National Novel Writing Month Update

21,063 words so far! This has been much easier than I expected, although a bout of H1N1 last week really slowed down my progress. I am still on track, although I'm a little afraid to go back and read what I write while I had the flu. I was a little loopy at the time. Oh well, National Novel Writing Month is not about writing a masterpiece, it's about getting something down on paper and I have certainly done that. I can edit in December.

I Have Parted Ways With My Sanity

It all started with these beauties. I've been browsing at the Bake it Pretty Website for a while now daydreaming about actually learning how to decorate cakes and I stumbled onto these, the Vintage Village and Magical Forest cupcake topper sets.

So I bought them. That's right. I spent $30 (including shipping) on cupcake toppers. So of course, now I actually have to do something with them because otherwise there's really no way to justify a purchase like that. So I thought about it and decided that I'm going to throw a Christmas party for my kid's new school friends and the cupcakes will be the star of the show.

Picture it. My dining room table lit up with white Christmas lights on top of my vintage Christmas table cloth. Fake snow strewn across the table and little Christmas village cupcakes strategically placed to resemble a fantasy Christmas village. But wait. You can't have a Christmas village without a tree. A big one. Right in the middle of town square. But I hate storing things long-term, so I want something edible. Enter, the Cookie Star Christmas Tree.

Now, I may actually print that off and take it to my friendly local bakery to see what they would charge me for something like that, but if not I'm probably just going to go ahead and attempt it myself. Well, now that I have the Christmas tree and all the little villagers, I need an actual Village. You know, at least a church and some houses.

And an ice skating rink, which I'm planning to make out of a circular mirror. And Christmas music. And hot chocolate. And egg nog. And maybe A Charlie Brown Christmas to watch on DVD. And you know what, I told the kids my grand plan so now I'm really committed. It's going to be spectacular. You know, if I'm still awake to enjoy it after all that work. Oh well. I put on a holiday tea for 100 people last year at my church when I was 5 months pregnant. This couldn't be any harder than that, right?

Way to go Barbie!

It is now officially jacket season here in Minnesota, and along with that comes the frequent reminders (to both parents and children) that coats belong on the hook and books belong in the shoe closet. One member of the family seems to have gotten the message loud and clear. Way to set the standard Barbie!

Another Christmas Gift Completed

This set of napkins and pretty handmade (by someone else) soap is my Christmas gift for my friend Janelle. Janelle and I were best friends in our mid teens and then something stupid that neither of us remembers caused some sort of fight and we drifted apart. Over the last 6 months we've reconnected and it is so much fun to have her back in my life. As we' said after the first time we got together again, "it's just like old times except we're not nearly as screwed up." What can I say, high school was not kind to either of us.

I invited her over for coffee, with my mom's pretty German coffee set, of course, and gave her the present early. Her birthday is the week of Christmas, so I want to keep the birthday and Christmas gifts separate. I just love this pattern, and the soap turned out to match almost perfectly.

The Adventure Begins

So two days into National Novel Writing Month and I'm feeling pretty good. I've managed to write just over 10,000 words and they don't all suck. I am at the very least entertaining myself, and I've managed to give the kids and the husband their basic quota of love and attention at the same time. So what if the dishes are still in the sink. It's the price you pay for greatness. Or in my case, adequacy.

Halloween Fun

For some reason I haven't been quite as excited about Halloween this year as other years. Maybe it's the early snow that has put my brain in "winter mode" about a month too early. Anyway, I decided this week that it was time to stop being a Halloween scrooge and have a little fun. Thanks to Valerie's excellent idea I saved myself some money by making Halloween gift bags out of envelopes. Mine aren' quite as fancy as hers as I lack the ability to fold corners and just left them bottomless. They look really cute and the girls both loved them.


Cheyenne and Isabella have been having spooky playdough fun with google eyes and my Halloween cookie cutters. I love this bat.

I have replaced one cup of my morning coffee with a homemade version of a Hot Apple Blast. We got the apple cider at an apple orchard this Sunday when we went on an adventure. We took a road we had never taken before and ended up in Red Wing, a cute little river town south of the Twin Cities. Along the way we stopped at an apple orchard. In addition to the cider we got some of their homemade honey roasted peanut butter. Amazing! The hot apple blast is just hot apple cider with whipped cream and caramel ice cream syrup.

Tonight we are having a friend over to make jack-o-lantern pizzas, Halloween cupcakes and Purple Mermaid Punch.

For Aunt Fran

This post is entirely for the benefit of Zach's Aunt Fran, who I just e-mailed the link to my blog. I knew I had been bad last year about correspondence, but apparently I've been worse than I thought. It turns out we had neglected to inform Fran of the birth of the newest Griffith baby! Really. What kind of niece does that?

Anyway, I promised that the blog would be chock full of pictures of my kids and then realized that, since school started, I haven't posted many pictures of them. I'd post more of James, but I'm not kidding, he never sits still and they're almost all a blur.

So here you go, Aunt Fran. Can you even believe how big they've gotten.