holy canoli

i've been quite mia- almost a month.

it's been busy. crazy, crazy, busy. this is the first week where i don't feel totally stressed.

let's see. we unexpectedly had to find new day care... luckily, jack was able to just go 5 days at preschool instead of 2 and we found a very nice woman who is watching charlie. jack still talks about miss nancy though and how much he misses her. but, he's finally adjusted to full time at school.

what else? after the day care scramble we had a weekend of major poopy-pukey sicky stuff and charlie was sick for about 2 weeks. so fun. i have never done so much stinky laundry in my life.

we had conferences in there - 2 nights in 2 weeks. when i am already gone one night a week for national board stuff it's tough to be gone another night.

my birthday! not such a fun day (a funeral for one of our 4th graders and conferences) but it was a fun weekend after. we went to wildfire (yum yum yum) and went to best buy to play the demo of guitar hero. we're totally hooked and were transported back to about age 15. we're on the search for some kind of game system to play guitar hero on. but now i have discovered 'rock band'... and i can totally see mike making us all play rock band on xbox when the boys are a little older. or not. charlie already plays the drums and jack asked for a guitar for christmas...

oh and then our master bath had allll kind of leakage problems (complete with carpenter ants... lovely!) so we had to gut and redo the bathroom. and when i say *we* i mean, mike, me and dave the awesome tile guy. and by that i mean dave the aweseome tile guy (and awesome rich tile guy now...) the fun news is that i got to pick out all new tile and fixtures (which is stressful, but very fun for me- only stressful because i don't want to make a decision i'll hate) but now i LOVE LOVE LOVE the way our new bath turned out. we have more storage and for the tiny room it is i love going in there in the morning. peaceful, uncluttered, classy. love it. here are some pics- though when i say tiny, i mean it, so no pic is great:






then it was thanksgiving. thank goodness grandma mad. hosted. very low key, easy going. perfect. jack and i decorated some egg/nut free sugar cookies to look like turkeys. jack realllly loves to help me bake and decorate stuff. it's great fine motor skill practice for him too!




and this week, even though it's the beginning of the christmas crazies, most of my shopping is done, about 75% of it is wrapped, and i'm looking forward to coasting through decemeber.

my baby turns one next week. ack. where in the hell did time go? but the super fun news is that mom, becky, lee and brady are all coming next week to celebrate. i'm super excited about that. they have not seen the boys since march. it'll be so fun to brady here too. i'm sure he's grown up just as much as jack.



i've been making cakes here and there for people. it's a fun little side thing. i made one little six year old super happy this past weekend with this cake and cupcakes: