Making Christmas Memories

I have always loved Christmas. My mom, in my opinion, did a great job making the whole month special for her kids and it is something I have striven to do as well for my own family. As I was reflecting upon what made that time of year special it was never anything to do with presents. All of my most favorite memories revolve around family togetherness.

I loved loading up in the car to drive to the Kaibab to find the perfect tree. It was always so much fun to get to play in the snow and eat a snowy picnic together. My mom, no matter how busy she was, always made time to make her grandmother's old-fashioned butter cookies for us to decorate and then we would deliver plates of them to our neighbors. When we were teenagers we added reading the Forgotten Carols to our list of traditions. It was something I looked forward to all month.

One year, when I was in elementary school still, I remember coming upstairs to find my parents sitting in the living room cutting out snowflakes. I discovered that my dad has a hidden talent for making beautiful and unique snowflakes. I secretly went down to my room and tried to make my own, but sadly, they fell short, but I vowed that someday I would develop a talent for making beautiful snowflakes just like my dad. It took a lot of years to perfect my snowflakes but I have learned to make creative and pretty snowflakes just like him. I have received many compliments on the snowflakes I create to hang in the windows.

As I said before, I have tried to make Christmases memorable for my kids too. A few years ago I was feeling extremely crafty and created a Christmas Memory Advent calendar for my family. The goal was to create something that we could incorporate all of our favorite things to do at Christmas time and create family togetherness and memories at the same time.

The calendar itself was quite simple to make. All it is is a large piece of felt on which I sewed a felt Christmas tree to and three rows of felt sewn into pockets for the traditions. The ornaments on the tree are decorative buttons I found at Michael's. They are hung on the tree by hooks made of floral wire which I hot glued to the tree. The title letters are simple foam letters and the snowmen on the sides are pieces of scrap ribbon. Each day the kids reach into a pocket and pull out an ornament to hang on the tree and a tradition to do.

As far as the memories go, I wrote down things we do every year like attending the Ward Christmas Party, looking at Christmas lights and decorating Christmas cookies. I also included lots of family activities such as going on winter walks, watching Christmas movies, and doing good deeds for each other. My kids love it and look forward to seeing what the calendar is going to say everyday.

The Christmas season is not meant to just be endured. It is not meant as a time to get and give presents or attend parties and fill every moment with activities. It is a time to remember the true meaning, the birth of our Savior. For without him, none of us would ever have the chance to return to our Father in Heaven. Our families are so important to this plan. I hope we can all make the time, just as my mom did, to make wonderful Christmas memories and make it a time of year that will be remembered for years to come.

Chill Out on your Carpet

The other night Nathan and I were relaxing in the living room. We had endured a hectic weekend and needed some time to just sit quietly and de-stress. After a little while we decided we needed to rearrange the furniture. Did you know that rearranging furniture is a proven stress-reliever? I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's the exertion of pushing around heavy furniture or it's symbolic to rearranging things in your life to a more harmonious way. Who knows, but it always works for me!

Anyway, after we had moved everything around and were satisfied with the results we were left with unsightly indentations in the carpet where the couch and chair had once been. I remembered reading recently in an Ask Heloise column in Good Housekeeping Magazine that if you place ice cubes in the divots and let them melt it will cause the carpet to spring back up. Well, I tried it and sure enough by morning I could barely see them! After vacuuming, I couldn't see them at all. It worked great and that's definitely a little trick I'll use again and again. :)

Christmas in a Bin

One bin for each kid!

Yes, I know my last post was also about Christmas. It's because I'm trying to tell you something... Get your Christmas shopping done early so you can enjoy the Holidays!

My husband, Nathan, is my perfect match. He and I complicate each other in every way. Where I am weak he is strong and vice versa. We also share many of the same traits. One of them is list making. We both love to make lists and plan ahead!

Nathan and I start planning Christmas in September. We start by making a running list of all the presents we want to buy, complete with estimated prices. As we think of more things we add them to list or subtract them as we learn more about what our kids and each other really want for Christmas. Then we get to work collecting the gifts. Most of our shopping is done online which is much less hectic and much more convenient.

Each of our children have a bin in the garage numbered with their corresponding birth number. As the gifts arrive, they go in the bin to await wrapping time. My mom used to hide our presents in her closet and there were a few times that things got lost in there only to be found years later. Hmm, there's probably still some lost in there!

Thanksgiving weekend, the tree goes up and the presents get wrapped. They're all bought by then so why not? Nathan helps me wrap and we get through them in about a week. Then we have the whole month of December to enjoy the Christmas season. No last minute chaos at our house. See how much Christmas shopping you can get done this month. The less stress the better!

Christmas Shopping Online

The older my kids get the harder it is to buy Christmas presents for them secretively. We used to be able to throw things in the cart unnoticed but now they notice every tiny thing I put in there! In order to keep the magic of Santa alive it has become increasingly necessary to come up with other methods to get my shopping done.

Two years ago I did all of my Santa Claus shopping online. I always like to get my shopping done early and since we had an impending move at Thanksgiving and I had a husband who moved right after Halloween, it was also my only choice as I knew we would be homeless for the next month.. If you are interested in doing your shopping online here is how I went about it. This method will also work for normal Christmas shopping as well.

First: Make a list of all the items you wish to purchase for each child. If you are on a budget, include that in your list as well.

Second: Decide which stores you will be shopping at and stick to those stores only. If you let yourself get sidetracked by every online store that carries your toy it'll quickly become overwhelming. The stores I used were: Target, Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, KB Toys, Kmart, and Amazon.

Third: Now comes the tedious part! When you can find time, visit each of the sites, find the toys your are looking for, and record their prices. If you are fluent in Excel this could easily be turned into a spread sheet. If you are Excel-illiterate like me then just stick to a Word document.

Fourth: Take notice of which stores offer free shipping or other deals and shop accordingly. Amazon has free shipping on orders over $25 but you have to purchase items directly from them or through a vendor that participates in their shipping policies.

Here's an Example of what your list could look like:

Aftyn:
My Little Pony RC Scootaloo on the Go!
Wal-Mart: $19.97
Toys R Us: $20.99
Amazon: $19.99
KB Toys: $27.99


Fur Real Friends
Wal-Mart: $12.97 (Pig)
Toys R Us: $13.99 (Panda)
Amazon: $13.95 (Honey Bear)
Kmart: $14.99 (Dalmatian)
KB Toys: 14.99 (Dalmatian)

Things I learned:

• Wal-Mart always had the lowest price on toys HOWEVER they rarely had exactly what I was looking for. Kmart was the same way. On a good note Wal-Mart offers free shipping to their stores on many of their items. All you have to do is go and pick up your stuff.
• I figured that ToysRUs would always be the most expensive but I was pleasantly surprised by how close they were to Wal-Mart.
• KB Toys was consistently the most expensive EXCEPT for they had the exact push car I wanted to buy for Gavin for about 15 dollars cheaper than anyone else so you just never know!
• Although Target seemed liked a great place to look for toys it was very disappointing in its selection and I ended up elliminating them from my list.

So which store did I end up buying the majority of my presents from? Amazon. Even though they weren't the cheapest venue they do offer free shipping. After calculating all of the shipping costs into my purchases Amazon was the cheapest route by enough to convince me. Happy shopping!

Love Your Linen Closet

Here's what my linen closet looked like before-piles of barely folded sheets, mismatched, and unorganized.

 I am fortunate enough to have oodles of storage in my house. Whoever built it must've had something in common with me because I love to have a place for everything. I have two linen closets (actually three if you count the tiny one tucked in my girls' bathroom) which enables me to have one closet just for towels and one just for bedding.

The bedding closet has proven to be a big pain for me. I've never been able to keep it looking neat and it's been a big trial to keep everything from getting mixed up. This is mainly due to a certain husband (who shall remain nameless) who just grabs random sheets in the middle of the night if one of the kids has an accident. I LOVE that he is willing to help me out in the middle of the night but didn't like that everything was getting mixed up, or that the kids would end up with queen-sized sheets on their bed which I'd have to go back and replace and end up having to wash yet another sheet set. It just wasn't working for me so... I decided to change it!

Ahhh, so much better!

I found these super cute Martha Stewart fabric drawers at Home Depot in the organization section. They cost me $7 each which I didn't think was too bad. I then got to work.

1. First, I went through all the sheet sets I had and got rid of the ones that I didn't need.
2. Then, I separated them by person.
3. I kept only three sets of sheets for my kids (two cotton sets and one flannel). Nathan and I have two cotton and two flannel sets.
4. I placed each person's sheets in their drawer and labeled it with their name.
5. I also reserved one drawer for throws and one for guest sheets.
6. I folded all of the extra kid quilts and put them on a shelf.
7. Finally, I folded all of the guest quilts and put them on the floor of the closet since they are bigger.

The end result is so nice! Not only does it look great but now Nathan, oops, I mean that person who shall remain nameless, and I can find exactly what we need in the middle of the night.

If you don't have as much space to do this as I do, no worries. Clear out some space in each person's closet and put their sheet drawer there instead. The drawers are relatively compact so you don't need much space at all! Have at it!

Winterize Bedrooms

I don't know about where you live but here at my house fall seems to have finally arrived. The air is crisp and chilly now and the nights have gotten cool enough that our furnace has kicked on a couple of times. This weekend I took the time to winterize my kids' bedrooms. It's a tedious task I must say but alas it has to be done and there's no time like the present, right? Here's how I went about it:

1. Prepare beds for winter. Take off all bedding and wash it with hot water and bleach if possible. This kills any bacteria and dust mites. Replace summer sheets with flannel sheets, add an extra quilt, and remake beds.
2. Open up windows to air out one last time before it's too cold to do so.
3. Replace summer pajamas with winter ones in drawers. Determine which are too small and which still fit from last year. Put summer p.j.'s in flat plastic boxes and slide under beds.
4. Replace summer clothes with winter clothes and again determine which still fit and which don't. Store summer clothing in flat boxes and slide under beds.
5. Finally have your kids try on their jackets and winter shoes to see if they still fit from last year.

Winterizing is not so much fun I must say but it's a relief to have it done and I've been able to make a big check mark on my never-ending to-do-list. Try and get yours done this week too!

Cubbies!

I've been trying to come up with a solution for our laundry room for some time. I wanted it to be multi-functional yet still look nice (since guests have to walk through it to use the bathroom). I not only wanted it to be a laundry room but also a mudroom for my kids to put their jackets and shoes when they walked in the door.

We decided to make a trip to IKEA to see if we could get some ideas. Here's what Nathan and I came up with... cubbies! Each child has two cubbies, one for shoes and one for jackets, hats and gloves, whatever the current weather calls for. We also bought some cool hampers to be used as my laundry system. I am totally stoked about how it looks and how functional it is! Is it sad for me to be so excited about storage?