Everyday Live Happy

We had a great Christmas!  Of course we got great presents, but that isn't what I love about Christmas Day.  My favorite part of the day was a phone call that we got from our son who is serving a mission in Ethiopia.  We only get emails from him except for phone calls twice a year.  We got to talk to him for almost an hour!  It was great!  Of course that hour flew by, but that is okay.  Then we started a new tradition a few years ago.  We no longer get with extended family on Christmas (Aunts, Uncles, Cousins)  everyone is going every which way on Christmas.  So we started having a family Christmas party for all of our extended family on a different day during December.  Since I don't always have any of my brothers or sister or their families here on Christmas, I don't want my parents to make a big Christmas dinner just for us.  I don't want to make one either, so we came up with a great idea.  We make a huge breakfas...

Each week at church I get to work with the kids age 18 months to 11 years old.  I love it!  Some weeks it can be a little challenging when you have that many different personalities and personalities of the other adults who help teach their classes.  Most of the time though it goes pretty smoothly.  Since this is the Sunday before Christmas I wanted to give them a little gift.  I wanted it to be meaningful.  I wanted it to be an ornament preferably with a nativity.  I was having a hard time finding something that I liked that was both of those things.  Also it needed to not be expensive because we have a good number of children.  I was getting pretty discouraged until I saw this post on lifesjourneytoperfection.blogspot.com

I'm a girl so I really don't mind shopping, but I do not love shopping!  I like looking around, but I don't like the pressure of having to find a present.  Some people are very hard to shop for and I hate wandering around a store trying to find something that I think that they will like.  I hate that kind of pressure!  So we bought most of our big presents last weekend, but we still had a few things.  You know all of those odds and ends - stockings, my husband (I already had his big present), etc.  I am now officially done.  I will not be buying anything else because I'm not going shopping again before Christmas!  I do have to go and pick up a present that I ordered and had shipped to a store, but that is it.  Customer Service and I'm out of there!  I love it!  Now I just have to wrap everything.

We all have people on our Christmas list who are hard to buy presents for.  You know the ones who are either really picky or buy what they need or want when they need or want it.  We had two people on our list who fell into the "so hard to buy for" category.  I never know what to buy these people.  Also I don't want to give them the same thing each year.  This year though I think we did good.  We bought them both things that we had never given to them before.  I know that one of the people will like what we bought her - a Bath and Body Works gift card.  She loves their products just like I do.  However, I'm a huge believer in NOT choosing a scented product for anyone EVER.  What I think smells amazing, you might think it stinks and what you like, I might think is awful.  You can't choose certain things for other people and I believe that that is one of them.  So we got her a gift card.  (That is something that I would...

I don't know what it is about lights that I love so much.  I just know that I love them!  I love driving around and looking at them.  I just smile when I see a house and yard filled with lights.  I will travel distances to go see a large display of lights.  I live in Utah and so we often travel to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  Today my husband and I finally got up most of the lights on our porch.  He hung snowflake lights along the top of our porch and they look great.  We were watching a movie together as a family tonight and our couch faces our porch.  I kept finding myself watching the snowflake lights instead of the movie!  It was even a movie that I really liked!  I really do love lights.  They really do make me happy!

I love Christmastime!  I have a lot of decorations and I hate that I only get to use them for about a month out of the year.  This year I wanted to a lot of decorating before Thanksgiving.  I did get some done, but not as much as I wanted to.  Since I don't have a lot of time during the week, each day I am putting up more decorations.  I could get stressed that it isn't all done yet, but that won't get it done any faster and will make me miserable.  So I've decided that decorations will go up daily and I will just enjoy doing a little more each day.  No stress.  I can just relax and love the season.  Now that makes me happy!

One of my favorite things about holidays is being with family.  I come from a large family and all but one of my siblings were here for Thanksgiving.  So I got to visit with most of my brothers and sister and their spouses and kids and my mom and dad and grandma.  So much fun!  My husbands brother and parents came to our house for Thanksgiving. (So I got to cook.  Not my favorite.)  So we were able to visit with them too.  Some of them are still here and we will keep spending time together until they leave.  What a great weekend

I know that there are some people who put up their Christmas tree around Halloween.  I don't.  In fact, I normally don't put up our tree until Thanksgiving night.  This year, however, is different.  Thanksgiving is so late in November and we have company coming.  I wasn't sure that I would be able to get everything going up before December.  And I really do have to have things up by December 1.  So our tree and some of our other decorations are up along with our Thanksgiving decorations.  We are having Thanksgiving here and so I want my decorations up for that holiday, but as I said already I have some Christmas up too.  Makes for an interesting look.  Back to our tree.  Last year we bought a flocked tree.  It is very different from our other trees.  Since we were doing a different tree, I decided to use different decorations.  At our house gingerbread houses have been a tradition since I was a little girl and for ou...

Who doesn't like to save money?  I love it!  It is great!  One of the many things that I love about Thanksgiving time is the sales on so many things at the grocery store.  I was looking over the ads today and was so happy at the sales I found on items that I use year round.  I usually stock up on those items at this time of year to hopefully get me through until next time they go on sale.  It doesn't always work, but even if I don't have enough of somethings to get me through until the next sale.  I had more than I would have if I hadn't tried to stock up.  I get to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's side of the family this year.  He only has one brother so it won't be very many people.  (Something else to be happy about.)  So as I make my shopping list for all of the Thanksgiving dinner musts, there will also be some extra things on that list.  I will save so much money and that makes me happy!

I guess I should clarify.  Talented people who share their talents make me happy.  I can appreciate talents in others, but when they share them with others I am thankful.  I have sharing time at church this month and I'm always looking for ideas.  However, I want ideas that follow the sharing time manual.  I see some ideas online and I think that's a great idea of something to do, but what does it have to do with what we are supposed to be teaching?  I found the BEST blog ever it's  lifesjourneytoperfection.blogspot.com   She follows the manual and designs printoffs to go with the lesson.  And she does it all for no cost.  Her downloads are free.  I love her ideas too.  They are simple and straight forward and she even has a "script" that you can follow if you need to.  I have had a crazy busy week this past week and while I had looked at the theme for Sunday, I hadn't spent much time on it.  So on Saturday, I got on...

This morning when I got in my car to go to work, I listened to the radio.  Guess what was playing?  Christmas Music!!  I know that it isn't even Thanksgiving yet and I know that a lot of people don't like it, but I do.  I love it!  I can listen to it all day.  My family, however, can't.  They can only listen to it for a little while and then they want to listen to something else.  Not me.  I can listen to it for hours on end and still love it.  I love the Christmas season and am always excited for it.  The music just reminds me that it is almost here.  I also love Thanksgiving and we decorate and celebrate it, but I think that it's okay to have Christmas music early too.  Happy day and happy songs!

I don't know what it is about me, but I have a hard time finishing things.  Unless there is a time table - like a costume for Halloween or a gift that I have to come up with.  It actually irritates me.  I have a lot of started, half done, (or my favorite) almost done projects lying around my house.  Annoying!  I am also really good at getting side tracked so that finishing things around the house takes SO much longer than it should.  Well I didn't get a chance to take my Halloween down as soon as wanted to, so the other day I had some time and decided that it needed to come down.  I had the boxes to put everything in, so I started taking things down.  Now this usually takes me a few days to finish.  Don't ask me why.  It makes no sense.  So I decided that I was going to do it until it was done.  A couple of times I thought that I could get something else going at the same time.  Like throw a load of laundry in to be w...

I don't know what's been happening, but lately I have been crazy busy.  Between kids activities, church meetings, work meetings and everything else I feel like I have run all week.  In fact, this morning I left my house at 7:30 and didn't get home to stay until almost 6:00 tonight.  I was home for a minute to get Saige so we could go to her Parent Teacher Conference.  And then back home for less than 5 minutes before I had to leave for a work meeting.  By the time I got home I was TIRED!!  My cute family got their own dinner tonight so I didn't have to make anything.  Since then I have happily had nothing to do.  I sat on the couch and read with Saige and then just relaxed.  So happy right now.  It's good to have things to do, but it is so nice to have down time.  And I definately needed some down time tonight!

I really love the summer months, but something about the fall time makes me happy.  One of those things is warm, chunky, oversized sweaters on cold days.  You put one on along with some fuzzy socks and you are set.  Of course it helps if you have no where to go and can just curl up on the couch with a book or a cuddly child.  All good things.  My daughter has the same feeling about sweaters.  Last fall she sent us a snapchat of her wearing my husbands sweater.  He hadn't even noticed that it was gone.  When she went back to school this year, she took the sweater again.  In fact I talked to her today and she was wearing it right then.  I am happy in my warm sweater and happy that she enjoys them too!  What a great way to spend a cold day.

So with so much going on this past week (or so.....) our house has become a mess.  So today everyone helped and our house looks SO much better!  I love it!  When I said that everyone helped I do mean everyone at home helped.  That includes my husband.  He actually does a great job and will clean anytime he sees something that needs to be done.  It is so nice that he just pitches in.  With all of the help it didn't take that long.  Kids cleaned their rooms and helped with other extra chores and my husband and I tackled the bigger jobs.  Now my house still has rooms that could use a really deep cleaning (the bathroom tub for instance.)  But today was just about doing the surface things so it looked really nice.  It makes me so happy!  Now I'll do the really good cleaning room by room throughout this next week.  One room a day.  Awesome!

As I've said before, I love Halloween!  I love the fun treats, the fun photo opportunities, the movies (fun ones I don't do really scary) and the decorations!  I have some decor for this fun time of year.  I was pulling it out by the middle of September even though my husband kept saying it was too early.  I have continued to add to my decor stash this year though.  I have come up with a few more decorations thanks to pinterest and happily some of my own ideas as well.  For instance I have this old, ugly wreath that I had held onto but didn't love at all.  So I gave it a makeover.  A really good coat of black spray paint.  I am sooo happy with how it turned out!  I hung it on our front gate and it really stands out.  I also had this board laying around. Where it came from or why I have it, I don't know.  But we decided that it needed a new life.  My daughter helped me paint it.  I had spray painted it with black spray...

I have to admit that I LOVE Halloween!!!  Everything about it makes me happy.  The only thing that I'm not completely on board with is dressing up.  I don't really like that, but I love to dress my kids up.  This year my daughter has decided that she wants to be a peacock for Halloween.  I really don't like the cheesy costumes that you find sometimes so I decided that I would make one.  But I really wasn't sure how to go about it.  I knew that we could start with a tutu, but I didn't want it to just look like a girl in a tutu.  So I looked all over the internet and pinterest.  I found lots of costume ideas, but I also didn't want to spend a lot of money (costumes that had a complete tail fan of peacock feathers) or too much time.  I am not great at sewing so I couldn't pick anything too complex either.  I think that we finally have it worked out.  The tutu is done and now it is onto the finishing touches.  A few peacock ta...

Let me stress that I said baking makes me happy.  It always has.  Cooking however doesn't make me happy.  I hate the phrase "What's for dinner?"  Baking is done for fun.  Today I baked bread, cinnamon rolls and cookies.  Sounds like a lot I know, but it was great!  Of course we won't eat all of it ourselves we'll share with others.  My kids friends love eating cookies.  I love making things that I like and my husband loves.  He can't wait to get home from work today so he can have a cinnamon roll.  I love how my kitchen smells right now.  It puts a smile on my face! These are Reese's Pieces Cookies.  Just like chocolate chip cookies but with different chips.  I like to change out the kind of chips I use.  I actually have a stock pile of different kinds.  I will have to mention all of those one day because they make me happy too!

Okay I'm not saying that I don't do the right thing very often.  I'm just saying that when I do something out of the ordinary for me and it turns out right, it is great.  About a week ago I wrote about going and visiting a cute girl who had been hurt in an accident and taking her some "sunshine."  Today her cute mom came to drop off some cookies and a note from her daughter.  It was so sweet.  They are both amazing women who I admire a lot and hope to be more like someday!  Her mom said that her daughter had been having a hard day that day and that the gift I brought was perfect because she needed some "sunshine" in her life at that moment.  I was SO happy that I had taken it to her.  I love doing things for others.  It makes me happy.  (And that will go in the book too!)

Today two of my neices and one of my nephews spent the day at our house.  They ran, played and had fun.  My husband is a really great uncle.  He takes his role seriously and takes it upon himself to make sure that they have a good time at our house.  So after the kids had played with toys, with the hamster and had spent time playing in the yard, my husband took over.  He took all of the kids - including ours - to get ice cream and then we all went to the park.  So the kids ate and played to their little hearts content.  They had so much fun!  When they came back to our house they played Just Dance on the Wii and continued to enjoy being with each other.  It was such a great day!  I am so proud of my husband and his willingness to be such an awesome uncle.  He makes me happy!

I love the fall.  We are lucky enough to live very close to a pumpkin patch.  So we went with my dad and all the fun neices and nephews in town and went to visit the patch.  We all got on a trailer filled with haybales for a hay ride out to the field to find our pumpkins.  Everyone has to get at least one so we had quite a few.  Big ones and even a few small ones and my little nephew who's 3 found some strange looking gords that he wanted.  So much fun!  Now we have a few pumpkins to carve and some that we will keep through Thanksgiving for fall decor.  It's funny that pumpkins - and pumpkin patches - really do make my happy.  And yes, that will end up in my book!

I have been blessed with four wonderful children.  Our two youngest are still at home.  Our oldest is on a mission in Africa and our oldest daughter is away at school.  She doesn't live too far from home but she doesn't get home very often.  She hasn't been home since Labor Day.  But she came home today to stay until Sunday.  It's Fall Break for her school.  Our Fall Break isn't until next week so we won't be home with her all day everyday, but we still will see a lot of her.  So excited and happy that she's home!  Love my kids!

Today we traveled to my brother's house to witness the blessing of my new baby neice.  It was wonderful and so much fun to get together with all of my brothers and their families for a few hours.  I have a great family and I really enjoy getting to see them.  We don't live really far apart but we don't get together nearly as often as I would like to.  We do see them quite a few times each year so I really can't complain.  It just makes me really happy to see them.  I am also really happy because three of my neices and two of my nephews are coming down to visit for a few days this week.  No they aren't staying at my house.  They are staying at my parents house because we are lucky enough to live only a few miles from their house.  Family is one of the things that makes me the happiest.  And it is definately something that will be going into my Happy book!

Okay I guess I should clarify.  Giving gifts makes me happy.  I don't know why, but I like to give gift baskets.  Well not always a basket but I like my gifts to have a theme.  My go to baby gift is a soft blanket and a Goodnight Moon board book.  The theme there is story time.  You know you snuggle up with a blanket and read your little one a book.  Of course it's a little early for reading when you give it as a shower gift, but then they are ready to go as soon as possible.  And let's admit it, when you're getting ready to have a baby do you really start buying books?  So today I took a gift to a cute girl who lives in our ward and used to be one of my young women.  She was in an accident and has some injuries. She's got a long, hard road a head of her. So I put together a Sunshine Basket. I filled up a basket with yellow items.  There is a picture frame with a quote that is pink but everything else is yellow....

I finally figured out how to post pictures with blog posts.  You would think it would be easy.  I should have been.  I was doing what I was supposed to, but for some reason my laptop wouldn't let me.  So today I used our desktop and guess what.  It worked without any problems at all!  Yeah!  Now if I could figure out how to edit them I'd be beyond happy. 

Naps make everyone happy.  Okay maybe not everyone.  For instance, kids usually hate naps.  I don't know when that changes to wishing for naps.  Sometimes I even wake up thinking that I will take a nap in the afternoon.  Obviously, I need more sleep.  I could to to bed earlier but that never happens for some reason.  In fact on nights when I want to go to bed early, I usually end up staying up later than I want to.  No idea why.  But just the thought of possibly taking a nap makes me happy.  Now if I could just find the time to...........

I love traditions.  I think it's because they bring up good memories from the past as well as making new memories in the present.  We have a fun tradition at our house.  Every year at the first part of October we get together with friends to make Halloween Houses.  Every family creates their own work of Halloween House art.  We use graham crackers to make our creations.  This year I got ambitious and made ours out of gingerbread.  I couldn't find a pattern I liked so I had to make my own. We took our house and piles of candy to our friends house where everyone else brought their houses and piles of Halloween candy to share.  There were six families there.  Armed with purple, black, green, and orange frosting, we all went to work creating candy masterpieces.  The kids all ran around and played and every once in a while would come and help.  Sometimes they'd even help with other peoples houses.  It was so much fun!  I h...

Hi, I'm Jennie.  I'm a mom, wife, optimist and a generally happy person.  I've noticed that everyday things - work, cleaning the house, running kids around, cooking dinner, helping with homework, and so much more - gets in the way of enjoying life.  I felt like I was living the same day over and over with just a little tweak here and there.  So I was thinking that I needed to take time to find things everyday that I was grateful for or that made me happy.  To help me I made myself a "Happy" book.  I can write about what makes me happy and then on the other page I can get a little creative with pictures or other items.  Being creative is something that makes me feel happy.  This book has helped me think of things that make me happy, but I don't write in it everyday - not even weekly.  So I decided that I could start a blog where everyday I can post something that makes me happy.  Sometimes it w...