Surprise! I’m catching up on my blog so you get two of these in a row.

Sunday:

Caroline took 2 dozen Nutcracker selfies

The Garde Arts Center in New London

I’ve taken this same picture almost every day this week

Monday:

SO MONDAY

Totally normal way to drink water.

He really loves his baby oranges

Tuesday:

This Tuesday is also very Monday

First try! I totally forgot how to do it but he liked being up there.

MATCHING

Wednesday:

Parking lot nursing sesh

Daddy doing an Elsa braid

MORE MATCHING

Thursday:

Red velvet cheesecake thumbprints

Beautiful toddler cookies

Superman helps make dinner

Friday:

More of me NOT walking the kids to the bus stop

Static hairs

Skeptical baby is always skeptical

Saturday:

Winter wonderland

Super cool superman

Caroline and her new best friend Kit at her birthday dinner

I was looking for an old post on the blog this week and ended up scrolling through tons of these iPhone photo posts from weeks 210-220. It was SO fun to see what we were doing 100 weeks ago (Evan was getting head stitches, I wore Lincoln in a lot of wraps, Caroline smiled). So even though this is a full 2 weeks late, I’m vowing to catch up and do better in 2017.

Sunday:

Baking day!

Helpers

Most of these are gone now.

Monday:

You go to the bus stop, I’ll stay on the porch out of the snow.

Penguin wearing

Making kale salad (which was delicious)

Tuesday:

Kitchen helper

Seriously, my kids LOVE cooking

At the Polar Express

Wednesday:

Cute brother time

King of Bedhead

More cooking

Thursday:

Blanket? Scarf? Blanket scarf!

I keep wearing this kid so I never get to wear the baby

Cookie makers

Friday:

Very patient cat

Snoozing through the Velvet Mill Holiday Market

Stuffing his face with dinner cupcake

Saturday:

They asked me to take their picture and posed

Again, this was at Caroline’s request

BEBEH SUSPENDERS

That last picture is from the day we took our family photos so I could order Christmas cards. Today, most people should GET our Christmas cards in the mail, thanks to my quick editing, remembering to buy stamps last week, and Minted’s amazing addressing service (not sponsored, I paid them a ton of money for cards, but the envelope address printing is SO WORTH IT). Almost all the wrapping and gift buying is done too, so most of this week I just get to relax and do Christmasy stuff like more baking, planning fancy Christmas appetizers, and watching Christmas movies. I might even get a long winter’s nap or too, because E has most of the week off. IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m a little late and fully into Christmas mode now, which is my favorite part of the year. I’d like to just live in the 4 weeks before Christmas forever. We had friends here for the holiday and it was so, so great. They did so much work/child entertaining that it felt like a vacation instead of hosting.

Sunday:

Super excited to give this to Evan for Christmas

The extent of my Thanksgiving decorating

Sibling cuddles

Monday:

First snow!

Linc likes “helping”

Hello cutie

Tuesday:

Making his Christmas list

The most beautiful wrap in the world

Sunset = same time as bus pick up

Wednesday:

Shop til you drop

Don’t even care what they watch as long as they’re quite for 20 minutes

Thursday:

Men doing manly turkey frying

Potato masher

Caroline is the quality control department

Friday:

Black Friday Hanna shopping

Linc was SO into decorating, it was adorable

More gingerbread building

Saturday:

Christmas tree hunter

Small town adorable parade

Tree is up!

For the record, I am still sick. It’s now been 4 weeks with the cough, that has now become a sinus infection, most likely an ear infection and a weird painful bump on the roof of my mouth the internet tells me is probably related. I’m almost desperate enough to go to the doctor, although I’m still 90% sure they’ll say “it’s a virus, nothing we can do”. Maybe just MAKING an appointment will scare the virus into going away. I’m pretty sure that’s how viruses work.

It is very cold and gloomy today. One fourth of my children are napping, but unfortunately it’s the only one who doesn’t really NEED to nap. But I got a bunch of cleaning done this morning, there’s chili in the crockpot for dinner, and I have secret chocolate to eat when they eventually do go to bed. So it’s not the worst Sunday.

Sunday:

He loves his lovies SO MUCH

Pokemon hunting

Local architecture

Monday:

So stylish

When Linc crashes, he crashes HARD

WHAT IS THIS BATH THING I NEVER HAVE THEM???

Tuesday:

We are both a total mess in this photo

Diapers, cat food, giant bag of jelly beans

Sitting down while someone else vacuums is my favorite

Wednesday:

Ridiculous baby outfit

The cat is SO DESPERATE she sat with the toddler

Sure, why not bring a giant stick inside?

Thursday:

Weirdo

But a happy weirdo

I can deal with happy (ps in the stroller, not the car, don’t send me car seat hate mail)

Friday:

Baby friends playing nicely. It was very confusing.

I shut him in his room for being a monster, obviously he was a tired monster

Finn likes Zootopia too

Saturday:

Zoo fun

Gorgeous weather

Target life

My throat sort of hurts but I absolutely refuse to acknowledge it could be ANYTHING except for very dry air in my house. We have important Thanksgiving plans, there’s no way I am letting germs ruin them. Fingers crossed I can get enough sleep in the next couple days to be back to 100% by Wednesday. It’s a tough time of year to stay well, especially when you’re only getting an average of 4 hours a night.

One of these days, I will completely forget what having a newborn is like and I’ll have to come up with something else to whine about. I can’t wait.

This was The Bad Week. I’m going to do the most recent week’s post tomorrow so I bump it down the page quickly. I still don’t want to talk about it.

Sunday:

Mini sessions day 2

Photographer life means ALL the throw blankets

I have the best clients. This had Boston cream in it.

Monday:

He was so excited about the fake oranges he needed real oranges

These are not outside shoes

Hates everything

Tuesday:

Nope, don’t want to talk about it

They’re having fun, I promise

Wednesday:

He’s OBSESSED

I “found” Everest, if by “found” you mean spent a crazy amount to replace the lost one

His hair makes me happy

Thursday:

D0N’T JUDGE ME I CAN BUY CHRISTMAS STUFF

More appropriate bus stop shoes

Her response to “Can I take a picture?”

Friday:

Kid Chess has very different rules than real chess

Always so judgy

A bin of baby clothes I haven’t seen in 6 years

Saturday:

Another gorgeous day at the seaport

Outdoor nursing in November

Very focused on stacking

I need at least 3 more weeks of outdoors weather before I’m fully ready to commit to my winter hibernation. Or at a minimum, it needs to not be frigid until after we get the Christmas tree and the lights up. IT’S SOON. SOOOOOOOON.