little bits

Little bits of life from this week:

My mom, sister and nephew came to visit last weekend. We had a blast together.

My sister and I passed each other in the darkness of the living room and kitchen during the wee hours of the morning taking care of babies who don't sleep through the night. They made up for it with smiles and giggles. And Jackson is quite the snuggler. My kids should take lessons. Mason was a complete goofball showing off for Aunt Kates and Nana.

We wanted tiramisu. We thought the extra coffee would help balance out the sleepless nights. The sugar too. Our super gourmet local grocery store (ha!) didn't have lady fingers. Don't worry, we made our own:) It turned out great. I may have had leftovers for breakfast the day after they left.

I tore the house apart looking for our other camera that has pictures of all three kiddos together on our little trip down to the family property (hello fall...the leaves are starting to change) and the football game. I have no idea where it is.

We attended a chicken plucking party and butchered 12 of our roosters (along with about 50 more that weren't ours). A friend and I ended up with 5 gallons of fresh milk that we gladly turned into fresh mozzarella.

Also, I signed my life away this week at school when I applied to the National Board Certification program. As if I don't have enough on my plate right now. It's a wonderful professional development program and our district offers many benefits for getting certified. It's also an insane amount of work (portfolio, video taping my teaching, taking a bunch of tests). It doesn't sound too overwhelming until I talk to other teachers who have gone through the process and hear that no one in our district (that I know of) has passed the test the first time around.

We are working our way through 150 pounds of tomatoes. Crazytown.

Emma is chowing down on the rice cereal.

And Mason has a new bedtime routine that involves reading stories to Emma. Love it!