Black Friday!

Woo-hoo! Yes, I am one of those crazy people who loves Black Friday. The Eagle and I have been going out shopping on Black Friday since the first year we were dating and he invited me to Thanksgiving (I also dragged him to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower that weekend, since his parents lived one town over and I had never been -- the whole family thought I was nuts for wanting to go.)

So anyway, this was the 10th year that we scoured the papers on Thanksgiving and made our lists and checked them twice... and planned our route. Some stores we deliberately do together so we can divide and conquer, and other stores we split up so we can be at two different places when they open. Well, this year was different, as the Dandilion was sick a stomach bug and we didn't want to leave my mother in law with the sick kid... so I was left alone to do the shopping.

So off I went at 3:30am... I was at Kohl's for the 4am opening (got what I needed) and then stood in line for the Target 6am opening (I was about the 30th person in the door). At Target got most of the things that I wanted, but didn't bother with the electronics department because I couldn't get my cart even close (this is where I missed the Eagle). I had a 10% my entire purchase coupon so I got several things that weren't on sale as well and cover most of the people on my list.

My only negative issue (which I have never had any of the other years). The Target checkout was packed and since they have double checkouts, everyone was waiting in one line and feeding into both registers. Suddenly a preteen girl darts through and jumps in line at the front register -- and her whole family follows. Grr. So a few minutes later this other lady comes along and tries to do the same thing but can't fit her cart through. She said "Excuse me", and I responded, "Oh Sorry. We're all in one line". And boy she got all huffy! She said back to me "Well Merry *&*%# Christmas to you too! I didn't see you yell at those people" and started to back up. Grr. I didn't dignify her with a response to that but heard her comment to other people in line a few other not so nice names. I wish I had said back to her "You may think I am being rude to you, but I think you are being rude to all of the other people at Target this morning who have waited their turn. Merry Christmas to everyone who you didn't just cut!"

So after that put my Target stuff in my car and brought my cart back into the store and happily handed it to someone who needed one (they were all in use by then). That made me feel a little better and I continued on to three more stores with early morning discounts and headed home by 8:30.

I didn't get as much this year as I usually do, but I didn't need as much of the things that are typically on sale on Black Friday (electronics, small appliances, popular toys). I have lots of my stuff done, but there are a few things left for Cyber Monday...

Turkeys can fly

We had some special visitors on Thanksgiving morning. All five turkeys flew across the pond so the kids could get a closer look.

Holiday Photos

We got our holiday portraits done at Sears again this year. Usually, I am pretty happy with the shots they get, but this year it was a lot harder to get all four of us smiling and looking nice. The individual shots of the kids are good, and they got a nice shot of the Eagle and I (for our 5th anniversary later this month). The family shots, I can live with, but I don't love. Maybe they will grow on me.

After the portraits, the kids went to see Santa, in their nice clothes. The Tumbleweed absolutely LOVED talking to Santa (there was no line) and went on and on telling him about things she wants for Christmas --- the cutest was when she first walked up to Santa, who asked "What do you want for Christmas?", and she said "Well, my brover (gesturing at him) wants a train". The Dandilion was not so keen on the whole Santa experience and screamed from the time he was set down on Santa's lap. Oh well - I think Santa will still get him something :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

If you live nearby, be sure to drive down Greenwood Street when it is dark out. The "house with all the lights" is decorated again this year. They were hard at work around 2:00 yesterday when we went past. The front yard was full of lighted statues, and they still had half the garage full of stuff!

On the homefront...

~we have not started decorating yet, but considering that I never even took out the Halloween decorations maybe I should get started! I still have to decide if I am putting up both of our trees this year - or if the family room tree is just going to be another tempting climbing structure for the Dandilion and I should skip it this year. Jury's still out on that one.

~I am preparing for my annual "Black Friday" shopping trip. I have lists going of places to go and things to get... now we just have to see what's on sale!

~I made our Christmas portrait appointment for this Tuesday at Sears and ever since I have been trying to find the remaining pieces to the outfits we are going to wear. This morning I picked up what I thought were the last three things, and then realized that the Dandilion doesn't have shoes to wear (we are wearing black and he only has brown or navy). Oh well.

Drive-thru Cantaloupe?

Why isn't there a place that I can get a drive thru cantaloupe? Why, you ask? Because this morning I needed to get one for the Tumbleweed to take to school and I didn't remember to get it yesterday. So I left the house 5 minutes early (not enough, but all that I could manage) and headed to the grocery store with both kids. It wasn't quite "In and out" but I thought it was close until I went to take the Dandilion out of the cart and put him in the car and realized that he had swiped a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package while we were in line. So back in we went and handed it to the first store employee I could find.

In the end, the store took about 12 minutes. Combine that with the 5 minutes early, and the 5 minute traffic buffer that I usually allow for, we were only about 2-3 minutes late to school (and not the last ones either).

But drive thru would have been much easier.

Crayons Everywhere

Apparently our artistic children have been giving the crayons a world tour. Yesterday I found some crayons in some places I didn't expect to.

1- In the Tumbleweed's hamper. Just one lonely yellow crayon was hanging out with the clothes... fortunately I noticed during the sort!

2- A handful of crayons in the washing mashine with the adult dark load. Not sure where they came from, since no kids were present during the load process to try "washing the washable crayons". Fortunately no negative outcome.

3- In my bra. The one I had on all day. Not sure how and when it got there, but it clearly fell out as there is a "blue-green" spot on my bra. Too bad it wasn't money :)

I think the crayons need to sit in time out until they learn boundaries!


Related cute Dandilion word... "Cowa" = I want to color

Phone Calls

Today was a day of phone calls. It isn't often that the kids cooperate and both take naps at the same time, allowing me the ability to make important phone calls without being bothered, tugged at, or having some kind of unsupervised disaster occur. Today the naps aligned, and I made some phone calls I had been putting off for a while. (Remember, I HATE using the phone)

1 - Car Insurance Co. - still trying to sort through the medical bills from the car accident. I think she had forgotten about me. Hopefully everything will get taken care of soon.

2 - AAA - to finalize the details of our Disney Trip. We are are all set with the hotel rooms and park tickets :)

3 - Disney Dining - Checked in on the reservations we made for the trip --- so far just Bibbity Bobbity Boutique, Princess Dinner and Pre-race Character dinner at the Garden Grill for 10 people... more planning needs to be done!

All three calls in one day - amazing!

Christmas Music

Too soon? No way! I love Christmas music, and why should I only listen to it for a month? So, since Santa is already at the mall why not start enjoying it now. Yesterday I put one of my favorite CDs in the car, and today I remembered that there is a radio station that plays Christmas music all day long... "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."

Here is the real question, can I start putting my decorations up yet? I know it is early for that, but considering that I didn't have time to put the Halloween decorations out (yup - 3 boxes never opened this year), maybe I need to get started with the Christmas decorations now. I still haven't decided how we are baby proofing the trees though :(

"Ca" & other new words

The Dandilion used the word "cah" to describe a car, instead of "Vroom, vroom". Another funny "new word" is "gooey" which means cookie. "Beh" is also a new one = bed or blanket (when he pulls it up to his tummy).

Also new this weekend, is va, to, fee, fo, fi (1,2,3,4,5). When he is babbling, he says "va, to, fee, fo, fi, to, fee, fo, fi, to, fee, fo, fi....." He has really been babbling up a storm lately, sometimes non-sensical, but sometimes he gets a word or two in there.

I am sure I have already forgotten some of the new words, but someday I will be glad to have any list and I won't care if it is complete.

Silent S

Someday soon, the Tumbleweed will start to pronounce her "s" sounds and we will forget how cute the "Silent S" phase was. Here are examples of some of my favorite examples of the "s" she drops off words with "s" followed by a hard consonant:

"tory"- story
"pecial"- special
"tepping tone" - Stepping Stone
"top" - stop
"trawberry" - strawberry
"hnack" - snack
"tore" - store
"tairs" - stairs
"cool" - school
"tick" - stick
"kunk" - skunk
"kwirl" - squirrel

And my personal favorite.... "crapbook" - scrapbook

There are more but I can't think of them right now... I will add to this later :)

Kid of the Week

The Tumbleweed was chosen as the first "Kid of the Week" at KidsCanScrap.com. She loves to scrap with me, as long as she gets to use the "good paper". She really liked seeing her pages up on the computer - and loved that I let her type the e-mails to submit her projects. I love to see her learning about shapes, colors, and letters while practicing her fine motor skills.

Here is one of her pages:

Independance is Messy

The Dandilion feeds himself yogurt...

Growing Up

The Dandilion is getting so grown up. Two signs of this have surfaced this week:

1- Tucking himself in under blankets... on the couch, in the crib, climbing into the Tumbleweed's bed - he just loves to sit and pull the blanket up. Really cute.

2- Using a fork... yesterday I was putting food on his tray and using a fork to move it from the plate I had cut it on. Well, he wanted that fork! So I let him have it (it was a kid fork) and figured it would end up on the floor momentarily, but that at least for a few minutes he would be happy. Well, he surprised us. He held on the the fork - and used it to pick up every last bite of food - for more than a half hour. He did it again tonight with amazing success.

I guess I have to give him more credit - he is always more capable than I think.

November Scrapbooking Goals

I have finally gotten a chance to look at my schedule for the month of November and make a plan for the things I want to accomplish this month. Last month I was able to be quite productive by giving myself deadlines for projects, so I decided to continue that for this month and I have quite a detailed calendar grid sketched out with topics, plans & deadlines. I am sure someday I will laugh at the effort I put into this, but I look at Mike's exercise training plans and figure that this just my version.

Anyway it boils down to...

Finishing 3 mini books - 1 that is already started
20 new layouts
5 layouts already in progress
12 cards (for swapping)
3 kits (for page swap)
and planning my projects for December's NYOBC.

and... since the kids are napping I better get to work!

Too Big for Baby Proofing

Well, I guess 3 years 7 months and 24 days is how long it takes to figure out how to get past baby proofing. In the past hour, the Tumbleweed has figured out a cabinet lock (proudly showing me how she did it) and the pressure gate across the door (which she attempted to remove secretly, but couldn't put back the way it was).

Ugh.


** update - she figured out how to put the gate back before naptime...

A Second Blog

I am expanding... I have started a second blog for displaying my scrapbooking & other creative projects. I didn't want to complicate this blog with my layouts, so "Scrappin' Mom" will stay as is - my thoughts, ramblings, journalling and milestone records.

If you want to check out my first project post on the new blog --- here's the link: Scrappin' at Naptime

New words

The Dandilion has a couple of two syllable words (other than the repeated syllable kind):

Ba-Duh = bottle
A-puh = Apple

I know, we are supposed to be taking away the bottles (as the doctor reminded me for the second time at his visit a few weeks ago)... it's about 50/50 bottles and cups right now and that is mostly because it is easier to clean the bottles than the sippy cups, darn valves. I guess I should just stop being lazy and switch him... but he's so cute when he says "Ba duh"

Final Count

So with my new Scrapbooking Plan, I have managed to get a ton of pages/projects done this month. In the past 4 weeks I have done:

5 mini books - (4 birthday gift books & Disney 2007 purse album)
19 layouts - (10 layouts were done during crop time at CKC, 9 since then)
1 album - 8x8 holiday journal - Book Club project for this month

and I have several "Works in Progress"

3 mini books - (Peek into my Week is SO close to done)
9 layouts - (between page swap and CKC I have a bunch of layouts that just need pictures!)

There have been several late nights, but I love that the creative juices are flowing. It feels like "work", but in a good way - I have a purpose, objectives and a direction. Now, if I could just figure out how to not make a mess when I scrapbook :)