12 Days of Christmas Sharing!

Tomorrow begins my 12 Days of Christmas Sharing countdown.  I will be sharing *something* fun each day for 12 days, December 1-12th.  Come back first thing tomorrow to link up with your own tradition, recipe, craft, or other Christmas-y related activity that others may enjoy adding to their December plans! :)

Happy HOlidays

Indeed...
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Advent

I've always wanted to start a tradition using an Advent wreath and going through the devotionals of the ritual. When I went to the dollar store for a sprite run (we are recovering slowly) I picked up some candle holders and a purple candle. I had some greenery and a wreath that I fashioned into an Advent wreath.
Our church doesn't do a traditional "advent" but I've read a lot about it myself and one of our pastors talked about it in years past as a way of passing down your belief and faith to the next generation. I've found many online resources for devotionals to use so I'll be off to dig up some good stuff to use tonight for the first night.
By the way...the worst of the sickness seemed to be over at our house around 3am. We are currently in the sanitize everything in hot water phase...so hopefully it is gone for good!
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EDIT:  Well..that's what I get for not looking this up before I went to buy candles.  Apparently I was supposed to have four purple candles and one white candle.  I think I'll be able to make it work this year anyway and then look for a "real" set on sale after Christmas! God knows my heart! ha ha!

Making the Rounds

It is a disadvantage to have an oft sick pregnant lady in the house. It makes it too easy to miss the signs of a stomach bug making the rounds. It started with the youngest who doesn't eat enough to have a terrible time. Then moved to me, and I am sick so often recently we didn't think much. Then today it hit Katie. In the car. Poor girl. We were out to get some fresh air. Pick up a few groceries.
I am very thankful right now for two things:
1. That I am pretty much over it in time to take care of Katie. And since Corey seems to be next from his current state of being.
2. That we have paid our dues and now have kids that can make it to the restroom every time.

Pray for us! It has continued to be a Thanksgiving to remember!
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We made it!

Though the day. The tree is up. The other decorations are either up or placed near their final destination and the tv is in its December location in the bedroom. I think I might really put up a fight when it's time for it to leave haha.
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A Thanksgiving to remember

Yesterday Noah woke up throwing up. He stayed home with Corey while Katie and I went to Newnan with my parents.
I ended up being sick (several times) while we were there and continued to completely regret everything I ate all day. I am still feeling awful today. To the point of not feeling like even sitting up mosy of the time.
Poor Corey is attempting to put up the Christmas tree. It's not going well. His patience is thin. The tv stand is broken completely now.
I feel like I will be running to the toilet again any second.
Definitely a Thanksgiving to remember.
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From Me

Minor Makeover

I just have to share a t few pictures of the very minor home makeover that has occurred in the last 24 hours!  I am so thrilled!
Yesterday I went over to my mom and dad's house to visit while family from out of town was over for a few hours.  As we were getting ready to go and heading out of the basement, I noticed there was a very large rug out in the basement room, set up as a workout area.  I commented that it was just the size rug I was hoping to get to go in our living room.  I wanted something that would go under the front legs of the couches to keep them from sliding around.  Our current rug wasn't nearly big enough and with two kids, well, and us, sitting down on the couches they were sliding around on the wood floors all the time! It drives me crazy!
So...my mom says that she had another one over on the other side of the room. She had purchased them and used them for a while but my dad didn't like them, so they were sent to the basement.  I definitely wanted to try the other rug and see if the size was in fact what I needed...so into my trunk the other rug went! 

I couldn't wait to try it out, so as soon as we got home the kids helped me pick stuff up and get the rug spread.  It is PERFECT!  Fits right under the legs of the couches! And I think it makes the room look much bigger!  Sorry for the bad pics.  These are on my phone and the lighting was weird. 

The old rug sat rolled up in the corner all day today.  I was getting ready to move it into our bedroom when I suddenly thought of putting it in the kitchen/dining nook.  Actually, I decided to put it in between the two areas. 

I really like it there!  I think it gives a little distinction between the two areas and make them both seem a little more roomy also.  We'll see if we get tired of there being a rug in that particular place...it might end up being a pain to clean/clean around.  But for now, I love it!

So that's it.  Nothing huge, but I love it!  Now, I just have to figure out what kind of carpet sweeper we can get to use about 3 times a day on the new dark brown rug in the living room!  Dragging out the vacuum is already old after just one day, ha ha!

Thanks for the rug Mama! (not sure if she knows she actually gave it to me yet! ha ha!)

Christmas Wishes

This is for all the family who have been asking about what the kids want for Christmas. :)
I have added a link to our "wishlist.com" Christmas wishlist.
I love using that website..you can add stuff from anywhere on the web.  Right now, it only has stuff from toysrus, but you can buy most of those things anywhere.
So there ya go! They have a blast browsing the stores and online.  :)

Thanksgiving Break!

It's official! We are halfway finished with out school year and we are taking our week off for Thanksgiving break!
Noah completed his Alpha level math curriculum! He and Katie are both now in Beta. Katie will finish Beta in the next nine weeks if all goes according to plan. I am relieved to have the next nine weeks already planned out and all the work pulled!  The system I've used for this year (nine weeks at a time, work filed in our binder) has been a LIFESAVER this year!  I couldn't have made it without already having it all ready to go...especially with how many days I've only felt like getting the bare minimum done!
I can't believe how much they have learned this year. I still love the Math-U-See program and happy we found it and gave it a try.
Looking forward to a week OFF!
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Fun Frenzied Weekend!

(If you are too bored to read all of this post, be sure and scroll down to see what I WON this weekend!)

Our crazy weekend began with our very last minute overnight trip to Athens, GA.  It was fun, and fast!  The kids and I enjoyed seeing Toy Story 3 at a value theater ($5.98 for all 3 of us!) while Corey was working during the day.  After the movie we browsed around the mall where I found a GREAT deal on a shirt for Corey! Belk had these flannel TALL size shirts for just $12 each! (60% off!). They fit great so we went to our local Belk store and picked up two more for him yesterday.

 After a late night getting home on Saturday from Athens, we were up bright and early for church on Sunday morning.  It was a big day in Graceland Studios! The kids packed shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child!  We have been collecting items since October (though most came in yesterday morning of course! ha!) and each child packed a shoebox for a child, and included a coloring sheet of info about themselves for the child that will receive their box.  We had SO MUCH STUFF to fill the boxes!!! It was awesome!

 We had tables lined up in the back of the room and each child took their shoebox down the line and got an item from each stack.  Every stack had a selection of items so the child really felt like they could "pick out" things for their box.  Some of them were so cute, really putting a lot of thought into what their boy or girl would want.  When we were going through the boxes later in the day (some boxes still ended up with duplicates or too full, ha ha!) we found that one little boy had drawn a cross on the etch a sketch he placed in his box! PRECIOUS!

 Later, as I mentioned we sorted through the already packed boxes, and set things up for some adult volunteers to come and pack up the rest of the items.  There are a few things we need to pick up to finish up the rest, like more toothpastes and soap, because we really want each box to have those things for sure.  But, we are pretty sure we will end up with OVER our goal of 100 boxes! Can't wait to see the final number!

Yesterday afternoon one of the ladies of the church hosted a "stop and shop" open house for her home business.  She sells Thirty-One products, which I love.  There were also some other tables set up from Scentsy (I had never heard of), Arbonne, Pampered Chef, Southern Living, and Mary Kay.  They were doing raffle drawings throughout the afternoon, so I of course wanted to stop by and see the goods while Corey was at play practice.
GUESS WHAT? ! I won a bag!!!!!!!!! Compliments of Krista Mayfield!  I can't believe I won it!

It is super cute and would make a great..............diaper bag! :)  Another girl at church has the same print for her little girl, so it could go boy or girl!  After I won this great bag I decided to take advantage of the special and ordered a couple of Christmas gifts.  With my order I got a free zipper tote, so I got the one that matches this bag.  It can be used for all kinds of things.
Another consultant that was at the open house was Scentsy.  I had never heard of it before, but as soon as you walked in, the most wonderful smell was in the whole place!  You can check out the link to see what they have.  I ordered the special going on from them too, a wall plug in warmer with three scented bars.  I chose three bakery scents...sugar cookie, mocha/coffee, and cranberry muffin.  Can't wait to get those in to start trying, I can also use the little squares on my other tea light burner I already have!
It was a fun afternoon, then after sorting through the OCC boxes, we went over to another friend's house for a birthday dinner/gathering.
Needless to say, we are going to ENJOY this rainy Monday!  I have book club tonight.  Today we start our 18th week of school, so as of Friday we are HALFWAY done with this school year! YAY!
Happy Monday!

November

The Thompson family has a tradition of very last minute trips in November.
Two years ago I won a three night stay at the WDW Swan and Dolphin. Just a few days before I had to go.
Last year on a Friday we decided to accompany Corey on his trip to Philadelphia and we had the weekend to get ready to go!
Tonight, I had an hour to pack. But we are only going a couple of hours away over to Athens, Georgia. There aren't many times we will turn down a stay in a hotel with free breakfast! Haha!
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12 Cookies of Christmas Baking Challenge: Update: Christmas Share

On August 30th, I spent several hours thinking about, creating graphics, figuring out linkies, and all sorts of things, to plan a "12 Cookies of Christmas Baking Challenge" to be hosted here on my blog.
The VERY NEXT DAY I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive!
How's that for timing?
Well, since I had a recent history of miscarrying I didn't do anything immediately.  But thankfully, this little one is sticking around and I will be pregnant for the holidays this year.
And sweets have been making me sick.
I am pretty sure I won't be up to trying and baking 12 different recipes of cookies this year.  It's going to be enough to just get our regular shopping, planning, decorating, and partying on.  We have a major project in the making for our kids Christmas gift: new bedroom makeover, which will be a big undertaking. 
So...in light of all these factors, I've decided to change the Cookie Challenge into something different.

I've decided to instead, host a different kind of event.  Instead of a challenge, it will just be a share.  "12 Days of Christmas Sharing."  And what we share can be anything and everything created for Christmas.  I am thinking that instead of baking lots of cookies for gifts this year, we may do chocolate dipped pretzels and some gourmet popcorn recipes.  I could share those with you.  The kids may create some kind of Christmas projects of crafts, and I could share those as well.  Anything you create around/for/because of the Christmas season, you can share it as part of the 12 Days of Christmas Sharing.  I hope it can be a way for us to get new creative gift ideas, recipes, etc.  If you make a gingerbread house, you can share that.  Or, if you have a special family tradition, you could share about that also.  Anything goes. You can still do cookie recipes as well!
This will be much easier for me to manage this season and I think it will still be a ton of fun.

We'll go from December 1-12th.  That gives 12 days in a row to challenge yourself to share something new with the rest of us.  And I will put up a linky every day so we can meet up and blog hop. I know, 12 days IN A ROW?!  YEP!  It doesn't mean you can't start planning them out now.  Have them ready to go!  By finishing by the 12th of December, it gives everyone a chance to USE your ideas this year, and it lets us finish before the family celebrations and parties begin!

So, if you are still in, go ahead and post about the Christmas Share on your blog, so we can find YOUR bloggy friends to join us!  Tell us that you are participating, and grab the new button for your sidebar.
Link to your post about the share below so we can meet all the "sharers."  Copy and paste this info if you like:

"I am participating in 12 Days of Christmas Sharing hosted by Carrie at Thoughts, Ponderings, Musings. Each day, from December 1st-12th, I will be sharing a Christmas recipe, craft, creation, tradition, etc. on my blog via the Christmas Share link up.  Come join us and gain new ideas for your Christmas "creating" season!  There is a giveaway for bloggers who participate in all 12 days."

OH, and I will still give something away..a random drawing among all those who participate in all 12 days!
Looking forward to it!