One Hundred Twenty Days...

When I opened my Christmas blog this morning I saw that there are 120 Days until Christmas. Yippee! I always strive to have a stress-free holiday season. I have a tried and true organization method that I use year after year. Some years I do better than others. This year I'm on track to be done with Christmas well before Thanksgiving. I have my shopping about 1/3 completed. Each gift I've purchased is wrapped and placed in storage until the day after Thanksgiving when I affix bows/ribbons.

I'm' thinking about my Christmas Card List. I think this may be the year that I bite the bullet and delete names from my list. I love to send Christmas cards, and I also enjoy receiving them. As I'm sure you know, less cards show up in my mail box each year. As I sit down to address my cards each year I think "should this be the year I pare down my list?" And each year I don't do it. I think it's time.

We may be moving into a new home in October, so I don't waste any time thinking about Christmas decor at this point. Until we get moved in and I decide the function of each room, I won't know how I'll decorate.

I have a list of goodies I'll be making this year.And I will definitely be pulling 11 angels off of an angel tree to purchase gifts for this year.

If you're on Pinterest, you've already seen the explosion of pins for the Autumn Holidays and Christmas. I get so inspired by some of the crafts, decor, and goodies I see on there!

So even though it's August 27, it's not too early to start thinking about Christmas, and making the best use of the next 120 days so you'll have a stress-free holiday!

The Last Day, the First Day

Last Tuesday marked the end of Sunny and Thunder coming to Grammy Daycare together. When Sunny arrived that morning she announced "this is my last day to come to your house". Well, yes and no. She is so excited to be moving to her new pre-school and I'm excited, too. It was cute though as she left that night with Katie. As they were walking down my sidewalk to their truck I heard her say to Katie, "I really miss Grammy!" Aww...

Sunny and Grammy on her last day

Before heading off to pre-school, Sunny and I got to have a day together last Friday. We made a special day out of it: baking cookies, going to the library, out to lunch at Freddy's with Gramps, reading books, lots and lots of cuddling!

Sunday afternoon Katie dropped Thunder off for his first "only him" sleepover at our house. He was a little apprehensive at first and kept asking for "Sissy". But by bedtime he was reveling in his "alone-ness"! He did great overnight and we had a fun play day on Monday. When he came over on Tuesday, he didn't mention Sissy at all until it was time for us to go pick her up at pre-school. He was very happy to see her then!

Playing trains with Gramps

He is very deliberate in his play

When Thunder was down for his nap yesterday, I spotted Minnie Mouse either trying to escape into or out of the laundry room...

SSMT #16

As we approach the end of August, school has started here in the Phoenix area. Although I no longer have kids to send off to school, this is still the time of year I start to get "fall fever". Which is ridiculous because we'll have 100+ degree temps for at least six to eight more weeks! But, in two weeks I'll start to decorate my home for Autumn and try to deceive myself into thinking it's getting cooler. What does that have to do with the verse I've picked for this time around? You'll see...

James 1:22 NET
But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.

Tattoos, Greats, and a Rainy Day

In my quest to keep the summer fun, I decided to have Tattoo Day with the grandkids. I bought a book of girl tattoos and a book of boy tattoos by Melissa and Doug at Target. Tattoo Day was a great success. Thunder was a little dubious at first, but he did get into it. Sunny enjoyed choosing her tattoos, deciding exactly where to place them on her arms/legs, and supervising my application of the designs.

This week my folks came over to play one day. It was probably the best play date we've had so far. They played two rousing games of Hide 'n' Seek, read books, played with the wooden train set, played with the Kitty Cat dress up set, and did the Hokey-Pokey. Mom and Dad were probably exhausted when they left and the kids took a really good nap!

Yesterday it rained at my house. First time this summer we've had a slow soaking rain. Now you have to remember I live in the dessert. Rain is a relative term here. For most of you what we had yesterday would be considered sprinkles. But if the ENTIRE patio looks wet, it counts as rain. The best think about the rain is that the temps were held down. I told the kids they could play outside for the first time since early June. Sunny: "but it's raining!" Me: "that's OK, it's fun to play in the rain". They were tentative at first, but by the end of their play session Sunny declared "I love to play in the rain!"

Next week brings a big change to Grammy Daycare. It will be Sunny's last week to come regularly. She got into a pre-school program at one of the local high schools and will be starting school on August 19th. I am so thrilled for her. She really needs to go to school as she is extremely bright and needs more a more challenging learning environment than I provide. Plus, I'm really looking forward to having some one-on-one time with Thunder. We're going to work on colors, counting, animal names, singing, and potty training. My main goal is to teach him to sing "Jingle Bells" by Christmas. I will pick Sunny up two days a week and have her for an hour or so, and of course I'll have her on holidays. But this is the end of her toddler days and the beginning of her school days. My, it happened fast!

SSMT #15

August 1st. The year is flying by as usual. Back to school sales dominate the airwaves. My teacher daughter heads back on August 7th. Some districts have already started here in the Phoenix area. When my kids were at home, I was immersed in back to school activities and starting to think about Fall. I'm still not used to the fact that I don't have to deal with all of that anymore even though it's been seven years since I sent a child off to school!

For my verse this time around I'm calling on one of the many promises found in the Bible. Throughout my life God is faithful, His promises are reliable, and He is my shelter; no matter what. I hope that you will claim this promise today!

Psalm 18:30 NET
The one true God acts in a faithful manner;
the Lord's promise is reliable;
he is a shield to all who take shelter in him.

Miscellaneous Monday

Usually I have my grandkids on Monday, but the schedule has changed for this week and I have today to myself. Well, what I really mean is that I have the day to do laundry, clean house, cook dinner... but it is a change. I thought I'd take time to just ponder the minutiae of life.

When we were in San Diego a few weeks ago I wore my tennis shoes two days in a row while we toured Sea World and San Diego Zoo. My tennis shoes were at least 10 years old. They had been bothering me for a few years and I did pause for a moment to think about the possible damage I would suffer from wearing them for that long. But they were all I had, so I wore them. Boy, am I paying the price. By the end of the 2nd day my left big toe had a huge blister under the toe nail. For the next week it would break open on its own and drench my shoe with whatever liquid is inside of a blister.

When I went for a pedicure a couple of weeks after the injury I got to see the damage when my nail polish was removed. The entire nail bed was black/blue/yellow - completely bruised. Yuck. Oh well, it didn't hurt anymore and at least the blister was gone. I thought I was on the road to recovery.

Until Saturday when I went in for another pedicure. The nail looks the same, but now it has detached from the nail bed 1/3 of the way down from the top. Super yuck. I was praying the whole time that my nail would not come off. It didn't, but it feels really unstable now. I'm so afraid I'm going to lose the nail. The nail tech said, "oh well, if it comes off we'll just apply an acrylic nail". Great. I wonder how much THAT costs?!

In other news, over on my Christmas blog I only have two posts left for Christmas in July. When I decided that I wanted to post each day for the month, I only half thought I would actually do it. To my surprise, I stuck with it and I will have posted for the 31 days of Christmas in July. It was fun, but I'm not sure I will do it again any time soon. It took a lot of time and effort. I have started receiving comments from someone in Brazil who writes in Portuguese. This is a language I'm not familiar with. At all. I wanted to be sure that I didn't have inappropriate comments showing on my blog so I tried to figure out how to figure out what the comments said. Thank goodness MS Word has a translate feature. I copy the comment onto a Word doc, hit the translate key, and get a translation.

We have a Village Inn a couple of miles from our house. We have developed the habit of going there for breakfast about once a week for the past several years. It has the friendliest staff I've ever encountered at a restaurant. The turnover is low, making it easy for the regular diners and wait staff to get to know each other. Two ladies in particular are favorites of ours; Gina and Cassie. They have been our servers for four years now and we know them and they know us. They ask about our family, we ask about theirs. They both had babies in the past year so it's been fun to watch them grow through baby pictures. Gina has asked for prayer support a time or two. I'm not sure if it's allowed or not, but this year at Christmas I want to give them each a token of our appreciation. I'm trying to think what I should do: cash or gift card?

Well, here we are at the end of July. August starts in a few days. Dan and I both have birthdays in August and the free/discount birthday offers have already started pouring it. This is when it pays to have signed up for emails and rewards! Have a great day...

Christmas in July Pinterest Party

I've been posting a Christmas in July entry every day on my Christmas blog. I can't believe that I actually came up with 31 posts for this series! Tomorrow's post will feature today's Christmas in July Pinterest party.
Jessica, Katie, Shelby, and I got together to make crafts that we've pinned. We had a blast and have already planned our next Pinterest party for Nov. 2nd. We were joined via Skype by Janel who had crafts of her own to share with us.

Here's a look at what we made:

My craft

(but really Jessica made it for me!)

Katie's craft

Katie's craft

Jessica's craft

Shelby's craft 

Shelby graciously let Sunny "help" her! 

Shelby, me, Katie, Jessica