun back into the road, hitting the side of an 18-wheeler, which sent us spinning again, and the guy behind us hit us. Somehow with all of this spinning and hitting, we were only damaged on the front end.
My head hurt for a little while because I grabbed that handle up over my window and hit my head on my thumb joint - you know, that hard one where your thumb connects to your hand. Jon got a burn on his right thumb from the airbag. It's still bothering him pretty badly and he's treating it with cold packs, tylenol, and aloe. I called my doctor to see if I needed to come in since I hadn't had any trauma to the belly. (Neither of us even hit the airbags - guess the seatbelts worked!) The doctor said that as long as I was still feeling the baby move (which I am) and wasn't experiencing any severe cramping or bleeding (which I'm not), I was alright.
God really protected us and we came out really well in several different areas. Everyone was driving slowly because of the ice and the traffic was really spaced out so there wasn't a chain reaction or anything. We didn't get a ticket for the accident, I'm guessing because it was caused by ice. We already got the reimbursement check for the towing ($245!!!) and the insurance said that our insurance should only go up around $40 per 6 months because of the cancelation of the Good Driver Discount or whatever it's called.
My camera batteries were almost completely dead, so I just got a short video of the front of the car. (For some reason, it takes less battery power to make a video than take a picture.) Here it is:



Simply amazing that was all the damage.

28 Weeks!

This is going fast! So here I am at 28 weeks aka 7 months aka cauliflower-sized baby.
Technically, 27 weeks was cauliflower-sized, but 28 weeks is chinese cabbage, and who's gonna eat some of that? And also, can you buy that? So it was either 27 weeks cauliflower or 29 weeks butternut squash. I pick neither, but I figured someone would be more likely to eat the cauliflower. The End.
Oh, and yes, that's a different backyard. We took it at our house this month.

Important facts at 28 weeks:
Baby Name: Will be announced in the coming month!
Belly Button Status: Still an innie and still has some depth to work with! Yay!
Hair: Not falling out at alarming rates anymore like it was about 10 weeks ago.
Nails: Growing very fast, but they always have.
Complexion: Awesome, except for this red rash looking thing on my chest that has gotten way worse since pregnancy. It doesn't itch or burn and isn't hot or anything. Just ugly, but I've managed to hide it in my monthly pictures.
Breathing: Very difficult when sitting back or lying down. Makes sleep quite enjoyable.
Digestion: Very difficult when sitting back or lying down. Makes sleep quite enjoyable.
Feet, legs, and back: Only hurt when standing for eight hours at Target on the weekends, but that will be over next week! Yay!
Weird things: I've started waking myself up with random grunts or snorts when I'm just about to fall asleep. It's embarrassing, but I think it has to do with pregnancy congestion, so I have an excuse.

Another Reason to Love Our Neighbors

**Don't miss it: The post I was working on before this ended up BELOW this one!**

I was in the middle of composing another post, but this required an immediate post... Remember our lovely neighbors? A few minutes ago I started smelling smoke. Like that nasty someone-is-burning-something-that-shouldn't-be-burned smoke. I went out the front door to look and the whole street was filled with white smoke. I looked right. I looked left. To the left, I saw the smoke was coming from the house next door. So I went out the back door and saw the backyard was filled with smoke. Went to get the camera. Took these pictures.

Our backyard filled with smoke. (It's hard to take a picture of smoke.)

Whatever-the-heck they're doing... taken through the fence again.
I'm getting really good at taking these sneaky pictures.
Oh... and notice their house is covered in the mud from last season's four-wheeling. Gross.

Christmas Fun!

I decided to have another Christmas party at the job house like I did last year. We had the girls from my Sunday School class and their kids over. We decorated my homemade gingerbread men and watched some of the old Christmas classics (Rudolph and Frosty). Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

My pre-made gingerbread man on the cookie plate.

The decorating options.

D is ready for everyone to come!

We also had hot chocolate.
And now a montage of little hands decorating cookies...

Sweet Kaleigh decorating while Ethan watched.

D with his finished cookie.

Alyssa Kate and her cookie.

D enjoying his cookie.

Hannah and her crew with their cookies.

D folded into a pretzel while watching the movie.

Hannah during the movie.

Candice, Alyssa Kate, and Caroline watching the movies.

Look at that big girl standing!

And last night we had our Sunday School class Christmas party at our directors' house. It was a lot of fun, but I only took one picture all night.
And technically I didn't take it:


Thanks Mom!!!

Yay! Whoop! I have a new computer! Over the past year or so, my old computer had been sporadically shutting down and restarting in the middle of me doing things. It was really annoying. Right before we moved, I got all of the files off of the computer and put them on an external hard drive. Good thing, because when I plugged in the computer at the house, it worked for about 20 minutes then shut down and basically wouldn't turn back on. My mom felt really bad for me and really wanted me to have a new computer. So, after discussing it with my dad, they decided to use some of my grandmother's money to buy me a new one! Here are some pictures.

Before: All of the cables and cords behind the desk. Yikes!

The new computer (and printer!) came in two separate shipments. Those geniuses at HP shipped the printer in that box AND didn't require a signature, so just left it on the porch.
"Hmmm... wonder what's in that box FedEx just left at that house," thought the thief.

Pretty much hilarious cartoon warnings that were on the bag that the computer was in.

Thanks, HP!

After: Much better, even though it doesn't look like it. The mouse, keyboard, printer, and internet are all wireless. Most of those cords that are left are the modem/router and the tv/vcr.

Left: Oldie Right: Newbie!


My old printer/scanner/copier wasn't very good either. The scanner never really worked well, so my mom decided to include that in the order. It's wireless, so Jon can print stuff from his laptop. From the living room. Awesome.