Friday Things

1. Isabelle turned 7 months old this week! This girl is getting so big… so far, she LOVES food, gobbles up all of the yogurt and purees we offer her, and is lunging like a maniac at our plates, so she’s getting some nibbles of “real” food, too. She is SO close to crawling… she gets up on all fours, pulls one knee forward, then falls on her tummy, ha! And her hair is growing like crazy… it’s so long in the front that it’s starting to fall in front of her eyes, so she’s been rocking cute little headbands to keep it out of her face :)

2. I’m not sure what’s been in the air the last few days, but Joseph and Dominic have been playing SO nicely together, it is so wonderful. Most days there is a lot of refereeing over crying because of toys being taken, he pushed me, he’s doing something I don’t like, etc. The last couple of days that has been VERY minimal; they’ve been running around together, making up games, taking turns doing things, talking nicely to each other… it makes me so, so happy.

3. Last weekend, I went down a serious rabbit hole on Ancestry.com. I decided to start a little family tree and see what I could find. It prompted me to start with my dad, which led me down his father’s ancestry line, and I was able to trace the whole way back to around 1700. It was absolutely fascinating. First of all, there were members of his family living in the same small town that I grew up in since the mid-late 1700’s. That’s nuts! That part of the family all hails from Northern Ireland and England (I knew about Ireland, but not England); I can’t wait to see what else I can find.

4. Ever since Sirius turned on their holiday stations on November 1st, I’ve been listening regularly and don’t feel the least bit bad about it! Joseph has been singing Jingle Bells all year long, so the season has finally caught up to him, ha.

5. Speaking of, I received an Amazon toy catalog in the mail this week. I was surprised, and thought it was brilliant. When I was a kid, the day that the JCPenney Christmas toy catalog showed up in the mail was nearly as exciting as Christmas itself. Nothing will beat that catalog (it was the BEST!), but I was excited to see a toy catalog in the mail (I’m so old-school!).

6. If your weekend needs cheesy potatoes, this hashbrown casserole is calling your name!

7. Question: Do you enjoy “Friday Things” every week, or would you prefer them less often with perhaps more content? Something like this or this? Thoughts?

8. Thank you to reader Janet for sending me information about Operation Gratitude – they will take your leftover Halloween candy and include it in care packages to troops serving overseas. I love this idea, and today is the last day to ship it to them. If you have any excess candy lying around, this would certainly be a great way to get it out of the house! :)

9. Have any of you binged or started watching the final season of House of Cards? I want to watch it because I feel like I’ve invested so much time into this story and I want to see how it wraps up, but I am totally not motivated because I just can’t imagine how it will be even a fraction as good without Kevin Spacey’s character. Womp womp.

10. TGIF! I hope you enjoy something you love this weekend!