The fact is I AM BUSY*. I work between 36 and 50 hours a week at night, sleep a few hours during the day and still manage to be a full time mom every other waking minute. That leaves very little time to sit down in front of a computer and spend time typing.

Not to mention the fact that my husband is always hinting that my few precious evenings at home with him should not be spent in front of a computer screen romancing the internets with my wit.  Especially since (if all goes according to plan and you internets people keep prodding me in the right direction) I may or may not be persuaded to possibly admit that I am kind of sort of maybe or maybe not hoping to embark on another nine months of water retention and swollen ankles sometime in early 2010.  Maybe.  MAYBE.  But anyway.  Ahem. 

I started this post days ago with the attempt to fill it up to HERE with pictures.  Pictures galore! I tell you but then… sigh… then my laptop started freaking out LIKE IT ALWAYS FREAKING DOES and it was taking 10 minutes to open a single file and I quit.  I did this several times before I wizened up and just started updating my Flickr account.  SO.  Without further adieu…

Airplane watching.

Finger pointing.

Generally looking cute.

Wheely bugging.

No really, REALwheely bugging.

Hot chocolate.

Hot breakfasts.

Early morning attitude. 

Laughing.

Crafting.

Baking.

Loving.

Crying.

Practicing for the street life.

Growing up a little.

Growing up a lot.

I’d love to post the 2 1/2 minute video of her first school program performance but I am choosing not to for several reasons.  1) There is very little “performing” from the Hobo unless you consider a generally uncomfortable facial expression and sitting like a lump in the teachers lap a performance and 2) There are a ton of other kids in the video and I’m not one to post videos of other peoples kids without their permission.  Let me just tell you, it was really, really cute and she was REALLYREALLYREALLY-NO REALLY, I REALLY MEAN IT! -SHE WAS SO DAMN CUTE!

I would also like to post a clip from our Christmas morning but it’s on Kevin’s HD camera that is only able to be uploaded on his (not a fraction as crappy as mine) computer and the odds of it ever being seen by human eyeballs is slim to none.  I’m still waiting on my wedding video he promised.  SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS AGO.

Love that guy.

But really, the footage from Christmas wasn’t all that bad considering I had worked until 3:45am Christmas Eve and didn’t crawl into bed until 6am Christmas morning.  Oh-and Avelyn and I were fighting the BIG BAD COLD OF ALL COLDS.

Do any of you watch 30 Rock?  If you don’t, START WATCHING.  It is one of the funniest shows on television.  For reals, y’all.  (That was me channeling Britney Spears there, so you’d know how serious I was).  Anyway, after the “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001″ episode (Watch it.  NOW. And not just this episode. THE WHOLE SERIES.) I was more than a little worried about the sandbags of fatal exhaustion I had hanging beneath my eyes that the HD camera would surely emphasize.  Turns out HD decided to go easy on me and my sandbag eyes.  Probably only because it was Christmas but still. 

I was more than a little impressed with myself, which is rare for the self deprecating hate monkey I carry around on my back.  Maybe I really will start taking better care of myself in 2010.  It would be about time.  Maybe I’ll hold onto the one true thing I can always count on in life.  That this day, and every day I wake up, is a day I will look better than I will the day after, when I’m older, wrinklier, and more dried out than I was just one day before.

Hope your days have been as merry and bright as mine.

*Alternate title: Oh my gosh. That idiot finally wrote something.

• I could update Flickr which hasn’t been touched since summer.
• I could spend two hours pulling together a really great blog post I’ve been mulling over.
• I could make a list of all the stores I need to hit, and the supplies I need to buy to finish Avelyn’s Halloween costume.
• I could organize the office that looks like a hurricane 18-month old hit it and find my insurance card I’m missing.
• I could unload and reload the dishwasher.
• I could fold the 4 piles of laundry that have been sitting in the corner for 5 days collecting wrinkles.

But it’s 8:49pm.  And I think I will watch my completely full DVR and read Twilight in bed while the two ice cream sandwiches I just consumed sit happily in my belly.

I just LOVE my nights off at home.

We paid for it in full, straight out of my bank account.

Paid for it.

IN FULL.

It’s a grown up kind of exciting.

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Avelyn’s growing up too.  In fact she recently discovered that she herself had a baby.  I’m not sure what the baby did to get Avelyn to notice her, but Baby Cupcake (it’s a work in progress) just looooooves to be rocked by her Little Momma.

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I just thought we are having so much fun at bath time now that I wanted to share a few clips from our night.  And by fun I don’t mean the toys being thrown from the tub that smack me in the head, the screaming that commences on Operation Clean Hair night or the water poured all over the floor followed by outrageous laughs of glee.  I swear, she has such an infantile sense of humor.