Everyday Live Happy

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...