getting ready for Christmas

The Christmas holiday is upon us already. It seems like I was just at the kid's school for their Halloween parade and now to help with Christmas. Where did the time go. The kids started bugging us to put up decorations on Thanksgiving, we agreed to bring in the boxes but didn't start until the day after. Every year we have the kids buy toys for the toy drive and this year when Scott and I were at Hobby Lobby the other day we found $24.00 on the ground in the parking lot. There was no one around that it could have been. We decided for that little of money no one would look for it at the police, so we made the decision to use it for charity since it wasn't ours to begin with. Yesterday we took the kids toy shopping and they were able to buy quite a few presents for the toy drive with it. Brandon was so excited he wanted to put the bags in the box before we even paid for them. The kids are also having a food drive and a blanket drive through the school. The food goes to families in the county so it stays close to home and the blankets are going to the local homeless shelters. We didn't have any old blankets to donate so Mom put in a request at work so hopefully we can get a few at least. They also are having the yearly Santa Shoppe at school that I volunteer at. That is where the kids get to shop for their own gifts for their families. It is fun to see what the kids pick out. Sometimes we need to direct them and a lot of times to keep them from buying for themselves. They can be pretty adamant about what they want to give though. The big problem is when they have $10 and twenty people to buy for. That is next week so I should have some good stories after then. It takes up a lot of time but it is worth it. I just have to work a little harder the week after to get all of my projects done before CHristmas. We are supposed to go to Rachel's mom's for their Christmas party tonite but it is snowing really good so I don't know if we will want to chance it or not. We have lots planned over the next few weeks and I will try to post about all of it as we are doing them. I love being able to blog about our family adventures especially at Christmas it makes me feel closer to all of my extended family and that you all can be a part of our traditions as well as us a part of yours.