Friday Fave Five...Nov. 30, 2012

***30 Days of Thankfulness***

Before I get to my Fave Five, I'll wrap up my 30 Days of Thankfulness with a doozey.  I'm very cautiously optimistic that the baby that was born yesterday seemingly having some issues with his heart rate, seems to be doing well.  More will be known in the coming days, but I am so thankful that things are looking good now.  

On to five of my favorite things from the past week:

• It's been a looonnnggg week, what with my hubby being sick, Jacob and Julianna each taking a turn with a mild illness, working, worrying, etc. One of my most favorite things this week has been doing a huge part of my holiday shopping online.  I think I've done more this year than ever before, and trust me, I've always been a big online shopper.  This year, almost everything has been done online.  I found the cyber Monday deals to be awesome, including my most favorite freebie of all, free shipping.  Perhaps it's not fair of me, but I absolutely hate to pay for shipping anymore!  Drives me crazy.  I'm so used to companies offering free shipping that I'm just about to the point where I don't shop at places that don't.  I am 80% done with my holiday shopping and I have done almost all of it in the cozy comfort of my home.  Woohoo!

• Amy Adele.  Amy Adele offers adorable, personalized stationary and my kids will definitely be finding some in their stockings Christmas morning.  Personalized labels, book tags, bag tags, notecards and thank you cards, all for reasonable prices.  My kids, like a lot of others, love to see their names on things.  I love that if they have the stationary they're one step closer to using it.  Plus, they're getting to the age when their friends like to borrow a book, there's a better chance of them getting it back if their name is in it.  Yes, you could accomplish the same thing with a pen, but personalized tags are so much fun.

• Along a similar vein, I was very excited to discover that Walmart offers free ship-to-home on many of their grocery items.  With running a home daycare and working almost 50 hours a week, then having my children's activities taking up evenings and weekends, it can be difficult to find time to go to the store.  I like to buy a lot of our food at either Whole Foods or another smaller grocery store that doesn't offer much in the way of pantry staples, toiletries and paper goods.  What they do have is not priced competitively.  I discovered this week that with a $45.00 order, Walmart ships for free and I was able to order our toilet paper, paper towels, laundry products, pantry staples and toiletries for the same prices in store, in mere minutes.  Awesome!

•  Body Butter.  I have dry skin year round, exacerbated in the winter.  If I use lotion every day it keeps it pretty much under control.  I love using body butter by The Body Shop.  It smells good, it feels good and it keeps my dry skin at bay until the next day.  Doesn't get better than that!

• Good ideas. Bear with me on this one, maybe you can relate.  Some years, despite the best of intentions, it can feel like you end up buying presents just to buy something.  You really care about the person, and you want to do something special for them, but you just can't think of what that might be.  Thankfully, this has not been that year.  This year, hopefully, I think we have purchased thoughtful gifts that the recipients will enjoy and it feels so good!  Hopefully we haven't missed the mark, but if we have, it was with the best of intentions.  I am so excited to give our gifts and hopefully, bring joy to the people we love and care about.  Not all of our gifts will be the most exciting, original gifts we've ever given.  In all honesty, very few of them will be, but they will all be nice things, carefully chosen with the recipient in mind, and the hope that they will truly be something that brings the other person joy.  So fun!

Have a great week.  Check out Susanne's for other Friday Fave Fives.