Good Morning my lovely friends! It’s been a while since I did a Random Thursday post and this week just seems like a perfect one to bring it back. I don’t know about you but I am so exhausted from this past week, I am ready to chill in front of the fire with my hubby and have some Christmas music playing and just the Christmas tree lights on and some hot chocolate in hand, doing nothing, not even talking, just sitting and enjoying the moment. Maybe tonight that will happen. Yesterday we were working away at our Covert Operation Christmas Gift and we are close to done but not done yet. We stayed up way too late on Monday night wrapping gifts, like 2:30 am too late. Then we stayed up late on Tuesday night too and by yesterday I was starting to feel the effects of too little sleep, too much sugar and too much left on the to do list.

In some random news, my stenciled tree skirt is being featured over at .  Go check out her funny post and I need to tell the girl, I did not measure at all, this thing was done in a rather hurry up and be done with matter.  Go check her out!

In other randomness, my mother-in-law and her husband sent us a check in the mail for Christmas.  We ended up buying this for ourselves.

A router and door hinge kit so we can start buying the six panel door slabs and changing out the doors in our house.  We are officially DIYers when you spend your Christmas money on tools and get excited about it.  Don’t worry, the kids all have presents from Grandma, we didn’t spend their money on tools.  

Yesterday the hubs, the bubs and I spent the morning attending an assembly at our daughters’ school.  Two of our daughters received Respect Awards.  They didn’t know that they were receiving the awards and that we were going to be there in the audience. ( My pics are a little blurry because I really had to use the zoom).   Here is the youngest wearing her Christmas outfit and looking so cute and I love that the assistant principal is down at her level.

Here she is talking with the other kids who also received the award that day:
 

Here’s the middle daughter receiving her award.  This is a big deal for her being able to stand in front of the all the kids and some parents.  Last year she hated assemblies and worried about throwing up in front of everyone even though she was never the center of attention.  She didn’t even want to sit in the gymnasium for assemblies because of her irrational fear.   I am so proud of her!!  She didn’t worry at all and did a great job!!

The teachers have to say why the student is respectful and here she is, reading her award and what the teacher wrote about her.   I love this picture, I can tell she is proud of herself!

I love those principals, they are really awesome!  They are out playing with the kids at recess, pushing them on swings and playing some football.  The motto of our school is Respect, Responsibility, Safety but above all, BE NICE!  You can tell that they really reward those behaviors and make it something that the kids believe in as well!  So thankful to be at such a great school!

Some other fun for the day yesterday,  my oldest daughter and I made these owl birthday invitations that we found on Pinterest.  These are the Pinterest ones.

Ours looked more like this, we decided to make the owls a little smaller and glue them to the front of a 5×7 piece of card stock and put the info on the back of the card. I think they still turned out cute and we managed to do 10 cards in about an hour and a half, maybe a little less.

During the month of January, we have three birthdays in our family in a matter of 5 days.  It gets a bit crazy here.  Originally the two girls were going to have parties at the bowling alley.  That is until we found out it would be around $250.  Yes, $250 for people to bowl for an hour, eat some cake and watch our daughters open gifts.  So the new plan is birthday parties at our home.  Did you just see me shudder at the mere mention of birthday parties at my home?  Not my idea of fun but I will do it to save some cash.  The oldest daughter is going with an owl theme so I’m going to be hitting up Pinterest for some more ideas.  The youngest daughter wanted Hello Kitty which was easy enough.  Do you do birthday parties for your kids?  Do you have them at home?  Do you enjoy it?

I will post on Friday with (hopefully) pics of the finished Covert Operation Christmas gift and our Christmas Card.  Until then…………

I have many things swirling around in my head and so I thought I’d share them in a random post.
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the desk for the cloffice. It was a CL find at $15. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted but close enough and the price was right. After stripping and sanding it down it was time for paint. Well let’s say my vision didn’t work out as planned and I was back to the drawing board. CL to the rescue and thank goodness! So for $100 I have a new desk that doesn’t require any work. Sometimes I am so not wanting to spend $100 on a good piece of furniture that fits the bill, which can be a downfall. Instead I spent $15 on a desk, bought stripper and tools for $20, spent another $12 on tester paint and now I’m not even using the desk for the intended space and spent $100 for a desk that fits. So I actually spent $147 for a desk and at least 10 hours working on a desk that I won’t even use where I wanted to use it. I will use the desk in the youngest daughter’s bedroom so it’s not a complete waste but still…..lots of time, energy and STRESS into a desk. Lesson learned for me, sometimes being cheap ends up costing me more in the long run.

Random thought number two:  I love fall, who doesn’t love fall? It’s so beautiful and the weather is usually great!

I’m sad I really haven’t done any fall decorating but it’s enough just to work on the cloffice right now. Did you decorate for fall? Did you use traditional fall colors or maybe you added some blue? I’d love to see what you’ve done for fall! I am hoping the weekend of my birthday, which is coming up soon, we can spend a day just looking at beautiful fall colors!

That is all I want for my birthday, a day with my family enjoying God’s beautiful creation! Oh wait, and some cake. I love cake!

Another random thought for the day is what’s your favorite color?  That question makes me feel like I am in elementary school and you being my friend is dependent upon if we like the same color or not.  I have always loved blue and gray and I find myself always buying blue, black or gray clothing.  I love these two outfits from my clothing pinboard.

Do you pick the same colors for your wardrobe all the time?  Have you found those colors “work” for you so stick with what works?  Or are you more of a wild card and wear whatever?  I need some new clothes because I’ve lost at least a good ten pounds which I’m happy about.  So I’m having a hard time buying anything because I feel like I have to same 3 colors in my closet yet I like those colors and the way they look with my skin/hair.  If you have any tips or tricks I’d love to hear from you or you can just pick my clothes out for me.     I have a straight body that needs the illusion of curves so whatever you pick out just avoid things that make me look like a triangle.  HA! 
Final random thought for the day, I’ve read The Help, Water for Elephants,  One Thousand White Women and The Memory Keepers Daughter in the past month. I enjoyed all of the books except for The Memory Keepers Daughter which was an interesting read but kind of depressing.  Anyone have a book suggestion for me?  I really am missing reading before bed but I have a hard time just going to the library and selecting a random book off the shelf.  I am on so if you are on there, let me know and we can follow each other.   I am always on the look out for good books to read but I don’t do sci-fi, fantasy, vampires or scary stuff.  Once again, I have a wild imagination and it needs no help in imagining weird, scary or strange stuff.  I also don’t do books that have half naked people about to engage in sex on the front cover.  I think I read all of those in Junior High and High School along with every Danielle Steel book out there.  Did you read all her books? 

Well that’s the randomness of today’s post.  If you made it this far through my rambling, Enjoy the day!  Today is a blustery kind of day here yet the sun is out so I’m off to enjoy the day!