Chronicle Books is having an awesome promotion right now- Celebrate the Haul-idays! All you have to do is visit their web site and find $500 worth of books you'd love to have on your shelves at home. Post the list on your blog and BAM! You're entered to win all of those books. You can win my list too! Just post a comment on this post and if I win, you win my list too! Hurry. This contest ends December 10th.

Here are the books I'd love for the boys:

Duck! Rabbit!

Monet's Impressions

Creature ABC

Stereobook: Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs Roar, Butterflies Soar!

I Know a Lot of Things

The Dinosaurs' Night Before Christmas

Eric Carle's Dream Snow Pop-Up Advent Calendar

N is for Navidad

And to Name But Just a Few: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue

C Is for Caboose

Tools

Art Up Close

C is for Construction: Big Trucks and Diggers from A to Z

The Elves and the Shoemaker

Walk the Dog

The First Christmas

The Hanukkah Mice

The World Almanac for Kids Puzzler Decks: Trucks, Trains & More, Ages 3–5

One Too Many

Zoom

Around the World with Mouk

The World Almanac for Kids Puzzler Deck: Kindergarten Skills, Ages 3-5

Big Rabbit's Bad Mood

Magritte's Imagination

B Is for Baseball

Tony and the Pizza Champions

The Big, Bigger, Biggest Book

Oh you can't forget some books for mom!

Every Day's a Holiday

I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper

Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms

The Little Book of Saints

Don't forget to post a comment so you can win all of these books too! You can also go here and see all of the other blogs participating in this awesome promotion. See one with a great list of books? Leave a comment for them as well!

My grandmother passed away a little while ago. It was expected, but that isn't making it any easier. I love you Grandma! The boys will miss you GeGe. I think I'll be taking a blog break for a bit.

Dill Pickles had a really tough day yesterday. That meant Mommy and little Sweet Pickles had a rough day too. I was trying to get Dill calmed down to take a nap or at least stop bouncing and crashing all over the house. He was sitting, errr.....no, he was jumping and climbing all over me while I was sitting in the rocking chair trying to get him wrapped in his weighted blanket. I was really at the end of my rope and really tired because I didn't sleep well the night before. Out of no where Dill grabs my face with his two hands, looks me in the eye and starts singing "Two, four, six, eight! Who do we appreciate? Mommy! Mommy! Yeah Mommy!" I started crying. Where on earth did he learn that I asked. My teacher he replied. Now you have to give me a high five and sing my name! I sang and gave him a high 5, then I tossed him into his bean bag with his weighted blanket to take a nap. The nap didn't happen, but somehow we managed to have a peaceful, meltdown free afternoon.

How about a post with lots picture and random stuff. I guess it's all kinda related. I finally started the Harvest blocks from Shannon Makes Stuff. Did you you know it's illegal to sell spray paint in our wonderful city? I'm sure that ban has greatly decreased the amount of tagging. Yeah right. I bet the taggers have no problem heading off to the suburbs to buy their spray paint. I should have been like them and did it too. No wonder the paint at Joann's was $0.69. This is what the wood looked like after 2 coats of paint. I found some other paint that we used 4 years ago to paint a mural on Dill Pickle's wall when he was a baby. I figured old paint couldn't make it any worse, right?

Our wonderful pumpkins. Daddy had to represent his favorite football team while Sweet Pickles chose a happy jack o lantern.

Mama Pickles went with a scared pumpkin and Dill Pickles wanted a jack o lantern with teeth. Every morning Dill brings his pumpkin into the house and it goes everywhere with him. The bathroom, his bedroom, the basement. I think it's his new best friend.

Instead of real candles we used battery ones from Walgreens. The bigger pumpkins had 2 candles; the smaller pumpkins used 1. They worked out really well. Especially since Dill has been lugging his all over the house. :) Finally! The finished Halloween costumes. Aren't they the cutest race car driver and dalmatian you have every seen? I ended up making a hat for Sweet Pickles because I just couldn't see him keeping that hood thing on his head. Daddy Pickles helped me turn a pattern for a monkey beanie hat into a dalmatian. I told Daddy he should become a pattern maker.

Speaking of Daddy Pickles, I love him with all my heart, but last night at 11:15pm he came to me with a big hole in his work pants and asked me to fix them. I thought I had quite a few more years before the boys started bringing me last minute things. Maybe Daddy just wanted to help me get ready for them.