Totally On Purpose: What's keeping us busy

Dear Baby TOP,

Today is November 1, 2011. It's fun to write it: 11/1/11. Trust me on this. Some day this kind of thing will amuse you, too. And ten days from now? Fuggetaboutit. It's too mind blowing to bring up.

You've been treating me pretty well lately, but I haven't been treating you very well. No, no... you don't need to report me to the Department of Social Services or anything. I've just been feeling bad about the amount of chocolate I have been heaping upon you. So, yesterday - Halloween - at the height of a chocolate caloric/fat/sugar/caffeine high, I made the extreme (for me) decision to give up chocolate. Not forever. But until Thanksgiving. That's only a few weeks away. What I'm hoping is that when I allow myself to get back ON the chocolate, I'll have gained a bit of self control about it. As it stands now, if there's chocolate in the house, it's just not within my will power to NOT eat it. So, I've gone almost 24 hours without chocolate. I'm sure to most people that sounds dumb... because most people have chocolate only occasionally. Not me. I have chocolate ALL DAY LONG. Or, I HAD chocolate all day long. For real. Dark chocolate in my oatmeal. Sneaking chocolate chips all day when the stress of childcare gets me down. Chocolate milk with Sunflower Butter (SOOO good!). They just made my life so pleasant! But, like all addictions, all I wanted was more. You wouldn't know it to look at me. But I probably eat more chocolate per day than most people in a month. No lie. And it. was. amaaaazing. But that's over now. It hasn't been as bad as I feared it would be. I miss it, believe me. It will get harder in the next few days, I'm sure. I can see the finish line though, so I have something to look forward to.

Anyway, in addition to that, we ended one play (Little Shop of Horrors) and now our family is only involved in four more before Christmas: Grease (Dad's directing), A Christmas Story (all of us are in it), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Tommy & Elliott) and the All Saints Christmas Pageant (I'm in charge of it. It's going to be the same day that we close A Christmas Story. YIKES!) So, one storm has calmed and several others are brewing.

Deep breath.

Re-thinking chocolate decision.

Okay, only kidding. Just need to KEEP RUNNING and all will be well.

Here's today's gorgeous Cover Girl Worthy photo of me. The angle at which Elliott captured my essence really enhances my, umm, personality, don't you think?

Does my face not look like that of an old man? I believe it does!

Even for New Hampshire, October 29th is early for this much snow. We made snowmen out of pumpkins, so to speak, and enjoyed a little Christmastide Fun on Halloween. It's going to be 60 in a couple of days so Frosty will be outta here. Thank heavens. I like winter, but NOT until WINTER!

Thing 2 and Thing 1 before school this morning.

Here's a shot of the cast of  How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Elliott is playing a mouse and Tommy will be a random Whovillian.

"And they sing! And they sing, sing, SING, SING!"

Finally, this clip is a exercise they did at theater arts class. The boys are the 2nd Little Pig (Elliott) and the Big Bad Wolf (Tom). I wish I had been closer to get their facial expressions, but I think you get the idea. I HAVE to get ahold of that recording... Too awesome!

So, that's a little of what's been keeping me busy. Not very impressive compared to generating your organs and losing your tail, I guess, but it pays the bills.

Love,
Mom

P.S. Just a few weeks until we find out if you are a baby brother or sister. That's kinda cool, huh!?