Week #31 - subtitle - 9 more weeks! (That's single digits, folks!)

This week the baby jumped up to approximately 3.3 pounds and 16.25 inches long or about the size of FOUR naval oranges.  (I feel like I'm really knocking my fruit and vegetable knowledge out of the park lately).  The baby continues to kick quite a bit - it is really strange to see my stomach actually move these days!  Ben has also started reading some books to the baby throughout the week, which is as cute as it sounds.

I keep thinking about how the holidays are going to be so different next year with a baby around and sometimes I just want this baby to get here already(!)  Other times, I don't want to give up being pregnant because that means our reality will be very, very different.  The only symptoms I've been experience lately are heartburn and lack of sleep.  I get up every few hours, but I just think that this will be preparation for when the baby is here (right?!?).

This past week has been a busy one (shocking, I know!).  On Saturday, I went to a baby shower for one of my friends who is due about 2 1/2 weeks before me.  She is having a baby boy (name to be announced at a later date) and the nautical theme at her shower was super cute!  Her family was so sweet and said the nicest things that made me tear up (doesn't take much these days).  There were actually two other women there who are expecting in addition to us - one December, one January, February (me), and one April - so clearly we were missing a March mama!

Saturday evening was Ben's work Christmas party at The Pub.  I'd be lying if I said that I was looking forward to his Christmas party, but it actually turned out to be much better than expected.  The space his company reserved was on the balcony overlooking the outside of International Plaza and they even had artificial snow!

I was happy to be hanging with his coworker's significant others when one of them smartly pointed out that there was no dessert!  What kind of holiday party is that?!?  She suggested that we go to The Cheesecake Factory after the party was over (9 pm).  I quickly agreed and it wasn't long until we convinced several others to join us.  When we walked in, there was an hour and a half (!) wait to be seated, so we decided to order our cheesecakes to go and eat them in the food court (another genius idea!).

It was so much fun chat with everyone in a more intimate setting and enjoy our cheesecakes in the middle of the food court.  I would say that it was the most entertaining and memorable portion of the evening.  Let me also say that 30th anniversary chocolate cheesecake was amazeballs!  And it was definitely enough for two days.

On Sunday, we did a lot of running around to Target and Publix for various different things and finally finished decorating our Christmas tree and writing out our Christmas cards.  Ben even decorated our palm tree outside the townhouse.  We have one outlet outside that hasn't worked since we moved in (2011), and we finally got it fixed...just in time to move-YAY!

Tuesday I got together with several of my girlfriends for a Christmas bunco game/Secret Santa gift exchange.  Did y'all know that Walmart sells fake boxes like this?!?  

As a joke, one of my friends wrapped a real gift inside this box.  Let me just say that when it was opened, the look on the opener's face was priceless and we all we rolling on the ground.  If you want to get someone good this holiday season, head on over to Walmart! (There are apparently several different boxes/types to chose from)

At work this week, we had graduation and the annual faculty/staff versus students flag football game. It was nice to see people that I don't get to see as much now that I'm over at the Wiregrass Ranch campus.  The speaker for the graduation was also really good (made me tear up again) and the faculty/staff team won the football game.

Thursday is officially the start of my Winter Break from work/school.  My goal over the break is to clean/organize one room in the townhouse each day in preparation for the baby.  (Nesting?)  Living in a townhouse is certainly challenging at times, but we also hang on to a lot of things that we don't need.  My first project for the week was to organize our pantry and fridge:

There were things in our pantry that were expired BEFORE we moved in to the townhouse.  Which means that we moved expired goods...not super proud of that.  However, now that everything is cleaned AND organized, I'm so glad!  I also squeezed in some Christmas shopping today (Thursday), since I've been a super slacker this season.  That is all for now, y'all - until next week!