Every year when Christmas rolls around, I crave those wintery nights when it gets dark early and it’s so cold I can light a fire in the fireplace. Then I want to curl up on the couch beside this imaginary, roaring fire with a good book and a glass of red wine. When this yearning hits, I really realize I’m an alcoholic because 1. I don’t have a fireplace, 2. I live in Florida, 3. I’ve never even sat besides a fire drinking wine, and 3. I’ve never actually had a casual glass of red wine ever. Awesome.

I got the ridiculous crazy stupid brilliant idea in my head- wait. That was totally a lie right there. I did not come up with this “brilliant idea.” I completely ganked it off the FAO Shwartz website. Let me start over.

I saw this amazing idea for a stuffed toy the other day on the FAO Shwartz website. Basically they send you the tool with which to create your very own softie. You draw it, pick out fabrics, colors, textures, trim, etc. Then you send your creation back to them and they make it to your exact specifications. How incredibly cool, no? Because I am cheap careful with our money in this crappy economy and Christmas is only right around the corner, I improvised with some construction paper and various colors of cotton velour. The Child created a masterpiece and I shall cut it out and sew it up into the exact doll, wonky ears and all.

I so excited to see how it will turn out. I’m such a dork like that. I thought it would also be a good idea for him to draw one for his brother and he can give it to the baby for Christmas. It’s that damn Handmade Pledge I took.

What I didn’t tell you is that my Perfectionism crept up and bit me in the ass Big Time. While the Child was drawing his doll and selecting the colors, I kept saying things like, “Don’t draw too much hair!” “Make sure the other arm is even!” “Don’t you want both ears green?” So before you start thinking I’m some kind of mother made from awesomeness, you can clearly see how much I suck. Because being yelled at while your drawing sucks. But I’m still partly awesome. There’s just a very nice balance.

I totally NaBloPoMo’d all over yesterday. I kept thinking, “I’ll do it later. I’ll do it later.” Well, later arrived to find me drooling on my pillow with the baby sucking the life out of me via my boob. Sweet. I knew I would make it a day or two and I’d start crying. I always over-commit. It’s starting to remind me of Christmas this year.

I’ve pledged to make 90% of my Christmas gifts. I’ll just give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor. I know. I know. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it either. It had something to do with my sexy, new sewing machine, piles of fabric, and oodles of dried lavender. I also had other ideas:

• Picture frames made pretty with magic additions of buttons, beads, fabric, paint, and a wood burner to which I would pictures of the children into. Because who doesn’t want the faces of my sweet, model-ready children plastered all over their living room? No one, that’s who.
• Glass, fabric, and knit coasters with drink mixes tagged to them. Awesome, I know. Everyone wants my Apple-tini recipe. Hint: I don’t drink.
• SOCKS! Such a sexy gift.

There’s more, but I can’t give away all of my secrets so soon. I won’t have any surprises left. That is, if I can find a moment in which my life isn’t being sucked out through my nipple to sit down and actually complete any of this.

This Halloween was officially Too Much Fun. At the end of September, I started decorating the house. Along the way, I discovered a horrible mouse infestation.

I didn’t bother calling the exterminator. I thought the mice only added to the spookiness of the holiday.

A scary black cat moved into our house.

I carved the most kick ass pumpkin. It was a Mouse Hotel complete with holes in which there were mice propped going in and out. I’d love to show it to you, but I waited too long to take the picture and the damn thing rotted last week. We had to get rid of it, but never fear! I have more pumpkins to share. Arrr, matey!

We also had a totally Punk Rock Pumpkin:

Bugsy painted a very scary Vampire Pumpkin. I painted a Piggy Pumpkin. We also had a Green Swan Pumpkin and a Baby Pumpkin for Baby Moo.

Darth Vader stopped by to hang out for awhile.

He also went Trick or Treating with us. Don’t tell him, but he really hogged all the candy.

We had a Baby Dinosaur. He sure was hungry because he was nursing on me! Crazy!

We ran into some weird clowns.

We had so much fun on a two hour hayride in which the kids trick or treated at the houses we stopped at. It was a blast.

We were even “Boo’ed!”

Which didn’t mean that nobody liked us. It just meant that some special person left a bucket of candy with a note on our doorstep for us to find. It was actually really sweet and I’m totally curious as to who did it. Hmmm, I wonder.

So, how was your holiday?