"Off With Their Hats!"

A little preview for this weekend.

Elliot:

Queens always have perfect penmanship.




I am exhausted. I stayed up WAY too late finishing Astoria's costume

Apparently I'm not the only one.




Also, don't Forget to enter my little BOOK GIVEAWAY

You have 'till Monday to enter.


Happy Hallowe'en Kids!

Sweet 100 (and a present for you)

This is my 100th post.

That deserves a celebration don't you think?

I think so too.

SO in celebration of 100 posts I want to give you a book. Because we all know how much Miss Maryposa likes books right? I'll pick two winners and send them a book (a secret surprise book! hee hee!!)





Then of course Neil Gaiman has to go and steal my thunder. Ok Mr. Newberry-Award-winning-61-weeks-on-the-bestseller-list Gaiman, but i've had this idea for months, then you swoop in with your Hallowe'en give a book idea and make me sound all unoriginal? huh. Touche...

You've won this round Mr. Gaiman!!!

Moving on...

Here's what you can do to win a book:

1. Follow this blog
2. Leave me some comments or other love-type notes (make sure you leave at least one on this post so I know you'd like to be part of the giveaway)
3. Tell someone else about this blog (it's all about sharing the love)

extra credit: Post a reading list on your blog (for any season or occasion) and send me a link and picture of you peeking over a book.



Already done all these things you say? Well then consider yourself entered 4 times. (so yes, you get an entry for each one.)

I shall select a winner on November 1st. That's one week kids.

There you go, I hope you win!

2 Very Important Things

(this one is going to be long. you may want to get a snack.)



I'm not the only one that just can't seem to get a handle on October, right? It is always busy, and yet I'm always surprised when it gets here and running around like an insane asylum escapee screaming out nonsensical things like "JAM SANDWICHES!" or "RAFER ALSTON!" while attempting to shove a bacon and peanut butter casserole into the dishwasher because my brain has stopped functioning and I no longer remember how to prepare food.



Last weekend Blair and I had a party. A no-kids-all-day-awesome-sauce-happy-6-years-of-marriage kind of party.





Do you see how hot this man is? No wonder I said "Ok i'll marry you"... after 2 weeks of knowing him.





I made him a scavenger hunt. And with the help of some very very dear to my heart friends, was able to pull it all off. (Brittni and Joe, y'all are my heroes!)






That was last week.

***

TODAY...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASTORIA!

(adorable, even when she's stealing my hot chocolate)

This kid is 3. and she is amazing.
At risk of sounding like one of those annoying braggy-pants moms... you have never met a kid as awesome as this.





Fun Facts:

• She can read. No seriously, like whole books. (her first one was I Love My New Toy (an Elephant and Piggie book) by Mo Willems) And she's been doing it for the last 4 or 5 months. I would love to take credit for this, but in all honesty, I didn't do anything. She is OBSESSED with the ABCs, and has a redonkulous photographic memory. (now if only she would use that memory to find our lost hard drive remote...)
• She tells people at church that she is "Cinderlella"
• She attempts to sweep my floor while pretending to be Cinderlella or Snow White. This could turn out to be awesome...
• Last night after I told her she looked lovely she said "Right?!"
• Gives the BEST smooches. No battle. (sorry kids #1 and #3)

But unfortunately she has the terrible burden of not only being the middle child, but also having her birthday fall one week after her parents anniversary, and one week before Halloween. And therefore pretty much gets the shaft when it comes to birthday parties.

I'll let you know how it goes.

OH one last thing... The next post will be EPIC AWESOME. So prepare yourself.

(Thanks to Joe and his camera for the pictures!)

Manderley

It's been raining for 3 days straight









After my kids go to bed, I listen to the rain in the dark.








I'm reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. It is the quintessential read on a rainy day book. The only downside, is that I don't really want to do anything else.






I've been picking lavender from the garden a few houses down from Elliot's preschool. I have a little bundle drying in my car. (You know, it kind of masks the odor of having three rather smelly, albeit adorable, kids in the car)




It's time to pull my sewing machine out again. I want to make some little pouches for my lavender so I can have a sweet-smelling underwear drawer (which would be more effective if the underwear actually made it TO the drawer. More like sweet-smelling underwear laundry basket.) Also, Astoria is going to be Alice for Halloween. I'd better get on that post-haste.



The soundtrack to all this rainy-ness has been the newest Jimmy Eat World album, Invented, and Something to Write Home About by the Get Up Kids (it is soooooooo good, but also makes me feel kind of old. I don't think anyone listens to the Get Up Kids anymore, which is really really sad.) Also this amazing cover of Radiohead's Creep (look out kids, it's got an f-swear)

I Like October.

A Metaphor?

It started raining while Elliot and I were walking to school today. Crazy, torrential, violent, mixed-with-hail, kind of rain.

via Slow Muse

We stopped near a building with a large awning for a minute to see if it would let up. Elliot just wanted to keep going, in the rain.

I said okay, and not 5 seconds later a man with an umbrella walks up and offers it to us.

Last night a different man threatened to call the police on me for leaving my three (one of whom was sleeping) kids in the car while I ran into the gas station to buy a single chocolate milk. I'm sorry, but there is a difference between parking your kids in the hot sun for 20 minutes while you shop and refraining to wake up, unbuckle, and drag two toddlers and a baby into a gas station while you buy an effing chocolate milk for them. So, rationally, I threw the chocolate milk at him, yelled something not nice, and went back to my car where my kids started to cry because I didn't have their chocolate milk. We spent the next 20 minutes driving around to find someplace that had chocolate milk in a drive-thru window.

I drove the next 3 hours angry, miserable, and feeling like the worst parent in the world.

This morning Elliot and I saw a rainbow. Someone let us borrow their umbrella. The lavender in the rain smelled heavenly.