September was a great month for goals! I was pretty ambitious, setting myself eight, but I still managed to check off six. Apparently I just don’t care enough about the tray – something lingering on my goal list for several months in a row is usually an indicator of that – but the more significant one was not running the 5k. Not running in the race was less about being pregnant and more about just not being quite on track with our training. We realized that our usual runs are around 2.8 miles, and though I might have been able to stretch my distance for the 5k (or walked some of it), we decided not to add extra pressure right now. So, running in a Chick-fil-a 5k remains on my 60 Before 30 list, and I WILL check it off before 2017! By the way, I’m at 27 goals completed — almost halfway there!

This is from about two weeks ago, at 22 weeks — 25 weeks on Friday!

Revisiting my goals for September:
Post an updated house tour (checking this off since part one was posted and part two is ready to go!)
Start a registry for baby girl
Make nursery plans so that we are ready to paint when my parents come in October
Celebrate our third anniversary!
Volunteer and shop at my church’s awesome kids consignment sale
Finish organizing our upstairs closets
Visit my younger sister in Nashville! Figure out how we are going to eat twenty meals in 2.5 days!
Paint my tray
Run my first ever 5k

October goals:
— Paint baby girl’s room
— Switch out baby girl’s light fixture
— Assemble crib
— Order crib bedding
— Make first draft of labor and delivery preferences
— Organize linen/party closet
— Successfully lead discussion in our family group for the next three weeks
— Create my own version of this glitter star garland

Plus a few things from my Fall To Do List I plan to check off this month…
— Introduce John’s parents and aunts to Asheville on our annual trip
— Host the third annual pumpkin carving and soup night
— Catch the goat showmanship competition at the NC State Fair
— Make biscuits at our church’s Fair booth

My goals are definitely baby heavy this month, since we’ll have extra hands on deck! How about you? If you’ve posted your goals somewhere, I’d love to see – or just drop them in the comments!

We’ve been in our home for about two and a half years now. Decorating progress, as ever, has been slow and steady. Sometimes slower than we would like, due to the budget and my tendency to overthink home purchasing decisions (there is NOTHING that I overthink more than home purchasing decisions). However, sharing these yearly-ish tours helps me see that there IS progress being made, that our home is inching closer and closer to the vision we have for it, and that we have much for which to be grateful. I hope you enjoy this peek into a home in progress!

All photos are by the lovely Anna Routh, first shared in our home tour on Southern Weddings, except the obviously worse-quality ones, which were taken by me :)

Here’s a good look at the true color of our red front door!

Jack always wants to do good :)

I am SO excited to say that since these photos were taken we’ve purchased new dining room chairs!! The ones here, the same ones we’ve had since starting out, were free hand-me-downs, and though they’ve served us well, I didn’t love their color, they had some glitter and fluff stuck to them from their previous owners, and there were only four of them. It took me so long to figure out what we wanted, but I’m happy to report I’m very pleased with our decision. Will share more soon!

Our plan for replacing paper towels is still going strong!

I shared my plan for re-working our big wall of art last year, and here’s the final result! The four photos are ones we took on our last four big vacations.

We didn’t get a great pulled-back shot of the master bedroom, but here are a few details!

For more photos and more sourcing information, check out last year’s tour! You can also see a few “before” photos here. And if you have any questions about sources or paint colors that I haven’t already answered, just leave a comment — I’m more than happy to help.

Back with the upstairs soon!

I think many of you may already know, either from conversation or Instagram, but I wanted to share the news officially here: we are welcoming a little lady to our family in January!

To back up a little, we knew pretty much from the beginning that we would find out our baby’s sex before birth. I know several folks that have been so happy with their decision not to (my sister and Nancy, for two), and the frugal side of me really liked the idea of loved ones gifting us practical, gender-neutral gifts over tons of pink or blue outfits. However, I didn’t really buy the argument that the surprise of the gender would provide any additional motivation to get me through labor (it seems unlikely anything could top the idea of simply meeting our baby!). I also felt that the waiting and wondering over many months would make me more anxious than excited. Finally, we thought that knowing whether we were expecting a boy or girl would help these two non-baby-lovers wrap their heads around everything that’s going on.

So, when we went in for our twenty week ultrasound, we asked the doctor to hide anything pertinent on the screen, and write the sex on a note sealed in an envelope. I like that he signed the outside — very official, like the Oscars :)

That was a Thursday, and we kept the envelope in our hot little hands until Friday evening, when we opened it at dinner on our first night in Greenville.

From the beginning, I thought we were having a girl. Actually, it was less of a thought and more of an assumption — I have two sisters, 90% girl cousins, and almost all of our close family friends have all girls. We just don’t do boys in my world, as evidenced by my Dad’s response when I asked for final guesses:

Our families were pretty much 50/50 on whether it would be a boy or a girl. The vast majority of online friends thought it would be a girl. As I said, I thought girl from the beginning until the last week or so, when I started to think it might be a boy. John didn’t have a strong feeling until the last week or so, when he also started to think it might be a boy! We even consulted Joanna’s old wives tales round-up, and my answers leaned towards boy.

Still, I wasn’t surprised when we opened the envelope and saw girl! The beautiful thing is that even though for years I’ve always thought I’d prefer to have a girl, and especially a girl as the oldest child, by the time it actually came down to our actual child, I can honestly say I would have been equally as happy either way. All of the things you hear about just wanting the baby to be healthy are 100% true, but more than that, I think my happy ambivalence was due to the fact that I’ve gotten the chance to know some lovely little boys (my nephew and Perry!) over the last few years, and have been reminded that they are equally as wonderful and fun as little girls!

That being said, I think John will be an amazing Dad to a little girl. Also, let’s be clear — I’m pretty excited about the two sets of pink cat pajamas I’ve already bought her. For the most part, though, our registry is pretty neutral, and you might be surprised to see the nursery design I’m working on. (More on that soon!)

Finally, since many folks have been asking, I would say at this point we’re about 95% set on a first name, and 60% set on a middle name. We will be keeping both under wraps until she joins us!

I would love to hear: If you’ve had a baby, did you have a strong feeling about the sex, and were you right? Did you find out beforehand? For everyone, if you want to have children, would you rather have boys, girls, both, or no preference?

On one hand, this seems like an entirely inconsequential topic to devote a blog post to. On the other hand, it is a seriously genius trick that has revolutionized my leftover life, and I’m committed to sharing all things marvelous, inconsequential though they may be in the grand scheme of things.

Margherita pizza recipe and photo from Annie’s Eats

So here it is: if you have a slice or two of pizza to reheat, pop them into a skillet (I use stainless steel). Put on the lid and turn the stove on to medium heat. (No need to preheat.) After 6-8 minutes, the bottom should be crispy and the cheese on top should be melted. Emphasis on crispy — the revolutionary thing to me about this method is how delightfully crispy the slice gets! It’s amazing, and so far superior to microwave reheating the results don’t even compare.

I would love to hear: am I late to this party? Have y’all been using this method for years? Even so, if there’s at least one friend out there who hasn’t heard, I’ve done my job :)

Thanks to The Kitchn for enlightening me!