Christmas is coming!!

Can you believe we are one day away from the last month of the year!? Where has 2012 gone?

Everyone is working on their lists and checking them twice my mind is on what I haven't accomplished yet that I wanted to, and on next year. Still working on the asking, listening, and responding. The daunting amount of life I know that is coming weighs me down. I don't want it to though. I have to remind myself that God isn't giving me more than I can handle.

With that being said... hello Christmas season!

I have though, accomplished quite a bit. Grandparents gifts are done and on their way to me. We made the kids no-sew blankets as an early Christmas present to enjoy all season. I only have the tiniest bit left to get for my nephew and his gifts are done. The trees are up (not decorated). One batch of my grandma's Pfeffernusse cookies have already been made. At least 2 more batches to go. It's not Christmas without them. We attempted taking our own family pictures with not a ton of success. And that's about it for so far... ;-)

(pardon the phone pics quality)

We have a ton planned to try and do this month though. Last year we didn't do anything so we are looking forward to all of the ideas. This weekend is jam packed! Starting today...  We are finishing up our week of school work, making peppermint bark and a start to our Christmas cookies baking session and hopefully getting to making some ornaments for the tree tomorrow. Oh and I need to write out our advent calendar for tomorrow! Tonight we are going to a light parade that our neighbors dogs are in. The kids love Lukey and Laney and can't wait to see them walk the parade. They also heard that these 2 adorable doggies have a direct line to the "big guy" and are super excited about that. Tomorrow... We are decorating the Christmas trees, putting Christmas lights up on the house for the first time ever (I'm not sure who is more excited... my husband or the kids *wink*), taking another stab at family pictures around the pond in the our neighborhood, and going to a town tree lighting. Sunday... We have church and small group.

Nap time yet!? heehee

Can not wait to start a whole string of new traditions this month.

We were scheduling the entire month of December off from school but with the move that isn't going to be able to happen. Although it's nice to know that we have some wiggle room to catch up the little we need to. The kids aren't to excited about it (OK only my oldest isn't) but I promised them it won't be a huge workload. Are you schooling over the month of December?

Anyway, Christmas is about to get into full swing here and we couldn't be more excited. Our 3 year old has hit the age he really starts to enjoy it, and our other 2 are chomping at the bit for Christmas to fly in. I love this time of year and the reason for this season.

Merry Christmas, Everyone! Can't wait to see God brings into this time of year!

With that this picture below is an oil pastel my daughter made the other night thanks to HodgePodge's free tutorials. If you follow me on Instagram you've seen this already but I had to share again. So proud of her and her love of art!

She combined 2 tutorials into one...

The fireplace
The Christmas Tree

There are more wonderful free tutorials if you or your child would love some fun (FREE) art ideas.

I'd love to hear what you are planning this Christmas season... :) Wanna share?

A little of this and that...

I woke up this morning feeling... IT'S FRIDAY... ugh it's not. It's only Wednesday. I guess after 2 crazy days with an eye doctor and an attempt at the dentist it feels like I have lived a week's worth in 2 days. Or maybe, and also, I am just so entirely ready for our fall break next week that I am wishing it was the end of this one. In that break we get an actually vacation home. Grandpa is getting married and we get to go, enjoy fall temps and colors, and old friends. We can't wait!

So much has been gone on here I got to thinking about home and where we were at a year ago. Unbelievable the amount of change God has brought us to and through. Can I just say I think this last year has by far been the craziest we have ever had!? It has been! A year ago we were 3 days away from my husband hoping on a plane for an interview that lead to our new journey. One that we had faith God had control of but his mercies through it all... bountiful! Now, here we are again on the horizon of more change and more dependance on God. He is working in overwhelmingly mind blowing ways. We are in awe of him!

I am realizing though I am looking forward to a school year that is not interrupted with boxes and chaos. It's getting hard on us all. I see the light at the end of the tunnel it's just figuring out how to make it there that is the question at hand. I have realized though that once this crazy busy comes to end soon I will looking and praying about different curriculum that is more family geared vs individual grade. I pray that will make the days go more smoothly and bring more to the table for my bored Kindergartener to do/learn.

Ooh, on a fun note... I made Marissa's homemade sweet tea this week... MASSIVE HIT HERE!!! Thanks for sharing girlie!!!! We LOVE it!! And if you love sweet tea as much as we do you absolutely have to try this! You won't regret it! :) I also have made homemade coffee creamer recently too. Another hit. Yay, no longer needing to buy at the store!!

The days are cooling some here, especially in the mornings. I am missing though the fog, the changing colors, and all that comes with my favorite time of this. I am leaning more and more to God for understanding on the why he took us away from where we were. The part of the country our hearts sprang alive to this time of year. I'm reminded his thoughts are better than mine and I will find serenity here as well. I just need to look for it. Until then I will look back at pictures and close my eyes to pretend the awesome fall feeling here. ;)

Well, I suppose since today is NOT Friday I should get breakfast and school started. It's another big day here and a late start might not help anyone. So until later... when maybe that day will actually be Friday. lol

Coffee anyone!?

Homemade... Lil Suzie Homemaker

First, let me say I am no where near Suzie Homemaker. The pile of hangup laundry on my kitchen table from last night will attest to that. But I have had this huge yearning to make more and more items from scratch. To teach my kids hitting the store for a jar of whatever doesn't have to be the first response. I am fortunately my kids love all things country living. Currently for school we are reading Caddie Woodlawn and like the response we had to Sign of the Beaver last year, they love the way of life the Woodlawn children get to enjoy.

My daughter especially keeps asking to cook and help make anything and everything, and with our budget being so crazy tight lately the pull for more made at home food and kitchen staples is pulling hard on my heart strings. Besides homemaking class... totally homeschool! I'd love to get to where all of the items rolling around in my head become second nature to make in our household. That everyone takes part and has pride in making the food themselves. On top of the skill my daughter and boys can carry into their homes someday.

What have I made so far???
Currently, due to space and excuses (I'm not going to lie), we only make bread occasionally. I made coffee creamer this week. Personally... love it! Way affordable too! We make our own laundry detergent. I tried making dishwasher soap but truthfully it's still under my sink. It didn't work well for us at all. My daughter has been begging to make jam. We've made granola, granola bars, fruit snacks, ice cream, yogurt, tortillas, of course meals, muffin tin corndogs (new huge fav here), and I'm sure I am missing other ones.

Sadly, some I don't stick with for no reason at all but I want to. Really bad. I want it to be second nature.

Making kitchen staples aren't hard to do at home. Just time consuming. I want to do it. We need to do it. Not for money reasons but because truthfully we long for the old fashioned way of life to be a way of life for us. I need to get over the mental part that the initial cost for some of it isn't much and will pay for itself 10 fold in the long run.

Do you make anything from scratch that has become the only way you have it at home any more?  How do you schedule out the time to make it all? I'd love for you to spill your secrets. :) 

Little of This... Lots of That... Total Random Rambling...

Have you ever just wanted to write. Write about anything or nothing. I am in that mood right now. I just want to ramble I guess. I'm sitting here at 6:56am listening to my middle child chomp on dry cheerios because he is the only one awake and is just hanging out watching TV. I successfully did not go back to bed this morning after my husband left for work. Yay, at least 2 days so far this week I haven't gone back to bed. I'll take whatever progress I can. We are halfway through week 2 of our new normal and so far so good still. I am still not used to my husband being home at the same time every night. Although it still takes him an hour to get home everyday it's still an hour earlier than before. I'll take what I can get. So far this week we have successfully completed both days of school. So super excited about this! Especially since we had so much time off before our move. We also switched up our History (as I mentioned in the post below.) I still need to write that all out. What we are doing now that is. We even included an hour long phone with my oldest and one of her dearest friends back home. Get this where they talked about their Science curriculum they each are doing right now. I love homeschooling!!! Have I mentioned that before? We are 2500+ miles away doing the same curriculum (don't mind the fact we are behind them right now due to us not doing school for a month due to our move but who cares about that right!?) and they can talk (and now Skype together) as review with each other about what they are learning in their same class!! AH-MAZING! It makes the miles seem shorter that is for sure! We have scheduled 2x a week Science Skype calls for the girlies! It's going to be so awesome and such a great way of review for them too! I can't wait till they Skype on Friday for the first time!! It's the little things really that make me excited! Speaking of excited... I'm excited things are starting to get settled in here and our new apartment is starting to feel like home. It's so nice and the space... oh the space!! I wish I could say there were lots around here to help make our new state feel like home, but I have to honest losing so many features from our library system is hitting hard. It was such a second hand resource for us! It's really hurting not having all we had available. It's going to take a ton of adjusting. Even for the kids. I'm hoping it doesn't make them lose some of their love for the library, but I definitely see it slipping since it's nothing like they are used to. Ugh, and the even their printing policy. Really hits the wallet!! Must but a printer... ASAP! :( We still have not found our new home church. We have tried out 2 churches so far in our 2 Sunday's here and so far neither have been the right fit. We are checking out a different one this coming Sunday and are super excited and hopeful. God knows which one is to be "ours". We are excited to see if this is it. :) We have starting trying out Google Chrome as a browser for the kids to have some games to play with per a recommendation of our friend. So far I like it. Do you use it? What do you love or dislike about it? Any favorite "apps"? I really need to organize our computer. Photos to print (that is something I don't do nearly enough, but we are hoping to change that!), files, accessibility, and trying to use it to the best of it's ablity. So many features... so much we never use. I would like that to change. Told you this was going to be random. I need to get better at my meal plan. Speaking of I need to look up all the ingredients for tonight's dinner and get that started soon. What are you having? I am thinking of making something chicken in the crockpot, some homemade dinner rolls (we LOVE these!), and parmesan asparagus. Gotta love Pinterest on the inspiration for dinner! I should really be like everyone else and make a weekly post or so of what I have tried or want to try from Pinterest. Lots of yummy food and terrific DIY's! Does anyone else wish Pinterest had a I've done this option? I guess I could create a board that says just that, but I guess a quick checkbox would be nice too. heehee. Oh guess what I made yesterday!!?? I'm so amped about this! I made our own laundry detergent!!!! I have already done 4 loads with it and we are really liking it so far! We absolutely want to stockpile on Fels-Naptha bar soap so we can make lots at a time. I only made one batch yesterday. We have so much powder left over to make so many more batches! It really is more cost effective!! So awesome!!

Well, the rest of the kiddos are waking their sleepy eyes so I guess I should go get my crockpot dinner started and get them some breakfast. Hoping to stay on top of accomplishment today!

Have a great Wednesday!! Thanks for reading my absolutely-no-sense-making-all-over-the-place-ramble.