So I am so sorry for the break in blog posts. I’ve pretty much given up sitting down these days. 😉

We are in the midst of such a FUN but incredibly busy and crazy and exhausting time of our lives!! My sweet, precious Parker Bear has pretty much decided that sleep is just not something he’s super interested in, so we don’t do too much of that around here. And he’s crawling everywhere and getting into everything now so adding him in with my crazy big boy and I spend a lot of my days feeling about eight crayons short of a box.

And today marks FIVE DAYS until Match Made releases on Kindle and Nook!! Five days!! Augh! I’m so so excited!! 🙂 I absolutely LOVED writing this one and I so hope that you guys enjoy seeing what the gang from Miss Match has been up to. 😉 (And an extra note because I’ve been getting a LOT of emails about this – yes, it will ONLY release on ebook right now. I am SO sorry for the confusion/inconvenience/frustration this has caused!! You can download a completely free Kindle app for your computer or smart phone if you don’t have an e-reader and I do completely understand and agree that a paper book is best! For right now though, this is the only way that I could make this story available to you guys. Hoping that I get to release it in paperback someday but as of right now, it’s only going to be available on ebook. Again, I’m so sorry!!)

So, with that in mind, I’ve got a fun contest coming on Wednesday!! 🙂 Keep your eyes open for it!

And here’s the next installment in our happenings lately! Maybe I’ll be caught up by the end of the year. We can hope anyway!! 🙂

Have I mentioned it’s impossible to get a picture of two boys both smiling at the same time? And Parker is not too down with anything being on his head, so this lasted all of about .008 seconds. 😉

Thanksgiving was pretty low-key this year and it was WONDERFUL. We went to Mom and Dad’s and Jon left and played football with my brother and some friends while we worked like crazy on birthday preparations and Thanksgiving dinner. Parker fell asleep on Pops while we were busy cooking and, considering this baby’s feelings toward sleep, that should have given me a clue about what was coming but I was a little preoccupied. 😉

He pretty much just changed hands throughout the day. Bless his heart. By this point I knew he wasn’t feeling very good. 🙁 So sad that his first Thanksgiving was spent feeling yucky!

All the girls!! Love this beautiful women. 🙂 We SO missed Caleb and Nicole!! I miss them all the time but it’s especially obvious on the weekends and holidays (and all throughout May… name that quote!).

Me and the biggest little brother. 🙂

Little love. He’s loud and goofy and never stops talking or singing or moving but he’s just the funniest little four year old I have ever known and he’s all mine. I adore him.

And then, the day that Nathan has been waiting for since December 26, 2013 came around and Freddy Frinkle came back to our house the day after Thanksgiving. 🙂 Nathan is still pretty obsessed with nutcrackers, so Freddy brought a package of nutcracker ornaments with him.

Such happiness has never been seen before. Ha! 😉 There was quite the celebration that morning when Nathan saw that Freddy had really come!!

Life is good. 🙂

On Friday, after months of planning, we had a surprise party for Jon and oh did we surprise him!! He was shocked. Completely, one hundred percent shocked. I had him totally convinced that I was taking him to dinner at a surprise restaurant and then I had my mom “leak” the restaurant I was surprising him with so even he didn’t even think he was getting a surprise. Then, when we were supposed to be dropping the boys off at my parents’ house, friends and family all surprised him with the party. It was so fun – such a wonderful day!!

His dad, brother and sister-in-law all got up at 2:30am Friday morning and drove the whole way to the party. We were SO glad to see them! And Jon was so so surprised and excited! So thankful for these people!

In another surprise though (and not a good one at all), Nathan, Jon and most of the family and friends at the party ended up getting either food poisoning or a stomach bug that then lasted through the rest of the weekend. Such a bummer. But I am thankful that it hit after the party! 🙁 I was basically bathing in essential oils to keep myself well and somehow I avoided it. But it was a LONG weekend and we all sort of felt like we were in some zombie movie wondering who was going to succumb to it next. Jon’s family left on Sunday and I found two teeth popping through the surface of Parker’s bottom gum on Sunday night.

So we spent the next several days really not sleeping and on a constant dose of Tylenol and ibuprofen and lavender oil. Poor baby. He had a very rough time getting those two little teeth through. The right one in particular was in and out of the gum several times – we fought hard for those teeth!

Okay. On to merrier subjects! What are you MOST looking forward to this Christmastime? 🙂