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- Happy day-after Valentine’s Day! Hope you had an amazing, wonderful, love-filled day – we sure did! Derrick kicked everything off by completely surprising Braelynn & I on Thursday night by showing up with roses for me & a new stuffie for Braelynn!! I was so incredibly shocked, that, I cried. I simply wasn’t expecting a single thing the day before Valentine’s Day! So then, (thankfully) Braelynn & I had a little surprise of our own up our sleeves for Derrick to wake up to the next morning – we had written out a bunch reasons why we love Derrick on all these pink hearts I had found & I taped them to the mirror in the bathroom, in the middle of the night, so he would wake up to find them Valentine’s morning. We also set up a little package of cards, pictures, and candy for him to find before leaving for work. Braelynn made valentines for all of her favorite people (I’m so proud of her! She signed her [very long] name so many times!) & we delivered them yesterday afternoon – and the day was topped off with a delicious dinner (at home) of steak, shrimp, mashed potatoes, and green beans plus my “famous” chocolate chip cookies. Seriously though, they’re the best & I’ll even share the recipe!
- The most hilarious part of our special Valentine’s Dinner though was: Braelynn was complimenting Derrick on how he cooked the shrimp (we grilled it) and Derrick responded, “I know, I’m just awesome.” And Braelynn looked at him and giggling said, “No you’re not, Daddy – Aunt Amy is awesome.” We kind of died laughing over that one (if you know my sister, you get this!)
- We had a bit of a rough night last night – Leander was up about every 2 hours (which is extremely strange & out-of-character for our little sleeper). I have a feeling his teeth are bothering him as I can see his whole mouth looks like it’s about to pop with new molars & teeth!! On top of the rough night, he was up super early too, so we laid him down for a “morning” nap (which, he doesn’t do any more – we’ve graduated to one nap a day). Anyways, I was so tired, that I laid down at the same time & I had the most horrifying nightmare! I dreamed that I was photographing a wedding, and they moved the location of the ceremony & did not tell me. So, I missed shooting the entire wedding ceremony. Omigoodness, talk about waking up in a massive panic! Wedding season must be right around the corner for me to start having wedding day nightmares again!
- It’s amazing to me how different Leander is from Braelynn. I mean, duh, they’re two different children, but it’s funny, as much as I know they’re different, sometimes the little things that Leander does that Braelynn never did catch me off guard. For example: Leander delights to play in the dog food & water. Braelynn learned super quickly that she wasn’t supposed to touch Abby’s food & water, but Leander just doesn’t seem to care about us telling him “No”. He also needs to hold a remote in his hands – Braelynn never cared (& still doesn’t), but Leander loves to hold the remote & watch TV – it’s kind of hilarious!
- Derrick got a fancy-smancy new camera this week!! He has been researching for months and he finally pulled the trigger this week! He got a Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5 it has a “micro-four-thirds” sensor plus it’s mirrorless, so it’s completely different from my camera. It is going to be amazing for video – which is obviously the main purpose of this camera. It shoots 4K – so the quality is way up there! He’s trying to get over the learning-curve with it over the next few days – because we’re headed to a new park this coming weekend!
- This Tuesday was my favorite day of the month: our monthly Tuesday’s Together meeting! I know I talk about it every month, but it’s a monthly networking meeting for small business owners & creative entrepreneurs – we gather to hang out, catch up, and talk about a specific business topic. If you’re from the Greensburg, PA area & you’d like to come to a meeting, let me know! I’d love to share all the details of our next meeting & have you come!!
- On Wednesday, my Mom & sisters, Braelynn & I showed up to surprise my sister Ellen with a little “baby sprinkle”! Ellen is due with her new baby girl any time over the next few weeks, so we surprised her with presents, and food to stock her freezer with, and of course, dessert – it was so much fun! I think we should do it more often – gather a bunch of friends together to randomly show up at each other’s houses with food, gifts, and dessert? What could be better?
- One of the best parts of having sisters who are now all grown up & we’re all roughly the same size – is shopping in each other’s closets!! It is seriously the best when I go over to my Mom’s & there is a pile of clothes sitting there for me to look thru because Amy or Emma or Ruby are cleaning out their closets & getting rid of stuff. I came home with a whole new wardrobe yesterday & it’s literally the bomb. I knew I put up with all those little sisters for so many years for some reason!
- Okay, last but not least, let’s talk about this week’s Abby’s Saturday photo: for Valentine’s Day, I had a specific photo in my head I wanted to create. I thought it would be fairly simple to pull off, but it turned out to be a complete nightmare. I probably spent a total of 4 hours over the course of 2 days trying to get the photo I could see in my head & I just could not make it work. Either the room & light wasn’t working, the set-up wasn’t working, the kids weren’t cooperating, the dog wouldn’t cooperate – it was just a mess. I’ve literally never been so stressed out/frustrated over an Abby’s Saturday photo in my entire life. Then, Derrick came home with those roses for me on Thursday night & I shifted my idea. I set it up this morning & just a few minutes later, I had the photo I posted above. And, I’m obsessed with how it turned out! SO GOOD. I’m not letting go of that original Valentine’s Day idea though, I’m just going to put it away & see if maybe next year we can make it work – we’ll see!
[…] going to take a “Valentine’s” themed Abby’s Saturday photo, but let’s be honest: last year’s photo was SO perfect, I just couldn’t come up with an idea to top it!We celebrated Valentine’s yesterday – Derrick […]
[…] a stroll down memory lane, you can go back & see past Abby’s Saturday Valentine posts here: #286, #186, #134PS: if you’d like the inside scoop on how I made this photo happen – if you look […]