Swine flu, Thanksgiving, Ben's Birthday 3!

I know what you're thinking...the last time I posted it was HALLOWEEN and in between now and then Ben had a birthday...WHERE are the pictures?!?! Well, here they are and I DO have a good excuse. In fact, during Halloween the boys had a cold. Not bad I thought, first cold of the season. Normally the cold season begins at Labor Day in my household, maybe the delay in sickness was the fact that my kids didn't even start preschool until almost October for god's sake! Really I shouldn't tease myself with thinking this winter is going to be any better than any other. What was I THINKING with all that H1N1 talk. A week or so after Halloween is when it hit - the dreaded swine flu. Of course, we can't confirm or deny that that's what we had but it was pretty brutal. I got it too and it definitely took a toll. I was sick until Thanksgiving, no joke. So there wasn't a whole lot of stuff getting done around here. Not to mention we were supposed to be prepping a room for wood floors. I needed to paint it and get all the shit out. The shit got moved to any old place leading to what looked like a bomb going off in my house - every counter was filled, floors were unwalkable, that kind of thing. The room only got primed and remains that way....still waiting for that coat of paint. The floors got put in the Friday and Saturday after turkey day. We couldn't go into the playroom because we'd have to cross the room that was being worked on so we had to also bring toys down into the mess which just created more havoc. All in all we got through it, the house has since been cleaned and the new wood floor looks great! The layer of dust was cleaned off of everything, things eventually got put back in their place, and we're ALMOST back to normal living space (still waiting on some office furniture...and that coat of paint).

So anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN! With being 3 comes all the wonderful defiance...what a blast. Did I mention this is a stressful time of year? I hate that things are all jammed packed together. It kind of makes the holidays not so fun. It doesn't help that 2 of my children have birthdays now too. But be that as it may, I still feel the need to make them the best birthday cakes ever and this year Ben wanted a Thomas cake. By the way, yes I know Thomas is #1 but I thought since he was 3 that I'd just take the artist liberty to put a 3 on him so leave me alone!

Even with a house project, Thanksgiving, and a birthday boy I still managed to host the 2nd annual gingerbread house making night with my friends, get my holiday cards out the first week of December, decorate for hanukkah, and be done buying gifts and actually have some wrapped!!! Seriously, that takes organization. Can there just be a job for the SUPER organized? Is there one? Can we just organize stuff all day and make it fun? Anyway, hanukkah starts this Friday night and I'm ready! Bring it on plus Cal's birthday at the end of December!!

So Seth loves hats...he found this turkey hat that one of the boys made at preschool and put it on all by himself. I ran to get the camera and snap this. Isn't he so freakin' cute?!

All the cousins at Thanksgiving. That's Ben's new smile by the way. You say "smile" and he makes that weird blank stare face?!