Oh Boy it's Fri-Yay!!!! plans for my birthday, home decor and other updates

Friday is here which means we are at the very beginning of "Green Week" in celebration of my Birthday and St. Patrick's Day which is next Saturday!  So what we do is we dress in green every day to show our Irish Pride.  I'd love to see your green and how you celebrate.

ONE

Speaking of my birthday, I don't really have any big plans.  I'm turning 34, I'm pregnant, tired, and all I really want to do is take a nap!  We are heading out to lunch with my dad at a local Irish restaurant and then my BFF is coming over for dinner and cake (which I'm making).  I just want to spend the day with my family and hopefully getting a few projects crossed off the list.

TWO

We've got all our St. Patrick's Day decor up (see last year's decor) and I have a St. Patrick's Day station playing on Pandora through our Echo Dot.  She's so nice to have, but Ellie got to talking to her the other and claimed she was Thomas and began the Voice Recognition process...so now Alexa thinks that Thomas sounds like a 4 year old girl 😂.  Thankfully she's not set up to purchase anything for us so we're hopefully in the clear.  However, Ellie adores Alexa and is always telling me that Alexa's head is in the clouds!! Haha

THREE

We haven't done our St. Pat's Day art yet but I have big plans to get it done this weekend.  I always find myself stocking up on the 8x10 canvas at Michaels when they have a sale (I've got quite the collection now) so that the girls can get their paint on for the holidays.  My favorites are Valentines, St. Pats, and Christmas.  Just this year I decided to display their previous year's work in their rooms and Ellie is over the moon seeing her artwork up on the walls.  Finnley seems to be quite into the artwork as well and it's so fun to see what she comes up with.  We usually do shades of green and the girls tend to do more abstract art and then I go over it with a gold to give it some more holiday flare.

FOUR

This past month I've been getting paperwork together to sign Ellie up for Kindergarten!! Our home school district isn't the best so I had to do some extra steps to waiver her into a neighboring district...which means she's going to miss out on riding the school bus and not have neighborhood friends from school.  Which I'm totally used to since my parents sent me to private school and all my friends lived in a different city than I did.  It was so exciting to get the email that she was approved to waiver and then to do all the paperwork for Kindergarten.  She still has some improvements to make sure she is 100% Kindergarten ready (so I have a spot reserved for her preschool again) but I have high hopes that the next few months will prove to be full of growth for her.  I love the prospect of her going to Kindergarten for full days because I think its going to be so good for her, and bonus points she is so excited to go to Kinder, and it will be nice to have some one on one time with Finnley while the babe sleeps all day 🙏.

FIVE

Speaking of the babe, I know y'all are dying to learn the gender.  And today is the day I'm going to share it with you!!!  I've known for quite some time that I wanted Disney to play a part in our eventual pregnancy and I loved having the opportunity to make our pregnancy announcement from the parks.  

Now I get to do it again and have the help of Disney to announce the gender of our sweet little nugget!!  We found out the day before we left what we were having and I got to start my plan the minute our feet hit the ground in California.  Our first order of business was to get a balloon...but then we learned that with the construction they were doing in DL that the characters weren't out and about on Main Street USA and we'd have to visit them in their homes in ToonTown with a wait of over 90 minutes - not happening.  So I brainstormed and tried to come up with an alternative so we made our way to City Hall and picked up some buttons for the fam.  On day 3 of our visit the walls were down on Main Street and the character's were out!!  We donned our appropriate Mouse wear, brought the balloon and buttons with us.  We learned what time our Mouse of choice would be out and made sure to arrive before that so we could get in line.  While we were waiting...our balloon got loose and flew away!! I was distraught and pissed and went on a search for the balloon guy only to learn that they wouldn't be out for another SIX hours!!!  Thankfully one of the cast members went behind the scenes and was able to retrieve our beloved balloon just in time for our Mouse to come out!!  We were first in line and got some great shots! Enjoy!

Mickey noticed my button right away and was so congratulatory!  He made sure to make a big deal with both of the girls and it was just everything I had hoped!!  Even Finnley was on board and willing to interact with Mickey sans tears!!

So if you couldn't guess, we are having a BOY!!! the first (and quite possibly only) boy in Thomas family, immediate and extended.  We are over the moon to continue the Parsons legacy and to bring a whole new dynamic to family gatherings!  Ellie is super excited to have a brother and can't keep herself from telling anyone we come in contact with.  When we found out at the ultrasound she exclaimed "I always wanted a brother!!" Finnley gives the belly kisses on the daily and has absolutely no idea what happening.

♥ Ashley

in case you missed it:

Monday I posted the latest Bumpdate

Thursday I posted tips on guessing the gender