Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving this year?  We had a wonderful time!  We alternate years between my mom & dad’s house and this year we were at my Dad’s.  It was a nice, intimate celebration for us and we got to spend some quality time with my step-mom and Dad.

Tyson had some Thanksgiving homework (writing down our menu, word puzzles, etc.) and he started off the day by getting that done.  The food was great (I LOVE Thanksgiving food!) and I was happy to bring the Green Bean Casserole, one of my personal faves.

We also sipped on some Chocolate Martinis, MAN were they good (as pictured below!)

I can’t believe it’s already Christmastime!  This year is SO much different with me being home and able to gradually decorate and bake.  I’m wrapping up another BUSY fall season with Ten Tiny Toes, but it’s been the best year yet!  Looking forward to taking some much needed time to slow down and enjoy this season.  I’m taking part in a “Picture the Holidays” Project where you take one photo each day (they send you a prompt) and I’m hoping this will refocus me on the little things about this time of year that I love.  If you’d like to join in (you do NOT need a DSLR or need to be a photographer to join in) you can find more info here: http://www.papercoterie.com/signup/picture-the-holidays/

Time to say Grace!

Yes, it’s 12:42 am on November 16th.  Today I turn thirty one.  Holy crap, I am getting up there (I kid, I kid…)  Since I have a few minutes I thought I would post on this poor neglected blog!  Things have been busy busy busy for us (but when aren’t they?) and I’m wrapping up my crazy busy season right now with photography.  Looking forward to having the month of December off to enjoy some time with the kiddos and shoot for ME!

I can’t believe Tyson is already in first grade!  He has just changed and matured so much over the summer and is just such a big kid now.  He still loves his sister too much, but watching their bond grow has been so amazing!  They love each other so much!

Here are some photos from the big first day of school this year!  I found these awesome printables (I will try and hook up the link when I remember where I found them from!) for the first day of school for each year.  So, I’ve got them all printed and in my file drawer, just waiting for the kids to grow to use them.  I thought this would be a fun tradition each year.  :-)

Here’s our big boy, with his sister, his BFF Alex, and down at the bus stop.

Um yeah, so that’s me, the one who hasn’t posted since APRIL!!!  Let’s just say this working from home thing is HARD and much more time consuming than one could ever have imagined!!  But, I am SO happy I took this leap of faith, so far so good, although of course we’ve had a few bumps along the way in this change.

Just a brief update on everyone:

Tyson finished Kindergarten back in June, crazy, I know!  He’s very excited for summer and has been busy enjoying it with all of the neighborhood kids.  He played baseball this spring and flag football has started this week.  He’s still our little jock!

Bailey is amazing.  She is such a little stinker, but at the same time so adorable and sweet.  It’s been so fun to spend so much time with her these last few months. Especially when it was just me and her when big bro was in school.  She’s a little fishy in our neighborhood pool and is talking up a storm!  She’s starting a dance class with her neighbor friend next week and it might just be cuteness overload!!!  Will definitely be taking pics of that!

Tony and I are busy plugging away at life!  Working lots and playing lots too though.  We’ve been having a lot of bonfires (and a lot of wine) with our awesome neighbors.  I just love our neighborhood, I feel so lucky to live here!!

Now—back to my post title.  One of the things I have realized over the last few months is that I am completely time management challenged!  I NEED to be organized and I WANT to be organized, but getting there and STAYING there is a battle for me and always has been!  I’m really trying to work hard to teach myself some new habits and routines to simplify our daily life for my family.

Are you a list maker?  I sure strive to be.  And you know what?  Since I’ve started using more lists, I’ve been feeling much more organized and forgetting fewer things!

I stumbled upon this amazing site for all things list related. I just had to share in case anyone out there is looking for a way to help them stay organized and sane!  It’s called ListPlanIt.

They have a list for just about everything that you can think of.  Right now, my favorite are the business lists though, they help me plan out my business blog posts, newsletters and marketing.  There are also some fantastic daily planner, meal planning and to do lists.  I also cannot wait to use their holiday specific lists as well!

What kinds of things do you use to keep you on track and organized?  I would love to hear about them!

Since Ty and Bailey’s birthdays are about a month apart (March 14 and April 18) this year we just decided to do one joint family party somewhere in between the two of them.  So, the first weekend in April, we had our “family” party.  Since Tyson was going to be having a separate kid party closer to his birthday, I decided to have a more girly theme to this one for Bailey.  Since we still have a major Olivia the Pig obsession in our house, and Bailey had a perfect white and black polka dot dress I bought back in August for this event, I figured that would be the perfect choice!

Inspired by this blog post, I got rolling!  My first project was of course the feather boa wreath for the light in the kitchen.  It was SUPER easy to make.  You can find the instructions here.  Mine didn’t turn out as fancy, but still cute nonetheless!

Now it was onto the food.  The party was at 1 pm, so I just wanted to have a bunch of apps and finger foods.  I’ve been looking for a reason to make Bakerella’s Cake Pops for some time now and since Olivia is all about all things red, decided that red velvet cake pops would be the perfect addition to the party.  They were so.yummy!!  I also made these super easy Oreo Cookie Suckers.  These were a HUGE hit too!

We also had Olivia’s “Rules of Life’ on little cards around the house.  That’s one of my favorite parts of the show and her books!

Happy Birthday Bailey & Tyson!

I am so behind!  Things have been so busy, but I’m going to really try and get caught up at least on the birthday posts!  We had a ton of fun on on Bailey’s 2nd birthday.  She had a couple of small gifts to open and we had some cake too!  Oh yeah, and crown me mother of the year for not having any candles on hand.  Ooops!  Thank God she’s only 2 and didn’t really know any better.  She was too concerned about the cake!

She got an adorable jewelry box, you know the kind where the ballerina spins inside?  L.o.v.e.! And for her “big” gift we got her a new trike.  At first I thought that long handle thing would be totally tacky to have, but you know, for once Tony was right and I have been SO happy to have that thing there since she can’t pedal yet!  My back is thanking me every time we got to the park with it!

Happy Birthday, Bailey!

(you can click on each of these collages to see them larger!)