Advent So Hard & A Bit of Daily Life

It's Advent! I can't say it's snuck up on me, because it's been marked in my calendar for the past eight months as "THE TIME I WILL HAVE A BABY." Thus I am Adventing so hard, as only a nine-month pregnant woman can. Mary gets me right now. And I've been asking for her help a lot. 

So, I read somewhere that if the thought of doing ALL THE ADVENT THINGS during Advent sounds too overwhelming (*raises both hands*), then you should just pick three traditions to do this year. I've chosen St. Nicholas Day, the Advent wreath, and the Advent calendar. This in addition to putting up normal Christmas decor, etc. Getting our tree after my 38 week appointment tomorrow!

Of course, I had a bit of a crisis finding Advent candles. Why are they always so hard to find? I searched several stores, man! Finally, I found some purple and pink tea light-ish candles at the commissary and just grabbed 'em. Lo' and behold, I finally found REAL Advent candles at Michael's today.

GLORY!

And then I got home, excitedly set them up, and . . . promptly found last year's candles.

That's life.

But we're all set up now!

1/3 ain't bad. 

Yep, we forgot to start the Advent calendar yesterday. DERRRRP.

I'm pretty pumped for St. Nicholas Day. I wanted to do it last year, but I'd just started a new job, and Little Will was too young to be aware of what was happening at all whatsoever, so it was abandoned. NBD. 

Well, this year Little Will is ALL into the nativity set this year, which makes me so excited for St. Nicholas Day and Christmas in general. Side note: if you have a Little People nativity set and a toddler, just bite the bullet and buy the batteries to go in it so it lights up and plays Away in a Manger. So worth the trouble and the constant noise to see his little dance he does along to the music! 

Breakfast with all his friends.

He's also loving Little Blue Truck's Christmas with the blinking lights at the end. I can't wait for more neighbors to put up their lights in our neighborhood! 

For St. Nick's Day, we're going to leave out our shoes under the tree Saturday night. I managed to find gold chocolate coins at the BX. We're all getting special Christmas jammies (including Zelie!). I have a couple little surprises for Big Will and then Little Will is getting a St. Nick Shining Light Peg Doll and a St. Nicholas Book. 

Otherwise, the little man and I have just been doing our thing. Getting back into a groove after an epic four-day weekend with Will home has been rough! But yesterday, I finally took him to the Flip 'n' Play session at the gymnastics gym down the road. For $5, he ran around for two hours like a chicken with its head cut off and got to play on all the equipment. He had a BLAST.

And me? I had loads of fun in the bouncy sweatbox that is the gym by way of a million and a half Braxton Hicks contractions. I think I know where I will go if I want to naturally induce by way of bouncing around in a sweatbox. … 

It really was a lot of fun, though. An hour into it, they did songs and danced and played with one of those rainbow-colored parachutes. Then the bubble machine came on and things got real cRaZy. Afterwards, we hit up Chickfila on our way home and had lunch with Will at his office. Then we went home and Little Will took a THREE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTE long nap. <3 <3 <3 Well worth the $5 admission fee for that alone. But then… THEN… he slept 11.5 straight last night, past 7am, which rarely happens these days.

Flip 'n' Play, I heart you.

I'm trying to remember to take more pics of us for the blog and to be able to look at later! I've been Snapchatting a lot recently, so I never have any saved photos anymore. (Is this such an annoying millennial problem or what?) But here's a grainy post-bathtime mirror selfie from last night:

Little Will at 21 months, 26 days. Zelie at 37 weeks, 4 days.

Zelie's room is almost complete! As complete as it's ever going to be anyway. Here is the "guest room" side of the room:

It's no Pinterest-worthy vintage airplane nursery, but this really is a drastic change from what it was. We had our framed college jerseys hanging, a blue quilt on the bed, and a dark green striped shaggy carpet on the floor. It was a nice room, but very masculine. Now it's much more girly and I even managed to incorporate the old, green blackout curtains (a necessity for childrearing in my eyes). I bought the rug online for Black Friday and it just arrived today. (The TV is in there from when Will set up the crib - it's not staying!) We just have a few pictures to hang and whatnot, which may or may not be done before she's here. We're planning to have her in our room at first anyway, where there's a Rock n Play and a changing table set up. 

I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that we'll actually have two small children soon! As I've told many people, I am physically VERY ready to have this baby (ask me all the ways), but mentally/emotionally just terrified enough of two under two to be - ehh - not as ready. But I'm coming around and getting more excited each day. Which is a good thing because this baby is coming in the next three weeks whether we're ready or not!