Postpartum Brain Fog, Gift-Giving Do's & Don'ts & Your Most Personal Questions Answered

Coca-Cola. For the big. For the small. The short and the tall. Peacemakers. Risk-takers. For the optimists. Pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you. Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light, and slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer until it finally feels like home. Find fall your way at Ross. For another baby. Yeah. I was like, wow, that's the price of love. I'm just wondering if you guys had crazy dreams while you were pregnant. Are we talking about sex dreams? Oh, no. My dreams did betray me and Matt will never let me live it down. I think I violated them in my mind. I'm like, ah, I'm sorry. I didn't choose that. Welcome back to Always Here. We're your hosts, Abbey Howard and Habby Howard. Okay. I got to warn you, our energies are both. I said Habby Howard. I didn't say it. It's also Abbey Howard. Our energies are crazy together today. We've been really chatty. We went a whole week without seeing each other. That's what it is. That's what it is. Every day this week, I was like, I haven't seen Abbey in a long time. I've thought about that a lot. I was like, I miss those girls. I know. I miss those girls. I know. I'm missing y'all. We're matching. Yeah. Like to a T. We went to a Pilates event last night. And they gave out Lululemon pants. I know. So generous. So generous. They are so nice. And you know what? I was sweating a lot, but I still put these on because I have to wear things. If I get something new, I have to wear it literally immediately. I'm excited. My 18 year old, or maybe she's 17 year old. My babysitter said, I love your pants. And I just, in that moment, I said, I've made it. You have Gen Z's approval. I have her approval. I think she's even Gen Alpha. You're kidding. I don't know. They exist. Yeah. Yeah. And she thought that was cool. So I just like, all right, sick. I'm never taking them off. I'll just never stop thinking about the time that I was at getting a protein shake made. And the guy was talking about it. He's like, oh, he's another 08 or two. Like born in 2008. 08-er. You're like, aren't you supposed to be like, just learning how to walk? I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're a baby. You're a teenager. He was playing hockey at a high level. That's great. It was crazy. Well, we went to a Pilates event last night, and that was really funny. Yeah, it was. With pumpkins. It was so good. It was so funny. We're doing tricep extensions with the pumpkins. Yeah. And I was doing terrible. Nothing. Pilates doesn't play to my skill set. Me neither. I, yeah. I have no core strength. I love Mel and like her classes. Her classes are so cute and sweet. But I feel like Pilates for me, I don't know. I don't know why it just doesn't tickle me. I can't. Well, because I work out to get rage out, not to find peace. That's probably what it is. Yeah. Because it is like, it's a very sweet. She's so good at creating like an intentional environment. It's more of like a, like a, like a zen type of. It's very hard. She does a good job. I'm telling you, my legs are quivering. I couldn't do it. I could not physically do it well, but it's just like not, I need to like. I did feel the deep core strengthening that they talk about a lot with. Yeah. Specifically with Pilates. I felt a lot of that. I felt the lack of that. Well, yeah, you just ripped it apart. Yeah. Yeah. That was good for you to glue them back together. You know what was really hard is putting one leg on the platform and one leg on that sliding thing. Oh, I, I left before that one. Oh, that, that. That'll, that'll quiver your legs. That opened up some. No, I was like my pelvic floor is weird. Oh, did it hurt really bad? It felt very, very weird. Yeah. Felt very, very unstable. Whenever I do a side plank and they make you put a leg up, I'm like, it just feels like my everything rips. You're like, that's not right. Put my leg back down. Put that leg back together. I'm going to put that one back on the ground. Anyway, it was really funny. It was really fun. Just because. You know, we kept laughing. Well, I'm glad we're going to talk a lot this episode. We were laughing. Every time we'd make eye contact in the mirror, it was like. We were just like, hey. You're so stupid. I know. We just, we hadn't seen each other. Yeah. We couldn't talk. It was like a quiet space. And I couldn't really talk. We should have had a little meetup before just to get all of our. Get it out. Yeah. We didn't get it out. Well, that's what we're going to do today. That's what today's for. Uh-huh. Thank you to Policy Genius for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. We do all kinds of things in our house to set us up for success for our future, whether it's meal prepping. Doing curbside pickup. And recently we've gotten life insurance, Caleb and I both. And it's been such a great peace of mind for our family's future, knowing that if anything happens, our kids and our family are taken care of. And that takes us to our sponsor of today's episode, Policy Genius. You can prioritize peace of mind and lock in your life insurance today with Policy Genius. It's an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. Their licensed team helps you get what you need fast. So you can get on with your life. Easily find what you need. Coverage amounts, prices, terms, no guesswork, just clarity. Coming up with a plan for the worst case scenario or a time that you're not going to be here is actually one of the most loving things you can do for your family. And that really reframed it from like a fear mindset to like a love mindset for me. Honestly, I was surprised that it made me feel a lot more peace of mind. With Policy Genius, you can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. Head to policygenius.com. That's policygenius.com slash Abby to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash Abby. Okay, what's your hope in your heart, girl? We're here to share the hope in the heart with heart and humor on this podcast. What's going on in your life? Actually, I was kind of going into this week thinking I didn't really have a heart. It's just been such a fun week. I mean, now you're gonna make me look like a complainer. So no, no, no, I was gonna say until today. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not good. Um, but I don't think I really want to share like in details. It's just a hard parenting day. But we all have those moments. For sure. I just feel like kind of weird too. I walked into the gym 15 minutes late. Ladies, let me tell you something. Oh, I have a lot of backstory on this. 13 minutes. It was 13 minutes. I'll give you the two minutes. I'll give you the two. You know who was behind you. I know. Angel. Angel. And she said the only reason she showed up is because she knew that you would be late too. I know. I'm just glad I can be there for the people. I'm glad, you know, like if you think you're late, I'm probably later. And I think that's a good idea. Can I tell you, I'm already at the exercise doing chest press when she walks in. I walk in like this, like, hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Yeah, I love that you own it. This is the group chat. Wait, I have to read this because it's hilarious. Because she was having a hard morning. Yeah. And she was like, talking about like, blah, blah, it's a hard morning. And then she's like, I don't think I'm going to make it. And then she's like, no. She said, basically, she's going to come and then she's really pulling an Abigail here. 20 minutes late, but still going. She inspired me. And then I said, she's my hero. And then Caitlin said, she just showed up. She's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. She just showed up. So it's fine. No one knew that you were like, still planning on coming and that you were going to actually be late. And I didn't even sign up. I had to stroll on in. It's not that I attended it. There were bathroom emergencies at the start of class time, which I was already going to be late because I wasn't in my car yet. But then there was a bathroom emergency. I was thinking about those things. Honestly, at this point, it's always the first thing out of the house every day that I'm super late for. And it's the hardest part. Yeah, I'm killed every day. Caleb looks at me. He's like, why haven't you made an adjustment? And I'm like, I think every day that I'm going to and then it doesn't happen. But you're like, I thought I did. I know. I'm at this point. Honestly, I get there when I need I get there when that workout starts. And it's fine. I missed the warm up in the demonstration. And I just started a workout. The day I did. Yeah. I did miss a cup of a rep or set. Um, what was I gonna say about it? Sorry. No, it's okay. Some girl messaged me and she was like, why are you still going if you're that late? And I'm like, honestly, because well, one, you have to sign up for childcare. But two, like you just kind of have to go when you can get it in. Yeah. And if I'm late, it's not the type of gym where you walk in and it's a quiet class like yoga where it would be super disrespectful to walk in. No, which maybe the trainers don't love that I show up that late all the time. But at this point, they don't have to come around and teach me the exercises and the workouts. Like I just jump right in and join. So I don't really feel like it's just a season of my life. It's just a season. I also want to say the amount of people who did say during that workout, I don't feel like working out today. Oh, like probably four or five people told me that. So the energy was kind of weird today. This week was really hard. It's literally the whole workout. I just kind of walked around and just start talking to people at different stations. And it was just kind of like, I don't know. I'm just here to move and get out of the house. I'm not really doing the exercises today. I was supposed to go to the gym today. I didn't make it. So really, yeah, Fisher needed to eat and I had to take my boobs with me. Yeah, the timing can be hard when you're nursing first. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I had to take my boobs with me. I couldn't leave one home, unfortunately. So it's funny. So I did go on a run today because I didn't work out. and I'm saying that casually. It's not casual for me. I have to really psych myself up to go. And it's not fast. And it's not impressive. 907 is what I run, mile in. Well, that wasn't today's speed. It was 10.03. I remember exactly. How far did you go? Just did two miles. Great. That's literally all I had time for. But I probably couldn't have done more or else we'd have to call the fire department. But I did forget to change my sports bra. Yeah. What do you mean? Hazardous. I was just running. I was like, oh my gosh, what's going on? And I forgot to, I was not wearing the proper reinforcements. Oh, you didn't put a sports bra on. I had it. Oh my gosh. I had a sports bra on, but just not a good enough one. Not, not a good enough one. I posted a video. The hatches were not batting down. I posted a video running when I was nursing and a lot of the clips were like this, you know, and then I literally had to like censor it because my boobs were just like, oh my gosh, I was literally like, what's going on? Good thing I had a t-shirt on, but it was just physically like, not feeling great. These are just moving. These are moving. These are moving all over the place. My hope is, Fisher slept through the night two nights in a row. Are you kidding? I'm going to ask if he did. He did it again. Oh my gosh. He done did it again. He is a G. No, nine to six. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's amazing. Are you waking up to pump or did you sleep through the night too? No, I'm not pumping unless he's, eating. No. Yeah. Good. So. Oh my gosh. Do you wake up and you deserve so much pain? No, not exactly. Well, no, I'm okay. Good. I mean, I was really full and then both mornings, he has nursed for an hour in the morning. I think he gets really hungry and then he's like, they got to catch up. He's choking on it. Oh, I bet. And he like, he comes off a million times. It's like a fire hose. Like, but my body will adjust. You can hear it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My body will adjust. My body will adjust. And I hawk up. I literally hawk up like four ounces out. It was crazy. That's crazy. It was great. Good. So we're very proud of him. Oh, you're turning a corner. Turning a corner. And so my heart, you would think that with a little extra sleep, I would be able to like show up as a good version of myself. The brain fog has really come in. Really, really bad. And it's actually kind of freaky. I never had it this bad. Like I got it. I'm trying to answer questions. Like Matt will just ask me a question that is like very basic. Like so we can meet the needs of our household and our children. I feel like I have an answer in my head. Can't connect it to my mouth. Like it's like that connection gone. And I'm like, and it literally just comes out of like, don't ask, don't ask me questions. Like I don't, don't, or like I'll be like snapping because I'm like, I can't find the words. I'm like, I'm like, that's not nice. Last night driving that Pilates event, guess how many wrong turns I took? Five. I felt like I was in the twilight zone just doing donuts. I couldn't get there. I was literally scared. I was really scared. I'm not kidding you guys. I can't think. I can't think straight. It's not working. And Fisher was also crying. So I think that was like clouding it more. But I literally was like, I kept looking at my phone because it had to be on Google Maps and I'm looking at it saying rerouting, rerouting. And I was just like, where am I? Couldn't get there. He's almost three months old. And not really. Two months. Yeah. I feel like my brain fog hit really bad at four months. Oh, crap. Really, really bad. No, I don't remember it feeling as strong at eight weeks. Some of you are just hitting it at a different time. But I remember feeling like, I don't want it to get worse. This is intense. Did you feel like you had like word block? Yes. That's how I feel. I couldn't think of any words. I'd be like, what's the word I'm trying to say? It would be like dinner. You know, it's like the most simple things. It's like, what's that word for when we eat at nighttime? Yeah, I can't do that. It's literally like that Spongebob episode where he's lighting his brain stuff on fire. My brain got rid of all the files that we need for basic life. But they kept like the first 16 digits of pi. I don't need that. Of course. 3.14159265. I got that. But I can smell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I don't know how to. That is so musical theater of you. Make a call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how to find a. What's my calendar? Like, I can't figure out basic things. I know. Do you feel like it's more intense with Fisher than it was with the other two? Way more. I thought it was more intense with Vivian than it was with CJ. I never even remembered having this before. Uh-huh. It's concerning. It's really concerning. It'll go away. I literally, like, not. I don't know what you just. I don't know how to get there. I, like, connect the thought with the mouth. Uh-huh. It can't do it. No, it'll come back. I know it's in there. I know it's working and I know there's a spark. But it just can't ignite into language. It's really frustrating. It's kind of. It's scary a little bit. No, it'll come back. Like, with my kids, I'm like, no. No, stop. No, one word. I know. I was like, I need to start doing brain games. I lost my brain, you know? I want to do Sudoku. No, it didn't do anything. Oh. Because it's just your hormones. And once they all subside, you'll be back. Oh, yeah? Yeah, there's hope. Okay. It took me, like, six months, but it was coming back. It's so frustrating. It's like a word block. It was almost. It was very hard after such a long time of it, mentally, of being. I just was so frustrated with myself. Like, I literally can't think. Like a dumb vegetable. I know. But just a dumb vegetable that loves the baby, you know? Yeah, it can make milk. Literally. Also, we went to Disney. Oh, yeah. I want to hear about that. It was fun. It was fun. It was really busy. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah, Matt and I went on our first date post-Fisher without Fisher. And it was dramatic. Oh. Yeah. I, yeah. I did fight him pretty hard on it. And then he was like, well, you don't have to. And then as soon as he was like, you don't have to, I was like, but I'm gonna. And then. You know, it was just back and forth. We got down to the lobby. There was. He was with Grandma asleep. And then got down to the lobby and then I got back in the elevator and then there was a random stranger and Matt walked back in the elevator with me and then we're just like, come on, get back out of the elevator. And then we went and it was fun. But I was anxious the whole time. What were you anxious about? Don't know. Just being away from him. Did you feel it as intensely with the other two? No. I'm way more like, I don't want to leave him. Like, at all. It's not even like, like, I'm like, I need zero breaks from him. Whereas, like, I felt before, like, I kind of needed breaks. Like, I was like, I don't know. I needed a minute to myself. I literally thought about this the other day. I don't have a time of day where I am alone actually ever anymore. Yeah. And that kind of baffled me because I feel like if there was a time in my life where that would have really been bad. Now I don't really need it, apparently. Yeah. But now I just don't like being away from him, like, actually at all. I don't know if it's anxious or sad or both or guilt. Like, it's some combination of those things. Yeah. But, like, Matt was like, tonight we could give him a bottle. We could just, like, go on a walk. And I was like, no. But maybe I will. I know it's good for me. Yeah. It's good for us. He's so fresh. He's so fresh. Don't stress about it. Yeah. Don't worry that you're, like. I just kept telling him, I'm like, it's not natural. It's not natural. I would only be concerned if you're, like, super anxious. Like. I don't think it's that. Oh, my God. Yeah. Do you just want to be with your baby? Because I wasn't, like, texting her constantly. I literally texted her one time. Yeah. Your thoughts weren't, like, spiraling or. No. I did have a nightmare. But, you know, like, on our upper level of our stairs, I was just, like, looking at the top of the stairs and Fisher's sitting on the edge. There's no railings. Oh. And then he just goes. Oh, I. And tips over the edge and he's free falling and then I wake up. Those. I've had dreams. Not, like, that exactly. But the scary dreams about your baby. Things happening to your baby. Crazy things. Were so intense postpartum. Yes. I'd never. I hadn't had that and I only had it one time. But it was so memorable because he's, like, literally free falling in my dream and I wake up. Mm-hmm. It's crazy. You just. Your emotions are on. Your hormones are on high alert. Take care of your baby. It's nature. You are in. Yeah. And ballistic. Yes. You are in your mama bear care. I am. Hormone season. It's fine. But it was good. That's what it's supposed to be. The kids had so much fun at Disney. Good. It was. They really had a good time. Good. And we drove there again. Yeah. How was it? Good. It went better this time. Minus the traffic. But we made record time on the way home. Good. So that was good. Good. Yeah. We're learning it. Honestly, I feel like having an electric vehicle honestly is making it trickier. Is it harder on a. Yeah. On a road trip. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Not convenient. Yeah. Because you have to stop and charge for so long. And there's very few places that you can and it takes a long time. Logistically, we made it work. But. Yeah. It's like maybe if we do a longer drive, there's no way we could charge it twice. We should rent a car. Yeah. Yeah. Rent a gas car. Or a hybrid or something. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. It was fun. It was really fun. Thank you to Upwork for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. The most successful business owners don't do it all themselves. They delegate. I really took my time into my own hands and I was like, I want to spend the most amount of time with my kids and my husband. Do everything that I have to do and then find ways to make that the most efficient. Even just offloading the tasks that I'm not that good at. Upwork lets you build a team of highly skilled specialists for every function your business needs so you can focus on what you do best and let experts handle the rest. 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That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow that's upwork.com upwork.com we have a wow that's crazy wow that's crazy yeah i have two wow that's crazies but we'll start with shane gillis so shane gillis comedian was a the host for saturday night live for the second time um this past weekend and he said some things that people don't like the line that he said was i didn't know women dressed like w-h-o-r-e-s okay at the gym though okay you guys take the floor here's my take on it okay it's not even about shane gillis it's just about comedians in general the job of a comedian is to take something that has a little bit of truth an underlying of truth and then exaggerate it to make it funny in a bit so i don't know comedians make fun of everybody left right up down in between everything they make fun of everybody and so i kind of feel like you can't really get offended by what a comedian and i know that sometimes sounds crazy because then you're like oh they just get a free pass to say whatever they want but i do feel like there is this element the job of a comedian is to like push the line push the boundaries and create space and this tension of where we are supposed to laugh like we could just laugh at ourselves you know and yeah that's i mean i don't get offended by what comedians say because their job is to like exaggerate and be over the top and be like it's not serious yeah 100 that's what humor is wasn't it arthur i think we talked to arthur brooks in our podcast he's like explaining humor as like it's really like how your your body's reaction like the emotion is surprise it's like you are you're caught off guard by something that they say and that's what makes you laugh and so usually they're like oh my god i don't know what i have to say something kind of shocking um but i'm kind of confused that like i just watched the roast of kevin hart with matt and this is what we're choosing to get yeah that's but i've i'm like have you heard of a i personally don't like comedians i like nate bargetzi that's that's the guy yeah that's the guy i think is funny right because i don't think this type of stuff is usually funny right it's not my cup of tea i don't i don't enjoy it right so i'm not gonna listen to it but i'm not also gonna you know you have to know what to expect with a comedian right like i don't know totally i agree yeah no i'm on the same line where i'm like yeah maybe he shouldn't have called women that and they're he but he but he's comedian we don't give him an excuse for that but that is their humor and what he is doing for his job well he's also not the first person to say that about like women in comedy i mean pretty sure nikki glazer said that about herself but also because we do wear a lot of clothes and we wear a lot of clothes and we don't wear those from brady rose like yeah i do i have i have scrunchy booty shorts i do i do shorts that highlight my pretty well yeah so call me a comedian i'm not a dibby wait you are you i don't think so i don't think i am so but he didn't even say that he said they dressed like them okay so i asked we can cut that joke out maybe you're a comedian you shocked me gotcha you got me on the element of surprise didn't expect that whrs needed to be censored but completely on the table full and i respect that honestly okay it's anatomy do we actually want that cut or not i don't know maybe just believed maybe we'll just maybe let's sit on it we'll watch it back and back and see if we think about it again um i'll get i'll get permission from caleb on that one um i've also heard that exact joke that he shared on tiktok a bunch actually my problem was like oh that's not an original joke like i've seen that a lot on tiktok people making that joke i asked some of our friends um their thoughts on it because i wanted some i just was like i'm not offended but i want to see maybe why women are so upset about it and they were kind of saying that the timing just felt bad with everything with the the recent like cornell seven all these horrible things against women that have been happening yeah and just feeling like read the room you know oh so i think maybe like women are just a little bit more sensitive like we always have to fight for yeah respect and different things so i think maybe that was maybe more so where the yeah i think that's coming from which i was like that's valid that's valid but um i also think that's like a leap between what he was saying and versus here's my other thing too is that like he's talking about women in general which i feel a lot of around women like i'm like i love women supporting women i love like all that like that i will probably side with a woman yeah 95 of the time i mean i'm just i that's what we have to do right but if he's not even calling out an individual it's harder to get like offended i don't know if it's like not an individual it's kind of how i felt about like the pete davidson thing matt was telling me about that like he got in trouble for he was like kind of making fun of female influencers yeah which i'm like even that's more of a niche because it's female and influencers but still i'm like i'm like everyone makes fun of us it's okay i'm like are we okay yeah we're gonna trust me there's no one there's no one with thicker skin actually no press is bad press when we when we started out we had to pose just for our friends and family right that was a hard barrier you guys really you guys had to that was a tough you paved the way you had to really have some person put your head down and persevere and then it just gets worse from there um so i'm like i mean you know what it's okay pete you could and also i don't care what pete davidson thinks about my career he doesn't care what i think about his career right so he can say whatever he wants and it's all right yeah it's fine no problem it wasn't that serious to me yeah okay we can't be surprised when comedians say shocking horrible things right because that's they say horrible things about everybody yeah so let's let's just opt out of comedy yeah maybe just don't watch it maybe just watch clean comedy just watch nate margetti that's the only one i got for you yeah just clean comedy yeah and yeah i feel like the people that like his comedy aren't the ones that are mad about it yeah so he does know his audience yeah when you think about it i don't know are there many women that are like yes i look up all of his stuff on for pete davidson no no as i'm saying yeah which i can maybe see why people then are even more annoyed they're like okay if he's talking like that about women to other dudes oh yeah i can see that angle too but just overall i'm like i understand where women are getting frustrated or mad but also at the same time i'm like you guys it's this isn't like i will also say my my what i wear to the gym is not the most modest although the funny thing it's all women what pete davidson said is he said um he asked why people especially young women post get ready videos and tiktok dances and he brought up influencers 40 million a year and said it was sad and that the world is broken when he did did that but then also hey pete davidson i bet you're taking that netflix deal that's gonna pay you for your comedy show like i'm that actually doesn't even feel like a joke that actually just feels mean yeah so now i get why people are mad i should do my research it feels sad that the world is broken that feels a little but i think he said it laughing he probably he also jokes that he should start an oligarch instead see that's all i love that he put the one-two punch in there yeah i think that's worse than shane gillis's thing just show your body then if that's what you're gonna do just you know yeah he's like actually make sex content sell your own sell your body like hold on a second like that's more that's more valuable oh that's actually way i don't like it now that was nasty yeah okay so we're not gonna be offended not offended um but i have one woman i can i support people that are offended okay i have a more light-hearted wow that's crazy that i feel like i know your guys's takes on but i'm curious about it so a creator bridget and she posted this video online which is about stay is that the staying at friends houses debate bridget's arguing in this video that when you are traveling somewhere out of state for something maybe a concert she's referencing her styles that you shouldn't be asking your friend that lives there to stay with them and that it's rude to ask them to stay with them you're treating them as a free hotel if you're asking them to stay at their home i just feel like hospitality is important i don't know i see her point i see both sides i think it just depends on the person but i don't see a problem with it i'm like you could stay at my house i've had friends do that they've literally come here for a concert and text me i'm like can i stay at your house i'm like yeah yeah i kind of would be a little offended if some people came to my friends from out of state came to my state and then didn't see me i know not offended but i would be like oh bummer i thought we were closer than that like and like when you're close with someone inconveniencing yourself for them does not feel like an inconvenience like it just feels like something you do you're like oh you're my people so this is not even i'm not thinking twice about this right and also when other people have asked things of me i feel honored by that i'm like wow we're close enough like our relationship is like close enough that you feel comfortable to ask me especially people ask me to do things like watch their kids just sleep in your house like that those are like very personal things they're like hey we're close like that that makes me feel like loved to be invited to serve you in that capacity now i can i don't understand the new york angle like maybe this happens too much in new york and i do think there's like a social code to like okay like i want to feel safe in my own home right if you have kids that's my other thing if you have kids overnight guests are like it's a the standard is very different so i can understand that closest people yes my my overnight guest list became a lot shorter when i had kids because i was just like i mean yeah we're not gonna buy you in my house yeah like overnight but like that doesn't mean that no one can do that and also certainly it's not rude to ask no that's what she was saying and then to say to pay them i would be very offended if i like was able to serve someone that i love and then they were like trying to make a financial i'm like this isn't a business this was love and friendship i agree i don't this there's no if you compensate me for this it makes it feel weird now at this point literally i'm not this isn't a service i'm offering anyone to come and purchase like it's for you and i don't know that's how i feel yeah yeah i don't necessarily fully agree with her i think it doesn't depend on the person if it's just like a random acquaintance from back in the day like sure that feels weird that's different and that would be a little oh wow it's pretty that's a bold ass but if it's a friend who's like texting you she said friend she said friend that's why i was so confused because i'm like yeah if any friend came and visited me i'd be i'd feel weird them coming here and not asking to stay with me yeah i don't know if she seems like the best friend to saying i do agree with her about like a hostess gift like bring flowers or like bring a coffee give them a gift card give them a gift card do something like that but paying is a little weird but like do give them a do a little something yeah say thank you a thank you gift totally agree is different yeah i think that's a bad friend mentality because like our life isn't just about our own convenience i don't know and like that's you're missing out on a lot of fun things if you're not inviting people into your life and we're supposed to be hospitable and like serve others you know so yeah i saw someone had shared a video of like several months ago that i'm friends with and it was like let's normalize and convincing ourselves for our friends or something like that and i think that's a good message now obviously you can take anything too far where it's like okay wait a minute you need to be protective of your own time and your own resources and prioritize your things right like your family first and so many other things but we've also just heavily swung the other way like with anything where it's like no one can stay but i do feel like maybe new york is a little bit different if it's really small living quarters sure but so i'm like i can't speak from the new york angle but i've only lived in places where you can kind of spread out more yeah i mean there's a there's a difference between asking and then the expectation that they're gonna say yes yeah yeah yeah i always be a good guest if you're gonna do it i've never had a problem with that but we've also stayed with friends when we've come for other things and to like their area and we've stayed with friends before and we've also hosted friends for those same things when we were in our small apartment we threw our air mattress up on the floor for people like you know it's just like yeah just come over and we i might not entertain you yeah we would say that all the time we'd be like we're still gonna do our thing during the day but but you come in and go as you please here's some towels yes exactly no shade to that girl because i do think it would be a different situation if i lived in new york should we move on to our main segment of the episode our voicemails let's do it i'm so excited oh i forgot to say i met uh so many i met so many people that listened to the podcast at disney fun oh my god it was really sweet everyone that i met i was like we're friends yeah like i just felt like and even members of the patreon it was really cool it was really cool so we have some fun things coming up for our always homies so i don't know just saying just saying patreon might see it first so just saying they surely will thank you to thrive for sponsoring this portion of today's episode i'm gonna tell you a scary story what is it are you ready yes red 40 high fructose corn syrup spooky season without the spooky ingredients that's thrive market i have actually swapped out a lot of my kids less than two years ago so i'm really excited to share it with you guys so i'm really excited to share it with you guys so i'm really excited to share it with you guys so i'm really excited to share it with you and also some of my own favorites too graza i love their olive oil and thrive offers just that healthier halloween candy swaps fall pantry staples and viral must-haves all delivered to your door no store run no markup thrive market has over one and a half million members 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They have member pricing, weekly sales, free gifts, and free delivery on qualifying orders. All for $5 a month, which comes out to be less than a latte. Be sure to use our link thrivemarket.com slash abby to get $30 off your first two orders. You cannot get this deal on their website. It's only through our link. That right there covers your membership fee. So sign up now and get stocked before Halloween. Ask, ask, ask Abby. Okay, do you guys want to start? With family and friendships, holidays, or for fun slash random? Let's start with holidays. Yeah, let's start with holidays. Okay. The voicemails, though, I will say John Deloney started doing voicemails at the end of his episodes. I've seen a couple other podcasts just start doing it. I have also seen a couple other podcasts, too. We didn't originate this idea. I stole the idea from a podcast that I listen to. Okay, great. Okay, shoot. It's okay. We'll let ourselves believe it. It was them, probably. Okay. Hi, Abby, Abby, and Addie. My name is Ashley. I am calling from Utah. And since all of you have kids, I was curious what you think when it comes to parents or in-laws buying presents for the holidays for your kids. Do you prefer that parents and in-laws ask your opinion on? Um, what you think your kids might want or need, or do you like the element of surprise? Love the podcast. Have a great day. I think it's always nice that they ask, but I'm not going to get mad if they just show up with a surprise. I'm like, you just get what you, what your little heart desires. You know, a gift is a gift. It's, it's sweet. Um, but I think, yeah, it's always nice to be asked what do they actually need? What do you think they'd actually like, want to play with? Um, so that's my thoughts. Yeah. I don't feel the need to be surprised by my kids gifts, but, um, I also don't think they need to run it by me before, unless it's something that I'm like, don't buy my kid a video game. Right. And then I have to take it away. Like, right. I think if there's something that you're like kind of questioning, you're like, I don't know if there's going to be okay with mom and dad, like run, run that every time you buy them. Yep. But like if my kids unwrapped an X-Box, I would literally be like, Oh my God. That woman's broken. So broken. Um, so yeah, I think that when people have asked, I'm sometimes like, Oh gosh, let's get this together now. Um, but it's also nice. Cause I feel like I have a few things I'm like, we can go really deep in these categories so you can just get more of this. Like think of Yodo cards, Tony's characters, magnet tiles, like those types of things, Legos. Like we can go deeper in those categories. And I prefer. I prefer that usually than any random toy, but also sometimes the random toys are the ones that they play the most. Totally. And that's all that matters ultimately. So yeah, I don't know. I'm not really strict about that though. I know some people that really are and like they want to be very careful about what they keep in the house, but I'm also like, it's such a short season that they're getting toys and yeah, you can always donate stuff. I don't know. I'm just like, if it starts to feel cluttery, just move on later. But I've seen people do the Amazon wishlist and I think those are helpful. I'm not organized enough to like put one together. No, but I love shopping off of them. I do too. I guess I love when they send me them. Yeah. So if you're someone who like wants that and you're like, but how do you go about doing it? Just make an Amazon list and send it around Thanksgiving. That's a really good idea. Actually, Amazon. What? My family does an Excel spreadsheet with our, what we want for Christmas. It's a shopping list. It has links. It has sizes. It has everything. And then you just write taken if you bought it for someone. Isn't that crazy? It's like a wedding registry. I used to check all the time. Like what am I getting? No, but they hide, we hide it. So then you, I mean, you can unhide the. Both of your parents are very accomplished and like organized people. So that makes sense that you guys have a system. I think we've kind of stopped doing it as now that we all live separately. Like last year we didn't all have Christmas together. So it was a little different, but we'll see if it keeps going. My family doesn't really ask each other what they want. You're like, that's not going to work. It's really hard to buy everyone gifts and any Biswell is hard. You can actually think about it. You're like, all right, let's think about something thoughtful. Yeah. Dang it. I'm like, what does Blake want? Like, what does Blake want? I'm like, uh, ski helmet. I think that's what I said last year. Cause I was like, we're going to go skiing. You remembered that. That was. You got me hokas last year. Um, I just ran out of my Laneige lip mask. Did you? Almost out of mine. We were on the same, same schedule. Same schedule. What I was going to say was big things. Like we got a basketball hoop for you guys, for the boys last year. I did ask. Cause I was like, that's a bigger thing. It wasn't like that's super expensive, but because it was going to, I was like, do you want this in your backyard? Like if you don't literally no worries at all. But I was that kind of thing personally, I kind of like see what people think that my kid is gonna like like you're like you saw that like i have i have something in my amazon cart for the boys for christmas already and i'm like because i think they're gonna like that that's you know because see that is kind of loving to like to be known and like to think of something like see something and think of someone or like i have the perfect thing that there's a really sweet element to that you're right so you might get some gimmicky gifts that way but it is kind of sweet to be like oh it's a gift so it's like it doesn't have to be practical it doesn't have to be like it could be a fart gun fart yeah we got a fart gun is that what it is no we already got that we got that for the birthday for the birthday i did want to talk about that hey i chose the miniature one blake chose the big it's this big smell it literally smells it's nacho cheese farts that's only a gift your brother could give you and it's making minion sounds non-stop and sending fart rings it has vapor rings that actually stink is that the one that carter and charlie were like tell them to take really good care of that tell them to take really good care of that because they like it so much all the kids like obsessed really they love the fart gun i think it might be that one thought it would be good it literally steams water to make rings of farts and honestly i'm like this is genius but also our house hey i think there's a bubble gum flavor somewhere oh i know the flavors we took the nacho cheese away after a while because i was like it actually stinking up our house during your first time as you're pregnant and someone i was like this is an outside when this one this scent is loaded up and this is the minion noise i'm like this was classic i love it and this also i'm like now i just have to be okay with my kids saying fart hey i knew you were okay with that already i thought yeah because he always tells me when i open my hard-boiled eggs he's like do those smell like farts you're like yes actually this is a really funny side note we can cut this if it's stupid but um griffin told me the other day he goes augie is driving me crazy and i was like what i was kind of surprised that he said that i don't know that we say that but i was like you never know they listen to everything he's like i'm like what he said yeah augie is driving me crazy i said what like a third time he goes he's like he points to the car the little tykes car oh he said augie is driving me crazy that's cute like augie was pushing him in it and going crazy so i was like oh he didn't know that was a phrase yeah that's cute it was cute but um yeah that was a really great gift i think i'll tell blake you like it we love it okay next one hi abby abby and addy my name's jess um my question is how do you handle big gatherings when you don't post your children on social media um i feel like i'm constantly having to make a grand announcement of like we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we don't post our kids on the internet um but also not wanting to be too overbearing but at the same time not wanting my kids face posted all over thanks guys bye i don't know why i have like i don't have like strong opinions about that with extended family i don't have strong opinions of it like for me like if that's your own that's i can't give personal advice on that because even for things that like my kids like at their preschool or other things i never say anything yeah um because they're not necessarily like it's always in an appropriate setting yeah where it's like it's the preschool it's school it's their soccer it's their activities so it's like an appropriate setting for that and also like they're not necessarily attached with like i don't know us and so like yeah so i don't have a personal conviction with that at all i don't really either i guess it depends on what your reasoning is for wanting to keep your kids faces offline because for me like in my head if my mom and dad and my sisters were to post about it their sphere on the internet is so different than what my sphere on the internet is to me i'm like it's okay if they're friends and family that follow them because that's all that follow them see my kids whereas for me it's more like i don't want strangers knowing what my kids look like when i'm out in public and maybe something puts them in a bad situation so for me that's more so the difference so i don't know i guess it just depends on what your reasoning is for not wanting their faces online oh i will say i don't have like my mom or like dad post them yeah because that would be really easy to do yeah i don't have like my mom or dad post them yeah because that would be really easy to connect right like so there's that but it's anything beyond that like that close of like our circle i'm like that's me personally but with that i mean usually like with my kids preschool at least and i think even their soccer they asked about is it okay and so there's usually a form um but if it's just friends and family maybe you could just politely go up to them if you see a picture being taken and just say like hey like i'm totally finding took that picture for your personal usage we just asked how our kids aren't posted online yeah and i think any parent that conversation has become so normalized now that i think any parent would be totally understanding yeah for sure they would respect that okay next one hi abby abby and addy my name is ali and i'm from kansas my question is what are we doing for christmas gift wise when there's multiple families houses we go to like what is the etiquette do you get things for the in-laws does each niece nephew cousin and sibling each get a gift or do you guys just do a secret santa type situation i was just curious how you guys do it in your family thank you so much love you guys and love listening to the podcast bye okay i actually have a great okay so i feel like our family's small enough to where it's like easy to do gifts but my mom has 13 brothers and sisters okay so every time it shocks me physically be in sane to get every cousin and brother and sister a gift so we would do a big family secret santa and we would have the person list like three things that the person wants we put in a bowl and they would pick and it was super fun and easy i also feel like we've done it where we've just done like couple gifts it's not like each individual person's getting a gift like you know as a family unit you'll get a family unit gift i don't know i i feel like there are different ways you can go about it but i don't really feel like we've i have to say gift giving in our family is not like a big thing like we do exchange gifts but i feel like last year we exchanged more gifts than we ever have yeah i think it's because the kids everyone gave the kids so i feel like what we all did is like your family gave a gift to the specific kid so it wasn't like griff griffin and augie are each giving a gift to brio it's like the howard family is giving a gift to brio yeah or you know rather than it being like each individual person giving each oh no that would be crazy that'd be a lot a lot so like i give a gift and then caleb gives a gift i didn't feel the need to organize it until we had kids they get started grow fast i feel like we give gifts to griffin and augie combined like normally it's something they both play with yeah i don't know i feel like family just give me like i personally we did that last year too yeah what'd you say i personally do that as well i'm like this is for everybody they're really good shares because of it like nothing is specifically that you're like that kid is really gonna like this one yeah you know but maybe we should come up with a better system i do like the idea of just drawing a name and yeah i actually we have done that in the past like i remember growing up it was like oh it's my year to shop for like brand urban or like maybe we do that now there's more kids yeah i mean i think we all were together on like well a nicer thing we were all together on christmas last year christmas day so then i think it seemed like a lot because we were all gifting to each other on the same yes you know should we make a plan right now yeah we should draw names isn't it cute and fun okay let's do that cute and fun and then our each family could give whoever they draw it's gonna be really hard for me to not buy other things now i think about this like i'm just not gonna buy brielle a gift i'm just not gonna buy we could do it in a couple years but they get older and the gifts get yeah yeah let's do with their older because i'm like i already have a gift pick for the boys i already have something in mind i'm just not gonna give you a christmas present it's small enough i know there's no expectation but but i don't like that we're gonna make a plan a couple years we keep multiplying okay i guess that's the question um do you do in-law gift like do you do gifts for your parents and parents-in-laws and in-laws and all the things i can't say i have every single year is that where you stop it like are you giving gifts to your cousins anymore or no no you know no okay i have so many cousins so yeah once we all got how many cousins do you have oh no between 15 and 25 i don't know i have to count them oh my god 10 gosh there's a lot of them 13 brothers and sisters yeah hi abby abby and addy my name is emily i am a long time listener i think you girls are just so cute and i just wish we could all be bfs um my question is i am wanting to do um all homemade gifts for my family this year not that we can't spend money i just feel i've got the creative bug and i just want to do homemade gifts this year so what are some things that you ladies would want to receive homemade or what do you ladies recommend for homemade gifts for family members love you that is ambitious emily i've done this so many times every time it turns out horrible but i always have fun doing it and that's all that matters i did a cookbook for my sisters with my grandma's that's so cute she had handwritten me all of her recipes and so i copied got them all copied and laminated and then i put them in like a scrapbook which i'm not good at scrapbooking it looked terrible but i had fun doing it um so that's like fun i think it's a cookbook it's fun yeah something that's i feel like it's like a cookbook is a great idea don't do decor just don't yeah don't do don't anything that's decoration i'll oh i just all really cute um now this is a skill okay but this girl made beaded purses for all of her friends that went on a trip she has a guy look her up look for that um something useful um what are what are some of those fun things that people have done at craft nights when it's like everyone brings a craft i will say someone made me a mug and gave it to me as a gift and that was very nice oh that's fine yeah like a pottery place yeah i love i love doing that i was thinking of doing that for grandma oh and grandma both grandmas um i see i'm really not the person to ask i don't do crafts those fun beaded necklaces are really cute that everyone's making is she asking what are some craft ideas yeah but you would want to receive do you have a embroidery thing something to embroider if you can embroider that unlocks a whole lot of things i also love the rings that people do and they hand embroider stuff cross stitching yeah yeah cross stitch cross stitching right that stuff is so cool fun you can make an ornament i feel like that's kind of sweet and then they can put in a tree you know that's sweet anything anything useful a vase i'm thinking of along the same lines like things that you can use i feel like it's good i'm not good at that no me neither that's why i'm like nothing because i'm like my brain won't even unlock something that someone would want to keep that i could physically make anyone want to keep we did the paint night i cut painted a cutting board and i said i'm keeping this until we move and then i'm throwing it away this is so bad i don't want to keep the things i make oh a cutting board or like a platter a cheese platter or something i don't know if you can make something like that that's cute something maybe special that would be used for serving or dishware i don't know i think that's fun maybe something that feels a little bit more special or unique that they would use or pull out special times i like that thank you to merit beauty for sponsoring this portion of today's episode i actually got a new mom hack that i never thought of but i do my makeup in the kitchen i love that fall is all about getting back into routine and that includes finding maybe a new routine like getting ready in the kitchen or finding a beauty 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your back-to-me season with merit right now merit beauty is offering our listeners their signature makeup bag and i'm going to show you some of the products that i'm going to be showing you today i'm going to be showing you some of the products that i'm going to be showing you today i'm going to be showing you some of the products that i'm going to be showing you today i'm going to be showing you some of the products that i'm going to show you today i'm going to be showing you some of the products that i'm going to be showing you today i'm going to be showing you some of the products that i'm going to be showing you today which if you've seen it it's very cute it's very chic it's an accessory and it is free with your first order at meritbeauty.com that's m-e-r-i-t beauty.com meritbeauty.com we're going to switch gears into family and friendship here hi abby addie and abby my name is jalen and i'm calling from texas i just wanted to get your guys's thoughts on how to navigate fears in parenthood my husband and i are going to start trying for a baby soon but it's kind of scary to think about so just wanted to hear your thoughts on that thanks bye it is scary that's all i gotta say i mean that's not helpful that's not helpful but also anything worth doing is comes with comes at a cost i feel like at some risking something and i mean i've heard it said a lot of times like basically i'm not going to be able to do it because i'm not going to be able to do it you could you could live a risk-free life that essentially you could eliminate all risk you could just stay to yourself you don't fall in love you don't you know try new things you don't put yourself out there you're you don't put yourself in a position where you could get hurt you could you could do that but you just have to personally make the decision if that's a life you want to live or not because that's a relatively i don't know i was gonna say meaningless but kind of it's it's just a different choice yeah for everything you're not going to experience um the intense joys of life yeah like the fullness of it and so and the fullness comes with the highs and the lows so and the challenges and the joys so i think there was a point like i mean i think about this after experiencing loss where i was like wow like there is a cost that comes with i really had to evaluate the cost of entering into a season of like trying for another baby and um i was like wow it's just that's the price of love that really is and so yeah i think if you just view it that way it's like and being realistic with yourself like your fears are valid like you're not guaranteed anything but then also realizing like like i said that is the cost of love and viewing it that way and framing it i was like i felt a lot better like i'm accepting this risk if you ever you your nervous system feels better when you recognize that when you're making a choice for yourself and you don't feel like choices are happening to you and so when i accepted it when i tried to get pregnant for the fourth time i was like accepting that risk and it felt i felt more scared than ever but also more sure of my decision than ever so that was a really long-winded answer that i don't know if that's a great mindset a great mindset to have i think it's true i think um with one it's always reminding yourself that what's true it's like hey this is worth the cost um also having faith that whatever comes if anything comes you will step up to the plate building confidence in yourself having faith that you can do it if you have a faith knowing that the lord will provide you it will give you a way through it um and i think also just daily because i think entering into this season of growing our family has challenged me and made me really good at having to process my thoughts and move them in and out in a way that's appropriate and it's given me a lot of um helped me gain the skill of that and so i think a lot of the time scary thoughts come constantly and when they come you just have to think well what is true this is not true right now this is fear i'm gonna just we gotta not think on that and constantly replacing your thoughts what's the fear the anxiety and replacing it with something that's true that's honorable that's worthy of your thoughts um and usually gratitude comes with that but i think it's just reminding yourself like okay these are fears it's not my reality and i think motherhood brings that out a lot like you constantly have to be like okay but this isn't real yeah what's real okay what's real is that we're talking about having a family okay great if something happens down the road i have confidence that we'll be able to handle it and that's just you know life yeah you can do it it'll be great we always say like as you enter motherhood your capacity will grow like you will grow into that role and like you're gonna be able to take the scary things on should they come when they come honestly because there's just that's the life of having kids yeah you get really good at compartmentalizing things i feel like when you become a parent i remember when cjo was in was growing and they thought that he was gonna have a lot of heart issues and so we were high risk the second half of his pregnancy and the doctor kept i remember kept asking him like do i need to be worried do i need to be worried he's like well i'm sure you're worried i was like i can compartmentalize this because so many things change and shift and they're coming at us so fast and all the time and i'm like i'm gonna be like i'm so fast and all the time everything's changing so i can physically sit there and be like okay i'm not gonna worry until i have boots on the ground knowing that i have to worry and then he was fine you know yeah and so i just feel like when you're entering this season of motherhood and parenting things change so fast yeah i would say don't dress rehearse for tragedy yep just like take it as it comes take it as it comes yeah hey this is jess calling from north carolina um i have this postpartum and it's been amazing i was just curious um i have a four-year-old two-year-old and a newborn and i was just wondering what you guys do to regulate your emotions um because it's a lot going on and i was just wondering if you had any tips tricks for how to stay sane or how to be like the sweet mom um anyways thanks so much bye what a fun season so many little kids yeah sweet my first knee-jerk reaction is to say get out of the house but that's a personal thing like i feel like if you are feeling like you've reached your limit in a location moving locations because you obviously can't leave your kids like getting a break is just not really realistic sometimes people talk about like i just go to the pantry each other i'm like um i don't know what could happen all seconds of the day we got to be ready like on so i just feel like a change of location usually helps me like if i'm like huh now getting out the door that's gonna be that's gonna be a mountain you're gonna have to climb to get there but once you're in the car even once i just start driving i'm like everybody is contained right now someone might be screaming but everybody is contained and also having boundaries with your kids so if you're in a situation where you're like oh my god it's like i've learned because i think i made the especially when they're young and you can't they can't make sense of it any need or want they had i felt like i had to just like kind of do it right then even though so now i'm learning to like say to them like hey as for instance if i'm on the phone i say hey when even adult to adult if another adult i want to talk to is on the phone i have to wait i have to be quiet until they're done with their call so we're going to start practicing that now because before i would literally just like pause pause i was constantly multitasking things but now when i'm like i have a task to do i'm going to do this task and then i will see to it what you need if there's an emergency obviously i'm going to take care of that but i feel like with like with my kids i was like hey we're going to do a little quiet time right now like you're going to go up in that contained space we're going to shut the door now they're going to come out a million times yeah but practicing that expectation of like okay we're gonna let mom needs quiet time too and like kind of explaining like i have needs to you have needs like we both all kind of need to decompress that was a long-winded answer no it's a great answer it's super practical okay yeah i feel like if you could interact incorporate a quiet time of the day now with a newborn they're going to have to be a part of your quiet time but that's not you're probably already used to that like it's that just becomes normal but then also having some type of boundaries and getting out of your house really helps and parenting with other people helps like i feel like it's good for my like regulation to be with other parents too because you can kind of feel like you're going crazy if you're like at home in the same place with other people all day but talking to their parents you're like ah we all feel this way sometimes it's normal everything is fine for sure i feel like something that's been really helpful for me lately and this is just like another idea because i think your ideas are awesome and i do all those things sometimes if it's like hey i just we're not leaving the house we're here and things are hectic i literally just go outside and start like pulling weeds just like a little task and it has to be outside like i have to go outside feel the sun feel the fresh air i'm taking deep breaths and i have a small little task where maybe the kids are outside with me whatever but i'm just like going outside i'm like i just started pulling weeds or i'll go pick up the dog poop or just something stupid and small it takes like three minutes but like you know they're not even interested in doing it with me it has been really helpful that's good yeah pick up dog poop have you ever tried that oh just go pick up your poopoo you know yeah but also like sometimes i even just have started to tell my kids like okay wait a minute i feel like i'm going crazy i did that i said that yesterday i was like hey this is a lot for me i was like hey mom really needs mom needs some quiet time too it's really important for me so we're gonna go do 45 minutes in your room and you have to read books yeah and you have to stay in there till your light turns green and i'm gonna be i need some quiet yeah but it's too much right yeah sometimes i tell them that with their toys i'm like we're not doing any noise toys right now because i can't think straight my brain's not working yeah but you're doing great yeah that's such a fun and with the newborn specifically too i know that adds a lot but you're doing great hi abby's and addy you've touched on this briefly in other episodes but my question is how have your friendships changed in different seasons of life like becoming mothers um but also um from becoming wives getting married um childhood friends to now high school friends college friends um etc so i love your podcast thanks so much have a great day i feel as we become adults we're going to have a lot of fun and we're going to have a lot of fun and we're there's just this understanding that it's not the same intense deep time all the time with my friends like i still i'm still really close with my friends from high school and i don't talk to them all the time like we do but we'll always like every once in a while we'll send each other updates of everything that's going on and it just makes me feel like we're still super tight and i would still say they're some of my best friends i feel like that's just kind of the understanding is like specifically adding kids to the mix i didn't really necessarily feel that way when there were no kids but adding kids i feel like now there's just this understanding amongst everyone where it's like hey we are still best friends we just aren't talking all the time you know yeah but i think it's like proximity mostly like your friends that when you're a mom it's more about like convenience and proximity um and we were talking about that the other day i was kind of i was trying to count like how many times a day do i see abby a week i'm here almost like six minimum i know it's like and yeah i think that just it's like the best you know but that's how your friendships have to be like your tight tight friends it's it's mostly based off of um like unplanned interactions that's a really good point i feel like now more than ever since entering the season of motherhood proximity matters probably the most like i'm like anything whoever's closest to us we will see the most and whoever's far it's going to be really it's going to be few and far between it's just not as practical in this stage of life right um i think just inviting people into like we said we were talking about like the small daily moments of your life like play dates dinner dates going to the park going on a walk like that's really what this season of life is whereas like college it was like oh like let's go do this let's go on a day trip to this place and like hike or i don't i didn't go to parties but a lot of people go to parties you know like let's go to a party or like there's like more spontaneity more like standout experiences but now it's like it's not it's just more simple things yeah i was just gonna say like with the long distance friends like them knowing you guys are like you guys are still my close friends even if we don't talk every single day like we will get caught up when big things happen and i'll text you about them and then whenever we're home we'll make time for it and if you want to come visit awesome like let's make time for it you're still my best friends and then obviously there's the people that you do life with daily and those change through your seasons of singleness dating marriage and then with kids too the first shift definitely comes with marriage because now you're having another person where okay it's not just my time that i'm thinking about it's also my husband's time and vice versa so i feel like that's the first shift and i think it's important that you don't let you don't lose your friendships when you're married like you still i think you have to make a really great effort to like hang out with your friends and do things as couples or not you know i just feel like that's really important time um so but i feel like that's the first shift and then that's like your training and then you're like okay i'm gonna get on the training ground and then you have kids and it's like okay well because it changes like having kids really changes like the time that you can hang out like if like i was just scheduling dinner with a friend the other night and we're like i was like yeah six o'clock works for dinner and she goes is that too late for like bedtime and i was like yes yeah we need to move that up but i was like thanks for thinking about that because we're coming to your house you know and we're going to bring our child you know so like it changes your timeline of like when you and i was like oh that's crazy it's crazy well also i think adding more kids too changes it because when i had one kid i had no issue bringing my one child to hang out with people that didn't have kids but now having two i'm like okay now i'm bringing like you ready for the circus yeah i'm like not bringing a crowd and so now if you don't have kids it feels different like i can't just bop over now i'm like my kids are gonna mess up you not mess up your house but yeah it's just there's more people invading your space yeah and so now it feels like a bigger deal so i just feel like it just changes the environment a little bit of like the ease of that hi abby abby and abby i love the podcast i listen to it every friday while i meal prep which brings me to my question i work a monday through friday job and i started meal prepping friday night after the baby goes to bed and it has essentially given me back a whole weekend day so my question is what unexpected mom hack gave you back time with your family thanks bye oh i want to just first of all commend her for meal prepping that's amazing every day i'm just on a hamster wheel that i'm like oh no we got food we everyone's got to eat so i never have felt like i had worked that far in advance so that's impressive um but we had bibles the other night and this girl they're kind of newly married and so she's talking she was like i feel like it's been a really fun week like i've got i've had a lot of fun serving my husband and like i've been making him lunch every day writing him little notes and i was like you make your husband lunch before he goes to work and i'm like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know every day kelp comes home and goes i didn't eat all day i'm like should i just start making him lunch like i felt so bad in that moment and then i was like nah honestly i'm thinking where can i send my kids to school where they have to buy lunch because i don't even know if i'll be like organized enough to make their lunch like it's just you know what i mean yeah that's such like a last i don't even think about my lunch like i'm like what's a gavel up at noon i'm like what what do we got what do we got you know i'm not thinking about lunch to a handful of this anyways that made me laugh but um um an unexpected mom hack that gave me back my time i'm like only thinking in the grocery section like oh i'm only thinking of like the house tidying situation and my house isn't that matt did tell me the other day he was like abby we have three little kids he's like it's just not gonna be picked up very much and i was like honestly that's true i need to let it go a little bit more i know i've been feeling overwhelmed by it no like it's just not stopping uh - But wow, we clearly need some hacks. - Honestly, the curbside pickup has been changing my life. I never did curbside pickup ever. I'm doing it for everything. I'm like, diapers, ordering, curbside pickup, everything. And I'll help Caleb go home and pick it up. I'm like, I'm not stopping at the store and taking my kids out of the car. - Oh, I just assumed that was a given. - No, I never did that until maybe like the last six months. Ever. I actually never even understood. I was like, why are people doing curbside pickup? And now I like, I love it. - Take it a step further. Have them bring them to your house. - I know, but. - Okay, you're next kid, you will. - I always schedule it to whenever I'm gonna be out. I schedule it when I'm on the phone. way home and i'll stop by on my way home it's very organized with me that is very organized with you i know um yeah that's a great one that's a great one and actually like i've said before like planning whenever you buy groceries having four dinners at least that you're getting stuff for you gotta get back into it takes it's really easy to get back on though you wouldn't know why i fell off because blake's like all of these are not healthy i'm like oh that's fighting words so someone's sending some good healthy recipes because blake doesn't want anything with noodles or cream or cream cheese and you're like unfortunately that's what i want every crockpot recipe ever exactly so then i i saw beef with the crockpot he doesn't want she pan um chicken sausage so tell him that he can make dinner i'll send you my i'll send you my beef stew recipe beef stew ambitious it's a pot roast it's not a beef stew it's gonna take a while expensive i know it is 27 dollars like see if i don't let my guys but it makes a lot of food meal yeah that's true i mean you can everything else in a pot roast is cheap that's true um i'm gonna put that in there let me think of something oh oh oh pay extra to have pre-packaged snacks oh yeah i'm not putting things in baggies very often never it's very it's very difficult i know um oh my other mom hack don't feed your kids lunch eat it out and just pack a bunch enough snacks that it makes a meal that i've talked about that before i'm talking it doesn't have to be on healthy okay but it's not have a really healthy breakfast and dinner but i'm talking about like literally it's just like a yogurt packet a cutie string cheese beef stick and some veggie chips that's it that's lunch yeah boom shakalaka this this is like this is more expensive obviously but i think having a babysitter come a couple days a week a certain days now this is more for like maybe a mom that's working and stuff but having specific days where i know in the afternoon these are my blocked hours of time to work but i'm not going to have a babysitter come a couple days a but also maybe you just have a like a high school kid come over once a week and you that's the day that you knock out yeah mom's helper and you can knock out all of your like household insurance appointments scheduling like your whatever you need yeah and it's maybe even like every other week but that stuff that's the stuff that like drives you nuts when you're like i have to get this done i have to do my taxes but the kids yeah it's not in your routine so maybe finding someone in your area that they can come over like you know twice a month or something and have a note ready oh that's a good idea that's the other thing i do i always have an ongoing to-do list on my notes app so whenever i have a free second i literally i'm just like what needs to be done what can i cross off of here and every weekend i've started doing one or two like pain point tasks in my house where it's like oh i need to go through this dresser and like fix whatever like finding one or like honestly just our knickknack drawer in our kitchen i was like that is gotten out of hand like let's fix that or like let's do this corner of the pantry chipping away at things because when you're you're not going to get a long stretch of time like you used to get like you can't dedicate a saturday to a chore that would never you never get that much time but just like finding little ways you can chip away at things and then that way you don't have to take a whole day to do something you can have your time back with your kids yeah um the one thing i was going to say and we'll do the last one for this category is we do this isn't getting more time back with our fan with our kids but it's getting my time back with my husband is blake does bath time and then i'll clean up like yeah so then by the time i'm done i'm going to be like i'm going to be like i'm going to the time braille's asleep our house is clean and we sit on the couch and watch tv and hang out and that is so that is their routine every single day i've again i've given braille a bath one hand amount of times kayla's been giving baths while i cook dinner and that has been a game changer because the night routine would feel so hectic because and they could still play after the bath like i don't care if they go outside and play and do stuff afterwards but that would feel so hectic because a lot of times dinner is a little late and so if dinner starts we're eating at 6 30 and then it's bath time and then we want to do bedtime like a lot of times it's like hey it's almost too late to do a book and do the whole routine because now it's been so late it would feel so stressful so now he does bath and everything before dinner and it just feels so much more smooth i need to have it stack my kids is that what that is isn't it i don't know it took me a long time i don't always they need their bed it takes like a whole three-ring circus i mean usually it's like dad's time to play like caleb usually plays during dinner like when i'm making dinner and he'll go outside and play with them but i'm like if you can do bath and then play outside i literally don't care they're gonna get dirtier tomorrow so just clean them up when they run in the dirt but like they can go play hit the baseball and like do chalk you know yeah so the last one in this category hi abby abby and addie this is kaylee and i just had my first baby and being out and about there are people that always will say oh just wait until they start talking back or negative things like that and so i was wondering um what you guys have as a positive spin on that um like just wait until they give you a hug for the first time thank you so much bye that's mine i've said it a million times when they give you a hug and they give you it back and they just squeeze yeah sure they can talk back but also they tell you i love you it's so funny i mean cj's hilarious makes me laugh cj's so funny you made a face during i was like that's where you get jay and now he's become the standard and you're just like him i know literally you went like this you go ah and i was like cheeto cheeto you always do that cheeto it makes no sense but yeah they just get so funny so it's like of course they can talk back because they're getting smarter and they have wants and personalities but also it gets easier because they can tell you what they want yeah tell me what you want that was something that when people say oh you got your hands full that never bothered me i'm like yeah i do i surely need more of those you're like thank you for need more hands i wish i was an octopus every day yeah but um when people say oh just wait until that really actually would kind of annoy me and so i would just say back i'm like we love it like we're having i like they've been they become so fun like i just like say something because i also don't want my kids hearing that like what if i was like snarky back and was like oh my gosh i know they've become such brats like i don't want my kids my kids hear a lot more than i ever even realized this woman said to me um a couple weeks ago um i don't want my kids to hear a lot more i was like oh yeah he's three this age is so fun she's like it literally just goes downhill from here so serious and i was like i just don't think that's true that's what i said to her kids i don't think that's true yeah i feel like that's a crazy thing to say i think it's it kind of is the same sentiment but not really of like having two under two like everyone's like oh it's so hard i'm like can you just tell me like it's gonna be okay please i know i understand it's okay like said this morning he goes he's like oh my gosh i don't want my kids to hear a lot more than i ever even felt like something he goes do you think we're underestimating how hard this is gonna be i said yeah yeah as long as you expect that you might be humbled a little bit that's fine because i think i was humbled and then i was like you know that was good for me and i here i am on the other side of it my thought is i don't know any different so it's just gonna be hard it's just gonna be normal because that's what i i've never experienced anything different that's good are you underestimating how hard it's gonna be i don't think you've underestimated it because i'll just say we're all fair it out i say i say all the time i felt so cocky before vivian was born and then it was like kind of a crazy six months i said i think i'll be fine until my mom leaves and then i'll figure it out i'll have to really figure it out after yeah but you know then your mom leaves and then you have to step up and it's like i got it yeah probably you know it'd be fine or she could just never leave i'd be fine that would best be fun that would also be shawna we're talking to you we're talking i know you're listening um but i truly just think that's the best thing i've ever done i want to just be excited for every stage of my kid's life like i think that's the only way to like i literally even when we were in newport we were walking past there was a family eating dinner with all adult children you could just tell i was like the you could see who the parents were and like i was assuming it was their kids and maybe their spouses i was like you know i've dreaded them growing up so much i was like that looks freaking fun and sweet and very rewarding and so i was like i just never want to dread that's kind of how i feel about my own life too i never want to dread a birthday i want to always just be grateful that i got to have a whole other year to like um do fun things i always think i always thought about that when people would be like oh college the best four years of your life i'm like you're telling me you peaked at 22 how lame how lame you're telling me this is the best there ever was that's just not true that's just not true i'm sorry you're telling me i lived my best years in the first quarter of my life they're the best years of my childhood right until i'm like these might be my hottest years but like i don't know 40 brings this episode is sponsored by cometeer when i go to bed at night i actually feel a little excited for my morning coffee i remember mom saying that when i was younger and i was like man that's just like a weird and i love my morning coffee and when it's bad i'm actually mad but i probably need to repent a little bit and that's why we've been loving cometeer it's an entirely new way to make coffee at home and the quality is so good the quality is supreme the taste is unbeatable and how fast it is to make this high quality cup of coffee is a dream i could nurse a baby in the morning i have about 0.5 seconds and i know what you're thinking really good coffee from my capsule but hear us out because even the former president of nespresso and actual barista champions endorse this stuff cometeer 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little fun shifting so much hey abby's and addy i love listening to your podcast it's like my favorite friday morning um routine um listen to it all week anyway my question for you all is um well i'm 36 weeks pregnant and my i've been having some crazy dreams so i'm just wondering um if you guys had crazy dreams while you were pregnant or if you remember any that would be funny to share thanks i only had nightmares mine aren't crazy i have a dream every single night about buying a different house like there's just a different house on my mind are we talking about sex dreams oh no i think we're just talking about oh i did um no all my dreams when i was pregnant were nightmares so i was like every night i prayed like please no dreams tonight none please none so i have nothing to add no showings tonight uh crazy dreams i want to know what she means i don't think she means what you oh okay i'm just having those i've had those i've had those too but i think she just means in general just like more like your hormones gotta do that uh-huh it was always embarrassing when i would have sex dreams with other people and i'm like oh my gosh it's happened like twice and i was like you know what i have to confess and i feel sick about it i know my dreams did betray me and matt will never let me live it down i was like i have to tell you something this is not someone i'm remotely attracted to i know but it's someone that we have both popped up interacted with and i don't know what's going on i feel weird about it i feel weird about it i feel really weird about it we can never see them ever again i feel like i violated them in my mind and i'm like ah i'm sorry i didn't choose that no i got those when i was pregnant i was really shocked by it because it is shocking yeah it is shocking um so you said that's not what you mean so i mean it could be in there but i'm just talking about dreams in general no i would dream of my dreams like vivid dreams yeah like i have vivid dreams about different houses that like last night we bought a house that it was this it had a backyard over here but then it also had a backyard here a couple of nights ago we bought a house across from drew figgy and back into springfield like i think it's just your your sleep is not normal so then you're entering weird stages and i mean wait what was the question um did you have any crazy dreams oh what were our crazy dreams well i had sex dreams i had nightmares okay like sad scary i remember i had this i'm not gonna go into oh i had some of those too someone like outside her door just like shooting through the window at caleb and i was like wait i had some of those too they were always involved killed dying because i was so scared about it i don't want to talk about it okay nightmares sorry bad dreams that's crazy guys bad dreams and crazy so many bad dreams okay next one hi y'all my name is alexis and i'm from austin texas um i was just calling because i actually recently started going to burn boot camp and i love it and i was just curious to hear what you most favorite workouts are and why would you say they're your least and your favorite all right you guys thank you so much i love your podcast bye least favorite core oh really hate okay i like that second to leg day don't want to do it okay my favorite is metcon metabolic conditioning it's so it's like the perfect balance of strength and cardio i don't feel as satisfied by the strength workouts but it's because i don't push myself on the strength oh i'm not going to push myself i'm not strong so i'm not like pring maybe it was it would be more fun if i had like a goal i like their burn is coming out like with their they're updating their app where you can keep track of your prs and stuff in the app and so i think that'll be so good for people to be able to track see i'm not even competitive with myself that's the problem like i'm like you don't need to do that to me you're pushing you i will yeah i keep trying she's like i don't want to do that i'm like pick it up pick it you always say no i um always had to kill after i have a pr and i'm like guys i haven't have you been ringing the bell um yeah i did good i keep asking if it's okay if i can go down from my pr every week you don't need permission so last week we did 15 this week we're doing 12 can i also go down and wait right i've only been going to like the cardio days so you're not like reaching any goals really my favorite days are definitely athletic conditioning i think it's so fun i love those workouts i love those workouts i love those workouts i love those workouts i love i want my lungs to scream it feels yeah to me what's different between that and body weight that's what i was gonna athletic usually has like some equipment involved like the boxes does it or yeah okay i love box a lot you know what i really hate is what we did yesterday those walkouts yeah bear crawls are the worst well i don't like bear crawls but even walk out to come back up i didn't do that i feel so slow and sluggish i don't remember that exercise it and then knee tuck or whatever oh i'm so slow on the walk yeah yeah and i'm closer to the ground than most people you'll get better as your core heals dude it's my core i just don't like core you still relax in your joints i mean you're not moving fast at all when you're postpartum i wasn't moving fast until i'm afraid to do core i don't really i just i don't like it yeah i've also just written it off i'm like i'm not gonna have that anymore i think my least favorite is probably back and glutes i just think it's kind of boring or like push and pull i think it's kind of boring oh i like oh i'm like complete opposite i'm like give me all the strength days and then my favorite conditioning is metcon body weight condition body weight's the hardest for sure body weight is always the like that's tomorrow it's like and building lap and building i've been now that i'm a runner i'm not afraid of building i'm still afraid of building labs i'm gonna do one next they're so scary when you're running i haven't ran in 10 weeks okay um next question hi abby abby and abby love the pod and i listen every friday and wanted to ask if you could time travel to any decade which one would you choose and why thanks guys so easy anyone without phones think about this think about how freeing that would be there'd be relatively no expectations on you think about the expectations on us at any given time because we keep these with us like anyone could easily email you and you need to respond anyone could text you or call you and you need to respond you could make any appointment at any time like just think about the fact it's like i have to go back to my phone at home next time i'm home i'm gonna listen to my voicemails and take care of those that just sounds so much better for your brain yeah the 90s seemed fun i think any of them except maybe like the great depression probably i don't want to go too far back i really don't want to go back any further than yeah what's the modern technology i'd like the 90s yeah that's like 70s 80s 90s even the early 2000s i'll just do it where my parents were like their age i don't know yeah i don't want to go back to any time that there's not vehicles electricity hot water yeah no honestly i like the time that i grew up 90s is great yeah 90s let's do that let's do that let's go back there let's go back to the 90s poof i love that actually i literally was like we were at the hotel at disney i was like hey guys we're gonna have a little conversation here this is called live tv it's cable okay we can't pick it but whatever is on and you like it it's gonna be really exciting and you're gonna be fully entertained and there's gonna be these things called commercials you gotta just use that to go to the bathroom like i literally was like this is so crazy that they can have anything any it's not good for you i don't think yeah i was posting the other day live about dancing with the stars using my special little magic remote that i can watch it in yeah time zone and everyone's like how are you watching this i'm like i can't tell you it's very legal my mom tried to get me one of those and i said mother no i don't want your jailbreak tv fire still your husband will want it no i told him he said no really yeah he doesn't like sports my mom was like it's so amazing diane's neighbor jailbreaks these i was like listen keep the viruses away from my we mostly only use it for for sports that's like the number one reason we use it because you cut all that out because it is all of it you're gonna get an fbi yeah come get me come get me anyone with a vpn it's like we're already doing this yeah exactly hi i was just wondering what is one of your best birthday memories as a child thank you bye bye i like that this one just comes to my mind because i have a december first my birthday's on december 1st so it's a busy it's right after thanksgiving and usually you're like in the chaos before christmas so my christmas dance recital was on like the same weekend and i remember that my mom still planned a birthday party for me so we went to like the christmas dress rehearsal and then a bunch of friends came to my house and this really explains a lot about me it was a cooking themed birthday party and i was like oh my god i'm so excited to be here and i'm like oh my god i'm so excited to be here and i'm like oh my god i'm so excited to be here and i'm like oh my god i'm so!!! it's like chef morgan chef taylor and then uh we made lasagna and it was so fun and also it was almost i don't remember this must have been a little after my birthday because of thanksgiving weekend so it was whenever we celebrated it was also the same weekend that it was like christmas break and this was back when they let you have like class pets like a lot of class pets and i got to take the guinea pigs home and so i just remember that we like made lasagna and we played with the guinea pigs i was like this is so great the best birthday ever i had so much fun but yeah cooking themed birthday party we had hats yeah my mom was cute she really made the effort to like have a theme yeah like really committed to it that is really cute yeah oh i feel like my mom did such a good job of celebrating our birthdays growing up like every year felt so fun and exciting this one stood out to me because i think i it might have been my sweet 16 i remember i woke up and there were balloons that covered my ceiling which also i'm like such a good thing she literally came in my room with balloons all over my ceiling well when you're 16 yeah i would yeah i was sleeping deep um and then she had my neighbor my neighbor made these insanely good peanut butter chocolate chip cookies so she had her make those for me and then at school remember she would always bring me lunch um and she brought me probably lion's choice because i love lion's choice and then she also brought me more cookies that were these famous smiley face cookies like it was just a full day of all my favorite sweets treats friends family and just like every moment of my day i had something special that's sweet yeah and that's when i got my trusty honda you know still got her wrong so great birthday strong strong a little weak a little weaker in the joints but she got all right she's got me a little demented sometimes she forgets to open the door when you pull the handle she forgets to turn the lights on sometimes when i open the doors but she stops working she's doing great that's funny my parents one time for my birthday they said we had a bunch of girls over not a bunch there was a i was limited on the amount of girls i could invite which was like kind of weird but we were gonna go on the trolley which is just like a city bus but it was like cute like trolley and i was like so excited so we live right by a college um so we drove to the spot for them to pick it up and a limo pulls up a limo was so iconic on a birthday never even heard that i don't think quincy had limos yeah i never saw a limo in quincy really i think we went to sonic cute that's where we went out of you with that girl a limousine on your birthday well as my parents my parents were the were those parents yes that was like in middle school when girls had limos for their birthday party i was like it's gonna be the best day of my life i wasn't i don't even even in my teens yet i think i would have been like 10 11 or 12 that was the prime time for a limousine can you imagine just a bunch of 11 year olds in the back of a limousine just rocking out to hannah montana like just so cute i think another time someone someone in our family had a birthday that hannah montana came to okay we'll do two more hi abby abby and addy i love listening to the podcast every friday i especially love listening to it in the car i did have a question what were your guys's favorite subject in school and least favorite subject in school i'm currently a senior in high school and i would love to know thank you bye i was not a stem girly believe it or not it's not that i yeah i just wasn't my favorite it's not it's that i didn't understand it yeah i like algebra i really enjoyed yeah geometry i liked calculus actually oh calculus i got a c in calculus in college that's one of my c's that's one of my c's yeah i didn't like that one i did actually like that one but i loved literature yeah i took ap lit and i like loved i love assigned reading that's that's me nerd um but we read some really good books in that class yeah i loved language credit for that one that was great i actually really liked um psychology psychology was good i took abnormal psychology and i loved that class i got it i got um ap credit for that in college which was in high school for college credit which was fun um i actually liked ap government too i hated pe i love pe that's just beautiful that's my favorite class today i would what a glad i take i would gladly take a p credit over anything else we in illinois you have to have p every semester of every year love you always have to be in p you have to dress out and it's terrible i loved that the only thing i didn't like was when i had a i was my first class the day one semester and i had the teacher that made everyone run a lot so i get really sweaty first thing in the morning every day that semester i didn't love it as much just timing those locker rooms i know it was horrible i literally hated p we could walk on fridays to the bowling alley and we could bowl instead of doing p your school was i did that not real life i've never heard of such a thing really yeah they were not allowed to leave campus we were not allowed to leave campus uh we walked the bowling alley oh my gosh if you paid a dollar we had to find the right teacher that would let us go to sonic and come back why you guys were allowed to leave no oh we had to find the right teacher that would let us leave certainly we were not allowed to ever do that um what was i gonna say oh caleb the math class we had that um i first met him i sat behind him and he had p right before and he smelled something and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to the school so bad oh god and i was like he's so cute to the girl next to me she's like yeah but he kind of smells right i was like yeah but he's so cute like it doesn't matter but he always stunk dang that is hard feedback to receive but really good i mean i never told him until later so it was just you know he knows it now he smells okay last one then we'll go to patreon hi abby abby and addy um i have a question for you guys in lieu of dancing with the stars premiering a few weeks ago um if the opportunity ever arose would any of you be a guest dancer on dancing with the stars um i would just be curious because i would definitely watch anyways love the show thanks bye guys they are not calling but i would answer they would never call but i would never say no i would never say no i would pick that phone up anytime right i would be like guillermo out there they'd be like abby just go to a show yeah like that would be so fun to go i bet we could go i bet we could figure that out okay figure it out figure it out let's go let's do it let's do it okay screen i'm in i thought we could okay i really do think we could okay let's go i'm in it'd be so fun girls trip love that girls trip girls trip day trip okay we'll get neil on the phone she'll get us in there come on i know she could i know she totally could no that was when she told me on the phone she was like i will stop at nothing but she like wasn't saying it as a joke this is one that we want her to stop at nothing stop at nothing just let her let her let her cook let her cook um yes what are some other shows that you guys would go on not special forces but that one knocked out the door just a little bit i was like who do you think i am you would do it you probably win that is so not true and but very nice of you couldn't quit no abby you're sorry you would not feel like i could quit no what if you ever quit anything in your life a lot of things no okay soccer when you were two doesn't count okay you guys are so nice um i would do well one of our friends did um what was it what's it called ultimate chef or whatever oh um the gordon ramsay yes that'd be fun that would be fun i would love to be in the great british baking show a cooking show a great british baking show is so fun yeah i wouldn't do survivor i wouldn't do traitors i've never seen traitors but people seem to love traitors i've never seen traitors i'm not good at wine i go on beast games i would totally go on beast games i think that would be like that i think that'd be so fun would you ever go on a mr beast episode because what did they ask you to stay for like a hundred days they all make you be away from your family for so long i know i'm like no not that i'm not gonna stay in a grocery store for a year a year have you seen that one it was such a good episode yeah video um honestly pretty much anything if i mean really if we're being so for real they would ask me like yeah why not sure i know if anyone wants to read they don't think i don't think they do that anymore i think it'd be wipe out would be fun that would be fun that would be so fun what's another one american ninja warrior i wouldn't qualify but i would go i'd fall on the first thing i know i'm in he's like you have to hang from this bar i'm like oh my gosh here's what i would say no to which actually tatum beck did this which i was oh fear factor yeah house of fear no they couldn't sleep all night they were shocked if they started to fall asleep with a shock collar and then they had to do horrible challenges their skin was pierced like they had bugs in their mouth like all these crazy things i was like no i don't think the risk is worth the reward for that one no the cost is not worth it let's just think about that i would go on big brother but again it's one of those that you're away from your family for a long time addy would you go on love island she's married i mean i'm thinking about it i always i'd go on the bachelor if i was on the bachelor if i didn't meet caleb but or love is never upset about that see my confidence would be very confused if i went on the bachelor like but do you guys actually like me like i know you guys were all like had to be here but do you like me back like i don't know right did you know i was gonna be here and you came here for me or did you just think you were i would overthink it the bachelor felt so tame like in its prime you know yeah yeah okay we're gonna hop over to patreon and then hop back i'm sorry i forgot to share that i went to flagstaff over the weekend it was amazing and fun and relaxing um we went with our friends dave and val and their little boys and it was just such a good time um and val this soup that was so good. It was Paula Deen's taco soup. Paula Deen, what a throwback. Right? It was so good. I didn't, I didn't even realize it was a taco soup. It's like a taco soup mixed with a chili. It's fantastic. What was special about it? The flavor of it was super good and it had a wide array of veggies. Let me just read you this list of veggies. Actually me reading them now for the first time I'm shocked because it didn't taste like this is what was in the soup, but the soup is insane. It starts with one package of ranch salad dressing mix. Okay. In the soup. Then a package of taco seasoning mix. It is so flavorful. It makes a lot too. It has green olives, black olives, green chilies, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. There's a lot of different types of tomatoes in this. Colonel corn, beans, beans, onions, two pounds of ground beef, and you could top with some jalapenos. I'm making that. It's a flavor bomb. I thought you were anti-taco seasoning. I mean, you're gonna use your homemade. I would make my homemade one. Pushed that one last month or last week, two weeks ago, couple weeks ago. Look at, it'll be on the newsletter. It's so good. Okay, what's your recipe? I'm gonna have to make that. It's good. I want, mine is just, I've been looking for good sides recently because ever since I learned how to make steak I've just been doing basic proteins and so I'm like need more sides, but a good arugula salad with shaved parmesan, green apples, thinly sliced, and then this homemade light dressing with like lemon, honey, I think red wine vinegar. It's just so light, but so good. I love arugula. Basically, it's just a very fresh salad. That's really easy, a quick side, get some greens in. My kids don't eat lettuce. Do your kids eat lettuce? No. Okay, so it's one for the adults. Especially not arugula. Gosh, it's so scary for them. That's my recipe. You work some magic. Auntie. I got 'em. No, no, my kids do not eat lettuce. Um, but that sounds amazing. Neither does my dog. My dog will eat a dirty wipe. Why would your dog eat lettuce? Because she eats dirty baby wipes. Oh, that's true. And a ton of microplastics that aren't edible. So why would she not eat something that's edible? So true. Um, or celery. Celery. She won't eat celery, it turns out. Um, anyway, that is our episode. So don't take advice from someone with no brain cells. So just take it as entertainment. And we sure hope you were entertained. Okay, so if you made it this far, then why not just give us an extra 30 seconds of your time. Give us five stars, like it, heart it, subscribe, do a, do a five stars, and just like Bethany Colt, who left us a five star review saying if you want joy, you should listen. This is the most fun podcast. You guys bring joy and laughter every time I listen. Love the girl chat, the rabbit holes, and everything in between. Thanks for being some wholesome, thanks for bringing some wholesome fun to this wild world. That's so sweet. That's really sweet. I love that. Oh my gosh. I always want it to be a joyful podcast, so that's very nice that you say that. Um, we also have a book club that we are reading a spooky book for for the month of October. We are reading The Woman in Cabin 10. Yes. By Ruth Ware. Um, if you want a, not, it's not a slasher thriller, it's just a good classic mystery, um, join us. We don't, we don't know what to expect, we don't know how this one ends, so buckle up with us. We also have a Patreon if you want to join, where we do a little bit crazier things, say crazier things, and have a lot of other fun features on there. Another special- If you want to know how many choo-choos go before chugga. Yeah, if that's tempting for you. If that's tempting. We also have special chats where we do more recipes. We do more recipes there, share more recipes, and first, the first news you're ever going to receive is going to be to the Patreon, and there's also a newsletter over there, and so, um, it's just really fun. Our, like, that's a very special audience to us, and you are special to us as well. And, I think that's everything, right? Yeah, I think so. Until next time, remember, we're always here. We're always here. We're always here. We're always here. Coca-Cola. For everyone. You create it, layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.