Abby’s Saturday // One Hundred Ninety

Highlight of the Week

Last Sunday afternoon, we hosted a baby shower for Ellen & Jonathan! They wanted a really laid back shower (no games, no formal time of sitting & opening gifts), just a relaxed time of visiting with friends & family. So, my Mom came up with the idea of hosting an “open house” instead of a traditional “shower” and just like that, it was Sunday afternoon & people were arriving! Seriously, time just needs to slow down! We hosted right around 100 people on Sunday (most of which came right at the beginning of the shower – so we estimate we had around 70 people in my parent’s house at one time). It was quite the party! We had a lot of fun though – challenges & all (the main challenge being parking – I mean, my parents have a large wrap-around driveway, but not enough room to park 40 cars)! We had a whole “transportation team” that included my Dad & brother, Derrick, and some cousins – the whole day was quite the production! Every single person had a job & we literally could not have pulled off the day without everyone in their place and carrying out their job. My sisters & Mom were amazing & I’ve never been so thankful for such a wonderful family!

So, now that the shower is over, we’re all just over here anxiously awaiting the baby’s arrival! Ellen’s due date is April 12th, but after several doctors’ appointments this week (2 of which resulted in being sent to the hospital for additional monitoring) – they are confident that we’ll be meeting Baby Jalosky sooner than that! There is absolutely nothing wrong with either the baby or Ellen – both are 100% healthy! Ellen has simply been having contractions all week & at her last appointment was sitting at 4cm dilated! Needless to say, we’re all super excited to be meeting the newest member of our family sooner rather than later!

Yes, This Happened

• Speaking of babies, my friend Tiffany (we’ve been friends since college – she runs the Greensburg Tuesdays Together Group I talk about all the time) had her baby this week! Her little princess was born on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I was so blessed to be able to ride up to Johnstown to the hospital & take some “Fresh 48” lifestyle photos of their new little family of 3 (plus, get in some baby snuggles)!! It was SO much fun! I’ve never done anything like that before, so I loved the challenge & the whole experience. Tiffany & Aaron are going to be the most amazing parents – they already seemed like they had it all together! I’m so excited for them!!
• I’ve been taking Braelynn to the Norwin Public Library every Monday since the first of the year for story time. It’s been so fun to see her go from being super shy to being an active participant. This past Monday, instead of story time, they had a music program. Since it was a special program, we invited my cousins Abby & Bekah to come along. They’re a little bit older than Braelynn, but they’ve been playing together so much lately – it’s so sweet! They had a blast, to say the least! My Grandma has recently stopped driving, so I promised her I would pick her up every Monday to go to the library with us too – so I was laughing that I was responsible for so many extra people on Monday! It was so much fun.
• I screwed up my website this morning. It never fails, if I mess with the plugins that are attached to my site (either add one, delete one, or update one) something always goes wrong. So, I just try to leave them alone if all possible. But of course, I wanted to go in and change something this morning & yep – I got locked out of the back-end of my site. Thankfully, my host is pretty awesome & they had me back up & running really quickly.
• Braelynn speaks really well, but every once in a while we simply cannot figure out what she’s saying. The perfect example: she has been asking us to watch (what sounds like) “Woah Dolly” for a few weeks now. Derrick & I could not figure this one out. We tried every trick in the book and still could not decipher what she was saying! Well, we figured it out this week! There is a Netflix show called “Word Party” – and that’s what she’s been asking for all along – literal face-palm.
• Speaking of Braelynn, she has entered a new season of “independence”. She is figuring out more and more that she can do (or at least start to do) certain things on her own. For example – she dressed herself this week! As in, all by herself, she took off her pajamas and put on clothes she found. That’s exciting, right?! She also tried to pour herself a bowl of cereal & pour herself a cup of juice (you can imagine that those were both not so exciting). Needless to say, she’s growing up!

Feeling Blessed

Last night, we all got together for dinner to celebrate my Grandpa’s 80th birthday. And when I say “we all” – there was something like 29 people there. It was awesome. I am seriously blessed with the most amazing family ever – I love all of them so much! A joke was made that we’d do this again in 10 years when Grandpa turns 90 – and everyone laughed, wondering how much larger our clan will be in 10 years! Only time will tell, but I’d be willing to wager that we’ll be well above 50 people at that point! It’s so exciting to think about what the future holds, but at the same time – let’s not rush it okay? The days are flying by fast enough!