Abby’s Saturday // One Hundred Seventy-Three

Highlight of the Week

Today’s Abby’s Saturday is a little late in the evening – because our Christmas Tree took over our entire day. So, we’re calling it “Abby’s Saturday: Late Night Edition.”

Let’s talk about the Christmas Tree. So, we’ve always either cut down or simply bought a fresh Christmas Tree. Last year, my Mom’s cousin gave her this gorgeous, gigantic, 8 ft. tall pre-lit tree. My Mom had a spot in mind for it, but when she realized how tall it was, it ended up at our house. Our dining room has really tall ceilings, so last year we had an artificial Christmas Tree for the first time ever.

When we put the tree up last year – a section of the pre-lit lights was out. We just stuck another strand in there & made it work. No problemo.

However, this morning, when we brought the tree down & plugged in it – none of the lights worked. We played with the plugs and the fuses but had no luck getting any of the lights to work. We weren’t shocked, but we were a bit disappointed. We looked at the pre-lit lights & were happy to find that they weren’t wired into the actual branches (like so many are). So, we laughed & said that we’d just rip the lights out of the tree & then put normal lights up.

6 hours later..

We finally finished the task. Who knew that our tree had approximately 8,396 lights on it? All individually secured by the worlds tightest zip ties & clips. Nightmare status. We spent our entire day ripping the tree apart. Wait, why am I writing this in the “highlight” section of this post? I have no idea.

(The nightmare officially continues because I put the new lights on the tree & because it’s so big, I don’t have enough. So, stay tuned!)

Yes, This Happened

• Derrick published 2 new YouTube videos this week on his channel! One is a continuation of a massive theme park he’s working on, and the other is highlight footage of our time at Kalahari Resorts last weekend. If you want to see us enjoying the water park (and screaming down the waterslides) you’ll want to check it out.
• We went and saw the new Thor movie this week. It was SO good – we really loved it! I feel like, we’ve seen some really dud movies of late & it was so exciting to see one that was actually good! We loved it (and of course, loved eating all the movie theater popcorn).
• Last night, for some freakish reason, Abby decided to chew up something. Abby hasn’t chewed any toys, pillows, or couches in forever and for whatever reason, she decided last night was an opportune moment to pick up the old habit. The problem was that she decided to chew Braelynn’s pink glitter kitty ears. You can only imagine the crocodile tears that ensued when we discovered the mess.

Feeling Blessed

So, why have I never figured this out before? If you boil cinnamon sticks (like whole ones) it makes the entire house smell like heaven (or a craft store)? Omigoodness, SO good! Basically, a pot has been simmering on my stove all week long. It constantly smells like pie or cinnamon rolls are baking & it’s utter delight! If you’ve never done it – go get some cinnamon sticks at WalMart & try it! I want to try adding other things too, like I’ve heard orange peels, apple peels, lavender, and peppermint are fun to mix in too – I can’t wait! (Yep! That checks off another item on my Fall Bucket List!)