Hooray for Friday!!!

It's finally Friday...but I have to say that I feel like it came much quicker this week than last week, so that is a bonus.  Not to mention that we have a 3 day weekend ahead of us and that makes me very happy.

{ONE} 

First of all I want to thank you all for your kind words and support regarding my announcement post yesterday!! We are so ready for this new chapter and are working on all sorts of things to get ready for the end of March/April.  #2 will be living in our 3rd bedroom which has been a work in progress since, well since forever!  It has gone from being a storage room, to a sitting room, to a bird room, to a storage room, to a playroom and storage room, to now a nursery!!  Originally when we moved in I thought that it was going to be the nursery to begin with since I wanted to have a guest room...but that just didn't happen (since we rarely have overnight guests).  But now it's finally going to happen!!!  This weekend hopefully we will tackle the closet in there.  It needs a major overhaul and I'm hoping that it will be dual purpose: half for the babe and the other half for my sewing/crafting supplies and some basic storage.

{TWO}

We've been listening to Pandora practically all day while I'm at work and I have it on the Disney channel, so we get to hear all the great works from our favorite princess movies (and cars!).  Well we have heard "I can show you the world" so many times that Ellie requested I take her on a magic carpet ride by dragging her around the kitchen on a blanket!  Oh it was just the cutest things and probably one of my favorites!!

{THREE}

I can't believe that we are already halfway done with January, like how did that happen??  I'm also super excited about Valentines this year and I have some really cute painting projects in mind for Ellie to do, you know she loves to "painting"!  It takes a lot out of me because of all the potential mess but as she is getting older she is becoming more aware and responsive to my OCD and its starting to get quite enjoyable!  It was this time last year that I started our Holiday Canvas collection and I hope it's something we continue for years to come!!  here are some of our past projects:

{FOUR}

Over the past year I have really tried to tone down my hoarding tendencies, I have decluttered and gotten rid of a ton of stuff that I have just been keeping onto for no good reason.  And let me tell you how much better I feel and lighter as well...I didn't realize how much that stuff was weighing me down!! When I saw on facebook about "The January Cure" I just knew I had to sign up and see how I can improve the cleanliness, organization, and routine of our home.  It is totally free to sign up and they send you emails everyday with a new task.  Somehow over the Christmas break I decided to start cleaning out our house and doing some organization (like our nightstands and bathroom cabinets) and it turns out that I have already completed some of the tasks on the list so I can either take a break that day or work on something else.  It's really fun and my favorite part is that one task is to get fresh flowers every weekend!  I don't think its too late to sign up...and really you can take these tips and apply them to any time of the year.  Today says I need to do a deep clean in our bedroom...which I have already moved half of the furniture to vacuum under and dust so this should be relatively easy...just need to get under the bed and clean the windows!!

{FIVE}

I remember seeing lots of bloggers posting their "Word of the Year" in January last year, so I did it too (here)...and then for most of them they never mentioned their word again, myself included.  So last year I chose the word "Content".  I just wanted to be Content with all aspects of my life, I was in a really dark place in the depths of my infertility and family members (and friends) announcing their good news almost weekly, it really took a toll on me and I became so focused on improving my fertility...I was frazzled all the time.  I also had all of these wants and wishes for where and how I wanted to live...and practically all of them were completely unachievable...like a total house overhaul similar to Fixer Upper!  I just felt like I was so unsatisfied in my life that I wanted to focus on being content with what God had given me and to find peace/pleasure in it.  I'm not going to lie, the first half of the year was a real struggle...then in July the most devastating thing happened, but at the same time it brought a huge amount of clarity to my life and perspective that I basically did a 180 with my emotional state and started to find contentment in my life.  I think in today's age with all of the media and Pinterest it really is hard to be content in your life...but it's something we can all strive for.  Since July I really started to focus on this state of mind.  I would look around my house and see things that I wanted to make improvements on but they didn't bug me anymore.  Granted we did finally replace our 1989 carpet with solid surface floors which was something I dreamed of since we first saw the house, but now I love our house.  I have fallen in love with having Ellie and getting to spend so much time with her alone.  And I have found so much peace each month where I don't cry when my cycle starts over...sure my body has gone through some major changes since my surgery, like some PTLS symptoms which totally suck and I haven't really talked about them on here, but I love the peace I feel in my life right now.  While I don't think I can say that I am 100% content in my life ... which I am actually not sure if that was ever the whole goal, but I do have to say that I feel so much more content in my life now than I ever have before.

I have thought about a word for this year, and I think I just want it to be "BE".  I just want to "be" in my life, whatever that means each day.  I guess it could be "present", "aware", "happy"...

{SIX}

Did you see my recap of our 2nd Day in Disneyland this past September??  It was one for the memory books for sure!!  Read all the details here.


♥ Ashley


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