Plans for 2016

Early last year I joined a group on Facebook called 40 bags in 40 days. This group is meant to help you clean up your house and get rid of 40 bags of garbage or donations in 40 days. 

The woman who started this group did it because she had 2 family members and a close friend pass away and after having to go through all of their things she realize she didn't want her family to do the same for her.

 I like the idea of putting into practice a lot harder than you think. I try to do a few bags every day or every week or every month, but it's not working so well.

Arnold and I have decided to put this into practice this year. We will be going to the house and cleaning up anything and everything we find. This means going through storage unit and taking a hard look at what we own and what we want to keep.

I came up with a plan to go through one section of the house each month take a hard look at everything and clean it up. This won't be as easy as it sounds but we should be able to get it done.

Here's to getting decluttered and organized this year!!

Advent Days #11 & 12 - Justice & Awake

Yesterday and today are being put together.  I can't figure out what to put in for Justice.  I'm thinking I will work on it for the next few weeks.  What we did yesterday was go to The Phantom of the Opera!  It was incredible!  I love it so much!

Today is "Awake".  And lets just face it, I'm trying so hard to be awake.  I just about fell asleep at school!  It was amazing!  I'm so lucky we got to go!  Now back to Christmas!  15 more days until Christmas

Advent Day #10 - Free

Free...

Free to do what we want.

Free to believe what we want and in who or what we want.

Free!

For me, free means a free morning!

While I was at school this morning, nothing pressing was happening and my kids I normally work with were doing coding with my hubby this morning for the week of code!  So I was free!

I made this:

We have a door decorating contest coming up and I make this for the staff room door!  I wanted to have a little fun!  I even got a few more doors done :) 

Sometimes it's nice to be free for a morning!

Advent Day #9 - Peace

So yesterday was "Listen".  And today is Peace.

It's surprising how those two go hand in hand. 

Today I got to enjoy some Peace at home! 

You win a prize if you can spot the dog.

Snowy and I even got to enjoy a cookie while we were peaceful!

Advent Day #8 - Listen

I'm changing it up a little.

I did some great listening today!  We had our church choir sing.  It was awesome!

One of the cool parts was watching my oldest son find a carol in the hymnal.  He had never done that before.  He was surprised how it worked and I'm proud of him for trying it out.

Listening is sometimes hard.  Not just hard but incredibly difficult.  We can hear just fine, well generally.  It's the listening to what is happening.

Thankfully we got some great time to listen on Sunday!

Advent Day #7 - Wisdom

As my son always saying to me "you learn something new every day".  Today I learned that after making a million cookies my tummy was done and my hands were done and I was done.  However... in my wisdom... I knew that I could still EAT the cookies!

I'm pretty sure that's not what he was talking about.

Each morning for the past 7 days I've been doing a Christmas Carols Devotional through my Bible App.  I love it!  This Devotional is so cool. 

I love the other ones I have done as well but this one is awesome!

For anyone who doesn't know me, Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year.  I love the decorations, the feelings behind Christmas, the reason for the Season = Jesus's Birthday!!, and most of all the songs. 

I love singing them.

Sometimes I swear my voice was for OLD music, not the new music that was done.

I sing carols at the top of my lungs when everyone is out of the house.  It's just something I do.  If you ever walk by my house, or the classroom I work in I'm singing at the top of my lungs most of the time!

This brings me to my picture.  I love the devotionals.  I love the songs, and I love that this devotional gives me a little bit more wisdom about the carols, and about my life.

As a side note... I gained a little more wisdom about how to screenshot without having a power button! 

Advent Day #6 - Comfort

Comfort.  Comfort and Joy!

Today, was a crazy day for me.  But I did get a bit of comfort.  My comfort today was popcorn!  I love popcorn!  Seriously love popcorn!

Today, we popped over 200 bags of popcorn for our movie night at school.  I got to enjoy a bit of comfort.

Advent Day #5 - Open

Aside from gifts, one of my favourite things to open is cards!  I love opening cards, any time of year.  Christmas is my favourite!

I love the sparkles.

I love the glitter.

I love the way the cards light up the space.

I love how people hang them in their houses.

I love how they are part of the decorations in my families living room.

I love Christmas Cards!

But really, opening cards is awesome!  It's great to remember all those people who love you enough to send a card!

Advent Day #4 - Journey

Todays theme was "Journey".

When I was younger I used to love when our stained glass nativity screen would travel around our house.  We have had Mary and Joseph in the bathroom, in a home built out of Lego and much more crazy adventures.

It's my turn to do this with my kids.  They are beginning to understand how a journey moves and the distance that had to be traveled for Mary and Joseph.  Right now, our journey has begun in our kitchen.  Mary, Joseph and their donkey are in our kitchen window and are slowly traveling around the house.

To go along with my window writing I've been doing, we have quoted Luke 2:1-4 on our kitchen window.  What a journey these two took years ago. 

Advent Day #3 - Wait

I don't know about you but I hate waiting!  I might seem like I'm ok with it but I'm really not ok with waiting.

 

Waiting is hard.  Like, really hard!  You know something is coming.  You sometimes know the outcome.  And yet, you still have to wait for that time for it to happen.

 

At Christmas, we are reminded of when Jesus came to earth.  When He was born.  And now we are waiting for Him to come back.  I'm not very good at waiting for these sorts of things.

 

My boys have a different kind of waiting... for them, it's their countdown to Christmas.  They are waiting for the day that we exchange gifts under the tree.

 

The boys are also waiting for each morning when they are allowed to eat one of their candies from their countdowns. 

 

Each morning the boys have gotten out of bed, had breakfast and gotten changed super fast so they can enjoy their treat.

 

Yes, we did start early, but we are actually counting down until we visit Nana and Papa more than when we have Christmas.

 

So for my photo today, it's wait... the boys have to wait for Christmas: