Planning Ahead

I think that God is really leading me into a season of my life that is very much a dichotomy. On one side God is asking me to surrender and wait for his timing and on the other side he is asking me to be plan some of the little projects a little bit better and not always wait to the last minute to get things done.

So let me explain a little bit about what I mean. Because of my lack of planning last year, I remembered on December 5^th that I wanted to do a project called DecemberDaily. December Daily is a scrapbooking album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas pretty similar to Project Life. After I noticed the little detail I overlooked and found out that she starts to plan her album in October. Which is a much different than I decided to start my album last year. 

In case you checked out the website. I will not be doing anything near the ornateness that Ali Edwards is doing. I know what I can handle and the ocd-prefectionism that I possess when it comes to scrapbooking. They spell check things for you and make you check and double check things. Right now I’m planning on using Shutterfly to make a photobook. They are always having deals on their products and then I can print multiple copies to send to my Nana and my brother.

Ali did say the secret to the success of December Daily is having a base album done so all I have to do is put pictures and the journaling and move on. I have started the album on the website so it will be very easy to just upload pictures and place them.

I also started to get the Advent season in order and look to see if there were any new family devotions that would be fun for us to do. Last year we did A Family Advent: Keeping the Savior in the Season and it was really a great devotional. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a kid-friendly Advent devotion. They went through and put some added information like the “Fun Facts.” We did our reading at the dinner table at night; it seemed to work for us. It would be awesome to hear what you are using!

Since Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I have the spiritual gift of 3-ring bindersI thought I would share one of my favorite websites. A couple of years, I found a website called OrganizedChristmas. The entire website is dedicated to cutting the stress at Christmas time by making a 3-ring binder planner with hundreds of FREE printables that help you get organized. There are several different “plans” depending on how much you want to do. 

I would absolutely encourage anyone to read the article Before The Season: Focus On Holiday Values and work through the Family Values Worksheet. Because knowing where your true values lie allows you to set a path to true holiday happiness, and to avoid the minefields that our culture and commercialism will throw in your way.