…c’mon! Let’s celebrate! Doo-doo-doo-doo-doodoodoodo. We’re gonna have a good time tonight.

I don’t know what got into me. Perhaps I’m still delirious from the shock I felt earlier today. I felt my first Braxton Hicks contraction this afternoon. Actually, two. And painful ones at that. I literally had to breathe through them. Not cool, body, not cool.

Despite the discomfort, I did have a fabulous day! I actually had a relaxed morning. Makenzie & I headed to Target to pick up a birthday gift for my mom and a card for money for my sister. I think Target has some sort of mind control going on within its walls though. I can never leave without something that was not on my list. Today’s spontaneous purchase? A pair of maternity jeans. The chillier weather reminded me of my need for more than 2 pairs of long pants to get me through the rest of this pregnancy. I couldn’t say no to an actually decent looking pair of maternity pants.

We celebrated my mom’s and sister’s birthdays with a lunch out together.

My sister wanted sushi. She’s lucky it was her birthday. Otherwise I would have had to beat on her a little bit for taunting me like that. 😉 I settled on a lunch special. It included a cup of hot and sour soup, a tofu + veggies dish, and an eggroll.

Makenzie and I ate almost the entire plate together. I also may have committed a terrible, horrible, blasphemous act of pregnancy as well.

I ate one piece of the roll. I don’t know what all was in the roll since it wasn’t my order, but I do know it involved spicy tuna and tasted glorious. Sue me. Hmmm? Perhaps the Braxton Hicks were payback?

Celebrations continued later in the day. We had a Halloween party to attend with our mom’s club friends. I got little M all decked out in her costume.

Quack! I can’t get over how adorable she is either. We met up at a local dessert place called Ice Cream Social with all of our friends. The party started with some light trick-or-treating around some local stores. Then, we ended with some cupcake decorating.

Makenzie was a happy camper! And why wouldn’t she be with all that sugar facing her? Look for a post on Sunday about my Halloween thoughts and handling all the treats with kids. It will have to wait because now I must head out to meet up with a group of friends for an Atlanta blogger meet-up! Hope you all have a great Friday night.

• Are you dressing up for Halloween? If not, what was one of your favorite or most memorable costumes from years past? I still laugh at my friends & I dressing up as Spice Girls in high school. We actually trick-or-treated too! We’ll see how my plans for this year work out. 😉
• Don’t forget to ASK ME ANYTHING for the November Q + A series!

You know what makes me smile? When weeks pass by so quickly. I don’t normally like to wish time away, but right now every week checked off in this pregnancy feels like a victory. I’m ecstatic that it’s already Thursday night! I love Thursdays. They are my one weeknight to just chill. Although, tonight will be a little different as I have a Skype interview with the site Fit Moms Fit Kids Club. I also plan on finally watching this week’s episodes of Glee and Parenthood. I look forward to it.

I also awaited tonight for another reason. To finally carve the pumpkins we picked up at the pumpkin patch two weekends ago! Would you believe me if I told you this was my first time carving pumpkins? At least that I can remember. We didn’t do many traditions like this growing up. I wonder if that causes my extreme interest in creating traditions such as these for my own family?

We set up out on our front porch for the pumpkin carving fun.

Since, we aren’t too skilled artistically, we opted for the cheap-o design patterns to trace onto our pumpkins.

Then, we got to the manual labor. Carving is pretty tough on the hands!

It was all worth it in the end, though. I think mine came out pretty good. Smile!

Maybe I do have artistic talent. If you show me exactly what to do and tracing is the only talent required. 😉 We realized after carving them that we don’t have the candles for the inside yet. Bummer. I can’t wait to see it all lit up!

•  Did you carve a pumpkin this year?
• What would you say is your biggest talent? I think I can be pretty strong for my size when I focus on weight lifting. It’s fun to freak some guys out in the gym. Otherwise, my talent would likely be the ability to tune out annoying sounds…like all of M’s noisy toys.