The start of the third and final week of fall break.  And believe it or not, we’re all happy, busy and my house is even clean!  I guess we finally found our groove!  *crossing fingers, knocking on wood and doing everything else I can think of to keep from jinxing myself by typing that*

We’ve got a warm start to this week, high today is supposed to be 89, but it should be appropriately cool later this week (low-to-mid 70s) so I’m excited to get outside with the kids; go for some walks, bike rides, maybe go to our favorite church yard pumpkin patch (that’s Wesley United Methodist on College, for those of you local to me - the BEST location for pumpkin pictures with the kids, and remember to take their pictures in the shade to avoid squinty eyes, Mom and Dad!).

Okay so on to some non-fall break news… I started my Christmas shopping this weekend.  I wanted to start sooner, like in August, but I didn’t start getting any good gift ideas until the last week or so.  I spent some time Friday night putting together my annual Christmas Shopping Workbook, in Excel, where I keep track of my ideas, where to buy, prices, what I’ve already bought, how much I’ve already spent, who the ideas and gifts are for and whether they are regular gifts or stocking stuffers.  It helps keep me straight so that I don’t forget all my best ideas and so that I don’t go overboard with how much I buy or how much I spend (easy for me to do, I’m not the frugal one in the family for those who couldn’t already tell).

My first official purchases were for the kids-  small stocking-stuff type things from Hearthsong.  Love that site, everything I bought from them last year was a hit!  I shopped the On Sale catagory and got some good prices, and made notes of lots of other things I want to come back to later.  Jag and I also looked through catalogs from Toys to Grow On and Young Explorers - they have nice selections as well, although I haven’t bought from them so I can’t vouche for quality or customer service yet.

Baby’s up and coffee cup is empty - more later!