Oh, lots of stuff.

It has been quite the month around here.  In the interest of time and getting anything else accomplished I will give you the shortened version, with pictures, naturally.

We welcomed lots of wonderful guests for Thanksgiving this year.  It is so fun for us to have visitors so we were very happy to have my lovely cousin and her family with us again (I regret to say that I took no picture of her entire family, just go see last year's picture, they are delightful, I can assure you.)
my brother and sister in law that we adore,
and our fun friends all the way from Virginia (they loved us enough to drive a very long way with lots of kids.)
We had fun hanging out and playing and eating and all other appropriate Thanksgivingish activities.
We followed up Thanksgiving weekend with a trip to Boston with the Millers, had lots of fun at the USS Constitution (with awesome kids museum) and a hike up the Bunker Hill Monument which I was sore from the next day...Mia gets honorable mention for her little 4 year old legs climbing all the way up AND down on her own.  We also went to the Old North Church and saw the outside of Paul Revere's house (we were a tad late to that one.) I conveniently thought that I had left my camera at home this day, allowing me to enjoy myself without worrying about taking pictures...my camera had all the while, been sitting right in my purse.
By Sunday morning our guests were all gone and that very night we picked up my wonderful Mother in law from the airport.  Calling her an angel would be the understatement of the century.  She has watched my kids for this entire last week and not only fed them, drove them to and from school, did homework with them and clothed them, but had all of my laundry finished, folded and put away, clean sheets AND an extra dinner prepped and left in the fridge for our convenience.  Amazing with a huge, capital A...even though it leaves my husband believing that a homemaker should be capable of doing all of these things with ease AND making batches of holiday treats for everyone's enjoyment.  Love that caramel popcorn.

I spent all of this last week with my little brother in Spain.  He had a rather unique and random opportunity come up to take pictures for a group of families there.  My friend Amy, who I know from years ago in Virginia, assembled quite a large group of families that were interested in having their pictures taken, enough to pay for the trip and his costs of taking and editing the pictures.  His wonderful wife Sho, who is normally his lovely assistant, could not get away from work so I was the lucky fill-in.  My job was hair-smoother, boogar checker, reflecter holder.  I'm not sure that I earned the trip with my skills but I sure enjoyed myself.  It was so fun to see Amy and her darling family (how can you beat school uniforms and little kids that speak Spanish with an amazing accent) and 5 star accommodations.  Their house was beautiful, the food delicious (as evident by the multiple helpings at each meal...she even graciously allowed me to finish off each night's salad out of the serving dish with my fork.) It was like hanging out with a sister.  She showed us around and took us to neat places when Spencer wasn't working.  It was truly a unique and amazing experience and I am so grateful that I was able to go.  (So look to his website in the next few weeks to see the work that he did there.)
It doesn't end there!
I arrived home on Tuesday evening, woke up to snow and made it to the airport Wednesday morning to say a grateful and sad goodbye to Grandma and a happy hello to my sister Sarah who is visiting now for the next few days.

The party just never ends around here.
So I apologize for all of my negligence and lack of attention to all of you people that I love so much...but don't count on it getting any better until the year 2010.  I gotta find my groove again when all has subsided.
I may be tired and a little discombobulated with a laundry pile already up to my armpits again, but I am having more fun than I can say.

(Pictures from Spain will have to be another post, I am having technical difficulties...my computer seems to think that I am trying to post too many pictures. Too many pictures says I? Psha. Is there such a thing?)