Thanksgiving visits and life as "normal"

We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving! Nate's mom and her husband and Nate's little sister drove down from Utah for a visit. Savannah quickly remembered who they were (the last time she saw them was in August when we were up for a visit). We all went to my mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving dinner, where my mom had an encounter with a can and ended up having to have 7 stitches put in her finger before dinner.
The day after Thanksgiving everyone took a trip to the L.A. area to visit Venice Beach and some of the sights in Hollywood.
That night we had a little mini-birthday celebration for Savannah and she got to dig into some chocolate cake.
Then on Saturday the girls all went to see Twilight and the men stayed home to do "manly stuff" like watch 24 and play with Savannah. That night we all went to Chuck E. Cheese's and had a blast helping Savannah to play games.
Sunday the gang left to drive back up to Utah--way too short of a visit! We had such a fun time with them. Okay, who's next???

Since then life has continued on as "normal." I just switched baby docs and had my first appointment with my new doctor last week. I switched because my old doctor would have required me to have another c-section, as that is the policy of Corona's hospital (and his personal policy). I also switched because Corona's hospital is tiny (despite the fact that Corona is not tiny at all) and doesn't have an NICU. So I'll now be delivering at Loma Linda University Medical Center. I'm so happy about the switch because I really like my new doctor. She spent a ton of time with me asking me questions and figuring out a plan of action.
Some interesting things came out of the visit, like the fact that I'm measuring 5 cm larger than the largest measurement that is considered normal, but my amniotic fluid levels appear to be normal and the baby doesn't appear to be the Hulk in infant form. Because of this and some other factors, the doc has put some restrictions on my daily routine. What? I'm being forced to put my feet up and read a book for a change? Darn. :-) I've got 7 1/2 weeks left until my due date, so it will be interesting to see what happens between now and then!

This past Saturday we celebrated St. Nicholas Day like usual, but it was way more fun that past years as Savannah was very excited to pull goodies out of her shoes (and out of her daddy's as well). Though a Santa cell phone filled with candy would probably make anyone excited to pull things out of their shoes, right?

Nate got set apart yesterday as our ward's Elder's Quorum President, so his life is about to become really fun, I'm sure.

Savannah has been on one lately.
When I picked her up from nursery yesterday, one of the nursery leaders told me she spent the last 10 minutes of nursery pretending to be a frog and hopping around the room. This was a result of a party we attended on Saturday, thrown by Nate's boss. There were two little girls who were playing a modified form of leap frog and Savvy was watching them and started imitating them.

For singing time last week I taught the nursery the chorus of Follow the Prophet. I had a picture of President Monson attached to a stick that I held and we marched around the room literally following the prophet. We sang it again today, and then on the way home from church Savannah started singing it in the car!! Then, when we were watching the Christmas Devotional tonight she got really excited and was pointing at the TV saying "It's the prophet! Look! It's the prophet!" She went on like that the whole time we were watching whenever President Monson showed up on the screen. It made it very difficult to hear anything that was being said, but it was beyond cute and was a proud parenting moment.

Last night we had our favorite quick and easy pasta concoction for dinner (Classico tomato and basil sauce mixed with Classico creamy alfredo sauce with spicy sausage in it eaten over noodles) and Savvy ate FOUR bowls of it. She set a personal record for the amount consumed in one meal. Now she probably won't eat at all today.