We had our company holiday party, a date day, a birthday party and lots of Sunday chores to fit in at the end, so we were busy this weekend! Fine by me, because I can use all the distraction I can get. I am very very ready to not be pregnant anymore. Please help manifest the arrival of baby girl somewhere between Wednesday and the weekend, okay? 😋

Dropped Dempsey off at his grandma’s on Friday morning then swung by Cherry Bean for coffee and a bottle of Coquito which they sell every year at Christmas and I always say I’m going to try but haven’t until now. WHOA, it is rich!!!! We had our 38 week appointment later on and all is good with the baby 🤍 Our company holiday parted started at 3, so we picked Jory and Betsy up and headed to Top Golf. Blessed to have an actual excuse not to hit any balls besides just not wanting to embarrass myself 😂 Sad but not surprised to report that the food at Top Golf is terrible but it was fun chatting with people for a few hours. Got to see Delaney when we headed back to pick Dempsey up and she was looking cute as could be in an outfit my mom happened to buy for her.

Saturday morning cuddles with my boy and his armpit 😂 We had enough time for breakfast, a shower for me and to do a few things around the house before it was time to get him into the car and over to Grandpa Steve and Lorna’s for the day. They had kindly offered to take him so Joey and I could have a day to ourselves before we have two children (!!!!) and though I hadn’t planned to have one of those, I was so super glad when we did! First, we ran a few errands, then took ourselves to lunch at Băo Brewhouse and to see a movie. That dim sum really hit the spot. Our favorite dish was the one thing I didn’t take a picture of, of course, but it was called the Drunken Empress and it was a veggie-filled saucy bowl of noodles that we ate every last bite of. Afterward, Tár, which felt like one of those super intelligent and arty films that you just don’t fully understand? 😂 Definitely much to talk and think about afterward but Cate Blanchett is just at the top of her game. Our boy got back home around 6:30 all hyped up, so he must’ve had a great day! After we put him in bed, we watched Scrooged because we gotta every year, you know?

Started Sunday with whole wheat chocolate chip banana pancakes. You know it’s true love when your mom puts a little bite of butter on each of your pancakes pieces and then does it again when you ask for seconds and thirds and fourths 😂 Demps and I chilled on the couch watching Scrooge: A Christmas Carol while Joey got in a run then we all got ready and headed out for attempt #2 of Mason’s birthday party. It was a success this time! Dempsey was perfectly entertained by Henry and Mason and a roomful of toys he’d never seen before plus we all got to eat chocolate cake. Dying over that picture of stoic Dempsey and cheesing Henry 😂😂😂 and glad we got to celebrate our favorite 5-year-old!

Back at home, Dempsey went down for a nap, Joey balanced the Cowboys game with a bunch of laundry, salads for the week and washing dishes and I got our Christmas cards addressed. Once Dempsey was back up, we played, finished our movie (he asked me to rewind so he could watch Scrooge’s final song about seven times 😂) and while I was upstairs cleaning our humidifiers (adulting is so exciting), Dempsey and Joey decorated gingerbread reindeers. Dempsey did so good and only asked to drink the bag of icing a few times 🤣 Decided to semi-phone it in for dinner by pulling a pan of eggplant parm out of the freezer then cooking up some spaghetti and tossing together a salad to go with. Unfortunately the eggplant parm did not send me into labor today but it sure did taste good. Dempsey loved this meal (minus the salad) as well, so that’s a win!

Guys, did you watch The White Lotus Season 2 finale?? I was feeling kind of meh about this season because it felt like it was just in it for pure entertainment and shock value and not as much of a social satire as the first season but that finale took me by surprise and sort of changed how I felt about the entire season. What did you think??

Felt like we made a giant mess of our house ten times this weekend, but here we are on Monday and things look pretty cleaned up. Tis the season! We were super looking forward to Mason’s birthday party on Saturday morning but he woke up with a fever, so it had to be postponed. Still, we had a really good weekend!

Between his little cold and Thanksgiving, Dempsey hadn’t been to his gymnastics class in a few weeks so we were all excited for him to go back. Joey dropped him off at Grandma’s in the morning and as they were walking out the door, he told me “come in the car, Mama” but I had to tell him I had lots of RM content to catch up on instead 😂 Indigo dropped that morning and there was a music video to watch, a Tiny Desk Concert to obsess over and ten new tracks to play on loop. It is so very good, with “Yun,” “All Day” and “Hectic” being my current favorites!

Our boy had a good time at his class and got to hang with Grandma the rest of the day 🤍 I had a late manicure and then I met Joey and Dempsey at Edgewater for dinner. The smile on Dempsey’s face when I walked in to meet them and him exclaiming “it’s Christmas!” is one of the happiest moments of my life! I ate a veggie Reuben made of pastrami-fied celery root that was so crazy inventive and spicy in a way that I would like a lot better if I wasn’t so scared of third trimester heartburn! Afterward, we played a few rounds of Guess Who, took a picture of Dempsey in front of one of the many trees they have set up inside the marketplace, then stopped at a house I’d passed on my way over that was all decorated for Christmas. We made it through almost all of Christmas Vacation after we put Dempsey to bed 😂

I was in the kitchen mixing up batter for buttermilk waffles on Saturday morning when we got the news that Mason’s party was being postponed ☹ Instead we ate our waffles (plus we made a bunch more for the freezer!), went to Home Depot (Dempsey cried for his juice the entire drive there but was a happy boy again once he had it in his hands) then drove to the park on Tennyson. I stopped into the new Huckleberry Roasters for a coffee then joined the boys and for about ten minutes we kept asking Dempsey if he wanted to go down the swirly slide and he kept telling us “NO!” then he suddenly just decided to go for it and ended up loving it! So cute/fun to watch him come to things in his own time.

Wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents during nap time and later on Joey cooked us a very good dinner of braised chicken thighs, butter-roasted carrots and wild rice and even though Joey thought he oversalted all of it, Dempsey and I were both big big fans! Carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes seem to be on the list of vegetables he’ll eat right now and I’ll take it. He even took some bites of braised leek! After bedtime for Dempsey, Joey and I watched The Apartment and don’t get me wrong, I liked it and thought Shirley MacLaine was a delight, but Jack Lemmon was kind of too goofy to take seriously as a romantic lead and it was weird when he told her he loved her but they never even kissed??

Debated ordering in for Sunday breakfast but opted to eat in and we all wanted something different. “Cream wheat” for Dempsey, an egg sandwich with sausage and cheese for me and hashbrowns, over easy eggs and toast for Joey. The dishes we dirtied though! 😫 I also made some freezer breakfast sandwiches for after our baby girl arrives, so we can have something simple to heat up in the microwave when needed. I baked the eggs and they were so fluffy that these sandwiches were TALL 😂 A little bit later, Joey and Dempsey went on a run then played at the park and shoutout to my husband for not even asking if I wanted to join them because I probably would’ve said yes when I should’ve been resting instead. Read the latest 5280 and some of my current book while they were out and it felt real nice!

Sunday night festivities included hot chocolate, family and lots of lights at the Botanic Gardens. I actually think they have more decorations out for the Halloween event, but this was still pretty to look at and fun for us all to be together. Dempsey liked it! He wanted to touch all of the lights and absolutely chugged his hot chocolate 😂 It would’ve been nice to be able to zip my jacket up, but what can you do? We were in and out in just about an hour, so we still got home and got Demps to bed on time. Joey said it was perfect timing and I thought he meant because we’d still have time to watch The White Lotus but he was talking about watching the rest of the Cowboys game 😣 We did get to watch The White Lotus though. I’m really interested to see the finale next week but something about this season feels a little more hollow than the last one. Oh and we were driving ourselves insane all weekend trying to find the newborn inserts for my car seat and then we realized they’re non-removable and have just always been in my car seat 😂🤦‍♀️ Hope you had a good weekend!