I'm a week late on our Thanksgiving post. Has it really only been a week since Thanksgiving?

James, Stephanie, Tyler with Spark Plug, Ryan, Dylan, and Emmy Grace

We were in NC with Mom and Dad Haas and big brother James and his family. We also got to visit with Grandpa and Grandma Haas for a day. Unfortunately the rest of the siblings couldn't make it:( We arrived Wednesday and left Saturday, so it was short but sweet.

A bunch of monkeys!

Literally sweet...Dad taught us how to process the honey from his bees. We're hoping for bees and their honey in our future here in Nashville. When we arrived, Dad was working on mounting his 10-pointer deer head (European style), and mom and I worked on a quilt for the baby during our time there. After we left Dane said it felt like we had been at a folk festival. I classify that as a compliment!

See part of the process...

And it still needed strained and pasteurized and put in jars!

See, bees are harmless!

This week has been eventful with getting our first ever live (as in re-plantable) Christmas tree on a very dreary, rainy day, a Christmas concert (Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb of God"....celebrating the glorious story of Jesus...I highly recommend it), a neighborhood potluck, a "run-out-of-gas-on-the-side-of-the-road" experience, and it has all culminated in a stomach bug for Dane. He's been out of commission today. Dane being sick is so rare and seeing him like this makes me realize how much I love him.


We're seeing the midwives every two weeks for the next 2 visits and then we start our weekly visits until Baby Forlines shows up! The time is closing in very fast bringing with it excitement and more and more understanding that soon we're going to be Daddy and Mama to a little person outside of the womb. Does anyone else find that slightly unbelievable?

33 weeks on Thanksgiving Day