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Highlight of the Week
This week, was my favorite day of the month! The second Tuesday of every month is our Tuesday’s Together meeting (a group of creative entrepreneurs that get together to hang out, encourage each other, and chat about a business topic – I co-lead the Greensburg group with one of my bestest friends, Tiffany). And this month, since it’s December & Christmas & all, we hosted our annual Christmas party!! I didn’t get to attend last year’s party because I had just had Leander, so I have been looking forward to this party for a long long time. The last party I attended, Tiffany hosted in her studio – which was amazing, but we definitely maxed out that space. So, this year, we hosted the party at Station House 7 & it was perfect. Omigoodness, we had so much fun!! We ate delicious food (everyone brought something & someone brought this cranberry salsa – omisoul, it was to DIE for), did a white elephant gift exchange, a “would you rather” game, and just hung out as a group! Literally, as we were cleaning up, Derrick casually asked what time it was & I looked at him phone to see it was 9:45pm – almost 10 o’clock!!! We were all completely floored at how late it was – time sure flies when you’re having fun!
Seriously though! If you are a small business owner – a creative entrepreneur – and you’re looking for an excuse to get out of the house & meet with a group of like-minded super-fun people, you should come join us!! We always have so much fun & like I say all the time: it’s literally my favorite day of the month!
Yes, This Happened
- So, if today’s Abby’s Saturday photo looks familiar, it should! I have done “Starbucks red-cup” themed photos around Christmas (almost) every year now & of course, this year is no exception! (I had to go to Starbucks multiple times over the last few weeks to get the cups – darn, right?) If you’d like a stroll down memory lane, here are the other Starbucks Abby’s Saturday photos I’ve taken! #73, #174, #229
- I think that’s one of the things I love the most about doing these Abby’s Saturday photos – sure I love that they push me creatively – that I have to constantly be looking & thinking up new ideas. But what I love the most is that after taking 277 photos – I can now go back & re-create images or image themes. I love to see the progression – not only in my skills, but in both Abby & Braelynn & now Leander growing up thru the images. If that’s not an amazing reason to keep going with these photos, I don’t know what is!
- We met Santa this week!! A little bird gave me the heads up that Santa would be coming to the last story time of the year at the library this week, so we simply had to go. Braelynn actually got closer to Santa than I expected her to (I half-believed that I wouldn’t even get her to go say ‘hi’, but she did it on account of her brother needing someone to go with him *wink wink*). Of course, ever since then, she has been obsessed with Santa – talking about how he’s going to come visit her, asking about our chimney, saying that Santa is going to bring her presents & how he’s going to love seeing our Christmas decorations, oh & talking about how she’s going to leave him out some cookies on Christmas Eve! We’ve never put a huge emphasis on Santa & we still aren’t, but it’s fun to see her enjoying the “magic” of the season (plus, when people ask her about Santa when we’re out & about, she actually can answer their questions now!)
- We got to babysit Alethea this week & WOW I have never seen Leander SO excited!! Ellen dropped Alethea off while Leander was just waking up from his nap & he must have heard her – because when we all went up to see Leander – he was jumping up & down in bed, waving enthusiastically, and squealing his little heart out. He was SO excited!! It literally melted my heart into a puddle. We all had fun with Alethea though – we colored, and read books, and played, and watched Mickey Mouse – it was a great day.
- I am almost done Christmas shopping!! SO CLOSE. I think I have 2 people left on my list to buy for – I need to just jump on Amazon, find them something & get the items ordered so that next week I can begin the monumental task of wrapping. Ugh. That’s my least favorite part about Christmas.
Feeling Blessed
It’s been a super busy week! We’ve been going going going every single day & so, I’m not going to lie: I love that today was a slow at-home day. Not that we did much relaxing – Derrick has been hard at work setting up his office on the 3rd floor (complete with hanging posters & pictures & his XscreamThrills banner I made him for Christmas last year) and I have been hard at work reorganizing our living room, my own office (which is still a work-in-progress), and putting up our Christmas decorations! Yes, we’re at 10 days until Christmas & I just decorated my house for Christmas today. I didn’t want to full-on decorate before Leander’s birthday though (we put up our tree, but that was it!) so today was the day!! Braelynn was so sweet, she wanted to help in every way – so she took my snowmen & placed them (awkwardly) around the house, she strung garland across the floor & over her toys – it was precious. She is SO excited for Christmas this year & I am SO excited right along with her! Of course, even though this is technically Leander’s second Christmas, he was just a teeny tiny new baby last year, so this year, he is actually seeing everything for the first time & loving it right along with his sister! We decorated most of the downstairs while he was taking his nap, and when he woke up, he just kept pointing at all the lights & the garland – it was so so sweet!
We might not have decorated until today, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been preparing for Christmas in other ways: we’ve been doing 4 separate advent calendars this year (over-achievers? yes, but that’s just how it worked out!) I got Braelynn an open-the-door-every-day PAW Patrol calendar (which we obviously do very first thing as soon as we get up), we’ve been doing a Jesse-tree style reading every day during breakfast, and then during lunch, we’ve been reading Jotham’s Journey (have you ever read that book? my parents read it to us & to this day I still remember hanging on their every word!) And then, at bedtime, we’ve continued our tradition of opening a Christmas book every night before bed. It’s kind of a lot, but I kind of love it. And, with only 10 days left until Christmas, I’m already sad that all of the fun will soon come to an end. I love the anticipation & the build up to something, so all of this leading up to Christmas is my absolute favorite!! Thankfully, after Christmas comes Braelynn’s birthday, so there is more exciting things to look forward to in the new year!
