Holiday House Prep | 3 Boys And A Dog

Days To Christmas + Holiday House Prep

October 14, 2009 By Kelli Leave a Comment

I hope you have been following along at 100 Days To Christmas because obviously, I am not real good at remembering to post my progress each day. OK, I remember, I just haven’t had time. LOL!

Here’s what we have missed:

89 Days Until – Take the Family on a mini-trip to a Fall place close to home. We have corn mazes, hay-rides, haunted houses, and haunted trails around. We haven’t been anywhere yet, but they are on our Calendar!

88 Days Until – Make an apple recipe. OK, this one has also not been done yet, but the supplies are on our shopping list. I am actually making a pumpkin pie or nine, depending on the size of the pumpkin we purchase.

87 Day Until – Costume Planning. Ha! This one is DONE! All three kids have costumes. Me and Ricky, on the other hand do not, nor do I know when we are going to get them. But, we have a party to attend on the 24th, so we better get busy!

86 Days Until – Hosting Halloween. Yep, this one is also done. We have two Halloween parties, a fundraiser Haunted Trail (Ricky’s baseball team), Zack’s school party, Trick-Or-Treating at the local Convalescent Home, a Dinner, and Halloween Trick-Or-Treating. Yikes, looks crazy when you put it down like that. ROTFL! Anyway, we have to have everything planned and prepared or we go NUTS!

85 Days Until – Decorate for Halloween. We have started this one, but I keep telling Ricky that we are missing a box and he won’t get back in the attic to look. So, until he does, we are done. LOL!

84 Days Until – Handmade Goodies. Who do you make handmade items for? You need to be setting aside time each day to get those completed! I am not really doing any this year.

83 Days Until – Catch up Day! Whew, even missed the catch up. LOL!

82 Days Until – Today you should have been looking at the beautiful Fall colors. Unfortunately, we don’t really have Fall colors down here in South Alabama. We have Spring, Summer, and Winter. Our stuff is either growing, in bloom, or dead. LOL! The leaves die, we don’t get pretty colors.

81 Days Until – Today you are supposed to go back over your budget and start making plans from all those catalogs.

80 Days Until – Go through your stash. We all have a stash of gifts that we have either gotten and don’t need or bought at a great price during the year. Do you have anything you can give to someone on your list?

79 Days Until – Plan to do something this Christmas Season… movie, theater, musical, etc… watch for the dates and put them on your calendar!

78 Days Until – Halloween! Time to add candies and goodies to your shopping list. I already got mine at Sam’s.

77 Days Until – Today we are supposed to be finding some Holiday Crafts. Here are some great sites:

76 Days Until – Catch Up Day (and I missed the second one LOL!)

75 Days Until – Go on a leaf hunt! Doesn’t that sound like fun? I am adding it to our school plan and will have Tripp find out what tree each leaf belongs to and make a poster.

74 Days Until – Work on a project… one of those Fall things. We actually did this and on the correct day. Zack and Ricky carved a pumpkin using our new Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit (look for review and GIVEAWAY soon.)

73 Days Until – Pictures… time to make a photo appointment! How long has it been since you had a family photo made? It has been so many years for us that neither Tank nor Zack are in it. Yikes! I added this to my calendar for later… especially because my mother keeps begging for one.

72 Days Until – This is TODAY! Can you believe I am caught up? Holiday gift wrap. Do you have enough paper, bows, bags, labels, etc? We should… mom and I go together. We can have more designs if they are split between us. Nice!

BONUS HOLIDAY HOUSE PREP:

Today we are going to go about this one a little different. Is your computer ready to handle all the photos, emails, newsletters that you are going to be getting this upcoming holiday season? I know mine isn’t! As of this minute, my computer is running so slowly that I am ready to throw it out, plus with almost 200 emails in my inbox that I need to deal with, I have a ton of computer work to do. Here’s what I suggest:

Run Disk Clean Up
Run your anti-virus software all the way through
Clean up your inbox – can you get it to zero?
Back up your hard drive
Run your anti-virus software.

Filed Under: Holidays / Seasons, Organizing Tagged With: agriculture, christian music, Christmas, christmas holiday houses, christmas music, crafts, culture, day, days, film, halloween, halloween party, haunted house, haunted trail, haunted trails, holiday house, Holiday House Prep, holidays, holidays crafts, independent films, jack skellington, lol, prep, prepped, pumpkin, pumpkin pie

92 Days to Christmas + Holiday House Prep

September 24, 2009 By Kelli 1 Comment

I didn’t post yesterday because I didn’t do it. There again, the reason you should not only be following me, but also 100 Days to Christmas. If I don’t do my work, then I don’t post. So, today I am supposed to be coming up with a list of the people I am sending Christmas Cards to. Plus, since I lost my address database, I am going to have to look up addresses. Uggh! This time, I am compiling the addresses on paper instead of relying on the computer. I made one of my tabs “Address Book” and put some printed address pages behind it. I also have a sheet in my spiral notebook with “Names of people to send cards to” at the top and have been jotting down people as I think of them. As I put their complete info on the addy list, I mark out their name.

You can find some printable address pages here:

http://www.samplewords.com/organization-address-book.html

http://listplanit.com/lists/contact-information/ – the 100 Days to Christmas week one sponsor. I am a member of this and LOVE many of her printables!

http://www.calendarsquick.com/printables/download.html?action=addressBook

http://www.donnayoung.org/household/fullsize/ffiles09/hofiles/grettingcardreg.pdf – This is the one I am using! I love the fact that it has a place to mark when I mail the cards

HOLIDAY HOUSE PREP –BONUS CHORE

Last night I had DH pull down our Halloween stuff. Is yours down yet? Do you have decorations to put up? Mine will go up next week. We don’t have much, a rug, 2 blow ups, a table cloth, and a cute little pumpkin girl (which just dawned on me, was not in the box DH pulled down. That means we have another box up there. Oh, he isn’t going to be happy! LOL!)

Anyway, your Holiday House Preparation chore for today is to look through your Halloween decoration, costumes, etc. Does anything need to be repaired? Does it need to go in the trash? Is it not going to fit anyone in the house? Do what needs doing. If it doesn’t fit anyone sell it on eBay, give it away on Freecycle, or take it to Goodwill.

*Photo provided by FlickR*

Filed Under: Holidays / Seasons, Homemaking / Housekeeping, Organizing Tagged With: 100 Days to Christmas, address, address database, christian music, Christmas, christmas holiday houses, christmas music, day, days, holiday house, Holiday House Prep, houses, look up address, prep, prepped, send christmas card

95 Days to Christmas + Holiday House Prep

September 21, 2009 By Kelli Leave a Comment

Today at 100 Days to Christmas is all about setting your holiday budget. Be sure to go to 100 Days to Christmas to get full details on it. On my Christmas list, I put an amount I am willing to spend per person. Then, when I finish purchasing for that person I put the total amount I spent beside their name. This helps me keep up and most Christmases, I have kept below the amount I wanted to spend. Yay! LOL!

Bonus Challenge: Holiday House Preparation

Last week we got our left over cabinet all cleaned out and neatened so we would be prepared for leftovers during the holiday season. We take our left over containers with us when we go to Thanksgiving Dinner. This way we bring our own containers home with us and don’t have to worry about getting them to their owners, nor do we have to worry about paper plates spilling on the way home.

Today’s challenge is a bit different. How many toys and clothes do your kids have? This week we are going to work on cleaning some of that stuff out! As I tell my kids, “How can you expect Santa to bring you new stuff when you don’t have any place to put it?” So, today we are going to work on getting a box or bag filled with stuff from the kids’ rooms or playroom. Are you going to list it on eBay, have a yard sale, list it on Freecycle, or take it to Goodwill?

Filed Under: Holidays / Seasons, Homemaking / Housekeeping, Organizing Tagged With: 100 Days to Christmas, amount, christian music, Christmas, christmas and holiday season, christmas holiday houses, christmas list, christmas music, day, days, holiday budget, holiday house, Holiday House Prep, holiday season, meteorology, prep, prepped, santa claus, spent, weather, winter, winter holidays

98 Days to Christmas + Holiday House Prep

September 18, 2009 By Kelli Leave a Comment

Those days are slipping away pretty quickly! Today is VERY easy for me as I am about 90% done with my Christmas shopping. I make a list on the day after Christmas each year and start my shopping for the next year. The stores always have such great sales and I can usually get a few names marked off my list. I am not keeping my list in my binder because I keep it in my purse. This way, no matter where I am, I have it. On my list I record exactly what I buy and how much it cost me. How do you do yours?

Don’t forget to sign up for the email at 100 Days to Christmas so you can play along, too!

HOLIDAY HOUSE PREP BONUS CHALLENGE:

So, how did you do yesterday with your left over cabinet? I would love to see your before and after pictures! Be sure to blog about it and add your direct link to the Mr. Linky!

Filed Under: Holidays / Seasons, Homemaking / Housekeeping, Organizing Tagged With: 100 Days to Christmas, christian music, Christmas, christmas holiday houses, christmas music, christmas shopping, day, day after christmas, days, holiday house, Holiday House Prep, Housekeeping Lists, human interest, listing, prep, prepped, pretty, quickly

99 Days Until Christmas + Holiday House Prep

September 17, 2009 By Kelli 3 Comments

I spent a little time this morning finding some goodies for my Holiday Plan Binder. Then, I started printing. I printed September – January Calendars as well as binder inserts. I used List Plan It for my Calendars and Organized Christmas for my cover and spine. How are you doing with yours? Here are some links to resources for you 100 Days to Christmas plans and preparations! Don’t forget to go to the site ”100 Days to Christmas” to sign up for her emails. You will get your challenge in your inbox each day. Also, feel free to follow along with me as I issue occasional Bonus Challenges to get our house company ready!

http://www.printfree.com/Calendars.htm – includes holidays – in portrait format

http://www.eprintablecalendars.com/ – can choose to have holidays or not… create layout you want, color you want, and more!

http://listplanit.com/lists/holidays-occasions/ – Awesome source of hundreds of check lists including monthly calendars (and the 100 Days to Christmas Sponsor)

http://organizedchristmas.com/ Lots and lots of printables including a cover to slip into your Holiday Plan Binder!

Holiday House Prep Bonus Challenge: This one is simple to get us in the spirit and to get us ready to tackle our home.

Today I want you to look at the place you keep your left-over containers. What does is look like? Is it super messy? Take a few minutes to go through and make sure every top has a bottom and every bottom has a top. Then, put them all back in neatly. As we get closer to the holidays, we will be using our plastic containers much more often. It is better to know what we have and what we don’t.

Do you notice that you really don’t have much of anything left after clearing out the junk? Make a note to pick up some Rubbermaid containers next time you are out.

Or, maybe you just found that you are literally SWIMMING in containers… throw out the horrible ones, then think of other uses for the extras: bathroom to contain all those little travel items, kids’ room for socks, kids’ playroom for small toys, craft room, etc.

Have fun and please let me know how it goes. Plus, keep your eyes open for the Mr. Linky in tomorrow’s “Days Until” post so you can add your before and afters of your left over food container cabinet.