Holidays make me craaaazy

I love the holidays and the whole Christmas season, but now that I have not only my mom's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas for two girls, Karina's birthday the 26th and now Elena's January 15th, I'm uh, a little overwhelmed!  Trying to manage two girls, preschool parties and pageant, birthday party, Christmas shopping, craft shows that are fun to go to, and the rest of normal life is pretty hectic.

I can't even remember the last time I wrote a post about anything.  Anything!

Here's what we've been up to.  My cousin had her baby and he is sweet and tiny.  We met him on Thanksgiving when he was 3 weeks old.  He still did not weigh as much as Karina did when she was first born.  (She was 8lbs 8oz and he was, at 3 weeks, just under 8lbs).  My cousin also looks amazing, like she never even had a baby.  Meanwhile, I have yet to figure how to chuck the extra few pounds my beautiful lovely girls have left me with.  :-)  But it's okay, really.  I don't mind.  He was a sweet, if not sleepy, baby. 

My uncle had some surgeries to remove a mass from his bladder, which turned out to be cancer, but he is doing just fine and doesn't even have to have any kind of radiation or chemo or anything.  They just went in, whacked that crap outta there, and sent him home.  He has to go back periodically to be checked, but it was, I guess you can say, a mild case.  Thank goodness.

My dad has been out of town so no work on the playhouse for a while. 

I went to a massive, humongous craft fair yesterday with some friends and had a great time.  I wish they could widen the aisles though because every year we get stuck behind some annoying people who think it would be a good idea to stop right in the middle of the walkway and have a conversation.  (Am I whiny today?  I think I'm whining...)  It was a great day.  Breakfast at Panera and lunch at Cracker Barrel, and craft show in between with friends I hadn't seen in ages.  Definitely nice.  Then I left my phone in Steph's car...but she dropped it at the office of the school where she works, which is literally a few blocks from my house, so I got it today. 

Tomorrow we're going to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens.  That should be fun.  Oh, I know what I didn't tell you yet.  A boy in Karina's class got chickenpox, even though he was vaccinated.  Karina has been vaccinated too.  The nurse said it can happen, but it's usually a much milder case when it does happen.  So I had to get my mom, dad, and grandmother to be sure they had the shingles vaccine, had to tell all my friends so they could decide about the birthday party and stuff we had planned.  What a pain.

Elena is up now and she doesn't let me type but I will post this anyway so you know I'm still here!

It's the most chaotic time of the year...

It's not even Thanksgiving and it feels like the holiday chaos has descended upon us already.  This weekend alone I have had 5 different things going on and at least one other that I wasn't able to do.  The next few weekends don't look to be much better.  Plus, I realized tonight that Karina's birthday party will be coming up soon, very soon, and I have done all of big fat nothing to get ready for it!  Last year we held her party at the beginning of December, to avoid the holiday time, and it worked out okay.  I want to do the same this year, but I worry with the kids getting older that just coming over to play won't be enough.  But I don't know what else we can do since we can't count on good weather and I don't think the playhouse will be finished by then.  My dad is on vacation for a few weeks and with the hurricane I think it's set us back a bit.  Not that there's a timetable or anything.  I'm just eager to see the finished product! 

One thing we've been working on this weekend is switching my current craft room into what is currently our guest room.  The guest room is really big, and my craft room is really small, and we weren't really using the guest room once my brother moved out.  It just seemed so wasteful to have all that space just sitting there while I was crammed into this little room trying to share space with Karina, who wants to craft with me.  In the new room, I'll have a lot more space to sew, craft, and have my computer, PLUS there will be a whole space for the girls to have their own craft table!  This will be the best part because it will mean their stuff will be in their space, and mine in my space.  It means spending more time together AND crafting-wooohooo!  And as Elena grows up and wants to join us there will be room for her, too.  The room is so big we are even setting aside a small part of the room for Bill's bookcases full of books he rarely reads.  Ha ha!  He has 4 tall bookcases and 2 smaller ones, plus these two units that have some shelves and cabinets.  I had to beg and plead to be given one small bookcase for my own books when we first moved in.  And I can count on 3 fingers the number of times I remember him pulling out any of those books to use for anything.  They're mostly work books.  Anyway, he was so reluctant and resistant to the idea of giving up the "library" that I finally figured out how to let him keep his books and still get my craft room.  The two units (not really bookcases, more like modular shelves with cabinets, drawers, and a few shelves) that are nicest are going in our living room, at least one bookcase is going into the future guest room/current craft room.  He has a huge computer desk, too, and then the queen bed is also going into this new guest room...hopefully!  I've measured several times, and I think it'll all fit.  It's just going to be a little tight.  Karina and I picked out paint colors, and right now we're painting walls pink.  Then we'll be adding some kind of accents in navy blue, dark pink, and purple.  I just haven't figured out exactly what kind of accents.  But that's for later. 

I hope everyone is doing well!  Enjoy your weekend and hopefully this busy season won't run us all down before we can enjoy it.