Tag Archives: christmas

Purchasing Analysis Paralysis Disorder, The Struggle is Real!

I don’t know about all of you but I personally have been stressing out over trying to find the perfect gifts to give for Christmas this year. I take giving gifts seriously because I want my gifts to reflect how much I love people. I want them to be personal and thoughtful. So when the […]

A Letter To Santa From Mom

I came across this today (no idea who wrote this but it is genius!) and decided it should be shared in honor of all the parents dealing with little children this holiday season: Dear Santa, I’ve been a good mom all year. I’ve fed, cleaned and cuddled my two children on demand, visited the doctor’s […]

51 Days Til Christmas!

Holiday season has officially begun!!! Which also means tis the season for awesome online sales!!! That’s what I’m talkin’ about baby 🙂 I love, love, love the holiday season and I love the month of November because it’s the official kickoff to the season – it is time to bust out the apple cider, the […]

WE Determine Our Future

I have been writing daily blogs five days a week for over 4 ½ years without missing a single day.  There have been times when I was really sick but I still wrote my blogs because I had promised I wouldn’t miss a single day. Back in 2011, my daughter Ashley, who was 15 at […]

Groundhog Day Says We’re Going to Have To Make Our Own Sunshine

With all of the amazing technology we employ today it’s amazing the credibility we attribute to the shadow of a little brown rodent each Groundhog Day. But every year I admit that, I along with everyone else, wait to hear whether Phil saw his shadow or not. It never fails to bum me out when […]

It’s Never Too Late To Start A New Tradition

Happy Christmas Eve to all of you! I want to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! Each of you touch my life and I am so grateful for all of you reading this. Thank you for being a part of my life and my life story as […]

In The Famous Words From Disney’s Frozen “Let it Go”

There are just three short days until we celebrate Christmas! This weekend was fantastic. Our kids came home from college and we went to an awesome Christmas concert by pianist Kurt Bestor. During the concert he brought out a children’s choir and one little girl sang the famous song “Let it Go” from the Disney […]

Don’t Take A Single Moment For Granted

Yay! I am so excited that Christmas break has officially begun and both my kiddos come home from college tonight to spend the holidays back at home with us!  BEST PRESENT EVER!!! Having your family back together again is the absolute best gift in the world.  For me this will be our first Christmas together […]

Make a List and Check it Twice and Every Day!

Before I get into tonight’s blog topic I just wanted to share that last Friday night I was able to go to a huge Christmas concert which featured the star of the Disney animated feature film Frozen (one of my favorite Disney films), Santino Fontana who plays Hans in Frozen, singing with the world famous […]

I am Woman, I am Invincible, I am TIRED…

Some days you just need a good nap!!! As amazing as this holiday time of year can be, it is without a doubt exhausting too! There are parties to attend several nights a week, presents to buy, decorating to do, cards to write, wrapping to be done, goodies to bake…there is a never ending list […]

Never Suppress A Generous Thought

In our cities so full of hustle and bustle it is amazing to watch how people are so absorbed in their own thoughts that they barely notice one another as they hurry past each other on the streets.  Often times we see someone lost or someone who dropped something on the ground and is struggling […]

Take a trip down memory lane

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” One of my goals for this year was to get all my photos that were taken “pre-digital” on old-school printed photos, and scan them in so I could have digital copies of all of them. […]

December is the “Friday” of the Months

Seriously, don’t you just LOVE December! It really is like the Friday of the months…the month you look forward to all year and you relish it, wishing it wouldn’t have to end. It just seems like we spend more time with family and friends just being HAPPY during December, and it is so nice!  December […]

The First Gift

I couldn’t think of a better message to share going into this weekend than this one I am going to share below. With all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the holidays and the holiday parties and concerts and family celebrations and shopping for presents, it is really easy to get totally […]

Do It In Memory Of

For many people the holiday season is the happiest time of year, but for many people who have lost someone they love to death it can also be an incredibly difficult time of year. I was reminded of this over the last several days as a dear friend of mine lost his father and then […]

Giving Is More Exciting And Better For Us Than Getting!

I love giving presents. I love planning surprises and putting thought into the little details and making a gift really special. I have so much fun anticipating the other person’s excitement and reaction that giving is way more exciting for me than getting a present. Not that I don’t love, love, love getting a gift […]

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Welcome back everyone! I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving Holiday! I definitely loved the time with my family. The food was amazing, although I ate so much I am quite certain I won’t be able to fit into my clothes tomorrow…sadly…one thing I don’t love about the holidays is the aftermath that […]

Only 58 Days til Christmas..Say WHAT!?!

Can you believe it?  We actually start the month of November this Saturday!  It is insane how fast time has gone since the warm days of summer and sunshine. I am amazed how fast the fall has come and is now going this year.  Even daylight savings will come to an end this weekend and […]

Anticipation of Things to Come

“Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess. Just breathe, and have faith that everything will work out for the best.” Anticipation is a funny thing. On the one hand it is exciting and fun, like anticipating Santa Claus arrival on Christmas.  On the other hand it […]

Next Time You Think of Beautiful Things, Don’t Forget To Count Yourself In

Tonight I am taking my daughter and her friends to a One Direction concert (Don’t judge me 🙂  ).  A year ago when their concert tour was announced, she literally begged me to take her and her friends to the concert.  She made the typical promises of “it’s the last gift you ever have to […]

Endings and Beginnings, Happy and Sad, But Never Alone

I hate that we sometimes feel alone in this life – the fact is that we are never alone – there are always others out there going through the same thing that we are, it’s just that we need more of us who are willing to be honest about it so we give permission to […]

Twas the Day After Christmas

I hope all of you had a marvelous Christmas Holiday!  For me it was a marvelous day because we were able to be together as a family, with my son joining us on Skype.  It was amazing to see his sweet smiling face on the video.  It was also fun to watch he and his […]

I Wish You A Merry Christmas!

We made it!  It is finally upon us – Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Day.  My favorite holiday of the entire year.  I am so excited for tomorrow.  I even stayed up late wrapping every gift tonight so that tomorrow I can enjoy my time with my family without stressing over the mounds of gifts […]

Families are Like Fudge…

“Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with lots of nuts!” As we head into the home stretch before Christmas Eve’s traditional gathering together of families everywhere, we ought to pause a moment to prepare ourselves to deal with the chaos ahead. I come from a very large family of ten children. My husband comes from […]

Last Minute Gift Ideas

So for those of you out there who are like me, and who are still struggling to come up with a few more gifts before Christmas next week, I decided to put together a list of some last minute gift ideas that could help you if you are stuck trying to find a few more […]

A Time To Close Your Book of Grievances

Christmas season casts a truly amazing spell on the world. People’s walls come down, their hearts are softened, they notice the needs of strangers, they have the desire to care for their fellow man, and hurts anger seems to get let go and be replaced with the Christmas spirit of love. It truly has an […]

True Christmas Joy

Only 10 days til Christmas!  I can’t even believe it!  How did that happen so quickly??!  Good heavens I am not even kind of ready yet!  Thank heavens for Amazon Prime two day shipping is all I can say! Maybe I am the only one that feels this way, but picking out Christmas presents is […]

Always Remember That Life Goes On

I came across a poem that has a great message and wanted to share it with all of you: What a great poem to read, especially at Christmas time?  It reminds us that life is short so why waste a moment of it being unhappy?  No matter what goes wrong, life is going to go […]

Shopping, Shopping…oh, and More Shopping

“How much shopping can one person do?!?”, my husband called out as my fingers clicked madly away on the keyboard jumping from one cyber-deal to another as quickly as I could. “It’s almost midnight!  Don’t distract me!  I am working against the clock here!  Just wait til you hear how much money I saved us”, […]

Welcome Home, There is Only 23 Days Til Christmas!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.  We went to visit my husband’s family in Idaho on their family farm.  There is very little as fitting as celebrating Thanksgiving on the farm.  We had amazing food (all homemade of course!), my daughter learned to drive the front loader tractor, and they went shooting clay pigeons.  […]