Elmo Live

We had a girls night out to see Elmo Live. It was so cute. We loved it!

Christmas 2009

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house, the tradition. We have a family lunch followed by Beggars Bingo then an open house. Annagrace had fun playing with her cousins and showing off her dance moves for anyone who would stop and watch. She couldn't wait for present time. She has known for weeks now that the big green present, under the tree, was hers.But, for me, the best moment of the night was driving home. We played our favorite peppy Christmas song (BNL Jingle Bells) to keep Annagrace awake. We were ALL dancing, smiling, and singing along. The smile on Annagrace's face was priceless and I just had to stop for a second, take a deep breath, and savor the moment. It was followed by several sweet family moments, around the Christmas tree, that I will treasure for the rest of my life. I was perfectly, supremely happy. It was my best Christmas ever. Christmas morning I didn't even touch my camera, I wanted to see it myself and enjoy every moment through my own eyes, not my camera lens.

Building a house

One of our Pre-Christmas activities was a gingerbread house. I've NEVER done a gingerbread house before and true-to-form I was trying my hardest to make it perfect - just like the picture on the box! After telling Annagrace "No sweetie, the red ones go here and the green ones go here." I started getting frustrated with the imperfections and looked at Tyler. He smiled and said "Why are you stressing about this? It's all for her, let her do it how she wants." He was completely right. It was ALL for her, her house, her design, her memories. I handed off the royal icing duty to Tyler, placed all of the candies infront of Annagrace, and just enjoyed the moment: laughing at the drooping icing, the crooked roof, the gum drops that wouldn't stay put, and a little girl who couldn't stop licking her fingers.

Christmas Card Shoot

I just had to . . .

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Black Friday

Did I ever tell you how much I LOVE Black Friday? Seriously, I love it more than Thanksgiving Day. I plan for WEEKS what stores I'm going to go to. What time I should hit each one. And what ALL I'm going to buy. The ads are leaked to the internet a couple weeks in advance and I look them over and over and over again.
It's hard for me to fall asleep on Thanksgiving night in fear of missing my 3am alarm to make it to Khol's by 4am. My Mom, my sister, and even my husband love this early morning mad dash. And the fact that they are there with me insures I will get all of the stuff on my list!
This year, like most, Khol's was our first stop at 3:45. We all spread out to our assigned items and were in line for the register by 4:10. We made it to Walmart by 4:30 and I stood guard over the 600 TC sheet sets while Tyler set out to concur the toy department. My sister and Mom hit the electronics. The employees wouldn't let us touch some of the stuff until 5:00. But we managed to check out and be back in our cars by 5:30. Toys R Us was next and since I didn't have any door-buster items on my list we didn't have to really fight through the crowds for anything. Honestly due to their 12am open time, there wasn't really a crowd. Even the lines were really short. We dashed into JoAnn's before heading out to the mall to peruse their sales.

And that my folks, is how you get all of your Christmas shopping done in one day on a budget!
AND, over the course of the day, we saved over
600 dollars
by getting our hinnies out of bed at 3am.