Life Lately: Holiday Edition

What a blur this past week has been! I am settling in this Sunday afternoon with candles lit, my new CuddleDuds lounge pants, Christmas music playing and am ready for a blog recap! I hope you all had wonderful holidays with friends, family, good food, and grateful hearts. It's true that gratitude turns what we have into enough and I am so so so thankful for all the enough and the abundance in my life. I am most thankful for the chance to become a mommy again and every year on Thanksgiving I will always give thanks that I got to meet and hold Hadley. I don't take a single second I had with her for granted. We had a great time with BOTH sides of our families. It was, overall, a great Thanksgiving week.
Let's go day by day, shall we?

Monday morning: AJ's car won't start. It's about 6:30 am, so I drove him to work in my pj's, came home, got ready, then rushed back to work myself. His car had been in the shop about 4 times this fall for significant repairs and each visit came with a very hefty price tag. Ouch. We looked at each other on the way to school that day and both said it: New car? Maybe? Do we want to invest more money into it? #Adulting. Sheesh. After a busy day at school, AJ had his truck towed to the dealership and we awaited their diagnosis the next day.

Tuesday: The last day of school before Thanksgiving break! My team did Thanksgiving rotations for the day so we each taught one Thanksgiving themed lesson/activity 5 times for each first grade class. It was so fun working with all the kids! In my class we made "Pilgrim Butter" and sampled it on bread while we wrote out the "recipe." It was the perfect way to spend that last day at school for the week. I picked up AJ from school (love the fact that we work blocks from each other!) and we came home to greet his parents who had stopped by our house on their way to get Matt, AJ's brother, from the airport. We visited for a bit and it was lovely to see them since we hadn't since before school started in August. We all gathered for dinner at The Pie (bad blogger alert: no pictures).

I got this pic via Google, but this was what our homemade butter looked like. It was so fun making it with the kids! 

Wednesday: The diagnosis for the truck came back. Hefty price tag. Again. AJ and I headed to the car dealership to look around. We settled on a new Rav-4 in gray. We were able to trade in AJ's truck and after a whole day of paperwork, waiting around at the dealership etc, we suddenly had a new car! We both really like it and are so thankful to have a new reliable ride. They even let us test drive it all the way to our house to see how it fit in our garage. That evening we had everyone over for a taco bar (virgin margarita for this girl!) and it was nice catching up and chatting the evening away.

Thursday: Thanksgiving! We slept in, went for a Starbucks run, watched the Macy's Day Parade, and headed over to my parents house in the afternoon. It was so nice to have everyone all together and being pregnant on Thanksgiving has some major advantages, notably everyone traveled to us this year (and not to mention that every pair of maternity pants comes equipped with delightful stretchy spandex at the waistband. Baby or turkey, you better believe you'll be comfy feeling like a bowling ball is under your shirt either way!). We talked, laughed, and ate. My parents had some fun games planned---like a white elephant-type exchange and holiday trivia. AJ's parents brought out the scratch-it tickets after dinner and we had a blast with those. It was so wonderful to have both sides of our family together for the holiday---siblings and all! And because I was so busy talking and eating (see: spandex pants), I only caught one quick pic of AJ and I at dinner. Booo, I wish I snapped a few more of everyone!

Starbucks? Check. PJ's? check. Macys Day Parade Tradition? Check! 

AJ's mom made this super cute turkey cheese tray! How fun! 

Friday: There was no Black Friday shopping for us this year. I did look at all the ads and honestly, nothing seemed worth hopping out of bed early and battling crowds for. We had a chill morning, finished up some things in baby's room (nursery reveal post coming soon, promise), and we said goodbye to our houseguests. That evening my family and I went to a birthday party for a family friend (AJ was at work). Oh and we also spent some time on the phone with the bank.....my debit card number was somehow stolen and apparently someone (some butthead rude person) did end up Black Friday shopping on my dime. Grrrr, all seems to be sorted out now, but it's scary nonetheless.

AJ captured this pic and it absolutely cracks me up. AJ's dad was busy doing handy man stuff for us and in this picture he's putting a name plate on baby's cradle (which he made, btw!) and I crawled into bed and dozed off! Pregnancy life has me conked out a good portion of the time, lol  

Saturday/Sunday: I think all the busyness caught up to me and I've been cursed with a cold. I've been in pjs, drinking tea, doing some meal prepping (making this soup for dinner this week) for dinners and lunches, doing some reading, and overall just resting and praying these sniffles away.

I'm loving this book and am ready to pack up and move to Scandinavia......except the cold, no thanks. 

There are only 19 more school days before Christmas break (and before baby arrives!!) and I am so excited for holiday cheer and 1st grade fun. I succumb to the craziness this time of the year. Bring it on! We decorated the house for the holidays (but no tree this year, this type A girl can't go into labor after the holidays knowing there's a tree in the house that needs to come down!) and I'm ready for holiday baking, Christmas tunes (started Nov 1st, don't judge), and cozy evenings. Have a great week, everyone!