Clean and organize my life...

{This happens to be the title to one of my Pintrest boards}

I always look forward to the New Year because yes, I plan to make 'a new.
One of the biggest projects that I have lined up is PURGING PURGING PURGING!!!

My garage is an impossible mess and my house is busting at the seams.
This house eats library books and entire sections vomit their belongs while I'm distracted.
I'm so tired of picking up the same stuff over and over...

It's not working, it's too complicated for the children to comply with the organization of it all.
Most days I feel like I want to take all the baskets and combine them into a giant toy box because I'll find "accessories" mixed in the "figurines" bin or the "cars" will be in the "doll clothes"..nothing stays where it goes, so who cares about labels?
There is this kitchen drawer that jams up every time I open it to use the foil. Really, the foil is the only thing I use in that drawer but all the other stuff is on standby...just in case the need arises...

I'm at the end of my rope!

I know where I need to begin. I need to minimize EVERYTHING! There are too many accessories, figurines, cars, doll clothes, and things in the foil drawer.

...but it is such a big project it's hard to begin...

When I look around there are many things that I love...those will stay.
Everything else will need to prove it's usefulness, if not, GONE!

I have to remind myself that it's difficult for a family of six to keep tidy and organized {especially when Dad and Mom are both full-time students and both work outside the home}

I'm coming up with daily cleaning schedules for everyone in the house, I think this will help a lot.

I also have to remind myself that the youngest member in the house is a  two year old who tends to turn into a tornado if he's given too much freedom to roam....

His chores will include picking up and sorting {I'm sure more chores will come along when the ball starts rolling}

I'm going to test out a lot of those Pintrest ideas and see what works for us!

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Do you have a really effective cleaning/organizing system?

Tell me, tell me, please share!!

Merry Christmas!!!

This is a pretty photo-heavy post, but hey, it's Christmas, it's to be expected right?

The kiddos said that this was their favorite Christmas!

 They feel that way every year...not because of the gifts{we never go crazy with gifting}, but because they feel the great love and joy from us and each other.

We made Kobe go on a scavenger hunt to receive his last gift...everyone thought it was pretty funny!

The children always get to experience the gifting part of Christmas twice, after we do it at home we go to Vince and Mema's house and do it all over again!!

 We wish you a Merry Christmas!

...and a Happy New Year!!

T'was The Night Before Christmas...

T'was the night before Christmas with the Zeres, all through the house not a creature is stirring except the 13 year old who can't sleep. 

He keeps asking, "what can I do to get to sleep?"

I remember those Christmas nights as a kid tossing and turning with excitement...

I remember thinking about all the presents awaiting my arrival...

As I've grown I realize that the best gift of all was one I had never opened. 

The gift of Jesus's love for me was always there, unopened. 

That gift has been torn open and gets better every single day!

It's not about religion, this gift, no...it's about a relationship. 

God bless you all and have a 

Very

Merry

Christmas...

Love,

The Zeres

Tis' the Season

Tis' the season for LOVE and JOY!

Even though the temperature outside (70 degrees right now) doesn't feel like Christmas, Love knows no season. 

We have really been soaking up the Holiday love around here.

Instead of snow-kissed noses, we have sun-kissed cheeks. Instead of  white-covered hills, we have green-tinted fields. I've come to learn that the Christmas cliche is not at all important to me. The Christmas miracle  that happened 2000 years ago is the most important thing, and without Him, Christmas doesn't exist. 

Where there are no snowflakes, we create them...

My lovely girl had a Christmas concert this past week and I couldn't be more proud of her. Her youth choral has been working so hard every week and they really blew our stockings off! 

They were AMAZING!! Not just because I'm MOM, but because the pieces of music they chose were incredibly challenging. They all put in 100% and it wouldn't have been possible without their directors. The directors put so much faith in these little people and they really knew what they were doing. I'm am wildly impressed!!

My little lovely really enjoyed raising her voice, and that big voice will resonate in many hearts for time to come. 

 I'm so so so proud of you little dear...we love you so!

 You have a heart of gold and you will touch so many people through your journey in life...

Thank you for always being you, and for all that you do!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good day!

PS.  Trees are not the only things we've been trimming around here. 

It took me a really really long time, but Oscar finally got a fur-cut!

He looks like a totally different dog...ha!

Haphazard progression...

Yay! The blog is back!!

Yeah, last blog post was in March (I think).

As we near the end of 2013, I realize, I'm not sure how I made this far.

It's like when you're in deep thought while driving, then you wonder how you managed the last three miles without looking at the road.

I am somehow making progress into the new year. This year has been a real challenge for me. I have pushed myself to my limits. We decided to do some looooong-term planning and I somehow thought that being a full-time student, having a part-time job, and homeschooling the kiddos was all going to work out.

Every conversation I get into about my schedule, I get asked the same question, "How do you do all that?"

It has been really hard. Really really hard.

On the flip-side...

The semester is over in two and half weeks, my job lays me off for the winter months, and teaching my children is truly joyful anyways. 

I have somehow made it through the thick of it...

One of my biggest problems about being so busy and overwhelmed is that I became more sensitive than normal. I'm a VERY sensitive person to begin with, (I have cried rivers that threaten the Nile's record).

In normal situations, I would find ways to blame myself for things that didn't involve me, or I would read stories about major strugglers, suffering and repression...gahhh! I sure knew how to absolutely torture myself. 

Well, here we are, nearing the end of this crazy year. I am happy to say that I accomplished a lot of what I intended. Not everything went the way that I planned, but it is what it is and I'm not dwelling on it anymore. 

I have Thanksgiving off and we're planning to really enjoy the holiday season, together!

We are planning to fill the house with all the fruits of the spirit...

and the greatest of all these is...

The quickly-approaching holiday!

I CAN NOT believe that it's about to be Thanksgiving! Oh my how fast this year flew by...it's almost over...

Well, for Thanksgiving this year I'm going to try to make things as easy as possible...I am definitely buying some of it prepared...especially the pie! I keep sampling pumpkin pie every time I go into the Fresh Market and mmmhhhhmmm they sold me on it!

I usually like to cook everything, but I cannot stress how busy I've been. Blogging, bloggging, blogggging...my head is starting to spin. Don't get me wrong, I truly love it...but I feel like it's consuming a lot of my time. I also feel like it's what I need to do to get it out there...just keep on keepin on...

I'm pretty excited about the little break that we had yesterday...we got to hang out as a family, and get our family photos done at the same time. It was pretty fun, Danny and I were cracking up last night thinking about it...

We used J&L Studios {a local couple} and they did a great job.

        Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Happy Halloweeeen...

We've been enjoying this Halloween season. I loved getting out to the pumpkin patch, playing in the corn maze, and creating pumpkin faces at Chick Fil-A. We printed out some leaves and colored them. We also made some chocolate covered pretzels and called them witches broom sticks.

This time last year I was getting into my morning sickness stage and couldn't bare the smells of the composting leaves (which I usually love)

It's hard to believe that Jude is already almost 4 months old. He is incredibly curious and amazingly eager to be a big kid. Just over night he has learned to grab things. Well, he's been grabbing things for a while, but now he aims and NEVER misses. 

We waited in line at the pumpkin patch for 40 minutes to get our faces painted.

It was worth it though, the clown lady did a great job! Right before the girls were about to have their turn, the lady in front of us saw some people she knew and was letting their children cut in front of us in line.

I saw this as a test of strength for me because usually I would just let it go and complain about it later.

Nope, not this time.

Not after already waiting 35 minutes...so I confronted her. This was great, all I said was "It's not fair to my girls, but you go ahead and do what you think is right"...we ended up in our rightful place in line, but she wasn't nice about it.

So tonight we went "Trick or Treating". Dad, Mom, the girls and Jude. Kobe went with some friends and brought home 1/2 a pillow case full of booty.

We had: Lula as Taylor Swift...

Jude as Puppy no. 1

and Mia as puppy no.2

Lula...I couldn't wait to wash her face paint off. Even though her costume was really cute and turned out really good AND the makeup/facepaint was my idea, I don't like makeup on little girls...it just doesn't sit right with me...

...neither does the idea that my children will consume all this candy. Actually they won't. We struggle with this every year, but it will mostly be thrown away or consumed by someone other than my children. 

I think a lot of people struggle with the absurd amounts of candy collected on Halloween, but parents are responsible for policing it.

I struggle with the "scary" stuff. I don't like it. We just stay away from it.

I also know that a lot of people struggle with the roots of Halloween, but to us...it's become a tradition of nothing more than innocent costumes, face paint, and candy.

"“The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him for he cannot bear scorn.”-Martin Luther

Boo!