Thank You Notes

I know I'm late in getting our Christmas thank you notes made and sent out this year (in all fairness one of the reasons is because some of the gifts for our kids arrived late - so that's part of the excuse I'll use for the delay). Anyway I thought I'd make a quick post sharing what I've done for thank you notes the past for gifts. Our kids are all really little (too young to write their own notes) and this Christmas we were away from all of our family so they were unable to see the kids opening the gifts.

So I decided to make photo collage thank you notes. I took the picture(s) of each child opening their gift and made it into a thank you card for each person. Wal-mart.com makes it super easy and quick to make up these 4x6 collage prints so you can include more than one picture and a small caption. It cost me just a little over $2 to make 9 of these cards (that is including the cost to have them shipped to my home since we live 30 min away from Wal-mart and it wasn't worth the gas to make a separate trip to pick these up). When we lived closer to a Wal-mart I would order them one our photo and be able to have Scott pick them up the same day at the store. Or if you aren't in a hurry you can order then and have them delivered to the store for pick up (which is the cheapest way). Anyway all that to say they aren't super expensive and each relative who sent us gifts gets a thank you note with pictures of the children opening their gifts.

Here is a picture of how they turned out.

Oh and for any family members wondering where their thank you cards are they should be sent out in the mail tomorrow :)

Messy Project #1 Cornstarch and Water

I likely won't document all of these on my blog but here is the first of our 52 messy projects for this year.

Will wasn't sure at first if this was such a fun idea.

 As soon as he discovered how it turns from solid to liquid in your hand he was sold and had a blast playing with it and describing it to me.

James was not a fan of this at all. He is autistic and has some sensory issues but he did touch it a couple times before deciding this was not his type of activity.

Ellie wasn't quite sure what to think of it. She just looked at it for awhile before finally deciding to touch it.

She finally warmed up to the idea a little and played for a few minutes. Here she is spreading it on the table.

And this is when she decided she was done having her "princess" hands all dirty and told me "I done Mommy"

The great thing about this is that while it did get all over and on their clothes and hands it washes out easily. :)

Goals for 2013 (and an update on 2012 Goals)

Well as most of you know it has been a crazy year for our family with many changes which is one reason my blog has been all but forgotten this year. This next year I am hoping to get a few posts written but it is still not a huge priority in my life right now. Last year I posted four goals for 2012 and as of a few days ago I finished the last of those four goals. My four 2012 goals were:

• Read 2,012 pages of classic literature/biographies aloud to the children - This was so much fun and we met our goal at the end of October and went on to enjoy reading a couple hundred more pages of Thanksgiving and Christmas books in November and December. I especially enjoyed seeing how much my four year old came a long in his ability to understand and follow the stories we read throughout the year. Two of his favorite books were Mr. Popper's Penguins and Charlotte's Web.

• Declutter 2,012 items from our home - I ended up going way over this. I stopped counting when I reached the 2,012 mark but ended up getting rid of at least double that much as I did some major life style changing purging this year. I love the freedom I now have after having minimized our life so much. There is still a lot more that needs to go but one in one out and regular purging of unnecessary items has become a habitual part of my life largely because of this goal.

• Listen through audio of the Bible with the children - We would put on audio while we worked or played around the house and listened through the entire Bible together. My 4 year old would often stop to listen and ask what section of the Bible it was or what it was talking about which spurred some great conversations.

• Read through the Bible in my personal devo time - I finished this a few days ago and as always it was a wonderful blessing. I think this is the 5th or 6th time I've completed reading through the Bible and it as a wonderful challenge and encouragement.

Now onto my goals for 2013:

• 1. Read 500 Picture Books to the Children - The goal is for Scott and I combined to read 500 different picture books (so it doesn't count for 10 books if we read the same book 10 times). I found last year with being so focused on reading chapter books that the picture books were sometimes neglected. 

• 2. Read 2000 Pages of Chapter Books to the Children - I'm working on getting a list put together to get started on but I think the first book we will start on this year is The Little Princess.

• 3. Make Five New Items Each Month for My Doll Clothes Shop - I put as much time towards my little online shop as I used to but between Oct-Dec I do still have quite a few sales. Of course that is also when I'm busy with my own family holiday celebrations so my goal is to make five things per month to help get my store stocked with some new items for the holiday rush (of course if they sell before next fall I'll also be happy) :)

• 4. Pay Down $6500 in Debt - This past year most of our extra income went toward a down payment on our new house and moving expenses. We currently have 13,000 left on student loan debt and the goal is to pay down half of that this year. That averages to right around $540 a month. We have another grid chart on our fridge to help us track it just like when did for our 6 month challenge a couple years ago.

• 5. Memorize the Book of James - This was going to be one of my personal goals then as Scott and I started discussing it we decided to work on it as a whole family. I will probably move a little quicker than the kids and hope to do about a 1/2 chapter a month to ensure a little extra time at the end of the year. I'm looking forward to working on memorizing a longer passage of Scripture with our whole family.

• 6. Exercise 12 Days a Month - Yeah I know an exercise goal for the New Year is really overdone but it's something I want to work on being consistent with this year. So I'm aiming for 3 times a week. 

• 7. 40 Hospitality Meals - One area of ministry I have enjoyed getting more involved with this past year is having people from church into our home for meals. Our goal as a family this next year is to serve 40 hospitality meals in our home (so 3-4 per month). 

• 8. Date Night with Scott Twice a Month - We don't get out much to do dates but my goal is to have at least two fun at home date nights with Scott after the kids are in bed. I'm working on putting together a list of ideas. Ideally I'd like this to happen every week but with the way our schedule is right now twice a month is probably more realistic. 

• 9. Do 52 Messy Craft or Project with the Kids - With four kids 5 & under I'll admit I struggle to make time to do the fun messy projects with my kids. It is a struggle most days to just keep the dishes and and laundry caught up but I don't want them to miss out on all the fun art and science projects just because of the mess they will make. So my goal is to do 52 messy projects this year (so about 1 per week). Bring on the glitter, glue, paint, etc! I'm working on putting together a list of projects to choose each week. We may have some duplicates but I am excited about trying some new things with them also.

• Read 12 "Grown Up" Books - I read a lot of kid books so this year I wanted to make the goal of reading 12 books (one per month) for me. I am still working on finalizing the list (it's about half way there) but the first book on the list is Ann VosKamp's One Thousand Gifts book. 

Well there you go my goals for 2013. I'm looking forward to seeing what God has for our family this year! Hopefully I'll be able to do a little better with keeping the blog updated (not making any promises as it didn't make the cut for one of my official goals this year) :)