Not Even Going to Discuss How Long It's Been.... UGH!

I had a bit of inspiration today to help me follow my Christmas Notebook Plan better than I have in previous years. For those who are not aware I am a major planner when it comes to events, especially holidays. As my children know I love to be involved in their class parties, which they are usually thrilled about, especially when I am in charge of the party. No art projects where they have to put everything in a a specific spot (aka Adult Art Projects), Bingo is not mandatory (we've played it a few times but if there is no interest it isn't a must), we have awesome treats without totally overloading on sugar, & we do a lot in smaller groups so it's easier for 1 parent to take each group & really enjoy the time with the kids. Creativity is SUPER in my book so the more we give them chances to create something with their own ideas thrown into the mix, the better & the more FUN!!!

Anyway the idea is to post what I need to do each week for my Holiday Planning & of course with my work week getting moved around a bit & we traveled over this last weekend I forgot to pull out my notebook for week one, LAST WEEK! UGH!!! I had it out in July making sure I had everything printed that I would need & the dates changed, etc. I looked at the pre-planning weeks in August & did a bit here & there so I thought for sure on Sept 1st I'd be ready to go, Haha!

Luckily week one is usually about printing & getting the entrance of my home clean, not super time consuming stuff so I am going to post it as it's own week & week two seperately, however I will work on them at the same time this week. Good thing one of my main jobs projects are light on the gaming projects this week so I should have some time even with the extra jobs I have picked up, love when those extra companies have some work in Richfield! So my next post will be week one, followed immediately by week two. Feel free to ask me questions to see if I am keeping up with my goals for my holiday planning & to ask what in the heck I'm talking about if you like! :-D 

I love the holiday season &being organized  prepared ahead of time makes it so much easier to enjoy the moment as it happens. Well for me 'Tis the Season so let's get cracking!!!

Has it really been that long.....??????

Okay so it has been a crazy 5 months since I last wrote. Baseball season started which means one kid on a baseball team & the entire family working at the local baseeball concession stand, adding menu items as we go (Jordan is very creative here!) also the kids help by telling us what candy we "don't have". Then in May we had our annual trip to convention, first one with just hubby & I since our 2 1/2 year old was born. This year was Washington DC!!!!! I LOVED IT!!!! Took hundreds of pictures, got to see the B52's in concert & way more. I'll have to post photos later.

Time to write

Well we are 11 days into February & I thought I should take a few minutes & write in my blog today. The past 2-3 weeks have been busy to say the least, ontop of the usual hussle & bussle that is our normal life with 2 adults, 7 children ages 2-17, 1 indoor cat, & 1 outdoor dog we have had all kinds of extra excitement. My grandmother on one side went into the hospital for a few days with a mini stroke, she is back home, has recovered her speech & seems to be doing well. While all of this was starting our youngest came down with a high fever on a Friday morning, no other signs of anything else until Monday afternoon, of course after the doctor office phones were turned off, poor thing broke out in fever blisters/canker sores all over her poor little mouth, no wonder she said her mouth hurt! Of course that morning her daddy had left to meetings in Albuqurque, NM & would not be back until late Wednesday evening. On Monday evening my other grandma died, she was 95 and had suffered from Alzheimers for the last several years, grandpa died 20 years earlier so I'm sure he was ready to have her with him now. In the meantime the 2yr old was in to the doctor on Tuesday morning & again on Thursday morning, by Friday she had finally stopped running high fevers & started to feel less pain.

Friday evening my 2 brothers arrived from CA & NV as did many aunts, uncles, & cousins. Saturday we had the funeral here in town & afterwards had an opprotunity to visit with several family members, many of us had not seen each other since grandpa's funeral 20 years earlier. I have thankfully become familiar somewhat with Facebook & found a few other members are on there as well so we have now started a family site to keep in touch & hopefully plan a reunion in the near future. Unfortunately I was without my camera as it had been sent in last month to be fixed, the check just came for a replacement so I will hopefully get photos from those who had their cameras there & were shooting away.

After the weekend was over I have started to recover the house, my routines, etc. Helps to have a small one that does not need to be held every moment of the day because she is in so much pain. Unfortunately now her dad has caught the 5 day flu bug that is going around, they thought he may have pneumonia when he went to the doctor yesterday (he's gone twice now that I remember for being sick since we were married 3&1/2 years ago). Thankfully he did not have pneumonia, just a bad flu bug & an infection so he is home resting (he has not been to work since Monday except for about an hour that he had to go for). Since he has been home I have tried to not go into our room & disturb him which has made me realize how much I generally go in there during the day for various items. You never realize how much you do something until you try to not do it for a day, week, etc. I have thankfully been able to stick to my routines which I have been sending out to many people lately thanks to making a comment on the FLYlady Facebook group, it's fun to see how much you are able to help others with something that you have created mainly to help yourself & your family. It is so nice to help others with something you have created/adapted for your own life.

Now if I can motivate myself to get the family room back into a decent order, it is the one room I am having trouble with, probably bcause it is the one area we have left with very litte furniture & lots of boxes. At least my desk is getting back to normal. I pulled out lots of albums to retrive old photos that needed to be scanned & shared with family members via the Facebook group we created this week. I'm so glad that technology can helps us share these things so easily now.

Well back to the laundry, unloading of a dishwasher, & various straightening up of desk & other areas. Perhaps after noon today I can get in some scrapbooking since I was able to go pick up a piece I needed to make my paper cutter work better.

Oh Yes, I do have a blog... Ooops!

For all who may be curious this is where I type from, organize, email, create scrapbooks, etc.

I cannot believe I have not posted on here for almost a month! Well it has been computer crazy time at my house, my screen decided it was time to die, literally there was no blue color left in my monitor! LOL Everything looks so cool now! I also had a video card that decided to go, a motherboard, the hard drive was trying to follow too! ACK!!!! My screen literally looked like it had very cool colored legos across the front of it, which brings me to my other electronic mishap, my digital camera decided to go too! So I did not take a photo of my interesting looking screen, instead said camera is winging it's way to the repair center via UPS, thank goodness it was about a month or so within the 2yr extended warantee so hopefully the shipping cost will be the only expense related to that mishap! Thank goodness for my dad the computer repair guru who lives just a block away & makes house calls! Below are the last few photos I was able to take before my camera just had to be sent in!

I have become a huge fan of Facebook & am on there daily, barring computer issues, or the occasional day we take off & get out of the house. I'll have to do more updating here later.



Little Girl in the Dryer!

It's snowing!!!!!!

"It's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing" to qoute a few of my children! Yes it is white around here, a few weeks before Christmas, Christmas Eve, and after Christmas it has been white. Annelyse loves to tell us it's cold everytime we go out, she is infatuated with the snow, mostly wants to eat it, unfortunately the variety on the ground where everyone has walked seems fine to her, ICK! So as much as possible I am staying in except when I absolutely have to go out & avoiding the icy roads.

Well I was home alone with 3 little girls to get ready & go to the light parade since hubby was involved with the Chamber of Commerce float & making sure the Comfort Inn float had a driver, etc. We ran over to our concession stand to pick up a dispensing thermos for hot chocolate, boiled some water, mixed in several packets of hot chocolate & put it in the dispensor. Packed a bag with cups, lids, marshmallows, & some cookies so we'd have a treat & something to keep us warm. Then bundled everyone up in their thermals, warm clothes, coats, mittens/gloves, scarves, & a few blankets , de-iced the van & ran out the door to get a good place at the parade. Of course about 2 minutes out the door Annelyse fell asleep so we put her in her stroller when we got there & covered her as well as we could, it snowed the entire time we were watching the parade, it was cold but a lot of fun! It is afterall an annual tradition & we had hot chocolate to warm us up as we watched. Ashlyn insisted that when we got home she was going to have a bath to warm up, & she did! Annelyse I think decided we were nuts as she woke up outside in the freezing snow part way through the parade! LOL She's probably right! ;-) Oh well, it was fun & that's what matters. It looks like a White Christmas alright!

Searching for our Christmas Trees

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Well we took off to look for a Christmas tree on a friend's property up on the mountain with 6 of the 7 kids. Stopped for hot chocolate & breakfast items, donnettes, etc. and we were off to the mountains! It was gorgeous, difficult to get some shots with so much sunshine & white powder everywhere. Some of the snow was up to my knees so poor smaller people in the family had snow waist high that they were trudging through. Annelyse has decided that she loves the snow! She is very big on making & especially throwing snowballs! I think she got my camera at one point, ACK! Overall it was a really nice day to go up, with the sun out it wasn't tooo freezing cold & it was a fairly safe day to go up with a bunch of kids. They had a ball choosing our trees & helping to cut them down. A few are camera shy, so I told them if they hid their faces I was still going to post their photos! LOL Enjoy our Christmas music along with our photos!

Merry Christmas!