{ update }

I'm back! It feels like it's been "Fooooor-eeeev-er!" (said in Sandlot voice) School is finally over and I'm free! My boys no longer have to live off of fast food and hot dogs. Poor things. My son's birthday weekend was a success and now all I have left to do is get ready for Christmas. I'm kind of feeling like the Grinch this year because we skipped out on a Christmas tree. (Which is so off for me because having a Christmas tree -and the smell of it- in our home is what really makes it feel like Christmas.) I guess I was just too burnt out and busy to even bother going out and buying one. Random -but I decided instead I wanted to buy a lot of real plants to put up around our house to make it feel a little more...lively. Besides being Christmas treeless, I have been getting excited for my son because this is his first Christmas that he'll actually be excited about. I love the imagination of a child so I've been teaching him who 'Santa' is by watching Christmas movies on Netflix to get him pumped up for the big day. I managed to teach him "Jingle Bells"...and every time we sing it or he hears it he has this little dance he likes to do to it. I need to record it! But of course I still want my son to know the true meaning of Christmas so I've been teaching him who 'Baby Jesus' is. My mom has this statue at her house of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus and when Safi boy saw it he wouldn't stop hugging and kissing the statue. He kept saying, "Sesus, Sesus!" I guess I should have got that on camera too. I'm slacking. We also started coloring. Here's one of his pictures we did together. Even though it's just a couple scribbles...I'm so PROUD! (I'm pretty sure only mommies could relate.)

I told Saf all I wanted for Christmas was this...

An Australian Shepherd puppy! I'm still stuck on having a 'family dog'. Our son LOVES dogs! Plus I want one I could go running, horseback riding, and to the beach with. Oh, and one that I could teach to go to the fridge and bring me a diet coke without me ever having to get off the couch -I've seen it done before. He said "No, one-it's not a man dog (whatever that means?) and two-I don't want one if we don't have a yard." Ok, I guess he's right with his second reason, but not the first. He said if anything we're getting Rottweiler. But like I always tell him, "You might (think) you wear the pants...but who wears the panties?...And which one do you think is more persuasive?" HA! Anyways, I guess this one will just have to be put on hold.

Other far more important events that have happened in my life recently...I gave up diet coke, at least for now. My drinking habits became too severe! After I started drinking it every day to the point where I barely drank water, I knew I needed an intervention. So I quit. No relapses yet. But I did have a relapse on my sleep-eating disorder. Ugh! And I hadn't had one since I wrote that post! So I woke up the other morning and found a trail of chocolate chips on the kitchen floor and all over the counter...with no recollection of making chocolate chip cookies the night before. (And there's no way it could have been my son because I keep the bag of chocolate chips high in the cupboard or my husband because he wasn't even here.) Embarrassing! A part of me thinks this is HI-larious and I just laugh about it. But the other part of me is saying, "OH MY GOSH! I'M A FREAK!!!" Maybe it was all the stress from school catching up with me, in the middle of the night. Ya...it was just the stress... Eh, anyhooow -hoping these next few weeks recharge me. I'm looking forward to spending them with my family, my Love, and my son.