Life Lately (photo dump)

So once again I’ve been MIA for longer than intended. As the holidays rapidly approach (holy cow Thanksgiving is tomorrow people!), life has gotten busier and busier. Apologies for my lack of posting, and as always I will try my best to do better moving forward! To catch us all up, here’s a quick recap.

We finally got our “fall” (it was actually about 85 degrees on that mid October day but we pretended) photo session pictures back (our photographer was our wedding photographer, Meagan Abell, who I think does beautiful, beautiful work, even when photographing people (ahem, me) who aren’t exactly the most at ease in front of a camera). I LOVE them all so much. Ryland did not crack a smile the entire time (she is really working on her Victoria Beckham pout) but I still think she looks pretty darn cute even doing her best Zoolander impression. A few of my favorites:

 Ryland has also learned a few new tricks since I last touched base. My favorite is she now has the ability to say “mama”. Granted I’m pretty sure she has no idea what “mama” means and just thinks it’s a fun sound to make, but I still kind of melt inside every time I hear it. I do think it is a biological tool that babies develop, because they realize that shouting “mama” at the human near them makes them come to them much more quickly. Babies are devious.

She also has gotten really good at sitting up and only topples over from time to time. And we have discovered she can be distracted for long (long for a baby, aka like 10 minutes) stretches of time with TV shows. She is a fan of Wonder Pets in particular, and the songs from that show have lodged themselves so deep into the crevices of my brain that I hear them in my sleep.

We’ve also started to get some colder weather (FINALLY) and I have been way too excited about baby winter wear. I mean it’s just the cutest. Add some Christmas themed items in there and I’m done. Thank goodness places like Baby Gap and Old Navy have crazy sales this time of year.

We’ve also fully boarded the Christmas decorating express train. I know, I know, it’s pre Thanksgiving and I used to be one of those people that hated anything Christmas before Thanksgiving. But last year we didn’t get to decorate at all because we moved on December 1st, and this year R is working a TON in December, SO we made an exception and decorated the entire inside of the house this past weekend. I want to do a separate post about our decorations, but Ryland did have fun “helping” with the lights :), even if initially she was skeptical.

We were also motivated to decorate early because we hosted our annual Friensgiving at our house. I of course forgot to take a single picture during the actual dinner, but I did manage to get a photo of the table before anyone got there. I was super into tablescaping this year. Like maybe a little too into it if we’re being honest. Which makes me feel super old because Friendsgiving used to consist of paper plates and plastic cutlery. Now we’re all fancy!

So those are the (brief) highlights of life lately. Will probably not be posting until after Thanksgiving, because unfortunately I’m working night shifts Thursday and Friday (eek, haven’t worked a night shift since before Ryland was born so these are going to be a little brutal). But I promise to be back soon to talk about Christmas decor and gift guides for mama and baby 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all eat lots of turkey and pie and spend the day surrounded by love and laughter.