Begin the countdown.

Here come the holidays. Am I ready? In no way at all. Do I have ideas for gifts? Some. Will I get everything finished in time? Probably not. All I can do is try. But I am finding motivation just as difficult to obtain as a Black Friday limited quantity doorbuster. I may have to get up early to get some. Not looking forward to the work Christmas entails. Christmas cards? Probably not. Homemade gifts for close friends? Looking dicey. Something special for my man? I'm plum out of ideas. I have a feeling I might be changing how we do Christmas.

Ready to drop!

We have been a very busy family. Every weekend since the first of August we have had something going on. Here is a list of our activities:

This is the Place
Kearns hometown parade, then a bridal shower
Primary activity
Teresa's baby shower
Family reunion and 12th anniversary
Lagoon
Peach Days
State Fair
Crystal in Vegas with Teresa, Dave and kids at Toys R Us birthday party
General Conference
Boo at the Zoo in Willow Park (Logan)
Early morning hike for my birthday with the girls, then craft day, then Treehouse in Ogden
Kids Halloween party
Halloween
Going to the U of U football game
Pow Wow for Cub Scouts
Crystal back to Vegas to see Baby Sam

My first weekend without any plans happens to be Thanksgiving weekend.

That accounts for my entire fall season. I have been slacking about putting pictures up anywhere. I am currently getting them off the camera and onto a computer. I feel like I am busy all the time. Every Thursday Lila and I go to Grant's school and help out for the day. Grant likes having Mom come I think. Lila likes to be with the big kids and is very well behaved. I like going because I get to see what Grant is doing in school and I feel more connected with what is going on. Last Thursday we had a Halloween party for the entire class time. We has 6 stations of activities and I got to read the same story 6 times. It was a long story so the other stations were always waiting for me to finish.
I've also been going nuts getting the house cleaned and decorated for the 2 Halloween parties we had, one for kids, one for adults. Now my house is looking better, but still gets messy if I turn around.
Lila is talking up a storm. Her new favorite sentence is "I do it myself." I was carrying her down some stairs and halfway she said this sentence. I put her down and she proceeded to go up to the top of the stairs so she could come down all of them by herself.
Grant is learning how to read and picking up on it quickly. As long as he doesn't let himself get frustrated too quickly we can get him to read simple books now. He knows a good number of sight words and is picking up more by the day. School is a good thing for him. He has never been much of an artist, but he has started to draw pictures. He even entered a picture he drew into the Reflections contest for school. I was so proud of him. The theme is 'Beauty is..." and he drew himself standing in front of his house with green grass and a blue sky with a very colorful bird flying by. He titled his piece " Home". I forgot to take a picture of it and am sad because he probably won't get it back. Maybe they will have it displayed at the Reflections awards assembly and I can get a picture then.
David is going into the Christmas season at work. He knows long days are on their way. I am trying to plan accordingly. This means I have to find sitters if I am going to do things on a weeknight. That's just they way things work when your husband works for UPS.
Maybe things will slow down for us soon. What am I thinking! Bring on the Holidays!