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

Highlight of the Week

WOW – so for once, I’m really glad that I put off writing this week’s “Abby’s Saturday” post until Saturday (newsflash, just like they fake things on reality tv, my blog posts aren’t always written on the day that I publish them).
Waking up this morning, our plans for today were as follows: the boys (Derrick, my Dad, and “Uncle Cheese”) were going to be working on the 3rd floor, putting up some insulation and whatever other projects they could get into up there. The girls (Braelynn & I, my Mom, and sisters) were all going to get together for brunch at my parent’s house. Afterward, I planned on coming home & spending a relaxing day, beginning to put baby boy’s nursery together.
That is 110% honestly what I believed was going to happen today. I literally did not have a single thought otherwise, that anything else might be happening. Cross my heart & hope to die.

So, you can imagine my utter shock & confusion when we walked into my parent’s house for brunch this morning & I found a room full of people shouting, “Surprise!”

Completely unknown to me, my Mom had planned a surprise “Sprinkle” baby shower for me – yep, cue all the emotions. Everyone thought I suspected that something was going on and all week everyone has been working hard to throw me off the scent (little did they know, I was as clueless as clueless could be & had zero ideas about anything happening). I was honestly just so confused when we walked in – it took a solid few moments for me to realize just what was happening!

Looking back, I should have suspected something was up. Derrick kept asking over & over what “the plans” were for Saturday (to the point where I got kind of frustrated with him). A few weeks ago, he asked if my Mom would throw me another baby shower – to which I replied, “No, you only get a full-blown baby shower with the first baby.” My Mom thought for sure that I would think the “brunch” idea was weird & would suspect something (nope! I loved the idea of getting together late morning for delicious food). So, I should have wondered, but we’ll blame it on a combination of “baby-brain” and just being 100% distracted with tying up all the loose ends of shooting my last weddings of the year & getting all the sessions I have sitting here waiting, edited & delivered.

So, needless to say, I was completely surprised. And it was wonderful. No one has ever thrown me a “surprise” anything before & it was seriously so much fun! In lieu of gifts, my Mom specifically asked everyone to either bring a frozen meal for when baby boy arrives or gifts cards to our favorite local restaurants that offer take-out. Well, because everyone is just so amazing, we got not only a ton of gift cards and frozen meals, but lots of little gifts too!! Baby boy is already so spoiled & loved!

What a FUN day! I’m literally floating on Cloud 9.

Yes, This Happened

• I am now 34 weeks pregnant & baby boy is approximately the size of a cantaloupe!
• Christmas is slowly arriving in the Abbey house! We brought our tree down (it doesn’t have lights or ornaments on it yet, but it’s in our dining room) and last night Derrick strung up Christmas lights all over our living room. We figured – why not? Last year, we went against “tradition” and set up our Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving & it was so much fun! So, this year, with baby boy arriving at the beginning of December, we figured – let’s set up Christmas even earlier! This coming week, we’ll bring down the rest of the decorations, swap out all of the fall decor for Christmas/winter decor, and decorate the tree!
• Nursery/3rd Floor Renovation Update: I feel like we’ve made so much progress on both rooms this week! Ruby came over on Thursday & we painted the accent wall in baby boy’s room (you can see a sneak peek of it in this week’s Abby’s Saturday photo!) I wasn’t intending to paint the wall solid blue – I really wanted a few thick stripes on the wall. So, I looked up all the tutorials & videos and honestly felt like I had a really good grasp on not only how to lay out the stripes, but how to get nice crisp lines too. So, she came over to help, we measured, did the math, plotted out the lines, (plotted the lines again), and then went to actually draw the lines onto the wall & realized that somehow (no idea how) we’d messed up & while most of the lines connected & were level, some were up to 1/2″ off! At that point, we’d been working on this for almost 2 hours & we simply gave up: we taped off the wall & painted it solid blue. I really don’t mind & it truly looks fabulous!
  My Dad & Steve did come over today to work on the 3rd Floor project. They began insulating, putting up drywall, and officially have a game plan for next weekend to finish insulating & re-doing the walls. They also did a bunch of little things, like fixing the bottom stair that was unfinished & unstable.
  And then, to top off our fabulous day, we brought the crib down & set it up! Progress is being made & it’s absolutely wonderful! More to come this week!
• On Tuesday, Braelynn & I went grocery shopping (which, since our Aldi is currently closed due to being remodeled, it feels like such a chore!) When we got home & came out to the car to unload our groceries, we found a Collie dog standing there at the back of our car! We were really cautious, as we were not sure if he was friendly or if he was hurt – after a few minutes of watching him though, it was pretty plain to see that he was definitely old. There are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood, but no one close to us has a Collie, so I had no idea where he came from.
  Eventually, he just laid down right there in the yard & it broke our hearts. We were able to look at his tags & call the county office where he was registered. They were able to give us the number to his owner (which just added to the confusion because he was registered on the other side of the state). Still unable to get ahold of his owner, we were in the middle of calling the police when a guy walked up over the hill, so excited that we had found his dog. It’s a long story, but the poor guy was in the military, so his dog was always registered to his parents, where the dog lived while he was deployed. He was now home & had his dog back with him – although he explained that the dog was 13 years old, was struggling to walk, had dementia, and couldn’t hear. With tears in his eyes, he explained that he had let his faithful pup out to lay in the sun on the porch (something he’d done multiple times before) and for whatever reason, the dog decided to get up & walk away that afternoon.
  Needless to say, Braelynn & I felt like heroes for returning the poor old pup to his owner!
• Derrick has some SUPER exciting news this coming week!! Stay tuned!
• “Nesting” is beginning to officially kick in! I suddenly found myself yesterday wanting to clean everything, even those little obscure things that I never have the desire to clean. I’m afraid I went a little overboard though because, by the time Derrick got home, I was so sore & tired that I didn’t want to get off the couch. Oops.

Feeling Blessed

How do I top the story of my surprise baby shower brunch?
I can’t.
I am simply beyond blessed by my incredible family who not only pulled together the sweetest little party for me this morning (and successfully kept it all a complete surprise), but my wonderful husband, Dad, and brother worked away all afternoon on making our 3rd floor useable space and striding toward getting the nursery together. How in the world does one top that?

It has been the best first week of “maternity leave” – I’m really not sure it can get any better (oh, wait, it can! Once baby boy arrives!)
PS: I’m not really on full-blown “maternity leave” yet – I still have a few sessions & weddings to finish editing & get delivered (including that double-header I shot last weekend!), then I have a bunch of business tasks I want to tackle to get ahead of the game before baby boy arrives! I’m just not actively shooting, so it feels like “time off”.