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Another month has come and
gone and now we’re preparing for my favorite month of the entire year…
December!
What We’re Eating This Week
Mon – White Bean, Kale, and
Sausage Soup
Tue – Chicken Spaghetti
Wed – Frozen pizza?? I have to have a procedure in the morning so
I won’t be cooking!
Thu – BBQ Chicken, Black
Eyed Peas, Green Beans
Fri – Out
Sat – Take out during the
SEC Championship Game!!!! We’ll be glued
to the TV!
Sun – Sunday dinner at Momma
and Daddy’s
What I’m Reminiscing About
One of my best friends and
her family started their process of moving away to the other side of the world
this past week and we had to say goodbye.
Before she left, my girlfriends and I took her out for one last
margarita night, and my friend April had printed tons of old pictures of all of
us and our babies from the last eight years.
We had a great time looking through all of them and remembering precious
times together. All of our babies were
born and raised together and we’re just going to miss them so much!
What I’m Loving
How wonderfully extra
festive I have been feeling this Christmas season! I mean, I’m always festive at Christmastime –
it has always, always been my very favorite time of the year – however, this
year I am, like, OVER THE TOP in the spirit and I LOVE IT. I think the main reason why I’m extra festive
this year is because last year was so tumultuous. We had a rocky 2017 and I quit my job right
at the start of the Christmas season last year.
While I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to quit, looking back, I
think I went through a slight depression in the weeks after because it was such
a huge change in my life. I missed my
coworkers terribly, I missed my routine, and I was navigating through finding
my “new normal.” I’ve never been good
with change, especially HUGE changes like quitting a job that I had for 13
years, so that did seem to put a slight damper on my holiday season last
year.
This year however? We are thriving, I’m loving life as a stay at
home mom, and I’m just as festive as it gets! Give me all
the Christmas lights, Christmas movies, Christmas PJs, Christmas music, and
Peppermint Mochas. I am just eating it
up this year!
What We’ve Been Up To
Where do I even start? November was fantastic (with the exception of
my Katie leaving) – we kicked off November 1 with a good healthy dose of
Christmas tunes and we’ve been listening to them ever since! We hosted our first annual Friendsgiving, B
and I had a little weekend getaway to Atlanta to see Ed Sheeran in concert, B and I went to the Georgia vs. Auburn game in Athens, we took the kids to Athens for a Georgia game as a family and we soaked up the fall-ness of it all, I posted about our fall family photos, we worked with Shutterfly to print our Christmas cards nice and early, we
had one last play date with our friends before they moved, we had a play date with another friend, we celebrated Thanksgiving three times with family, we got our Christmas tree, we decorated the whole house for Christmas and put up
waaaay too many new lights outside, we tried a new restaurant and had the best
pizza of our lives, and we had our North Pole Breakfast.
In addition to the stuff I’ve
already recapped, there were also a few new events to recap as well. We had Thanksgiving lunch with Jacob at
school, and we watched our little turkey, Olivia, sing some songs before eating
with her at her Thanksgiving feast at school.
Whew! It was busy, but probably my favorite month
yet!
What I’m Dreading
This morning I’m having an
endoscopy so the doctor can confirm whether or not reflux has been causing all
of my breathing problems. I do NOT like
being put to sleep and anesthesia makes me super nauseated so I’m not super
excited about this whole procedure. I’m
sure it’ll be a piece of cake, but I’m still dreading it. Once it’s over, B is going to drive me home
and I’m going to lie on the couch and watch Hallmark movies for the rest of the
day, so there’s that. There’s always a
silver lining, right? ;o)
But anyway, if you don’t
mind saying a little prayer for me this morning that would be much
appreciated. I’m actually hoping for the
reflux diagnosis because after 12 years of severe breathing problems (not
always caused by my asthma), I will finally have some answers and they will
finally understand how to treat me. I do
NOT, however, want the diagnosis that my reflux is severe enough to have caused
any cancer or anything terrible in my esophagus. Everything I’ve read said that a lot of
people who have severe reflux that goes untreated for long periods of time
sometimes develop something called “Barrett’s esophagus” which is where
stomach acid causes precancerous cells to develop in the esophagus. Those can eventually turn into cancer and
obviously, we do NOT want that. It’s
pretty rare, but I do somehow often manage to fall in the tiny rare percentage
for medical stuff. PLEASE NOT THIS TIME!
What I’m Working On
My to-do list is always long, but this time of year it’s just crazy. Here are a few of the things I’m working on
right now:
- CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! I racked up on Cyber Monday and got some
great deals on Amazon and Target.com.
A few of my steals – this Play Doh set, cheap board games, these pogo jumpers (one for each kid!), this Hatchimal, and an Ancestry DNA Kit. We got incredible deals on all
of these on Cyber Monday and it looks like some of these are still on sale, although, not quite as cheap as we got them!
- Christmas decorating – it’s almost done, but I’m
waiting on these gorgeous garlands to arrive in the mail so I can finish
the downstairs tree. I changed up
our Christmas decorations a good bit this year and I cannot wait to share
them with you!
- Getting Christmas cards prepared to send out.
- Still whittling the pile of junk down on the
floor in my office. There’s not
much left, but the stuff that is left is going to be time consuming to get
rid of since I’m going to try to sell it online.
- Still working on organizing the files on my
computer and still have a pretty long way to go. It’s a HUGE job.
- Prepping some blog posts for Christmas Break so
I don’t have to spend a lot of time on the computer during my favorite
week of the whole year!
- Starting to think about goals for the New Year –
things that are working, things I want to change, things I want to
accomplish, etc.
- Starting to think about blog content for
2019. Anything specific you want to
see? Anything you want to see more
of? Anything you want to see less
of? I’m always open to your
feedback! I love hearing from my wonderful
readers!
What I’m Excited About
Brian’s and my 11th anniversary
is this Saturday so he is taking the day off on Friday and he and I are going
to have entire Day O Fun while the kids are at school. Day dates are always my favorite and they are
the absolute BEST during the Christmas season.
We’ll probably go get breakfast somewhere after dropping the kids at
school, and then we’ll do a bunch of Christmas shopping, have lunch together,
and maybe even squeeze in a movie at the theater if time permits. Falalalalalalalala!
What I’m Watching/Reading
Watching – All of our fall
TV (A Million Little Things, Manifest, This is Us, Modern Fam, etc.) is about
to go on hiatus for the Christmas season, so we’re going to be all up in the Christmas
movies! We’ve already watched The Santa
Clause and the new Grinch at the theater and I’m sure we’ll be working our way
through all of the rest of our faves soon, too.
We’re going to show Home Alone 2 to the kids for the first time this
year and I’m so excited I can’t even stand it!
I’ve always loved Home Alone 2 just as much as the first one since it
takes place in NYC, and I just know Jacob will love it because he loves NYC so
much. Fun fun!
Reading – My reading always
sloooows majorly this time of year, and for the last few weeks we’ve been so
busy that it has come to a halt. My friend
Brandi has a new book and I started it back at the end of October and it is SO
GOOD, but I just haven’t had the time to finish it. I’m hoping to get back into it soon once the
kids are out of school for Christmas Break.
What I’m Listening To
Well, I don’t think I really
even need to say this since y’all already know anyway… CHRISTMAS MUSIC ALL DAY
ERRY DAY!
And remember how last month I
was so sad because I didn’t think any local radio stations would be playing
nonstop Christmas music this year since the station that usually does it moved
and changed their format? Well guess
what? We not only have one station doing
it this year, but we have TWO!!!!
Eek! The station that changed their
format is still doing the nonstop Christmas music as they always do, and
another local station decided to do it this year, too… probably because they
thought the other station wasn’t going to do it. Haha. Needless
to say I’ve been listening nonstop pretty much all day long. Not even kidding. And I’m not even tired of it.
What I’m Wearing
Last week Olivia and I were
feeling particularly festive in our vests, scarves, and matching polka dots, so
I had B snap a few pictures of us on our way out the door. So fun!
Just look at her jolly little self, y’all!
What I’m Doing This Weekend
Day date with B Friday,
maybe doing our viewing of Home Alone 2 Friday night if we don’t have anything
else going on, attending the Santa Breakfast with our church and school family Saturday
morning, and then watching the SEC Championship game from the couch Saturday evening. B and I considered going, but we decided we’d
rather save our money for the National Championship Game in Cali.
;o)
Come on, Georgia, DON’T
LET US DOWN!
On that note… are there any
non-Alabama fans out there who are actually even cheering for Alabama to win?! Isn’t everybody just tired of them? Lol.
And much love to my Alabama fan readers… y’all
know I’m just kidding! ;o)
What I’m Looking Forward To Next Month
Christmas. Did you really even think I’d say anything
else?
What Else Is New
Olivia had a checkup on her
thyroid nodule late last month. The
doctor did the usual ultrasound to check on its growth and we got some verrrry
good news – it hasn’t grown any larger in the last 3-4 months since we last saw
him!! Yayayayay!!!! He said he thinks it may have finally
stabilized which is excellent. This
means we should hopefully just be able to monitor it until she’s big enough
(around the age of 16 or so) to have it removed safely.
I’m praying that it’ll not only
stop growing, but that it will start to shrink and disappear on its own so we
don’t have to ever operate. That’s the
dream! Thank you for all of your
prayers! They are working!
Happy Wednesday, y’all! If anybody needs me, you can find me snuggled
up on the couch next to the Christmas lights watching Christmas movies all
day. :o)
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