Feliz Navidad amigos!

I'm a new lady, chipper and much more optimistic than in my last post. Its amazing what getting ALL my Christmas and baby prep shopping did to my psyche. Thanks for all your kind words of encouragement.

Saturday Stephen Grande let me out on the town to GET THINGS DONE. It was great to be so foot loose and fancy free. I went to Micheal's {twice}. I ate Chick-fil-a in my car. I breezed through Kohl's.

Friday afternoon, I made a commitment to rest, prioritize, and regroup from a things-didn't-go-my-way kind of week. And even though every inch of me wanted to deep clean my bathtub {b/c it desperately needs it}, I forced myself to read for pleasure and take a nap {which is what I needed more}.  I'm 60 pages into Gone with the Wind. Y'all, its good. I've seen the movie at least 20 times and thought there is no way I can enjoy this book since I'm so familiar with the story. But so far I'm intrigued. And its a nice break from parenting books.

In other news of AWESOMENESS, - I got a deep freezer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My dad gave it to me as an early birthday gift. Over Thanksgiving I started talking to him about how I wanted to cook and freeze lots of meals in preparation for the next year of my life with two small children at home.  Apparently he was just the person to confide in about this. After all, he is a man who owns a commercial size roll of butcher paper.

Last week I made three different meals and either doubled or halved the recipes to freeze. Talk about an emotional high - I'm on cloud three hundred and ninety nine. Each time I place a new item in the freezer my heart rate goes up.

Worth its weight in gold is the giant box the freezer came in. Parents of young children: Why do we even buy our children real toys when what makes them the happiest in all the world is a giant box?!

Stephen Small spent the entire weekend in this box {when he wasn't eating, sleeping, or playing in the other giant box we recently received from a diapers.com order.}

With such a dandy box on hand, Stephen Grande introduced the Smalls to the wonderful world of fort building. They had so much fun doing this while I was out Saturday that they forgot to eat lunch. That's men for ya. Women don't forget to eat.

Well, I guess I better sign off. Its time to hunker down for a cold week. SG has placed weather stripping on all our doors and given me advice to not 'get out too much' in the freezing temps. I can handle that.

I'm hoping to spend lots of time with my little one, building forts by the tree, and freezing meals for the deep freeze. Tough job, but someone's got to do it :)

Bundle up!