Here’s what I’m thankful for this year:

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is how October looked to me while at work:

Intimidating. Yeesh.

Here is how October looked when I wasn’t at work:

We became a Brownie. How cute is that uniform? All the Moms insisted on the beanie caps. My vote was for purely photographic and scrapbooking purposes. Can you blame me?

We hung out with family.

Celebrated birthdays and flexible little girls.

We roasted pumpkin seeds.

And carved that bad boy. The kids and I love eating roasted pumpkin seeds (olive oil, garlic salt, kosher salt) – the tall man does not. Whatever. More for us.

The grand finale – Halloween.  Oh yeah, and a Gator football game.

Look at all those characters!

Hannah Montana gets a lift from her Mom.

Davy Jones & Lady Liberty (my favorite statue) graciously posed with me before heading out for the night.

Now it’s November… and I don’t anticipate things slowing down anytime soon.  

1 – Cello

1 – Huge addiction to Facebook.

6 - Little Brownies in the Troop

1 – Trip to the midwest

1 – Additional Hotel

2 – Fried computers

A bunch of birthdays.

And some pumpkins.

Okay, so I lost count.  Hey – I said it was busy.

We decided it was time to try our hand at gold mining. I mean, the economy isn’t that great, so maybe we could strike it rich and retire this way. Sure… it could happen. 

It was worth a try. And we did find some gold… flakes, anyway… and some rocks and minerals.

See! Look at all those treasures!

Speaking of treasure… take a look at these gems:

See – I told ya we were rich!

An exerpt from my evening:

“Hey Mommy.”

“Yes, Sweetie.”

“Guess What?”

“What?”

“Today at school people kept asking me the same question. Guess what it was?”

“What?”

“‘When are you getting your cast off?”‘

“What would you say?”

“Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. And Mommy, guess what?”

“What?”

“I had everyone sign my cast. And guess what?”

“What?”

“My teacher signed it too. And Mommy, guess what?”

“What?”

“Erin and Audrey were acting silly with me today. And guess what?”

“What?”

“When I have my birthday party, I want to invite them.”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

“And Mommy, guess what?”

“What?”

“There was this episode of The Suite Life with Zach and Cody (which sounds like she says ‘thesuitelifeofzachandcody’) where London wanted everyone to think she liked animals but then Maddy told everyone that she had a fur coat, and guess what?”

“What?”

“She pretended to save an animal and guess what she did?”

“What?”

“She had Cody pretend to need her help with the animal, so guess what he did Mommy?”

“What?”

“He said “hey-person-I-don’t-know can you help me with this sick animal?’ so then London came over and guess what?”

“What?”

“She said ‘I would be happy to help person-I-don’t-know’ and she gave the animal mouth-to-mouth.”

“Well that’s just silly.”

“I know. And guess what Mommy?”

“What?”

“I read my paragraph to my teacher today and guess what?”

“What?”

“She liked it.”

“That’s great, sweetie.”

These are some of the best shows on TV. I’m serious. You MUST watch them.

• True Blood on HBO : This show is awesome. And I’m not just saying it because I’ve read all NINE of the books that this show is based on and I happen to be obsessed with vampire books lately. Oh, all right, it might have a little something to do with the books that Charlaine Harris wrote, but only because they’re so freakin good. Think Twilight, but for grown-ups… like alcohol drinking, relationship consumating, R-rated grown ups.
• So You Think You Can Dance : This show is just plain fun. The dancing is so inspiring and even though the judges can sometimes be a little grating on the nerves (think: screams) they’re grating in an endearing and supportive kind of way. And I love hosts who genuinely seem to care about the contestants – and Cat Deely is definitely one of those hosts. Not to mention, she has great hair and super-long legs. I love this show and it’s something the whole family can watch. Lucky you there’s a new season starting in a few short weeks.
• Mad Men on AMC : This show is so darn cool… in a Frank-Sinatra-Rat-Back-Behind-the-Scenes kind of way. The shows are beautiful and retro and dramatic and quiet and completely addicting. The acting is amazing and the fashion is fantastic. Plus it makes me appreciate NOT living in the 1960’s when women wore skirts at completely inappropriate moments (cooking? doing dishes?) and were looked at as servants, baby makers and cocktail servers. <<shiver>>

Now really… what else could you possibly be spending your time doing? Reading to your children? Feeding the homeless? Coloring the gray out of your hair? (that reminds me of something *I* should be doing…)

Pshaw.

Get thee to the TV.

It’s always nice when co-workers think about you while they’re on vacation.

Then again… maybe not.

Imagine the coincidence… all of our husbands decided to get us tickets to see Legally Blonde on the VERY SAME DAY! And… if that wasn’t cool enough – we were all sitting next to each other! Are they good or what?

So – on a Saturday afternoon we met here:

I had never been there before – but hope to go back many, many times. The theater is beautiful & has an amazing history.

We arrived (only had to circle the block once) and got ready to see a great show! It was terrific! The cast was talented and the show was awesome!

Me and the girls… only one blonde in the bunch! After the show, Jamie, Robin and I went to dinner in this neighborhood - which was really cool. We found a neat place with some of the best people watching ever and enjoyed some Southern cooking. (shrimp and grits - yum!)

What a great way to spend a Saturday – blonde or not.

Sometimes I need a little push to get to scrapping again. And lucky for me I know just the gals. We three need a challenge every-now-and-again to get the mojo flowing.

It started with the song lyric “and the reason is you”. Jen thought it was a great idea. And then Jules reminded us that she had already done a layout with that same darn song lyric – a year ago. (so much for my original idea)

We went with it anyway… it had been a while since we were inspired. Here’s what I did with it.

I love this photo of my crew in NYC. It’s a favorite that I have all over the place – home, office, and now in my scrapbook. Lots of different brands and “stuff” on here. I’m happy with how this came out.

Since I was on a roll, I decided to do another one.

I mean, I had some shamrock paper and these cute photos my mother-in-law took of the kids… so why not?

That was about the time my roll came to an abrupt end. No more layouts for me. Oh well. It was a small burst of inspiration, but a good one.

Because after this incident, we won’t be needing it for a while… a long while. Forever if it were up to me, but the little girl insists she’ll be getting back on it.

Mack broke her arm when she fell off of her scooter & broke it straight through. She also skinned her knees up so bad; and I had never seen so much blood. (ughhh) We went to the Emergency Room and got her all fixed up.

I really didn’t expect to rush to the ER to have x-rays taken of the girl. I would’ve bet money that the boy would’ve been first. But noooooo… it had to be my precious little delicate flower of a girl.

A few days later we visited the Orthopedic who put the permanent cast on her after x-rays and readjusted the bone in her arm. That was no fun for either one of us… but especially Mack.

See this girl? This girl didn’t know that her bone was going to get popped back into place.  If you look at her wrist you can see a bulge from where the bones were not landing right. I had a feeling the doctor might have to do that so I made sure Blankie and Melody (the red pajama’d penguin) came with us.

I asked the nurse for pain medicine… for myself… but she just laughed at me. I was serious.

After the “realignment” – Mackie felt a whole lot better… however, I was still weak in the knees. It took me two days to get over having to take her to the hospital & now I had to console her while we waited for the doctor to squeeze her arm so hard it would push her bones back into place. That SUCKED I tell you.

She got to choose what color cast she wanted  and even got stripes. (two shades of blue – blush and bashful – okay, just blue)

We stopped for a chocolate shake on the way home. They didn’t have any with vodka in it.