Christmas over

I can't believe I'm at 30.5 weeks tomorrow. Made it through Christmas ok, though the stress of trying to get home in time to hit the road and leave town as scheduled seemed to be enough to bring on more-than-usual tightenings on the 23rd. They settled down though, and were only about 15s long each, so I decied to not worry too much about it.
We spent the evening of the 23rd visiting with my Dad and stepmother, and had a little time with one of my stepsisters. We stuck around long enough on the 24th to have a pre-Christmas lunch with them and my second stepsister before we drove down to see my brother and his large family. My mother drove separately, since we had enough hassles last year trying to drive down with her that my DH said we'd never go with her again. Too bad our rental car reeked of smoke and had obviously not been cleaned in ages, what with all the white dog hairs all over the floor of both passenger and driver foowells.
Thank God I'm nicely far along in our pregnancy this year for the holidays, or hanging out with my 3.5 year old nephew, my nearly 2 year old nephew and my 3 month old niece would have been really really rough. As it was, I could focus more on what we've got to look forward to. They were all a lot of fun in different ways, even the the middle one who's hitting the terrible twos. My niece was so snuggly and cute like all little babies are, and the older kiddies were getting pretty interesting. They got a ton of stuff for Christmas, and we both said that we don't intend to get our kid as much.
The baby has been nice and active (going nuts tonight) which is reassuring. I'm still so happy to feel every little twitch, except when she somehow manages to headbutt my cervix. Not such a fan of that. I'm feeling so much better physically than I did 10 weeks ago when people were telling me I looked white or green before I went off work. I just felt weak and tired and blah then, and was so constantly worried. Now that we're only 1.5 weeks off from my major goal of 32 weeks, I'm feeling a lot more confident that things will turn out well.
The kid has gotten very lucky. My Dad gave us the cash to buy our dream stroller, my Mom bought the crib (in white, since they had that in stock) that we loved, as well as our mattress. She and my brother and SIL chipped in to buy some extra stroller accessories that will come in super handy. We got a few borrowed clothes from my SIL too, and she gave us a couple really cute outfits that were on sale at this great baby store we stopped at while we were visiting. Hopefully we'll be able to borrow more stuff from her in the future, because my niece had some really cute stuff on while we were visiting.
All the things I ordered online earlier in Dec were there too: a Pea.Pod travel bed, a Coos.hee changing pad, a FP Aquarium crib toy, some glass bottles, gown-style sleeping outfits, swaddling cloths, hooded towels. And our Quick.Zip sheet set, which will hopefully be exactly what we were looking for. It'll be so nice to get into the new place and get all this stuff stowed away and set up for her arrival.
I think that's about all the news. We forgot to take the belly shot this week, but DH says I have exploded in the last 3 weeks. No stretch marks yet, so I'll be praying they never show up. Considering I have lots on my hips, breasts and lower back from my teen growth spurts, I'm not counting on it. Oh, and I think I've finally noticed her get the hiccups a few times over the last week or so. Though the frequency of the tiny jolting movements is a lot higher than I thought it would be - more like hic-hic-hic all clustered together. Guess I'll have to wait to see if that's how she does it in real life!