Tis the season

So, Thanksgiving was good.  We had my in laws here.  It was so fun and we had such a great, yet very busy visit!   Now we have moved right into Christmas.  I am up to my eyeballs in photo editing, decorating, crafting and party planning.  Not to mention we are doing a big fat road trip for Christmas and leave in 3.5 weeks.  What????  That means I have to have every thing done in 17 days!!!!!  My eye has started twitching and my stress level is in the red. 

 
I'll leave you with this photo of our tree this year, I'm off to try to get my panic under control!!

laundry- a tip

Today's post is about the dirty L-word...yes, it's laundry.  It's something we all have, it is never ending and can be downright overwhelming. Over the years, I have fought it, complained about it and ignored it, but it never went away and neither did my bad attitude.  So I refined my process and my attitude and I hate it a little less now. 


First thing to do is to figure out how you want to do laundry- daily, weekly, whatever.  If it works for you to save it all for one day and do it all at once then great.  That does not work for me.  In fact all that laundry sitting around makes me want to chuck it all in the trash and start from scratch.  I have found that what works best for me is to do a little bit every day/every other day.


I found these laundry baskets at Walmart.  They are tall, skinny and fit inside the closet in my bathroom.  As everyone in my family changes their clothes, they know to separate them into darks, light colors and whites (even my 4 year old) and put them into the appropriate basket. 


Each basket holds 1 load for my washer size.  So when a basket fills up, I take it down to the laundry and do it right away.


After the clothes have completed the wash cycle and dried for a few minutes I usually take shirts, dress pants and anything that would easily fade out of the dryer and hang to air dry. After the rest have finished drying I fold the load right away.  It's a pain, but it's so much easier then ironing wrinkled clothing.  Each of my kids have a collapsible mesh laundry basket that I put all their folded, clean clothes in.  Then when they get home from school they put them away.  This process works pretty good for me!

Fun Finds Friday 11-18

It's hard coming up with projects to post every week.  I would really like to post more often then that, but my kids need to eat and have clean clothes, I have to vacuum, etc, blah blah blah.  So I'm going to start a new weekly series called
Fun Finds Friday.
It's all about the great stuff I find thrifting or the fantastic ideas from others in Internet land.

Yesterday when my youngest was in school I had the chance to pop into Goodwill.  Thrift shopping is really hit and miss.  Sometimes I leave empty handed and sometimes I have to get a cart (or buggy as the southerners say) to hold all my treasures.  Yesterday was a "get a cart" kind of day.


Just look at my haul-


a tray with so much patina it makes my heart sing!
a silver bowl
a cute pewter bowl with letters and numbers around the rim
an enamel ware pot.  Added to my collection!!


And look at this pile of stuff.  It looks like a bunch of junk you say?  I say- just wait to see what I do with it!  Yay!

Have you found anything fun this week?


Linking up to:  Coastal Charm

Thankfuls

I can hardly believe how fast November has gone already.  1 week from today is Thanksgiving!  Crazy!  I joined about a million other people at Walmart today shopping for the yummy food we're going to make.  Yay!  We get to host our family again!  I am pumped!!!! I'll share more about my cooking process within the next wekk.

Since it is the month of gratitude, I have been writing in my journal (almost) every night for the things I am grateful for.  Some of them have included

  • our newly fixed DVR- I don't watch a lot of tv, just a few shows, but I had to go 3 whole days without my tv and I was pretty darn unhappy about it. 
  • doctors and modern medicine- I've been sick with a funky virus that caused a sinus infection and a strange rash for almsot a month.  Today is the first day (after 2 dr visits and 2 different prescriptions) that I am feeling pretty good!
  • that my kids are for the most part self motivated.  They come home from school and immediately do their homework without a lot of prodding from me.  I'm so thankful that they are such great students and get good grades!  Hallelujah!!
  • for my husband's job.  A few years ago he got laid off.  It was really rough!  Luckily he was able to find a job within a few months and I am so grateful for that.  Of course the pay off is that he now travels every week Monday -Friday.  I'm not saying that it's easy and there are a lot of times it makes me downright unhappy but all in all, I'm so grateful for his job that allows me to stay home with my kids!  PS If you are a kidnapper and want to capitalize on my husband's absence, he is home sporadically and I have a big baseball bat that I'm not afraid to use.  :)
  • my son's MDO (pre school) class.  He learns a lot, has fun and I am able to have just a little bit of time to myself.  I was able to go treasure hunting at Goodwill and Home Goods today.  I totally scored and can't wait to share my fun finds.
  • I am also thankful for my Savior, my family, my wonderful friends and the chance to have this blog. 

2 questions for you- What are your plans for Thanksgiving?  What are you gratful for?

children's lunch

Making lunch for all 3 of my kids day after day gets so monotonous.  Add in the fact that they are picky eaters and it's a snore. I'm bored to death making them so I'm sure they feel the same way when they open their lunch bags.  After weeks in a row of boring pb & j or turkey and swiss, I knew I needed to step up my lunch game.  I did a little research online to see how I could spice things up a bit.  After finding a few ideas and making them my own,  I think our lunches now are looking much better.


First of all, I gathered some supplies.


I use cupcake picks (from Hobby Lobby and Walmart), themed cookie cutters (Hobby Lobby), silicone cups (Home Goods), party forks (Target) and metal forks (Home Goods),


dinosaur and triangle shaped sandwich cutters (Walmart), and orange shaped sandwich cutters ( Perpetual kid)


and plastic containers (Walmart).


I just make regular sandwiches, but I cut the bread into interesting shapes using a themed cookie cutter, a sandwich cutter or this little shaper cutter.


Then I put it onto a cupcake pick.  It makes a sandwich so much more interesting.
  Add in some fruit and/or veggies, some pretzels or chips and maybe a little treat and it's done!

I store some of the cutters and picks in a drawer,


And the rest in a glass jar on my counter top.


All of these things are easy to do and make my kids lunches so much more FUN!!

Fall decorations

I have been thinking a lot about Christmas!  Who doesn't?  It's only a few weeks away and there is a lot to do to get ready for it.  But just because I think about Christmas doesn't mean I have forgotten Thanksgiving!  I LOVE Thanksgiving!!  I love the food, getting together with friends and family, the pumpkin pie, the fun games we play and how we usually stop and think about all the things we are grateful for!!

As usual, I love any reason to decorate my house, so here it is all decked out in it's Fall/Thanksgiving finest!


owl from Home Goods



vinyl from Stampin' up last year





Here is the orange magnet board, sporting a Thanksgiving sign.  It's a free printable from here.


The eighteen25 girls have done another fantastic holiday subway art with their Thanksgiving printable.


Becky Higgins made a poster for her family to write what they were grateful for last year and I loved the idea, so we are doing that this year.


This is our gratitude book that we have brought out every year for the past 5 years.  After Thanksgiving dinner is over, everyone who is at our house takes a few moments to write what they are thankful for.  It's such a fun tradition!



Last but not least is the turkey and reminders in the kitchen window seal, right above the sink.

What do you do to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday?



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Halloween re-cap

As my kids get older, it seems like holidays get busier and busier.  Halloween was no exception!   We had class parties, a field trip, the Ward trunk or treat, in addition to the regular business of homework, cooking, housekeeping, birthday parties, dance and karate class, and church activities.   I sometimes get caught up in the business and forget to have fun.  But thankfully I have 3 little people who remind me of what's important and to enjoy making memories.  This year...


we had a jelly fish,


an Anakin Skywalker,


and a 10 year old who thought he was too big to dress up any more.  We found this shirt at Kohl's and thought it was perfect.


All dressed up for the big night!

We trick or treated and had a great time.  I loved seeing these 3 so excited as they ran up to each  house to ring the bell and exclaim, "Trick or Treat" to the person behind the door.  My most favorite part was hearing them say thank you as they walked away.  When we got home, they did my other favorite thing, the candy trade!  They poured out their buckets and bags and passed favorites out to each other.  I made out like a bandit taking all the peanut butter cups!!  Go me!



Oh and here are some pictures of the Ward Trunk or Treat that I helped with.  It turned out so cute and it seemed like everyone had a great time. 



I already have the Halloween stuff all boxed up and stored up in the attic. (I may or may not have taken it all down before going to bed on Halloween night.)  I have done a few things to decorate for Thanksgiving  and will have a post to come soon!