Makes Me Happy

Just looking at these on my desk make me happy. (and that would be my still clean desk that has been clean for F-I-V-E days so far!!!)

Stephanie Nielsen said it perfectly this past week here, my favorite part quoted below ~

While we can't change other people- or their choices, we have the power to 

lead our family with the good choices we make and strive to make.

That is where I am going to put all my effort and full attention to as a mother.

I want my children to understand that making good choices NOW

 is the only true way to be happy.

I can make a different here at home with my kids, in their lives, which said little lives are the most important thing to me.  They are the most important people in my life, and I'm happy to really be consciously making them my focus, and to consciously be making traditions, and not just letting life happen to me. 

I love it.

This is my favorite job.

Here's the steps I've taken so far with my new home management system:

I was talking to a friend today and prepared this linky-party for her with the beginner steps that I've made so far, I'll add more links of what I'm doing as I do it.  As for now, here's
Here are the two "have with you always" books -
Calendar and To Do List
In the calendar book are my daily cards.

My Binder - still working on it, but it's also already working!  :)

First tab in the binder is planning, first page in that is my checklists
 -  Here's the calendar that we put our weekly schedule on during the planning session, this goes on the fridge
list of chores
church goals
journal sheets for kids (if they haven't written in their journal during the week, we do a journal page during the planning session)
Father's interview sheet (something that was in one of my files from years ago that I've never used, still haven't, but think it would be good for Corey to do with the kdis on Fast Sundays)

Second Tab is Weekly and Monthly Stuff that I go over when I do my self planning checklist - like:
Organizing Challenge
Food Storage

Third Tab is Traditions -
20 year vision (that's from the "A House United" Book
Holidays (working on those)
Birthdays
I also made some lists of Summer Activities, places to camp & hike, Classic Old Fashioned games (like Hide the Object), Date night ideas, things like that


Fourth Tab is Personal Study -
My and corey's patriarchal blessings
The proclamation
The Living Christ
Articles I want to read (I rip them out of the magazine if they look really great, print up ones from online when I get them off of my "to do List" book, & keep a list of classic talks that I love so I can reference them (they are printed and in a file after they are read)

And my budget binder is something of my own creation after trying out Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace university" and also a book called "America's Cheapest Family" - mostly based on the latter book