Everyday Live 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 our family since we've been married.  I have picked up

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 her site and printed off her cute designs

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 washing at the same time.  But I know myself and I knew th

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!