MERRY CHRISTMAS & 33 Weeks: Things I Want to Remember.

It's the day after Thanksgiving, which means HELLO, CHRISTMAS! If you think I will be spending today doing anything other that listening to Christmas music, putting up the tree, and drinking hot chocolate, you clearly don't know me. 

Christmas is my favorite thing in the world, but I also adore fall, so I am very serious about waiting until the day after Thanksgiving for anything Christmas-related. But here we are, so bring on allllll the Christmas! 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, but it was also 33 weeks for me and baby Jack!

• Last week, we traveled all over. We covered North Carolina, Michigan, and Texas in just four days. It was an adventure and I'm so glad I got to see those places that could be potential new homes for us! However, I do believe I have hit my traveling limit until the baby comes. Traveling while pregnant is hard. 

• Speaking of: Wanna know what else starting happening this week? Contractions. I've been having Braxton Hicks for a few weeks now, but this week they started to hurt. Is the baby coming? Nope! Just my body playing pranks. Really cool. I feel like the last two months of pregnancy should be super chill and pain-free since you're gearing up for a life-changing and most likely pretty painful experience, but hey, no one asked me. 

• Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I obviously took my "eating for two" responsibility very seriously. Gotta keep this little guy fed, am I right? 

• This holiday season is the most sentimental one yet. I want to enjoy every second of it just being Christopher and me, but at the same time, we keep talking about how next Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll be a family of three! It makes me view the holidays in a whole new light, especially Thanksgiving. My heart has never been so full!

33 weeks down, 7(ish) to go. PS: That's less than 50 days. WHAT IS LIFE.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you have a wonderful, magical day filled with family and friends and entirely too much delicious food. I hope you watch the Macy's Day Parade in a home full of holiday cheer.

If you go Black Friday shopping tonight, I hope you have a safe late night/early morning full of good deals and warm coffee.

Most of all, I hope your day is full of overwhelming love and thankfulness. I hope that you make memories today that will fill your heart with thankfulness for the entire year to come.

Let today be a reminder of how much we really have to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving! xo

Just Us: Our Thanksgiving.

Today is one of my favorite days of the entire year. It's a festive day full of love and chaos and really good food. It's a day that kicks off the Thanksgiving celebrations, and it's a day of celebrating how thankful I really am for Christopher and our marriage.

This will be the third year we've celebrated our own personal Thanksgiving, and it's a tradition I'm so glad we started.

Every year on the day before Thanksgiving, we go to Whole Foods. I think this is probably their busiest day of the year-it's absolutely chaotic, and that's part of the fun! We pretend we're rich for the day and pick out appetizers, drinks, desserts, the whole nine yards. Then we go home and cook everything and have the best night ever, eating delicious food and celebrating life and all we have to be thankful for.

I have never been more thankful for Chris than I am this year. We're right on the cusp of all these big changes, and every day is filled with so much unknown. But in a time where it would be very easy to freak out and miss out on all the good, I'm able to look at my very best friend and know that no matter what, he will be by my side. And because of that, I'm able to cherish every moment.

I love you, Christopher. I've never been so thankful to have such an amazing life partner. You're my babe, forever and always. 

In the hustle and bustle of tomorrow, don't let the holiday pass without taking a minute to tell your significant other that you're thankful for them!

Today is My Favorite.

My mom has this Thanksgiving tradition where she has my family write down the things we're thankful for--some years on a place mat, some years on card stock leaves, some years on strips of paper. For the month of November, we would all write things down--big, small, serious, hilarious. 

These things would get put away and then pulled out year after year. A way of reflecting on the past, of seeing how you've changed, and of remembering all you have to be thankful for. 

I remember being so nervous to write down Christopher's name in November 2009. We'd been dating for 5 months, and while I was definitely thankful for him, I couldn't help but wonder how I'd feel the next year when I saw his name. Nostalgic? Angry? Sad? Happy? Would I be able to show him and say, "Look--I wrote this down last year when we'd only been dating for a few months!" Or would it be something my little brother would make fun of me for, saying, "Ha, you wrote down that guys name that you only dated for six months!" 

In the end, I decided to write it. That year was paper leaves, so I figured I could run interference and toss it in the trash the next year if things went south. (Because let's just say there are some names in permanent marker on a placemat from one year that I would really love to get rid of, but there they will stay forever..womp womp).

And here we are, 5 years later, on one of my favorite days of the year. 

Today's the day we celebrate Thanksgiving, just the two of us. We go to Whole Foods and buy really fun stuff we normally wouldn't buy, then we come back here and think we're professional chefs and make our own Thanksgiving dinner. 

Today, I just can't help but think about the day I stood in my parents' dining room, trying to decide if I should write his name down or not. 

I can't help but think of how little I knew what the future would hold...how little I knew just how thankful for him I would one day be. I had no idea the insane love I would feel for him. I didn't know that we'd be a family someday. Didn't know the joy it would bring me to run around Whole foods the night before Thanksgiving, laughing and rushing and having the best night ever. 

And when I think about all of those things, my heart just feels like it's going to explode with thankfulness. 

If you have a significant other, make sure you celebrate them this week. Yes, it's a holiday about friends and family. Yes, it's a busy week. But make sure you take the time--whether it's tonight or actually on Thanksgiving day or the days after thanksgiving--to celebrate how thankful you are for your partner in life. 

And if you need suggestions on how to do so, I highly recommend going to Whole Foods the night before Thanksgiving.  Insanity doesn't even begin to describe it, but it is so, so much fun. 

  

Babe, I'm so thankful for you. Here's to many more Thanksgivings spent together. I love you.

Who are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Even though Thanksgiving is in 8 days, which is technically longer than a week, I'm insanely excited and feel like it's tomorrow.  Just go with it.

My favorite things about Thanksgiving:

Food. 
Let's just go ahead and put this one out there.  Thanksgiving food is the best.  For me, it's a combination of amazing foods that we don't really eat any time other than the holidays.  Every year my family always talks about how we should really eat this type of food more, and every year we never do.  I love it because it makes the day even more exciting.

Thankfulness. 
It's so nice to have a day where you are constantly thinking about all you have in life to be thankful for.  If you're not thankful about on Thanksgiving, there is no hope for you.

Family. 
This is my first Thanksgiving being married, so I cherish being able to sit around the table with family even more so.
{Side note: last year at thanksgiving my dad made me cry at dinner because since I was getting married the next month, I was probably never having thanksgiving with my family ever ever again and this was the last one ever and I should enjoy it because it was never happening again.  Yes, I was incredibly rational, I know.}

The Macy's Day Parade.
Because Christmas can't start until Santa and Mrs. Claus come riding in on their sleigh.

Black Friday Shopping.  
I've only done this for the past few years, but I love it.  I like to go with nothing specific in mind so I can just enjoy the craziness of it all.

And I love love love going to sleep way too late, full of happiness and way too much food, knowing that the morning will bring Christmas music and decorations and peppermint mochas.  Knowing I get to wake up on that day with my husband this year is almost more than I can stand.  Holidays are the BEST.

What are your favorite things about Thanksgiving?

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