What a Day!

My day started at 5:45 with Mr. Reed who is starting to sleep through the night. Next came our upstairs friend's alarm radio, which she most proudly blares! The next layering sound was her daughter running and screaming while she blares her little keyboard. The final touch was my son knocking on his door (because he thankfully has not learned how to open doors yet) and completing the symphony of noise around 6:50!

My life has lately been consumed by folding giving statements for the church. I believe it came in at just about a ream of paper - yikes! With that and other end-of-the-year work being my focus lately, my desk has been neglected. Just so you would understand my grief, I thought I would capture the moment before I dug in...

Somewhere under there is my desk. I found most of the desk by about 4pm. The rest is left for tomorrow.

In all my searching for more organizational techniques, God gave me an idea recently about my menu planning. I've shared it with a few of you, and I thought I'd post it so you could see. I love to plan my menus up to a month ahead of time and have my shopping lists ready to go. With everything happening around here, I was lagging in my planning and God gave a fabulous idea! I planned 5 pay periods worth of menus with their corresponding shopping lists and now I can just rotate. Here's what it looks like:

See I can mark off what I already have before I leave and I have all my staples that I'll need already on my list so I don't forget! I know....I'm a dork! At least my family will continue to eat!

Lastly, my amazing husband gave me my birthday gift tonight. It's about 3 weeks early, but he bought me a new digital camera and he wanted me to have it this weekend for Rusten's birthday party. I'm so excited! What a wonderful guy!!! In honor of this new addition, here's a closing picture of each kid from tonight!