Getting your calendar organized!

Do you ever feel like you are running a day late and a dollar short? I know this past year or two have been like that for me. Our lives were completely turned upside down for a bit and it has taken me quite a while to figure out which way was up. I have found a lot of comfort in going back to some of our old routines and they are helping us to get better organized.

It’s almost a new year so I am trying my best to get our home running even smoother which will help alleviate a lot of the stress that we have around here.

One of my best organizational tools over the past several years has been our Cozi Calendar. I also like to keep a large calendar handy for everyone to access so there is less confusion about what is happening and who needs to be where and when they need to be there. I haven’t tried out some of the newer scheduling systems because the one I currently use seems to work pretty well for us and I don’t really want to try to implement a lot of new changes while we are still trying to find our way back to ‘NORMAL‘.

We do pretty well about keeping our doctor appointments and such straight but sometimes it’s the other things that get overlooked… I actually almost forgot one of the kid’s birthdays last month! Thankfully I had already bought the supplies I needed so I was able to pull it all together fairly quickly.

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Made From Scratch Gifts

Are you tired of wasting your money on gifts that just aren’t appreciated? Or maybe you’ve noticed that your dollar just doesn’t stretch as far as it used to?

Well, here are a few gifts that are sure to be well-loved and appreciated!

These are always a hit around our home and everyone who gets any as gifts always ask for more!

Apple Butter

Apple Pie Filling For Canning

Canned Pumpkin

Crockpot Applesauce

Crockpot Pumpkin Butter

Easy Crockpot Apple Butter

Fudge — Always a Winner!

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It’s Just About Fudgin’ Time!

It’s just about that time of year when I need to get started on my Christmas Fudge. I definitely need to get it made before the Polar Express Party so we can share it with our family and friends who may come to visit.

Here are the recipe links for the fudge flavors that we have made in the past:

The Milk Chocolate Fudge has several flavor variations to try.

Butter Pecan Fudge

Easy Peanut Butter Fudge

Milk Chocolate Fudge (Christmas Fudge) — several flavor variations!

Peanut Butter Fudge

Peppermint Bark

Red Velvet Fudge

I am hoping to try a couple of new flavors this year… maybe even an egg nog flavor! It’s always fun trying out new flavors and sometimes we have great success while others are total flops but we have fun trying!

Here are some of the other candies that we make around this time of year as well:

Caramel Pecan Candies

Chocolate Covered Eggs (updated with more flavors!) (shape into balls for Christmas Candy)

Chocolate-Dipped Goodies

Crockpot Chocolate Peanut Clusters aka Reindeer Poop

Haystacks aka Noodle Cookies (2 versions here) 

We hope you find these recipes easy to use and we pray that you have a blessed holiday season!

Let us know in the comments what your favorite Christmas Candy is!

Give a Clutter-Free Gift Without Breaking The Bank!

Are you trying to find the perfect gift for someone on your list this year?

With the economy the way it is many of us have drastically cut back on gifting as we just don’t have the money left after paying for the basic necessities. Why not make sure that you give a gift that is sure to be appreciated?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that many people are afraid to tell anyone… I don’t know why it is so hard to say but we love our friends and our families but CLUTTER is driving us CRAZY and Christmas seems to bring another level of CRAZINESS with it. Some of us, myself included, are drowning in the CHAOS of LIFE right now and the holidays can get very overwhelming!

I’ve seen many posts in many different groups about people asking for these kinds of clutter-free gifts and really these make a lot of sense in a lot of ways. I know many of us have been trying to simplify our lives and our homes so many of these ideas would help to keep the clutter out of our homes but allow us to benefit in so many ways.

Zoo/Museum Memberships

I know our family loves going to the zoo or the museum and these would be awesome gifts… maybe someone you know would like this as well. If we had an aquarium near us that would be amazing as well.

There have been a couple of times that we’ve received tickets to go to local places and we have had an amazing time… without the thoughtfulness or generosity of others, we would not have been able to have those experiences.

Online Subscriptions

Another idea is to gift a subscription or membership for a service that someone may use or need. In our home, we love using various programs but many of them have also had to increase their prices.

We also love using our Amazon prime for videos as well as a couple of other companies as we don’t have any TV service here.

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St. Nicholas Day 2022

Yesterday afternoon I had the kiddos help me dig out the Christmas decorations and the tree. I’m so thankful that we’ve used color-coded totes (dark green for Christmas) for our seasonal decor as this makes it much easier to find the necessary items.

The kids were a little upset that we didn’t put the tree up last night but they were super excited to find some early gifts on the table this morning.

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