Currently : December 2013 Edition

waking early. Right now it's the only time of my day to be by myself and I crave it.

finishing another week of Project Life this evening right before dinner. Maybe I'll get to share it later this week? I put in an order pics from Thanksgiving and am determined to get those journaled and DONE before the weeks get by me too fast.

watching Pioneer Woman on Amazon prime when I find twenty minutes to get on the treadmill.

walking (speaking of) slowly on the treadmill with a little running thrown in after taking about three weeks off.



shopping for a REAL Christmas tree this year. Can you believe that I've never had a real-live tree before at Christmas? I'm so sold. There is no going back now. I come from a long line of fake tree people but I have crossed over now.

loving the smell of said real tree. Truly, I was a little worried that the house would smell like a giant bad car air freshener, but it's just perfect.

appreciating the words in this post from Vita Familiae on simplifying advent. This year is s.i.m.p.l.e around here and I'm enjoying less stress about it.

unpacking from a full few days away for Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Four days of lots of romping around outside and up mountains makes for a lot of laundry.



planning and putting dates in my 2014 calendar. The stripes and the daily layout sold me.

anticipating taking the boy out for a Christmas lights drive in a few weeks. This is his year to notice them and the wonder in his voice is my new favorite thing.



working, or I should be, on some school plans for the spring. Time to look at where we are headed in our history and pick some read alouds to go along. We read some GREAT books this fall as we learned about the middle ages, knights, and the Renaissance. I could have stayed there a lot longer.

liking him. And looking forward to the next few weeks. All the date nights we haven't had over the last year will be made up for in spades.



cheering on N2 as she and I tackled getting a few teeth extracted at the dentist last week. A little medicine to relax her, a little happy gas, and we both survived.

listening to the sound of computer clicking. The house is blissfully silent right now.

eating lots of spaghetti squash. My favorite fall veggie right now. Lots of mandarin oranges as well. Trying to pack in the veggies so that I can squeeze in a few favorite holiday treats along the way.

contemplating a post on all the eating and the losing of the weight and the running and all that jazz. We are coming up on the one-year mark from when I started this "project" and oh, what a year it has been.

reading should be a whole post on its own I suppose! The girls and I are in the middle of Little Women right now. On the top of my foolishly high reading pile is Mariel of Redwall (book 4 in the Redwall series), A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens for the Reading to Know bookclub), The Greatest Gift (by Ann Voskamp), and The Question by Leigh Bortins. Lots of variety, that's for sure.

ordering Christmas goodies. Soon, I hope. We go fairly light for Christmas with our kids. The past two years we have gone the route of family gifts or have gotten them all the same gift and it has been great. While they still put together a little Christmas list, it helps keep it from becoming a regurgitation of a toy catalog and their list of what they want to do for others becomes the mile long one. I love that.

wanting to make a batch of my Grandad's peanut brittle and my Grandma's Chex Mix. Need to do a little recipe searching for the peanut brittle one.

playing lots of Uno and Skip-Bo with the kids and the rest of my family this last week on our little Thanksgiving trip. I'm not a card/game player, but it's so fun now that the girls all really get how to play.



drinking coffee.

clearing out kids' rooms. I have one that has a hard time keeping things put away and picked up so I'm hoping that elimination will be a key to success for her.

looking forward to a haircut this weekend. Sad, but true. It's been over a year since I've had a haircut and it's time.

celebrating my niece on Sunday - she turns 16! (Not. possible).



wishing you a good rest of your week!