This year we spent Christmas in Brooklyn as part of our alternate major holiday routine. Kelly was just about 10 weeks or so.  One night we were at my sister Danielle and her Fiance Rachel’s apartment in Park Slope when I learned Kelly had never seen the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  I knew that already, but when it came up around Christmas time, I realized that I wasn’t going to be married to a woman who has never seen the big tree.  That’s like a rule that regardless of where you live, you make it there at some point in your life. So we took a late night trip, around 11 pm into the city and took her to the tree.  As always, there were millions of people.  As always, it was uncomfortably cold, but as always, it was as glorious as its ever been and I was thankful we were able to share that together.  She still wasn’t showing, but we were at a point in the pregnancy that we never reached before, so we were still holding out hope that maybe this time it would work out.

PS – When Googleing how to spell Rockefeller correctly, one of the suggested searches was “Rockefeller Skank.”  I should probably check that out at some point.

PPS – After Googleing the correct spelling of Rockefeller, I still spelled it wrong.

We were trying to figure out a way to tell our parents about the good news. Kelly tried to be coy and give off a hint of calm and collected, which she did well.  She told her mom she couldn’t help her clean because you aren’t supposed to use cleaners with chemicals in them when you’re pregnant.  Kelly’s mom got the hint and was super excited for us.

We wanted to surprise Joe’s parents around Christmas time when we got to their house.  So during the week we found a little Christmas Tree ornament that showed a snow man and what appears to be a snow woman and it showed a baby bump on the snow woman.  So we had them write on it, “We’re Expecting” along with the month and year. We gave it to them when we got home and told them we had something small for them to open now so they can put it on their tree.

It was such a nice surprise.  My dad laughed and was really excited.  My mom said a bunch of words in the most high pitched scream that only Dolphins in the area could understand her.  It was a great night. My mom doesn’t care that it’s a Christmas Tree ornament.  She still has it out and keeps it out all year long.

One of the best things I love about Christmas time is having a real Christmas tree.  I never understood getting a fake tree.  It doesn’t smell like Christmas.  It smells, like, nothing really.  Thanks to Kristin and Ardy (Kelly’s sister and her husband), we tagged along with them on their yearly trips to cut their tree down from a Christmas tree farm.  We’ve been doing it every year since we met, with the exception of the year we got married because we were on our Honeymoon when they went (we were ok not going since we spent two weeks in a Mexican paradise).  This year the Murphy’s joined us and hopefully we turned them onto this great tradition in which you destroy nature for pure amusement and joy…..it actually sounds kind of bad now that I think about it.

Last year (2013) we were in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving.  We alternate major holidays every year.  Around this time, Kelly was about 6 weeks pregnant.  Not showing, but feeling bloated and kind of uncomfortable.  We recreated one of the first pictures we ever took when I spent our first Easter together in Pittsburgh back in 2008.  Kelly recalled that time (and picture), adding that this picture “was like our first Easter picture, only fatter.”  Unfortunately, she is correct.

Shortly after we found out Kelly was pregnant, we went to New Hope for the day. Not as like a celebration, we just go there sometimes.  Walked around, went into some stores, probably bought a scarf, had some lunch.  And we talked a bunch.  About how we felt about her being pregnant again.  And how we were both scared, but still excited because maybe something different would happen this time.  And we also shared a dislike for the woman sitting behind us who smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in one sitting.

Kelly is officially Pregnant.  Her Pee Test came back positive (well, it doesn’t say positive or negative, it makes it easy for you and just says pregnant or not pregnant.  Which is nice, because the 1 line – 2 line thing gets confusing.)  So it’s a very happy day.  Kelly was so excited this morning when she found out.  I was excited too.  I had a different feeling this time.  Since all of our tests came back normal and we knew we were ok to try again, I was praying this time would have a different outcome.  We chose to not tell anyone this time, at least not at first.  We didn’t tell Kelly’s parents until Thanksgiving which was a few weeks later, and we were seeing Joe’s parents for Christmas this year, so we were hoping all went well up until then and we were going to surprise them when we got home to NY.  It was such a great holiday season this year and we had so much to be thankful for.