Looking back and Looking forward

Christmas was pretty much off the charts for us this year. We woke up to a blanket of snow and by the end of the day had between 3"-4". That's pretty much unheard of around here. More about that later...

Looking Back:
This time of year is somewhat bittersweet for us. It was the 6th Christmas without John's mom. I always especially think of her this time of year because she loved Christmas so much. So in honor of her memory I'm reposting this layout I did a couple of years ago.
The journaling is written to the kids and reads:
I'm pretty sure Christmas was your Nana's favorite holiday. She absolutely loved putting up her Christmas tree. I can specifically remember at least one year that she had it up before Halloween. She sure knew how to decorate a tree and she would put so many lights on it that it's a wonder she didn't cause a neighborhood black out. She loved to just sit and look at her tree in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I'm not really sure why she liked doing that so much other than it was just so beautiful.
I wish I could ask her.
I wish I could ask her what she was thinking about all those times I remember seeing her sitting there taking the tree in.
I miss your nana Wright.
I get so very sad when I think about how much she would have loved you and spoiled you rotten had she had the chance to know you. I wish you had the chance to decorate a tree with her. She would have loved that so much. I hope your daddy and I remember to talk about her, and tell you stories about her, so that you will know her through us.
It's hard sometimes.
Especially for your daddy.
But we want you to know how special she was and that she would have loved you with all her heart.


Looking Forward:
We are just hours before a new year. I have big plans for this year. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm being a bit over ambitious with what all I want to accomplish. Nevertheless, this seemed like a great place to get it "on paper".

Some of my larger goals:
•Getting all of our paperwork organized.
For years, every time we need insurance info, birth certificates, car titles, etc. etc. we end up spending HOURS trying to find it. There are currently 3 different places we have paperwork stashed and it's not at all organized.
A lot of it needs to be thrown away. ( I really don't think we need cell phone bills from 1999. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my drift.)

•getting all of my scrapbook pages in books. I now have 3 years worth of scrapped pages that need to go in albums. If I had to make a guess, that equals about 250-300(maybe more) pages.

•getting the clutter and stuff under control around here. This is probably the biggest one because it involves every room and closet in the entire house. Massive purging and organization needs to take place. And I need some kind of game plan to keep from being overwhelmed and to stay on track. This is a HUGE one for me, and to be honest I don't fully know how to tackle it.

•get the garage cleaned out enough so that I can put up a few shelving units for stockpiling. Since I began couponing at the beginning of 2010, I've discovered how much money we can save and how much stuff we can get for free. The one problem I've had is storage and/or pantry space. To completely take advantage of coupon savings, you really need to buy enough for 3-5 months when things hit rock bottom prices. So I need a few shelving units and some place to put them.

Those items are "stuff" related. Here are my other top goals.

•Daily Bible reading. This is something I've GOT to get better at. It's not easy to admit that I haven't done well with this lately. Our church congregation is reading the Bible through this year together in chronological order. I'm excited about this because John got me a chronological Bible a while back AND I have an iPod app with audio to go with it. I have no excuse to not do this!
I'm also hoping to incorporate our nightly story time with the kids before bed. No reason why they can't be a part of this too. Some days will be easier than others depending on what chapters we're reading for the day, but we'll make it work.

•start exercising and lose some weight. Isn't this 99% of the populations goal at the start of a new year? :)
I started Couch to 5k this morning.

•get on a better daily schedule. Plan tasks and errands for certain days of the week to include going to the grocery store and making my weekly coupon deal runs on the same day every week rather than just whenever I get it together. This also includes a more consistent routine for the kids.

I have more, but looking at this list makes me tired.
Happy Holidays everyone!

I hope 2011 is a great year for you!

Around Here..

We've been .....

Making Charlie Brown Christmas necklaces..

Playing "Angry Birds" on the iTouch..

Eating Cereal...

Taking lots of pictures in front of the tree..

And just generally being cute...

Hope you're enjoying these last few days before Christmas. We are!!

Let's Be Real

I have a bit of a weakness when it comes to taking pictures of my kids. I want them to be perfect. Or maybe not so much perfect, as I want them to look cute. And that's all fine and dandy (they ARE great at looking cute), but it doesn't show the whole picture. And if I'm using pictures and this blog to document our life, then we need a few more "real" pictures around.

I have been known to get the kids dressed out of their pj's and brush their hair, just simply because I wanted to take pictures of whatever it is we are doing around the house. Let's face it. If we aren't going anywhere for the day, 99.99% of the time nobody makes it out of pajamas. Less laundry. Right? So yesterday morning, when the girls were doing their usual, I thought about how I needed some pics of "the standard", and I grabbed my camera.

Both the girls love dressing up. But Abigail, does this thing where she doesn't put the dress over her head. She just sticks her arms through the arm holes and the dress drapes down the front.
Case in point:

How about that pink camouflage t-shirt? And she was watching Cinderella. Touche.

And Natalie. She has discovered the world of PBS and Nick Jr. on the computer. She loves playing the games on there. It's kind of a catch 22 because I don't want her to spend hours upon hours on the computer, but yet all those games are quite educational. I have a feeling she's going to be reading sooner than later. She already knows how to open up the browser, type "p" "b" "s" in the address window and pick the correct url from the dropdown list that comes up.
And it doesn't get any more "real" than this, with the crazy hair, and the completely cluttered desk.

And now that these pics are on the world wide web, I'm sure they will thank me later. Like 10 or so years from now. Kind of puts a whole new spin on breaking out the baby pics for boyfriends.

And just because I can't leave the boy out: Talking to daddy before bedtime.
I TOLD you my kids are great at being cute. ;)

Dixie Pieces *December Reveal*

So much for posting every day this month. There just aren't enough hours in the day when caring for 3 little ones!
I'm still playing catch up with my blog postings, so tonight I have the Dixie Pieces December kit reveal. This was a fun kit because it wasn't your traditional Christmas kit. Some scrappers have a hard time scrapbooking the themed events. If that's the case, this is the perfect kit for you.
I kinda felt like Sherry and Brenna (the owners) looked into my kids closets and custom made this kit based on their wardrobe. And that's happened more than once with the DP kits.
Here are my pages:




And a card.

Check it out here>>Dixie Pieces.

*Joe* the Elf

We have a visitor in our house this Christmas Season. About a week before Thanksgiving, the girls got a book in the mail from Santa. The book is the story of the Elf who will come stay at our house for the weeks before Christmas and report back to Santa every night. Each day, he's sitting in a new spot. First thing in the morning, the girls are up and looking for *Joe*.

So far he's been on the mantel, in stockings, on top of the fridge, just to name a few. And what's even more fun is that once the girls go to bed, before he makes his trip to the North Pole for the night, he has a little fun around the house. He takes self portraits AND posts them on my Facebook!

He colored a page for the girls:

He watched their favorite movie:


He's played with their toys:


We just never know what that elf is going to get into!

Sussies Reveal November and Dec. 2010

I am so behind with the blog. And I know I'm going to regret not keeping it up to date, so I'm gonna make every effort to post quite a bit more this month. First up I need to get up to date with my Scrapbook posts.
I never posted my pages from Scrapbook Sussies November. So even though we are in full swing Christmas mode. Here are the pages from the fun fall Nov. Kit.




So now on to December. I LOVE this time of year, and had so much fun with the December Christmas themed kit. I pulled out some of the pictures from last year for these pages. These pics are from the photo shoot with the girls for our 2009 Christmas card.

I still have one more page and a countdown to Christmas project that I made, but I haven't gotten pics of them yet. More Christmas stuff to come! Make sure you head over to the Sussies website and check out these kits.