Can I brag for just one second? I finished my Christmas shopping early on Black Friday with a few last online purchases, all from the comfort of my bed. With the baby due in just 6 weeks I was determined to get all of my shopping done early to reduce holiday stress! I also wanted have things wrapped up (literally) in case baby girl makes an early arrival. So while I wait for my UPS guy to stack up boxes on the front steps, I thought I’d share the love and help out my readers with their gift-giving-lists! I’ve rounded up 50 fun gift ideas, all under $50 (and many under $25!) for just about everyone. Check out my ideas below for travel-lovers, techies, co-workers, hostesses, and all the guys and gals on your list. 
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I’ve purchased a car, I’ve purchased a house, and yet the research I feel like I’ve done for purchasing baby products has seemed to be one of the more daunting grown-up tasks. When it came to looking for a car seat and stroller I was super intimidated and overwhelmed with all of the information out there! After tons of research and “test-driving” some of the models in person, we ended up selecting a Chicco Bravo Travel System. A big priority for me, being super-petite, was a system I could easily fold-up, carry, and feel comfortable pushing around. I also really liked the idea of buying something that was one full-system so that everyone worked together seamlessly and grew with the baby over time. 
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The high of the baby shower is starting to fade (can we do that every weekend?) and I’m currently staring at a large wall of boxes and gifts bags filled to the brim with baby gear, clothes, and gifts that I’m trying to figure out where we’re going to put! Registering was so much fun for the baby, but admittedly a little overwhelming too given all of the choices out there! While the experience is still fresh in mind, I thought it would be helpful to share a few thoughts on the various places I considered building our baby registry, and where we ended up registering. There were so many pros and cons to each site, and I ended up being happy with our choice to put the majority of our registry items on Amazon, with a few speciality items on a universal registry service like Babylist. 
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When I was in NYC at a blogger event a few weeks ago, I had the best time chatting with fellow bloggers about all of the ups and downs of blog-life. Whenever I get the chance to network with bloggers I have the best time — it’s a rare chance to get to pick the brains of others with similar challenges in writing content, making it a business, and figuring out how to manage it all with the other parts of our lives. One topic that we were discussing was all of the different ways we plan for our blog content and after hearing ideas from a few other creative ladies, I realized that this just might be a topic worth sharing here with some of my own tips and tricks that I’ve picked up over almost 8 years of blogging (yikes! I’m a blogger dinosaur!). Stay with me guys, it turns out I had a lot to say on this topic! 
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Last night I had the opportunity to attend one of Society of Grown-Ups‘ pop-up classes in Cambridge. I’ve been to previous classes and they’re awesome — it’s an approachable way to learn and talk about some of the not-so-fun grown-up topics (like personal finances, fun!). The class I took last night was all about spending plans and better ways to budget to meet your needs and goals. I loved that the class was super interactive — since many of the attendees were other bloggers, we had a lot in common when it came to budgeting for our businesses, the perils of wanting to buy all of the things we see on Pinterest, and how living in an expensive city like Boston can impact our spending plans! I feverishly took notes on all of the advice that the instructor shared, as well as some of the great tips from the fellow attendees who shared what works for them (like apps they’ve used to track spending and ideas for saving in just about every way imaginable!). I thought it would be helpful to share a few of the tips that really resonated with me, in the hopes that they just might be helpful for you too: 
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I’ll admit, I was a little bit nervous when I posted my first entry in this new series. I wasn’t sure how people would react introducing this new part of my life into the content here. I did notice a few followers drop off from Instagram when I jumped into the topic, but overall I found it was some of the most engaging conversations I’ve had on blog posts in a long time! So, the verdict is the bump diary posts will continue — both for my own love of recording all of phases of life (seriously, I found a box of dozens of my journals in my parents attic when they were moving houses this summer!), and for the every so helpful advice and comments I’ve gotten from sharing my pregnancy journey here and on social media. The past five weeks have zoomed by faster than I can could have imagined, which brings many new changes and updates on my ever-growing bump! 
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Right away when I found out I was pregnant my friends and family jokingly asked if I was ready to become a “mommy blogger” and I scoffed at it with such repulsion! After keeping my new secret from the blog for so long though, I realized that there was no way I could really separate something so big happening in my life from my writing here. When I first started the site, I was decorating our first apartment, and a lot of the content focused on decorating. As I got engaged, wedding content started popping up here a lot more often. My favorite part about maintaining this blog is that it has been like a living diary for me to catalog my experiences, and I don’t think this next phase of my life will be any different.
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If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen some pretty big news announced this weekend — we’re expecting a new (and tiny!) member of team Domestikatedlife in January. I’ve just about reached my maximum life limit for secret keeping by not announcing this sooner on the blog, but knowing that a confetti-filled party was how I would let the cat out of the bag helped me keep my lips shut for much longer than I am usually able. This weekend we went to the doctor and had the ultrasound technician at the appointment write down the gender of our baby. We patiently (just kidding, I was so not patient) waited for a crew of a few our closest friends and our immediate families to come over to our house for a gender reveal BBQ to share in the excitement of the news. 
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Things have been moving a little slow around here as I enjoy a nice summer speed, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. We’ll call this post a “summer catch-all” — okay? A little bit of everything I’m loving, reading, and thinking about for Fall. 
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Last weekend was a multi-day celebration of my husband’s birthday; I am a firm believer in the “birthday week” over just one night of festivities. We planned to kick off the weekend with friends heading out to a concert (Huey Lewis and the News played, and yes they were awesome). To me, one of the best parts of outdoor summer concerts is the tailgating before the show. We were heading to the event with friends, and we own a tiny car that isn’t ideal for this type of pre-concert picnicking. Luckily Enterprise CarShare reached out me about trying their car-sharing program in Boston and it was the perfect opportunity to borrow an SUV that would hold our friends and concert tailgating spread!
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