I know, I know!

I am just not so great at keeping up with updating or reading the blogs for the last few months. No excuses, just know that I know. Yep, I am horribly behind on all of the goings on of your lives, BUT I do think about all of you often (yes, all of you), and keep thinking I need to check in. I will. I promise.

So of course a million things have happened since I last posted. As always, life goes a million miles a minute, and I keep thinking I need to blog before I forget about everything. As such, this will be a bullet point post.

Baby Bean
This little girl is amazing. Seriously. She is so intelligent, and so sweet, and so sassy. We are most certainly in the Terrible Twos, but in the moments when I think I am going to lose it, I remember how much I love this little girl and how hard won she was.

So much has been going on with her. She is fully potty trained and in the big toilets that flush and I don't have to clean after each use. She says the most hilarious and insightful things. Like this morning she gave one of the dogs a bone, and her daddy and I told the dog to tell Baby Bean thank you. Baby Bean said, "Dogs don't talk." This is true. I found it funny that she let her dad and I know that.

She is turning into quite the little helper, and is starting to mimic me more and more every day. Last weekend I made potato cheese soup for dinner, and BB was right by my side the whole time. I would chop the vegetables, and she would put them in the pot. I would peel the potatoes into the garbage can, and she would pick up and throw away any errant pieces. It just melts my heart.

I bought her an advent calendar to count down the days to Christmas, and she is so disappointed every time she opens a door and there is nothing behind it, either because she has eaten it for the day, or I haven't put a piece of candy in for the day yet.

She is apparently still too young to ask for anything specific for Christmas. When I ask her what she wants Santa to bring her, all she says is, "Toys." So I try to guide her into "asking" for the things I have already bought for her. I seriously can't wait until Christmas when she can open all of the things I have bought for her. She will be a busy little girl for a long time.

The Dogs
Boltie has finally left the nest and gone to live with my MIL. I had a really hard time leaving him initially because I had grown so attached. I cried for a good 15 minutes. But I know he is in excellent, loving hands. As I kept telling him, "If you don't behave, I will send you to live with your dad." And I did.

He is adjusting to his new home very well and has become a member of the pack.

Maggie could care less that her puppy is gone. In fact, I think she was downright happy because she got her person back and no longer had a little leach stuck to her side. She was soooo happy when we got back home after dropping Bolt off. She was literally dancing around the whole night and so excited. So sad. lol

Life on the dog front has returned to normal, with both my girls curling up and snuggling with me in between chewing on chewies. Oh yes, and Mags got a new bed because Bolt decided to pee on her old one a couple days before he left. I guess it was his parting gift.

Elle
Not a lot to report here. I have been totally slammed at work and with Christmas. I ended up doing a cycle over Thanksgiving break, which I totally regretted because I was just too stressed out in general without the added cycle stress. It was so bad, my hair literally started to fall out and I had to take sleeping pills to knock me out at night. Otherwise I would lay awake and think about all of the things that still needed to be done. I love and hate this time of year.

Thankfully everything that was on fire at work has been taken care of this past week, and I am finally able to take a bit of a breather there. I had all of my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, which was awesome. Then it was just down to wrapping and sending the gifts and getting Christmas cards put out (those were done before TG too).

If all of that that isn't enough, I also bake a lot this time of year for my coworkers. Baby Bean and I made gingerbread cookies last week that I brought to work and everyone enjoyed immensely. (I have pictures and will post later.) It has become our tradition. Baby Bean has helped me make gingerbread cookies for the last three years, and I intend to keep it going.

Thankfully, everything on all fronts has slowed down. The presents that needed to be shipped have been wrapped and sent, and the first wave of Christmas cookies is down (2-3 more to go). I plan on baking some more this weekend and am going to try to get Christmas cards out. If I do that, I will only need to wrap presents from Santa, mom, and dad, and bake 1-2 more batches of cookies. Basically I am down to the enjoyable stuff and am able to stress less.

Just to show you a bit of what I have been up to, here is "Christmas Barf" at work:

This picture does not to it justice. It is much more spectacular in real life. I think it took me a few days to get all of this put together with some help from my coworkers. We had a good time putting it all together. My husband and I did a lot of decorating around our house too. Hubs put up a billion lights in our front yard, and I put up decorations all over the inside of our house. It has been fun.

I guess that's it for me now. I will try to be better about updating. :)