To-do To-done

Thanksgiving is in five days.

Correction: Thanksgiving that I am hosting at my house is in five days. Oh the to-dos to be done.

Lucky me, Andy was out of town this weekend (I do my best work when he isn't milling around bogging up my work process with critiques and interruptions) and my kids were content to play on their own without much hands-on momming (minus the fights over Buzz Lightyear, a bag of straws and a cardboard box).

This girl loves her dollies.

So after  an easy Fruity Cheerios breakfast and one "Peep" (best cartoon on TV), I threw on some background music for the munchkins and ... (drumroll and fanfare) ... washed my walls. No, I don't have pics, but my house smells like Murphy's Oil Soap, AKA heaven.

And I washed sheets and cleaned bathtubs.

And made the grocery list of all grocery lists (the actual shopping will happen Tuesday; I hate grocery shopping on Saturdays). And piled recipe cards.

And did not feel the least bit guilty about giving my kids crackers and peanut butter and Go-gurt for lunch because I threw in clementines and craisins.

Today was a big deal, friends. My number two complaint about being a working mom (number one is that I miss my kids) is that there is no way to squeeze all the homey work into one day, which generally means  stuff goes undone from one week to the next. But not today. Huzzah!

And now, at 9:03 p.m., the only two things on the day's to-do list that have yet to be conquered are:
1) Sign Porter up for spring soccer (why is it that I always forget the things with deadlines or appointments?), and 2) Get Halloween on the blog. Because my mom loves Halloween and may disown me if she doesn't get to see her grandbabies on a sugar high.

That was a whole lot of build-up.
Without further ado...

The prelude (Porter's preschool parade).

The beginning. After the first two sets of trick or treaters had already rung our doorbell. Far too anxious to smile or hold still.

The middle.

The sugar-dazed end.

And the reason I am glad my mom forced me to do a practice run with the costumes and the camera since I would be solo parenting on Halloween weekend (Andy's boss has since promised that she will not make him travel over kid-oriented holidays again).

He's flexing his muscles. He LOVED the muscles.

At long last: Halloween, check.

It is now 9:32 p.m., and I only got five of my ten toenails painted during naptime this afternoon.