It's coming!

Oh, how I love the holiday season.  Halloween right on through New Year's!  I love the focused effort we try to make to spend time with family.  It will feel a little different this year - the last few years the kids have been off track in December and I have loved that.  Spending extra time during the day doing fun holiday things was perfect!  This year we have 3 kids on a traditional schedule and one who just went back on track, so they'll be in school right up to Christmas.  We'll have to make some changes, but I'm hoping it will still feel peaceful and magical.  I've got a good start on Christmas shopping and I plan to be done before Thanksgiving for the most part.  That makes the Christmas season so much easier to enjoy.  I've also started the annual "deep clean."  I'm slowly working through my list of things I want reorganized and cleaned.  That makes things easier, too.  If my house is organized and clean before we get into the busy Christmas season, it's easier to keep it that way.  Which makes it easier to feel the spirit in our home.  The kids are getting excited and making out their lists.  There's quite a few interesting things on those lists, including some words that little brother just made up.  I found an amazing toy store a while back and I took little brother in when I checked it out.  Just some cool not-so-typical toys in there, and I'm planning to get a few things for the kids from there.  Little brother basically wanted me to buy everything in the store.  Anytime we've gone anywhere to do a little looking for present ideas, he points to just about everything and says he wants it.  Christmas is still so magical for my kiddos, and I hope to keep it that way!