Sigh… Gearing up for the Holidays

I am so sorry that I have been delinquent about blogging, but, as always, I come armed with some good excuses.
1. My MAC is still driving me a bit nuts. I think it’s time for one of those online tutorials. I would love to put some pics on this blog, and do a million other things, but I don’t know how. I know I will figure it out, and grow to love this thing, but right now I am stumped!
2. Halloween turned into a weeklong marathon of parties and festivals during which I, the non-baker, made 200 mini muffins from scratch for the Harvest Moon Festival (at Lola’s school), a batch of rice crispy treats shaped like pumpkins using Erewhon Brown Rice Cereal for Lola’s class party, pumpkin seed cookies (using a recipe from Weelicious – so good), pumpkin pancake sandwiches (also Weelicious), brownies using Hodgson Mills Insta-Bake baking mix…
3. I am frantically preparing for a photo shoot with a friends sister at my home, on a weekend when a million other things are going on. I’ve ordered two amazing custom dresses from Etsy with the girl’s silhouettes on them for the occasion, and I have oodles of other outfits to squeeze in to one shoot.
4. I have been spending an unhealthy amount of time annoying my friends with all my Pinboards on Pinterest, sending out frequent reminders to my husband using Cozi, and organizing all my recipes using Ziplist. Yes, they are all finally working, and they are all amazing!
5. I have lots and lots of catalogs to look through. Ah, the pressure!

Actually, the real pressure is coming over the next couple of months: Thanksgiving at my house this year, with my family, followed less than two weeks later with our annual Christmas party December 3 (still no theme – how do I do New Orleans without doing French – which I did last year.; The food will be cajun, because it will be catered by our restaurant), followed the very next weekend by Eva’s nutcracker themed birthday party, a tea party preceding a trip to see a children’s production of the ballet, followed by Christmas with Kevin’s family, but again at our house. And for the first time ever, I’ve done no Christmas shopping yet and ordered no invitations.
Sigh. Who am I kidding? I totally love it. Because, despite the craziness, this is my absolute favorite time of year!