What a week!!!

And it isn't even over yet!! But I have made it to Tennessee so I expect things to get immensely easier. We will be celebrating Christmas with my mom's family Saturday and then we will celebrate with my parents Sunday night before we head back to Frankfort on Monday. Getting here was no easy task. As you well know, I did mostly crafty gifts this year..and I got most of them done well in advance. That didn't mean they were wrapped in advance. So add that to the to do list for this week along with baking 5 different kinds of cookies...I don't even want to think about the amount of butter I've gone through. Luckily I did get a pretty strenuous workout in this week to offset some of that cookie dough.

Man, I love cookie dough....

Luckily, Joseph, who has been rather clingy and moody lately, decided to be a big boy and entertain himself (at the expense of Smokey) most of the time. He did help do some stirring, and his new thing is putting salt in stuff. He's really gotten interested in cooking...which is good. So, although baking took way longer than usual, it got done without a crying child and/or..well, let's just be real....a crying me. I started making dough on Monday which helped a lot and then baked everything on Wednesday. If you are wondering why, it's that I am giving away cookie baskets. Surprise to those of you reading this that will be in Savannah! Hope you like cookies!!

So, cookies are done.....gifts are made and wrapped..I'm good, right? WRONG. I completely forgot about one person...and they are not the kind of person you can craft for...so Joseph and I were off to shop. Oh and did I mention that Joseph and I had been out running errands both morning and evening for the past few days since Michael has been out of town...what? I didn't mention that I was all alone? I don't see how single moms do it. Those of you with toddlers know that running errands takes about 2 to 3 times as long when you have the kid in tow.

Shelby was out of dog food on Tuesday so we went to get it. He eats special food for dogs with allergies, but I didn't want to go to Petco to get it because then we would be there for a long time while Joseph was hanging with all his animal friends. Luckily, I found some at Tractor Supply. SCORE! I had needed to get Spice a mineral block and some treats anyway.

I finally get home and realize that I don't feed Shelby that kind of dog food anymore (I swear, baby brain never goes away)...I switched him to IAMS....which they don't have at Tractor Supply. So, off to Petco we went right at bedtime (and this was our 3rd trip out in one day). We were there for probably a good half hour, but Joseph was pretty good about telling all the animals "bye" one at a time and then leaving with no fuss. I don't guess I've mentioned how good Joseph has been during all this running around.

So last night at about midnight, I gave up and went to bed. The house was not as clean as I had wanted it to be and I wasn't as packed as I would have liked to have been, but I was walking death at that point. I don't think I had sat down for more than 10 minutes in the past 3 days (except to sleep of course).

This morning, I realized we had no kitty litter. UGH. Do you know how many places I've been in the past week that sell kitty litter?! So I got the house pretty well tidied up, the car loaded (so glad Michael was meeting me at my parents bc there was no room in the car), threw J in the back...didn't even buckle him in...I kid I kid...of course, he was strapped in...and headed to buy some kitty litter...and some blueberries (not related, Joseph just wanted them and then proceeded to eat the entire pint!!). We got home, I threw the litter in the litter box, threw the dogs in the car and said sionara to chaos!!!!

What am I talking about? I am traveling with a toddler...and that toddler is Joseph...chaos is a part of my life now. But he's a pretty cool chaos...and he bought himself a lot of lenience this week since he was so good while I was being a single mom this week. Now I'm just happy to be with family and excited to see even more family and friends during this whirl wind trip.

I hope you are all having a nice calm holiday season...although I know you aren't. I'm going to have one starting now....and if I haven't bought you a gift by now, you aren't getting one...because I am DONE! :)

Oh and get ready for a lot of cookie posts....I'm going to be doing a cookie week hopefully starting Monday!!