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

Highlight of the Week

I know that it’s technically not the first snow “of the year” (thank you Facebook ), but this week we had the first snow of the SEASON. It was a weird, kind of freak, snowstorm to get in the middle of November! Braelynn was SO excited though – I think she would have played outside in our little 2″ of snow for hours if I could have dealt with sitting outside that long! Last night, she even prayed that we’d get more snow. Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow too – I’m just trying to wrap my brain around the logistics of: what do I do when I have a newborn & toddler to balance, specifically when we wake up mid-January & there is snow on the ground & the toddler can’t think of a single thing except going out in the snow? Literally, we woke up yesterday morning, she saw the snow outside, and we couldn’t even have breakfast – we had to instantly go outside. Oh boy, this could be “fun”.

Yes, This Happened

• I am now 36 weeks pregnant & baby boy is approximately the length of a head of romaine lettuce!
• I had an appointment this week with my midwife & everything continues to be fabulous! Baby boy is head down and she estimates that when he’s born, he’ll be around the same size as Braelynn was (she was super average). This pregnancy has been nothing but ups & downs, but I’m SO thankful that these last few weeks have been super chill & with nothing but good reports!
• Needless to say, we’re coming so close to the end of “pregnancy” and so soon will be entering “newborn” phase!! Even with putting the nursery together & all of the baby prep, it still doesn’t quite seem real. However, on Tuesday, I felt very “weird”. I truly can’t describe it, but it kind of lit a fire under my butt to actually pack a bag to take to the birth center, have Derrick bring down the car seat (and get it all washed – we pulled the cover off & the base was filled with Cheerios!) and begin to mentally prepare that this little guy could literally arrive any day (although, I really would like him to stay put for at least another week! 37 weeks is considered “full term” – so he really needs to stay in there for another 6 days!) It also spurred us to actually buckle down & seriously consider names. We had a list of potentials, but nothing so far seemed right or set in stone. I’m proud to say that we’re now so close! I’d say, we’re now 97% sure of what we’re going to name the little guy! It feels SO good to have that huge mountain of a task out of the way!
• That “weird” feeling has also really made me get a jump on things that I said I was going to do during the month of November to prepare for baby boy’s arrival, but still had been putting off. I started prepping & writing blogs (I’m on track to have the rest of November & all of December completely done & scheduled in the next few days!), I ordered our Christmas card photos, I ordered gifts for my 2018 wedding couples, sorted out my business finances for the end of the year (including the monumental task that is sitting down & writing out all of the miles that I drove), and basically have been working my little butt off to get on top of all-the-things!! WHEW – it’s a lot, but it feels SO good.
• Thursday night was Light Up Night in downtown Irwin, PA and we always go! Braelynn distinctly remembers going & watching the parade last year & she was so pumped up for this year! She had been counting down the days & it was pretty much all she talked about. But then, Thursday arrived. And with it came a day of constant freezing rain and sleet mix – it didn’t actually change to snow until about 8pm. We had been hoping that it would change to snow earlier & make the parade all festive, but at 6:30pm, when the tree was supposed to be lit & the parade supposed to start, it was still raining. Yuck. So, we made the decision not to go. It was rough. Poor Braelynn was so sad. We wanted to do something fun in place of attending the parade though, so we took her to Sincerely Yogurt & it was the perfect “diversion”. She was absolutely in awe of all the candy toppings she could add to her ice cream! (And this Mama has been craving ice cream for the last few days, so it was perfect for me too!)
• Nursery/3rd Floor Renovation Update: we don’t really have any “big” updates this week. The next step with the 3rd Floor is to get insulation up in the walls & then put up new walls. Since Black Friday is this coming week, we decided to wait until this coming week to see what kind of sales we could take advantage of – so the 3rd Floor is kind of on hold at the moment.
  As far as the nursery – today is “finishing” day! While the bones of the room are done, we still need to move a few things around, reorganize a few things that have just been stacked, and finalize some furniture placement. Derrick & I plan to tackle all of that this afternoon, so I’m hopeful to have a full blown “nursery tour” this coming week!! Stay tuned!

Feeling Blessed

With the snow falling yesterday, it simply seemed fitting to “Christmas-ify” our house. Our tree has been up for a few weeks, but all of our fall decor was still stealing the spotlight. So yesterday, Braelynn & I (okay, let’s be honest: mostly just I) turned on the Christmas music & swapped all of the fall stuff for winter stuff. Our house suddenly seems so much more festive & magical! I love decorating for Christmas! All the glitter & pretty lights – why is it “wrong” to leave garland & Christmas lights up all year long? Of course, as usual, one of the strands of lights we put up in our living room (yep, we always line the perimeter of our living room with glowy lights) died already, so now I need to run out & get some more, but that’s pretty normal (at least it wasn’t a string of lights we put on the tree! That is always a huge pain in the butt!) Christmas is coming!