Abby’s Saturday // Two Hundred And Twenty-Five

Highlight of the Week

If you missed me shouting from the rooftops on Tuesday: Derrick released his very first CD this week!
He has been composing unique musical themes for each of the roller coaster creations he publishes on his YouTube channel & his followers just love his music. They always ask if there is anywhere they can go to listen to his music – aside from YouTube. Well, the answer is finally, YES! His first CD: Pathfinder, was released on iTunes & Spotify on Tuesday!
Go check it out! Listen on Spotify here & on iTunes here!

Yes, This Happened

• I am now 35 weeks pregnant & baby boy is approximately the size of a honeydew melon!
• I know I’m coming to the end of this pregnancy – but “the end” equally seems insanely far away & yet ridiculously close. It’s finally beginning to sink in that in just a few weeks, we’ll have a newborn baby in this house. All this week, I’ve been going back & forth between extreme excitement (omigosh, can he just come already?) and being petrified (how in the world am I going to keep 2 kids alive?!) What a roller coaster.
  Further, my hips & low back have really started to hurt this week – to the point where if I’m walking & twist or step ever so slightly the wrong way, I have to stop because I’m suddenly in crazy pain. I think I’ll be making a trip to the chiropractor next week!!
• We didn’t make quite as much progress with our Christmas decor as I thought we would this week. The only progress we made was that Braelynn & I (meaning, I) put the lights on the tree & we listened to lots of Christmas music on Spotify. Derrick did attempt to put up our lights outside, but ran into a few minor snags, so we didn’t even finish that project! (After Christmas last year, we bought a Mickey Mouse projector light for super cheap at Lowe’s, but it’s actually harder to set up & plug into all of our other lights than at first it might appear!)
• Last Sunday evening, we got together (thankfully) on what appears to have been the last nice, warm day of the year for family photos! My sister Ellen has taken our family photos for the last 8 years, but this year I finally got to return the favor & take some family photos of her, Jonathan, & Alethea in return!! With turning the clocks back that day, we were in a race against the sun setting, but it all worked out & I’m so thankful we squeezed it in! It’s been cold & rainy every day since!
• Speaking of Daylight Savings Time – the clocks changing last weekend have severely kicked our butts. Of course, Braelynn had been doing so good – sleeping in her own bed all through the night until her clock turned green (since she’s too little to tell time, she has an “Okay-To-Wake Clock” that glows green at the time we set that signals that she can wake up). But, then we had to go & change the clocks back & now we’re all screwed up. She’s been so sleepy (and grumpy) in the evenings, and waking up earlier and earlier every day (yesterday, she was up at 5:45am). Daylight Savings Time has never been loathed in a household, then this week in ours!
• Nursery/3rd Floor Renovation Update: So this week, I cleaned out the closet in the nursery. Since that closet has always been our “guest room closet”, it’s simply been our catch-all for random stuff. I cleaned everything out of it though & sent most of the “stuff” to Goodwill. That project done, my parents sent over an extra dresser that they had, we put that in the closet, and I began the process of sorting through all of the clothes I’ve been gifted & have bought for baby boy.
  There are 2 pieces of furniture that need to be moved out of the nursery & another dresser that needs to be brought down from the 3rd floor – those things should get moved around today when my Dad & brother come over to work on the 3rd floor (this pregnant Mama is not moving any furniture around!) Once that is done, I can officially rearrange everything & start putting the finishing touches on setting things up!
  Like I said: my brother & Dad are also coming over later today to help Derrick work on the 3rd floor space! Derrick rented a machine that blows in insulation last night & so that’s the main task of the day! What they did last weekend has already made a huge difference in the space – it’s going to be amazing!

Feeling Blessed

I officially delivered my final gallery of images for 2018! And with that – I am officially on maternity leave! It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that I don’t have a queue of around 3,000 images sitting & waiting for me to edit them. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been shooting & editing on a weekly basis since February this year! My brain simply does not know how to process the fact that I’m all caught up & done. And suddenly the future is so bright! All of these projects that I’ve been wanting to do (making a family “yearbook” for the year, making an album of Abby’s Saturday photos, etc.) suddenly are sitting right in front of me! And with time to actually do them! It’s so exciting, I’m not even sure where to begin!