Good morning everyone! Hope your having a good start to your day.  At least you are having a start:)  I don’t know how bloggers and youtube people can upload a video everyday—I was aiming to do this every morning and then life happens and it doesn’t get done.

Last week was a busy week.  We had our family up for a visit, which went nice.  Then I had a couple of days rest and had a cookie exchange party on the weekend.  I will do a post for tomorrow.  Then exhaustion set in.  I spent the entire day in my pajamas and Santa stockings—thanks Sybil:)  I did nothing but lay on the couch and go in and out of sleep.  That depended upon which child would ask me a question because when Mom is sleeping, she still will answer questions?!!?!  I pulled out all of the food from the previous day along with the cheesy sausage soup and fed that to my family all day.

Monday morning came along and busyiness set in again:)  My “plan” was to chill for two days but that can’t happen when life happens.  My husband took the week off of work so that he could finish up all of his Christmas orders. In the mornings, I package and ship his stools and drop them at the post office.  Collin bought another car so I went with him to get it.  Then home to finish school and chores.  We are cramming another week of school so that we can just be done this week and enjoy the next two weeks off.  After the holidays we are going to have to revisit fractions and long division?!?!?!

Yesterday was just as busy, I got up and did more packages and then had phone calls to make and a car to plate and tag.  I was scheduled to meet Collin at the bank to sell his old car and of course I had to stop in at Goodwill to do a quick browse.  I came out with 3 new outfits and a couple of miscellaneous toys to add to my Christmas piles.  I am buying Greg a flat screen tv for our room for Christmas and wanted to check on some prices so I did that as well. I also grabbed some makeup while I was at the store.  I am not much of a make up person but as I get older, I see the need:)  I love summer because we live at the lake all the time.  Our skin is tan and there is no need for makeup—besides it would melt off:)  Now that it is cooler, my skin is looking a little pale.  Tammy got me some foundation the other day so I picked up more lipstick (coffee colored), mascara, and some blush.  I do that with eyeliner and call it good.  I love seeing the makeup skilled ladies that can look flawless but I don’t have time for that.  Simple and easy. Foundation was stretching it I thought, but it makes a difference.  I also grabbed a new wallet because I got a new purse for Christmas.  My husband bought me a Michael Kors purse.  It was the only thing I wanted and he let me have it early.  We will get the tv this week when we head out.  After he finishes up his orders we will venture out and get more gifts for the children.  I still need some things for the boys and then he likes to buy one more gift for everyone.

Evan loves to wrap and has done that for the last few years.  This year we put the presents under the tree.  Usually we wait till Christmas morning, but I am tired of a closet I can’t walk into!  I didn’t put their names on the gifts, instead I put the month they were born in on it.  Now the curiosity is coming alive!  But I realized that I have two December birthdays so my boys will be labeled another way:)  It was almost full proof!

Today is a chill day.  I woke up at 4 am and decided to just get out of bed.  We have four more days of school to do and will accomplish much of that today.  Lauren is taking the three girls: Jadyn, Brooklyn, and Autumn out shopping.  They have some money to spend and she can take them to pick out what they want.  I will help Greg get more packages shipped up and get myself a grocery list together for next week.  We have friends coming from Michigan for a few days and then it will be Christmas.

I was able to finally put together a video of the girls in the Christmas drama.

Hope you have a blessed day today. Focus on accomplishing one goal today.  Don’t overload yourself with lists.  Just pick one or two things and do that.  Enjoy and don’t forget to smile!

Good morning ladies.  Hope your having a great start to your morning.  Mine is starting early.  It is only 5 am today but I am up and ready to go.  I am not sure for what yet, but at least I am off and running with coffee next to me.

We had a busy last couple of days.  After doing all of those chocolates, I still had some baking to do.  I don’t know if anyone else has issues with altitude baking, but I do. I have not made too many drop cookies since moving to the mountains.  I normally do bar cookies, just out of them being easy.  But since I am hosting a cookie exchange this week, I needed to bake some cookies.  My choice of cookies are soft and chewy molasses cookies.   I made multiple batches and then put them in the refrigerator overnight.  I woke up eager to start my baking and did a couple of pans.  They were flat.  I turned down my temperature and added more flour, and that seemed to help.  But this was after multiple wasting of pans.  My chickens and dog sure enjoyed them! Aghhhh?!?!?  I don’t like wasting and that to me was a lot of wasting.  Oh well, live and learn.  I was going to do chocolate chip cookies but decided to just make the bar kind.  So much easier.

Then, the rain had cleared away from earlier in the week and it was turning into a beautiful day.  I decided on taking my crew to the Dupont Forest.  There are a couple of hiking trails that you can go see some  huge waterfalls.  I don’t have any pictures, because I didn’t take many.  I know, complete fail.  It was nice.  We were able to just wear gloves and sweat shirts.  Love that kind of weather.  Then Lauren met us with her children that she nannies and we decided on going to the park to play for a little bit.  We stayed for about an hour and then came home.  I pulled out the pita bread, spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, pepperoni, ham, bacon bits, onions, pineapple, mushrooms, and cheeses.  Everyone made their own personal pizzas for dinner.

We did baths because we had not done it the day before and cleaned up the house. My brother hung me some more Christmas lights outside.  Evan did a bunch around the decks and then we wanted to do a giant cross on the front of the house. I remember driving through the mountains in the winter and thinking, “If I had a house way up, I would put some really neat Christmas lights for everyone to see while driving through them.”  Now I get that chance:)   Next year we can do some more, but I will first have to get some lights after Christmas on clearance—they are expensive.  He did a great job, it looks really neat from the interstate.

Thursday was a get back into routine day.  We had been doing school all week and just needed to finish up a couple of things so we did that.  Cleaned the house and did laundry.  Lauren took the girls to a quilting class that made holiday stockings.  They had fun.

At our ladies meeting on Tuesday, Sybil made some cheesy sausage soup.    It was so good.  I knew that I needed to make it.  For last nights dinner I made it easy and did chicken strips and fries for the children.  I had the ingredients for the soup, so I made some and it was so yummy.  I am glad that I will have some for lunch today.

I finished my night with the heat turned up!  We have some kind of cold, Arctic blast coming through the mountains.  I made some things up for my cookie exchange on Saturday and tucked the children into bed earlier.  Today will be a day of running some errands after we get school and house work done.

I was asked for my cleaning schedule.  Posting it here . I have gotten much simpler over the years.  I can look back and see my Managing a large family series and all the detailed work I would have to do in planning out how to clean my home.  I guess it was because I had so many little ones and they needed more guidance, or maybe I have gotten simpler over the years.  Whatever the reason, this is what I use now.  I put it on my refrigerator and it is one of the first things I look at each day.  I know what I have to do for each day and it helps not to “stress” me out when I see fingerprints on the windows, because I know that I will get to them eventually during the  week.  I mean it helps so much more now that my children are older and can pick up their toys.  It seemed that the house always had some sort of mess going on, but now I can remind the child who left out their shoes, ear buds, book, tablet, toys, etc and they get them.   Except for those legos!?!!  We ALWAYS find legos:)  My boys love them!

I pray you have a good day today.  Smile, even when you don’t feel like smiling.  Gather up some ingredients and bake some cookies with your babies.  I know, it means more mess, but do it this one time and make it part of your holiday traditions.  I love you ladies and will talk to you next week!