It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just two days away. The couple days leading up to Christmas are always my favorite. The anticipation, the wonder and the magic in the air fills me with pure joy and excitement. Today has felt extra special. It’s been a day filled with lots of little blessings which are making me feel a little extra happy and lucky this year.
Last night my husband and I found out our wedding album arrived and we could pick it up today. Although it may seem late to some, we didn’t choose the pictures for our album until late June and it takes four months for the layout to be created and from there about two months of production time. I started my day fairly normal. I woke up, ate a small breakfast, threw in a load of laundry and worked out. Despite being a bit tired from not sleeping great; I forced myself to get on my bike because I knew it would help me feel better. After working out I showered and headed over to our photographers studio, Dan Doke, to get our long awaited album. After looking it over several times now I’ve become teary eyed looking back on our day and seeing just how gorgeous the album turned out from cover to finish. It may seem like a small thing, but my husband and I are so excited to finally have it.
After picking up our wedding album, my husband and I headed straight to a doctors appointment. I had a 32 week ultrasound to measure the size of our baby girl and a regular appointment with my doctor. I’ve been pretty much anxiety free this entire pregnancy, but I was a little nervous today having the ultrasound hoping everything still looked good. We found out our baby girl is growing right on track and is in proper position for delivery. This was the happiest news of my day. It’s always reassuring to hear her heartbeat, see her little face when I get an ultrasound and know that everything is going as it should. I also found out that the echo cardiogram I had last week was completely normal. Due to some family history, it was strongly suggested I have one. Although I’ve had them in the past and have always checked out perfectly healthy, my doctor and genetic counselors wanted to make sure everything still looked A-OK with there being increased pressure on my heart from my growing belly. I wasn’t too concerned, but hearing my doctor tell me that everything was normal and looked great was definitely a relief. He also informed me that I’m doing incredibly well and told me to keep doing everything I’ve been from the get-go. He was thrilled to hear I’m still exercising on average five days a week and told me to absolutely keep it up as it’s only going to continue to help me with delivery and recovery. He said I’ll be stronger postpartum because the added weight of the baby is helping to strengthen my muscles double time because my body isn’t used to carrying around all this added weight. I told him I can definitely tell that I’m getting stronger when I do things like pushups, plies or squats.
Once we finished with my appointment it was operation replace our Christmas tree. Yup, two days before Christmas and we are taking down the “old” tree and putting up a new one. Every year it’s a tradition that my husband and I cut down our Christmas tree, and we always go with my brother and sister in law. This year we decided to try Smolak Farms as we’ve always loved it there for apple picking, pumpkin picking and of course their famous donuts and cider. After cutting down our tree we realized that we sort of had two trees in one. The trunk of the tree literally split partway up. So even though it looked like one tree, the trunk was split into two. Two weeks after having it, the side that split off was completely dead. I’m talking brown, needles dropping in piles and starting to droop. I finally decided to email Smolak Farms because Christmas being my favorite time of year, I was completely bummed out. In less than twelve hours I had an email from the owner who not only apologized for the tree, but offered to replace our tree for free. So, after my appointment it was off to Smolak Farms where our new tree was literally waiting for us. They asked what size we wanted, went and picked out the best one they had left and tied it to our car. It may seem silly and small to some people, but Christmas is truly my favorite time of year. And being treated with such great customer service and generosity, especially during this time of year means so much. I’m excited to re-decorate a tree tonight and know that when we wake up on Christmas morning we’ll have a fresh gorgeous tree to greet us.
Sometimes it’s the small things that really make you smile and mean the most. Looking at our wedding album together for the first time, a great doctors appointment and a new Christmas tree all feel like tiny little Christmas blessings. It also makes you realize that it’s not about all the commercialism and gifts that are important this time of year. For me, it’s knowing that our baby (and me) are doing well, it’s being able to look at my wedding day over and over reflecting back on how amazing it was and it’s about the generosity of others that go out of their way to make you happy.
Wishing all my blog readers little blessings before Christmas of their own and very happy New Year!
~Sparke