I just read the funniest book I have read in a looooooong time. I was laughing out loud so much, Daddy Pickles came into the bedroom and asked me what I was smoking. When Did I Get Like This?: The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget Buyer, & Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be had me laughing so hard I cried. I marked passages to read to Daddy Pickles so I could show him that I'm not that loony. There are other moms out there who think and feel the *exact* same things as me. Gosh, there are so many stories in her book that I want to tell you about, but then I'd be afraid I'd spoil it for you. Run to your library and get this book. Now. You will need it. It will make you smile and be happy to be a mom. Amazon even has it for Kindle. I'm not an affiliate, I just want to make it easier for you to get to this book. Go. Now. Do it. Push all other books to the side of your nightstand and give this one a read.

Not a thrilling post, I know. But I learned the hard way that things on your hard drive don't last forever. My laptop crashed the weekend before Christmas and I was able to save a lot of stuff, but not all. So next year when I go looking for library books for December I can come right back here and know where it is.

A City Christmas Tree by Rebecca Bond
Christmas for Ten by Cathryn Falwell
An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco
Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney
What’s Coming for Christmas by Kate Banks
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro
The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola
Four Friends at Christmas by Tomie de Paola
Sharing Christmas by Kate Westerlund
The Spirit of Christmas by Nancy Tillman
Little Owl and the Star by Mary Murphy
The Bakers Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale by Aaron Shepard
The Friendly Beasts by Sharon McGinley
There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve by Pam Munoz Ryan
Mary, The Mother of Jesus by Tomie dePaola
Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson
The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski
The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola
A Pinata in a Pine Tree: A Latino Twelve Days of Christmas by Pat Mora
Joy to the World by Tomie dePaola
All for the Newborn Baby by Phyllis Root
The Mighty Santa Fe by William H. Hooks

I'm not sure what our book theme will be for January. Last year I'm pretty sure it was snow. I don't know if I want to do that again or not. I guess I'll know when I hit the on-line card catalog and see what's available at my library. Wish me happy hunting!

My goodness. I didn't post a darn thing in December, huh? I guess that's what you get when you wait until the middle of November to start sewing a birthday present and 4 Christmas presents. Every year I say I am going to start sooner. Go back and check my posts if you don't believe me. :) And each year I don't. Hrmph. Maybe one of these years I'll learn my lesson.

I have ben composing lots of posts in my head; do those count for anything? I'd like to post about the awesome capes, shirts, crowns, masks and arm cuffs I sewed for Christmas for my sons and my nieces. I also need to get around to documenting the Christmas books we checked out of the library so I know for next time. I guess I'll need to get right on that because most are due tomorrow.

And I've also decided I just need to take time for me. I love Daddy Pickles and my little pickles with all my heart and soul, but I just need to make some time for Mama Pickles. My sister gave me the book Run Like A Mother for Christmas. I've only read the first chapter or two, but it is already kicking me in the butt to start running again. I ordered new running shoes yesterday because I'm sure my pair from February are just too worn out as they have become my daily shoe.

I'd also like to clean up our diet. Daddy Pickles and I keep trying to eat healthy food and we succeed it at for a little while. Then slowly, bit by bit, all the junk ends up in the house again. I have no willpower. I don't. No matter how hard I try, if it's there, I eat it. Daddy Pickles promised me that he will stick to it this time. We're starting off slowly. No more store bought cookies in the house. I'd like to move on to chips and the like next, but Daddy Pickles wants me to cut out my Diet Pepsi. I don't know about that. I don't drink coffee so that's my morning joe. Who knows. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

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.

I know I try to stay anonymous on here, but we can let my first name slip, right? Heard of the blog ohdeedoh? They write about everything for kids and I was in one of their posts today! My friend Sarah was looking for a boyish dollhouse for her son and I told her about one my boys have been drooling over at Costco. Our friend Roni is a contributor at ohdeedoh and thought it was a great find too so she decided to blog about it! Read her post here. Check out the rest of the posts too. Some of the kids bedrooms are insanely beautiful. They would never last a second here.

Yahoo!! Both Halloween costumes are finished with time to spare! Here's Sweet Pickles in his dalmation costume. I still don't have a picture of Dill Pickles in his race car driver costume, but he is wearing it tomorrow for OT. Sweetie has his Halloween party at school tomorrow. He can't wait to be a puppy.

Well that's odd. My Google Followers hasn't appeared on my blog in a while. I finally decided to tackle it today. Some good ole Googling (is that even a verb?) told me that Google Followers doesn't seem to appear when you use the Shelfari widget. I deleted Shelfari and tada! My Followers are back. I dunno. I liked having my Shelfari there, but I like my Followers too. Maybe we can come up with a friendly compromise.