Welcome Spring

Welcome Spring!
We thouroughly enjoyed you today!
We enjoyed buying the finishing touches to Addie's Easter outfit.
We enjoyed picking up the last few items for the upcoming family Easter celebrations.
I REALLY enjoyed my free Dunkin Donuts iced vanilla coffee.
We all enjoyed our free Rita's Ices (and we have the colorful lips to prove it!)
Ironically, I saw the lady mentioned in yesterday's post and today she was sincerely curious..... and I was happy to answer her questions.
Welcome Spring!
We're glad you're here again!

Remember.....

I saw this on a friend's Facebook page recently and thought it was an excellent reminder. Have a great middle of the week!

Update: I cleaned out Ian's closet yesterday. Wow! He has an empty closet except for two tubs of my winter clothes which I plan on moving to our closet..... when I get to that one.

Things That Are Coming Up

As we are looking towards the home stretch of this year, I have begun thinking about some of the things that I would like to cover and posts that I am planning for the year's end.

As you remember from this post, I am not a New Year's Resolution kind of person.  I prefer a Word to Live By, a word to come back to frequently and then work on using that word in my daily life.  This past year, the word has been Simplicity (hence the simplicity post every Friday).  I am already thinking of what I want the word for next year to be (I have several ideas, but one just keeps coming back to me).  Sometime in December, I will post what my new word will be and post my reasons for it and how I plan on going about using that word.  If you are interested in having a word for the year rather than a resolution, start thinking now about what you would like that word to be.

We will be having our first ever giveaway coming up soon.  More details on that in the near future.

I have loved having the Book Club Thursday with you all.  Several of you have told me that you are either getting the books and reading along or you are just reading the posts and learning from those.  Either way, I am so excited with how you are participating in the book club.  Book Club Thursday is going to continue, Lord willing, and I have a couple of books that I am looking forward to sharing with you. 

One book is Making Your Children Mind Without Losing Yours by Dr. Kevin Leman.  It is an absolutely wonderful book on child-training by a godly Dr. of Psychology who specializes in the family.  Brian and I are currently reading this book together (parenting is a two person responsibility), and I am taking tons of mental notes as we put these principles into practice with Addie.  I also plan on going through another Joyce Meyer book called Woman to Woman.  Good things ahead.

I absolutely love December!  Actually, I love November through December. So, needless to say, I have many exciting things planned for December. 

In December, I will be taking a detour from the Life Lessons... Tuesday series to focus on Spiritual Reflections that can be found in the Christmas account.  Once we are back into January, we will resume our Life Lessons series.

For the last two years, I have participated in the December Daily project by Ali Edwards.  I have enjoyed every moment of it, and I am already planning and getting my things together to make another album this year.  If you are not familiar with December Daily, I would encourage you to click on the link and take a tour through Ali's albums.  It will probably inspire you to join the hundreds of others who participate yearly.  This year, I plan on posting on a weekly basis the pages from my December Daily from the previous week.  I will probably also be posting in late October or early November some of my base pages for my album. 

Also in December, our simplicity posts will focus on a simple craft, decorating, and gift ideas you can do with and for your children, family, and others.  Many ideas going through my mind right now, and I cannot wait to get them out for you.  We will also have Christmas recipes for the Saturday Recipe Swap. 

I hope you are anticipating the month of December as much as I am.

BzzAgent Bizz: Elmers and Xacto

I've mentioned before that I am a BzzAgent.  That means that certain companies send me full sized products to try/use and then tell others about either in person, on FaceBook, or my blog.  Because I am not a paid spokesperson, I am encouraged to share my honest opinion about the products I have tested (not that I would not have an honest opinion).  So far I haven't been disappointed with the products I have tried.

On Saturday, I received products from my latest campaign.  And how awesome is this... they are all related to scrapbooking!  The items I received are:

• Elmer's Craft Bond Permanent Tape Runner
• Elmer's Craft Bond Clear dual tip glue pen
• Elmer's Craft Bond All Purpose Glue Stick
• Elmer's Craft Bond Glue Spots
• X-Acto Corner Rounder Punch
• 2 X-Acto Decorative Edge Scissors

My job is to use these products and then report to you how I liked them.  Lord willing, on Saturday my scrapbooking friends and I will be getting together to scrap, and I will get to use these products and share them with my friends.  Not only will I get to share with you the pages that I made, but I will get to tell you how the products worked as well.

Have a great Monday!  I have some work to do getting my things together for Saturday....