You better go put on your Thanksgiving bib, cause I’m about to spew rainbows and sunshine all over you. This post is the literary equivalent of a unicorn frolicking with sugar-dipped kittens while eating an ice cream sundae topped with rock candy. Your teeth might actually rot from your head before you can even eat your pie. Better have the pie first. I can’t handle that on my conscience.

Today I am thankful for you. YOU. Reading this right now. You are my thankful today and every day. I am thankful for every single person who has ever read my silly words here on my silly blog. I am thankful for the amazing advice I’ve gotten, the friends I’ve made or reconnected with, the support, the encouragement, the happy thoughts, the prayers, and the nudges back from the edge on the days I don’t think I can take it anymore. I am thankful for the people who read every day and the ones who have only read one post. I am so luck to have found a village – even if it’s a virtual village – in my journey as a mother.You have supported causes important to my heart with your time and your wallet. Because you read I get to call myself a blogger (when I’m feeling brave) and a writer (when I’m feeling REALLY brave). There truly are not enough words for me to express how much I love my corner of the internet and it is ONE BAZILLION PERCENT because of you.

I am not the best blogger or the funniest or the coolest or the most generous or the kindest or the most fashionable or the healthiest or the most creative or any sort of superlative at all. But I would like to try to be better at being a friend. If there is anything I can ever do for you – YOU – please let me know.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with as much food, football and family as you can possibly stand.

Today I am thankful that my best friend Erin discovered her love and talent for photography. Check her out on Facebook here on her website here.

Wheeeeeee! It turn out inviting every single person I saw for three weeks didn’t mean any of them wanted to drive out in a snowstorm to attend my Halloween party, so I didn’t end up with the huge crowd I was worried about anticipating. It also turns out all it takes to wear out my kids is running in circles for three hours (at least an hour of which was LITERAL running in circles – our first floor makes loop). Good to know, hard to replicate on a daily basis.

Most of the food was inspired by Pinterest, so check out my Halloween board here for details. I also used the free printables found here for some of the decoration and labels. I also FINALLY used the cookbook I got at The Creative Connection that had all the cute “gross” food in it. The rest of the stuff is a mish-mash of craft store decor and Target purchases that are probably not really worth listing. I’m going to force myself to limit the photos on this post to a reasonable semi-reasonable almost reasonable number, but check out the blog Facebook album for ALL the rest (probably only something you want to do if you were actually here and want pics of your kid.) They’re all kind of terrible, because the light in my house is terrible without sunshine – and we don’t get much sunshine during freak snow storms – but I can’t stop myself from putting them up anyways. It’s a sickness, really.

Pumpkin decorating station

The kids loved it, but next time maybe I won't set out so much glitter.

Spooky mantle decor

Little Evan's best friends are adorable

Hot dog mummies, dead fingers, ghost lollipops, zombie pizza (which was way cuter before it was cooked)

Clementine "pumpkin" pyramid

Sparkling cider & V-8 Fruit Fusion as spooky drinks, chocolate coverd rice crispie treats, mini donut eyeballs, ghost pretzel sticks

Sea monster veggie dip

Trifle with Death trifle

Penant banner & pumpkin lights

I don't think E was very happy I made him wear a costume

Too-dark photobooth was still a hit

Thanks for coming! Have a great night! Dinosaur rawr!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who came, and also HUGE apologies to anyone local who I didn’t invite in time. I passed them out at Stroller Strides a few different days but kept forgetting who had gotten them, so I promise you were SUPPOSED to be invited and I just suck. Next time I’ll just put a general party announcement on my Facebook and hope no creepy strangers show up. But YOU’RE not a creepy stranger, you’re a blog friend, so next time you’re invited too.

Whew. Now I’m going to spend a week cleaning my house and hiding from the thought that Caroline’s 1st birthday is in less than 7 weeks. Poor second child’s probably getting a store bought cake and a balloon.

I bet you’ve been waiting anxiously to see my official 1 year of iPhone photos post. I know it’s the most exciting part of your weekend. Unfortunately, it’s hard to type when my hands are full of mini powdered donuts, so I had to eat ALL of the ones left over from yesterday’s party before I got to today’s blogging. Don’t worry, they’re all in a better place now. Let the photo posting begin!

Sunday:

NOM PIZZA NOM NOM

NOM CUPCAKE NOM NOM

Thank goodness it was a padded room

Monday:

Caroline's new favorite thing is forts and/or anything that sort of looks like a fort. FOOOOORT!!!

"Uh oh mama! Fall denoun!" "No sweetie, you threw them."

Picture frames for the party

Hungry baby eats her own hand

Bathtime rave

Tuesday:

It was so scenic at the park for Stroller Strides it made me kind of nauseous. SO SCENIC. BLAH.

Party prep - sugar cookies!

She's adorable, even with snot on her face.

Shopping with my Kate Spade and my Dunkin Donuts is so much more pleasant that two screaming kids.

Good dog doesn't eat the toys even when forced to lie on them.

Wednesday:

More party prep - tiny pumpkins!

Sharing siblings are the best kind of siblings.

So, do you come here often?

Nice quiet knitting + gossiping with friends = my favorite night of the week

Thursday:

Mama, can I borrow your shoes?

Weight Watchers suggests making mini cupcakes to satisfy sweet cravings. I think we have different definitions of "satisfy".

Time to break out the slippers for the cold winter floors.

Friday:

Because OF COURSE the day your houseguests come is the day you should clean the toybox

The top blankie is MY baby blankie. I still love it.

MESS. It never real got better. Sorry party guests!

Me & Erin. We met on the first day of college and now have toddlers only 3 months apart. Isn't that the best?

Saturday:

Having 12 toddlers in my house suddenly made having 1 toddler and 1 baby seem SUPER EASY.

Tiny cheesecakes from my friend Heather. I think she's trying to make me fatter.

Four people in this picture think they are playing Kinect on the XBox. Only two of them actually are.

There you go! 52 full weeks of iPhone photos, which means I’ve unintentionally and successfully completed one of those 365-photo-challenges I never start because I’m terrible at follow through. TAKE THAT SELF. I DID IT.

For the record, the chair from my first week in iPhone photos is still sitting on my front porch. Oops.

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

Welcome to the way-back machine, where we take a look at Halloween costumes past. This was Amy’s awesome idea, but she agreed to share with me because she’s my BIFF (best internet friend forever). I was one of those kids whose mom handmade all her costumes, which NOW I think was awesome but at I time I thought was SO LAME. Why couldn’t I have a cheap plastic Little Mermaid costume like all the other kids? (I mean besides the fact that my mom wasn’t crazy enough to let me Trick-or-Treat in 40 degree temps wearing a seashell bra.) Check out some of the best ones:

(Apologies for crappy scanned photos – my mom did them as PDF’s & changing them ruined the quality)

I am probably 3 1/2 or 4, based on the baby swing for my sister in the background. This one was actually made by my grandmother when my mom was a kid - I loved vintage, even as a toddler! Except back then we called it "dress up".

I am a bride and my sister is a fairy princess. My veil was made out of an old pair of curtains and I can still remember exactly how they smelled. I have no idea why I am holding wrapped presents.

This time I'M the fairy princess and Carolyn is an angel. There were other years with the same tutus/wands/wings combos - princess bride, ballerina princess, fairy bride, ballerina fairy. Whatever. Gimme a tutu and a crown and I am HAPPY. I should add my mom hand sewed all the sequins to all the tutus in all these pictures. WITH HER HANDS.

I wore this costume to school and I LOVED it. My grandmother made it (including the wig) for my mom when she was a kid. I remember being really sad when I outgrew it a few years later and couldn't wear it again. And check out the super sexy base housing in the background (this was the only time we ever lived on base.)

This was the BEST costume I ever wore. Not only did my mom make the genie costume by hand (out of satin! which is so hard to sew with! Project Runway taught me that!) but she made it FOR HERSELF when she was in middle school. AMAZING! She made Carolyn the Tiger Lily costume (we were obsessed with the live-action Peter Pan with Mary Martin where Tiger Lily is a blond) and she probably made Drew's costume too. Mother of the decade, amiright?

And this one again, because we all look so great and because I like scaring my middle school BFF by posting pictures of her on the internet (She reads my blog! How crazy is that?!)

Now it’s your turn! Link up a vintage-inspired Halloween post. It can be a photo of your costume from high school, a story about trick-or-treating in your snowboots, or memories of your best costume as a kid. Whatever you want! The linky will be open all weekend so be sure to check back and hop around to see everyone’s posts and link up. It’s a great way to get ideas for Halloween next year – I am totally going to talk my mom into making make Little Evan a clown costume.