I know I haven't posted in awhile! I've been told I say sorry too much so I'm not even going to apologize for that. It is what it is! With less than a month left until baby girl arrives and the holiday season upon us, what energy I have is all being directed towards my family and personal life (as it should be). In fact, I'm not pushing myself to publish any more blog posts this year. But I had someone reach out to me on DM asking if everything was ok, and I realized that with no blogging or Instagramming in the past few weeks, some of you may have wondered if this baby came early or if there was a reason for my radio silence. Thankfully, nope! She is still cooking in there (36 weeks tomorrow!) and I'm showing no signs of preeclampsia (hallelujah!).

Other baby news...we've picked out a first AND middle name that we both agree on, yay! Her initials will be AJA...any guesses? Based on our last ultrasound, she already has hair (these 3D ultrasounds are crazy detailed!!!) and she looks mighty cute. We are excited to meet her. I feel like there hasn't been as much to "get ready" this time, since we already have a car seat, crib, stroller, etc. so there isn't much to buy. We've also gotten sooo many hand-me-downs, I haven't even needed to shop for girl clothes! And some friends of mine threw me a surprise baby shower so she has some cute new clothes too (thank you guys). All I need to do is get some size one diapers and pack a hospital bag! I decided not to put a bunch of effort into making the nursery girly, since we will probably have her sleep in our room for the first few months and we don't know yet what we will do with our house in 2020.

Oh yeah, we are kicking around the idea of moving next year! Not to a different city, just a different house in Spokane. This is not set in stone and we are still mulling over various options, but we have had a goal to get a rental house for awhile now (to start building passive income). According to my 2019 goals, this year we were supposed to have buckled down, got super frugal, and saved up the 20% downpayment needed for an investment property. Buuuut instead we remodeled the kids bathroom, installed new hardwood flooring, completely renovated the kitchen, and got new outdoor furniture for the deck. HAHAHA. Kind of the opposite of a frugal year. I was looking back at my goals for 2018 (one of my favorite things about this blog, for better or worse, is that it makes it easy for me to find exactly what I was thinking at different points in time). Anyways, what's funny is that I accomplished a lot this year that I had on my list for 2018: having friends over more, meeting local creatives, reading more, and renovating the kitchen. So maybe next year we will actually accomplish what I had planned for 2019???

What else? Ian and Emmett are doing great. They are so cute and fun (and exhausting!). Ian is potty trained now, is obsessed with any kind of vehicle and knows the names of them all, genuinely loves broccoli, peas, tofu, and lots of other foods that I did not like as a kid (hoping he will keep those taste buds). He is doing really well at learning Chinese from my mom, and just started learning piano (we are working on hot cross buns haha). He and Emmett are best buds and play together happily all day, until they fight (which is inevitable). Emmett is super active and loves to climb, jump, and run in circles around the island. He is picking up sooo many words right now and I just loooove hearing his sweet voice and his excitement at learning new vocabulary. We are working on colors (I'm pretty sure he knows red and blue, he gets them right 80% of the time), and he is also learning Chinese from my mom. He can tell me when he has a poop or a pee, which is very helpful and cute (although a kid announcing "poop!" is probably only cute to his mom haha). Emmett loves animals, especially bears (which he pronounces "beers"). He's also very into fire trucks, which he calls "weeoo weeoos." Both kids are big "readers" and love to sit and flip through their books--they can do this for hours, truly. I hope that means they will love to read throughout their lives!

Ben is doing great too! We are approaching our 10 year anniversary (in July) and the fact that I don't have any recent photos of us to include in this post shows me that we really need to schedule some family photos after the new baby is born. We drove over to the Seattle area for Thanksgiving to be with Ben's family (including his grandma and grandpa who just turned 99!). While we were there, we walked around our old neighborhood, Edmonds. It made me feel a little nostalgic for the water, the mountains, and the cute little walkable beach town we lived in. Life has changed a lot in the last three and a half years (a move across the state, me quitting full-time work, and adding three kids to the family). I've been reflecting on how lucky we are to have grown together through all those changes. This toddler stage of life is certainly challenging, and we are both tired by the evening and don't have as much time, energy, or money for fun dates. But I still feel like we've grown stronger as a couple! We've been able to carve out little "dates" like chatting in the car while our kids nap on a drive, or cuddling by the fire on our deck once the kids are in bed, or getting lunch or coffee together after our ultrasound appointments (the place we go for ultrasounds doesn't allow kids to be in the room). I'm lucky that Ben is still my best friend and my favorite person to spend time with. And soon enough, I know our kids will be older and it'll be easier for us to sneak away for overnight dates or trips with just the two of us.

I think those are the main things going on with me personally! Blog-wise, I'm really excited to have finally scheduled some time to get a mobile site set up in January, which will make it much easier to read and navigate this blog on your phone. That has been on my list of goals/things to do since 2017, so it's about time! It's also been about a year since I started Inside Spokane over on Instagram! I'm still having fun with that, although I haven't posted there in the last month either (like I said, I'm down to the bare essentials...feeding my kids and keeping up with laundry). I still don't have a clear direction as to where I want to go with that account, but it's allowed me to make lots of great local connections and peek into some beautiful homes in my city. In case you're interested in following that project, it's @insidespokane.

What's going on with you? In case I don't get around to posting again this year, happy holidays!!! Next time I get on here, I might be posting a birth story!

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