Holidays

As we are approaching the most wonderful time of year, Christmas, I want you to remember all the children that will not be able to celebrate Christmas this year. What if I told you, you and your family could make a difference? You can absolutely. My dad works for Samaritans Purse and has for a few years. We live here in the town of Samaritans Purse and it brings me great joy to tell you about Operation Christmas Child.

Please take just 5 minutes and watch this video. Also go ahead and watch the others if you would like.

It just warms my heart to see these kids faces when they get their shoe box. As I was in the Samaritans Purse warehouse a couple months ago talking with the HR person, he took me on a tour. It was bringing me to tears. I told him the song, “I can only imagine” comes to my mind when I think of these wonderful children opening their box. I am very excited to volunteer with the shoe boxes this year. Also, of course the girls and I will be filling a couple shoe boxes this weekend to take part in this extra oridnary event.

Please if you will, take some time this week and weekend and fill a shoe box with your family. There are national collection centers all over the US. I am sure there is one right in your hometown. Next week is National Collection week and then all the shoe boxes will be coming here to be all sorted through.  That is where I will volunteer. For more information on how you can fulfill a child’s wish this Christmas, please go here. If I can help in anyway, just let me know. Please leave a comment below if you will be taking part in this, this year. Also if you would please help spread the word on your blog. Let’s make this year the biggest year yet at Operation Christmas Child!!!!!

God Bless everyone in this wonderful Holiday season 🙂

Christmas? What the heck… did I just say that? Hahaha. Well actually its beginning to look a lot like Halloween, but Christmas has definitely been weighing on my mind lately. I always like to start early, so I am not spending all this money at once. I am trying to find creative ways this year to do Christmas that will keep me under budget. That will include hitting the major sales, (like Black Friday), homemade items, and web online sales.

This one online website was brought to my attention. It is called the Best Toys. As I was browsing through, I actually liked how detailed it was on the toy descriptions. As busy as this year has been, it was neat to see what all the top toys are this year.

Since I buy for my girls and my nephew, I really like that they divided the top toys in categories as top toys for boys and top toys for girls. Now, I know I will not go overboard with so many toys for them, that they even forget what they had, but this site is giving me a great start to see what I think would make a great fit for each child.

Every child’s personalities are different, so I definitely have to do my research to see what is best. I really like to add in educational toys the most, and I was happy to see they have a great category with just all educational toys. The descriptions are really long, so it lets me know if it would be a good kid toy for them or not.

It is no secret how the economy is right now, so I know everyone will be trying to cut corners all they can. It is ok to not have 20 or 30 presents under the tree for each child. It is the thought that counts. Knowing that you put in some great time researching the toys descriptions and picking out what you thought would be best for each child, is all that matters in the world. Your child will be happy with 5 presents just as there was 30 presents. So don’t stress this holiday season, have fun, do smart shopping, and cherish in this wonderful holiday season that will be up on us.

Take a minute while you are sipping your coffee and go through the Best Toys site to see what you think would be hot for your child. Will it last past two days, is it for their age group, or will it need batteries? Those are all questions I always ask myself. Have fun 🙂

Finally after an extremely busy week of finishing up the details of our new house we will be moving in, getting more bad news at the doctor’s about my Lyndsee poo, to suffering from a bad reaction to watermelon, I am ready to write out about our truly wonderful weekend we had last weekend.

As a child growing up, I always seen Memorial Day as the true start to summer. Even though technically it wasn’t summer yet, it was to me in my heart. Now I am realizing, I believe I am pushing this belief of summer ritual onto my girls. Which is no problem they are loving all the fun and games.

We started the weekend out by taking the girls to their first ever professional baseball game. Yes, this mommy was sort of leary about going, as I wasn’t too sure if they would last the whole 9 innings. Boy did they show mommy was doing all this worrying for nothing. They had an absolute blast. Lyndsee would do her really loud shouts and go wooo hoooo every time the ball was hit. We were all laughing and just had the best time as a family hanging out at the ball park.

After filling our tummy with all the peanuts and cracker jacks and root rooting for our home team we made the trek back home to gear up for our next fun filled day.

With the gas prices being so high this year, we took the perfect opportunity of making do with all our fun happenings in our town. You just never realize you can make a vacation out of all the things right in your back yard literally!

The girls started out their day with having contests of who could go the fastest down the hill on their scooters. Only one thing… when they would get to the bottom of the hill… it was like mommy help us carry the scooters back to the top. But it was worth every minute to see their faces light up with the biggest smiles and hear their screams of pure joy.

After mommy got her exercise walking up and down the hills HA…it was time to dive into one of our local parks. Did you know parks are not just for kids anymore? Heck no… they are for mom’s too. We had the best time just goofing off and letting loose and not having a care in the world.
Having my girls saying mommy “I love this day” was just music to my ears and I wanted to freeze time right there at that moment. I knew then, that we were creating memories that eventually my girls will tell their kids. SMILES forever!

We all left there exhausted but this mom had to get re-energized because she was cooking a good ole home cook meal for the whole fam damily! I cook every night, but I do like to take one night and just go all out and cook a full feast. It really does my heart good too when everyone starts to dig in and I hear small talk about how great the food is ;).

The next morning (Memorial Day) we rose out of bed bright and early and began packing for our cookout/picnic at one of the most beautiful Lake Parks in our town. It has always been tradition in our family that summer = cookouts at the Lake Park and of course I am now creating those traditions with my girls.

As soon as we got there, the girls went straight and hopped into the water. There was no stopping them.

We just let the girls lead the way and had a huge family party. We let the day be all about them. So Madisyn wanted everyone to have a fun time enjoying into a game of kick ball. I think they really wanted mommy to fall on her rump and see who could laugh the hardest hehe.

Then there is definitely no cook-out complete without bubbles and see who can pop the most.

By this time we were smelling those awesome summer smells of the charcoal grills. Oh how I heart some grilled hotdogs and baked beans. My mouth is watering just by writing this.

I know we were all so ready to dig in and couldn’t wait to fill our bellies.

After lunch of course, we have to go check our watermelon. Of course there is no better way to chill the watermelon than putting it in the nice, crisp mountain water.

Madisyn is saying all hail the watermelon before we dive in and let our tastebuds get their feel of sweet mountain watermelon.

The girls were filled with delights all day and kept coming and hugging us and saying this is the best day. I leaned over and told hubbs, can we please just let everyday be this. I love being with my family so much and really did not want the day to end.

We ended our time at the Lake Park with Madisyn having a blast skipping across the rocks.

Of course we couldn’t let the day totally end there as we went just right down the road to another park in our town so the girls could play their little hearts out on the slides.

Then it was time for the grand finale of our day… heading back to the hills and making homemade icecream. Yummy for our tummies.

What a weekend of fun. After all that this year has brought us, I was so happy to have a weekend to just kick back, relax and spend with who I love being with. My family. They are my life and just getting able to create memories and see the glee in everyone’s faces. Thank you good Lord up above for this and giving me my miracle girls Madisyn and Lyndsee.

Two words to sum up the weekend… IT ROCKED!!!