Day Late...Dollar Short.

Ok, I'm more like several days late posting, and hundreds of dollars poorer (thanks to Black Friday)...so I'll try to sum up last week's holiday festivities in a nutshell or two.

Last Tuesday was Kaylee's Thanksgiving Feast at school. The kids had fun making Pilgrim and Indian costumes and joining in special games and simulations related to the First Thanksgiving. Each little pilgrim and indian was responsible for bringing an item to share for the feast. The meal tasted delicious!




This was a great trial run for the real meal deal on Thursday, where we joined with extended family on my mom's side. Thank you to my cousin Art & his lovely wife Valine for hosting such a wonderful dinner. Your home is beautiful, and your hospitality was so appreciated.


This is a picture of my plate. I'm salivating just reliving the memory. (Note: This was trip 1 through the line....I didn't take a picture of trip 2 or dessert....I do have some pride. Stop judging. What do you think New Year's Resolutions are for?)
















After eating a hardy meal and hanging with the cousins, we headed home, threw the kids in bed (ok, we didn't really throw them, it was more of a "toss" and/or "drop" and did the next best thing to eating...we looked at the Grandaddy newspaper of them all...The Thanksgiving edition. We pored over ads and sales, jotted down store opening times, special doorbuster deals & carefully mapped out our plan of attack to maximize our efforts on BLACK FRIDAY. We didn't climb into bed until well after midnight. My alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. We were out of the house before 4 a.m. (Note, my mom's clock said 3:58 a.m., but it's about 15 minutes fast...so you can see how crazy we really were...Notice Josh's enthused look on his face. He looks forward to this day all year.) I must say, despite the fact that you feel worse than death after the day of mad shopping is over, and wish you could hibernate for the rest of Winter, you really do save a ton of money and score some great deals. Thank goodness Josh cleaned out his trunk prior to the shopping extravaganza. There was not one square inch of space left in his car when we were through that day. He nearly had to bungee cord me to the bumper. No joke.







Saturday, we met up with the fam at the movies. Josh summoned his inner child once again (not so hard for him to do, lol) and took the kids to see Bolt,



while the rest of the adults saw Twilight again. I have to say, as much as I loved it the first time, it was even better the second time. Can't have too much of a good thing.

The rest of the weekend was spent finishing up the Christmas decorations. The kids helped me decorate the tree on Sunday, following church. But first, they insisted on getting a few pictures in front of the undecorated tree. The kids were obsessed with getting turns to be the family photographer. (Every other day, Jacob's planned profession is to be a photographer. It stems from his now long gone obsession with Peter Parker in Spiderman, who happened to be a photographer by day, superhero by night. His chosen profession on the odd days? Dentist...just like his Papa and uncles.) Anyway, enjoy the pictures...with the exception of one or two, the kids took these themselves. Pretty good for two crazy kids aged 6 & 3.