WEEKEND + FIVE THINGS

The last five days have been super busy, fun, and full of family and friends!

We went down to Nashville last week to do some work on our new house and make it all ready for our move in three weeks (!!!). My parents and brother met us there from South Carolina, and my sister came with us from New York so we had lots of hands for painting and cleaning. And lots of hands for holding baby Ayla too, of course. She was a nice distraction for all of us, hehe! We got all of the main areas painted that we wanted to get done before moving, bathrooms cleaned, kitchen cabinets scrubbed, and floors swept and mopped. The carpets need some serious love yet, but we’ll get a steam-clean service to take care of that in the next few weeks and hopefully it will all feel super fresh when we walk through the doors to make it our new home. It’s hard to believe how fast the move is coming up!

The major highlight of our trip was a real, live date night that Ben and I went on Thursday night…the first one without the baby since she’s been born. My parents kept her for the evening, and she did so well for them! We hit up a majorly delicious Indian restaurant for dinner and then spent the rest of the evening at the Outcry tour concert right in downtown Nashville. The concert was so good, and an evening spent with great music, fellow believers, and worshipping together was just what my soul needed. We hadn’t been to a concert together since a Hillsong Live one that we went to when we were dating about three years ago, and it was just a great evening together. We love our baby girl to pieces, but there really is nothing like having a great time out on the town together alone.

We finished up our painting and work on Friday afternoon, and then headed down to my hometown in South Carolina for the rest of the weekend. It was a full couple of days with seeing all kinds of friends and family, and it was so much fun to introduce Ayla to all the ones we love from home. All the cousins and aunties wanted turns with her and she was such a trooper with all the newness and activity over the last five days.

I had a bunch of friends over to my parent’s house for breakfast on Monday morning and it was honestly one of the most inspiring, fun couple of hours that I’ve had all year. There is just nothing like connecting with old friends that you grew up with and spending time together talking about raising babies and growing spiritually and learning to love those around us. We got to hold each other’s babies and pray for the one that’s coming at any time (my best friend is about to have her first!) and it was just a spark of life for my soul. We left for New York at noon on Monday, and had a mostly uneventful trip home…minus a MAJOR HUGE EPIC diaper blow out in the carseat when we were only two hours down road. We spent twenty minutes at a station taking the car seat apart and changing Ayla and trying not to get poo-poo all over us and the car. It was one of those laugh-or-cry kind of moments and we mostly just had to laugh. And now we’re veteran blow-out-in-the-car parents! Woot.

Have a superb week, dears!

Here are five things I love:

– this pretty rug
– this recipe
– this perfect shift dress
– this challenging word
– this song

What about you: what was the most exciting thing about your weekend?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!