Shalom, Y'all.

This is what the sign in McKay's parents' entryway says, and that is what greets us each time we arrive in Plano, Texas. Shalom, y'all. We are here!

The drive was quite a terrible drive, a 26 hour one instead of 20 hours. Too many little towns to drive through, too much fast food, and not enough choo-choos to keep a two year old named Tyler happy. But we survived it.

Christmas was wonderful, with quite enough choo-choos, thank you very much, and just enough cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas to keep us all happy and grateful for such a great family. But that is a post for another time, once I find my camera cord to the computer. And unless I get on that by Sunday, it'll be another week or so because we are going on a CRUISE to Mexico to celebrate being done with school. The cruise line sent me a sample menu, and I am ready to eat my weight in lobster and stuffed quail.

PS: Happy New Year!

Today was our second doctor's appointment for Baby #2. Twelve weeks this week, and we were ready to hear a heartbeat!

We talked to Dr. Jacobs for a little bit about our cruise and scuba diving. Then he got out his cool little heartbeat reader and his sub temperature tummy jelly. McKay had the camcorder rolling. But after a minute or so of all three of us listening to silence, Dr. Jacobs frowned. Then he said the battery was low on this one, and went to grab another battery. He was back in a minute with a fully charged heartbeat reader. But after a minute or so of skating around on my tummy, there was still just static. I was starting to feel panicked, and McKay's smile had disappeared. Our doctor referred us to the ultrasound part of the clinic right away. We had to wait to get in for about 15 minutes. We tried to read the office magazines, so we wouldn't have to think too much. Finally, they called us back into the ultrasound room. The nice lady in there brought out her warmed tummy jelly, and flipped on her monitor.

Baby Hinckley is fine! It's just fond of bending over in ways that make it difficult to read a heartbeat. We were so relieved to know everything was okay! It was too soon to tell a gender, but let me tell you, this baby is active. It was jumping all over the screen, flapping its little arms and swimming around. The ultrasound lady said it was holding its own aerobics class, but I think it was just excited to see us. It waved at us, too.

We showed these pictures to Tyler, and he thinks the first one is a monster. He kept roaring at it. It does sort of look like a skeleton face :)

We have some of the swimming recorded, but I can't find the cords in all our packing. Maybe once we're in Texas I'll try to post it, because it's really cute.

Also, I think this will be our last post while still in Utah, as all this packing and cleaning is wearing me out. See y'all in God's country!

Merry Christmas, Tyler

Baby #2 is gonna rock your world.

Also, I apologize for being a lump of a mother for the last three months, but at least we got to watch a lot of movies, right?

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.

Christmas At The Hinckley Home

The Christmas tree is up.

Half the ornaments are missing already.

We are selling candy canes (not really).

We've been out for Chinese food, as per Hinckley tradition.

And the countdown has begun ( until we move ;-)).

But I must say, the Christmas spirit has not spread to our home quite yet this year.

We are too worried about Michael Schofield.

We are so obsessed with this show, it is ridiculous. It's like 24 on steriods. When we're done with this season, we'll have time for Christmas. But until then, Fox River Penitentiary calls.

Thanksgiving

2009 is an Eatough year for Thanksgiving, so we packed our little family in the car and drove the torturous nine hours to sunny skies and large numbers of Eatough family members. Here were my favorite parts of our three days in California:

• The new Eatough Thanksgiving lay-out, in my parents beautiful, remodeled, totally baby-unfriendly home:



• Poker and Risk nights! I did not win either, although I attribute my loss at Poker to my Uncle Gordy farting until I left the table, and then Richard stole all my chips.



• Beatles Rock Band with most of my siblings. My favorite moment of that was Kristen and Lauren singing "I Am the Walrus," and neither knew the lyrics, which resulted in this line in perfect unison: "Yellow mustard custard dripping from a dead dog's eye...Ewww!"


• Annie Skyy! Just a little, little girl, who changed even over the few days we were there! I love newborns! (I'm making a weird face, but the other pictures were too blurry.)


• Disneyland! Including churros, 3D glasses, Dumbo and Tyler meltdowns in several lines:



• Lunch with Grandma Sandi at the scrumptious Calimesa Royale Restaurant. Best biscuits and gravy ever! Grandma crocheted me a new Christmas scarf, too!



• Multiple In N' Out trips:

Not so favorite moment:

• Tyler caught a cold and slept horribly the first few nights, resulting in this noise for much of Thanksgiving dinner and the ride home:

Except for that, we had a great trip! Thanks for having us, Mom and Dad! Love you, and hopefully we'll see you all soon!