Happy Monday! Hope you all enjoyed your extra hour of beauty sleep this weekend. I know I needed it! We’ve been cleaning and getting the house ready because we are having our first couples get together at our place tonight! I can’t wait!! I’ve always loved to host people, but wasn’t really able to last year when we lived in our back house. Keep reading to see what we’re celebrating!…

• Spent Halloween passing out candy to all the cute kids in our apartment building. (I may have saved all the pink Starburst for myself!)
• Welcomed November! This year is flying by, I can’t believe it’s almost time for the holiday season. I love this time of year and am excited to spend it somewhere new. Chicago has the most beautiful fall and I’ve been soaking up all the gorgeous colors before they’re gone.
• Some of Chas’ friends invited us to explore The Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park this weekend. It was so fascinating! We weren’t able to make it this time, but we heard the Pixar exhibit is a must see!
• We (fiiiiinally) bought a sofa! I’ve had my eye on some of the styles at Interior Define so we stopped in and found one we love! All of their sofas are custom made so we have to wait a couple months. I was so glad to hear a lot of you guys said you have ID sofas and love them when I posted about it in my stories on Instagram, so I know it will be worth the wait!
• My favorite over-the-knee boots that I’ve worn the past two years are back in stock in all sizes and only $56!
• We are hosting our first apartment gathering tonight: Friendsgiving!! I am so excited. This will be our first Friendsgiving and we’re pretty tickled about it. Chas is going all out and cooking the Turkey while I’m sticking to the tablescape decorating. (And shoutout to our sweet community group leaders who are letting us borrow 3 chairs since we only have seating for 5. You should have seen us carrying them down the street back to our apartment in the wind + rain. Hilarious.)

• Trying to not be sad about the fact that it now gets dark at 4pm.
• Focusing on Proverbs 12:16 this week. I feel like it’s easy to get annoyed quickly when expectations aren’t met so praying this verse will remind me to be patient and kind in my words and actions this week.

For last week’s bloom + grow post click here.

bloom & grow forever,

Madeline Rose