Stuff

So, I have so many thoughts going through my head, I’m not sure how to sort them all out and write them where anyone (other than myself) would understand. O-well, I will try.

Christmas shopping for 5 kids is fun… until you see the bill! I will have to say I have done amazingly well this year. I’m a firm believer of shopping year round and only buying stuff that is on sale/clearance. We have a tight budget and this year with our daycare bill increasing 50% with Chris on days, the budget is tighter than ever. Our kids don’t have everything, but they have enough and a lot of what they do have they buy with their own money. General rule for Christmas and birthday’s with all the cash my kids seem to get is 50% goes in the bank, 25% towards clothes and 25% goes towards whatever they want to do with it. Now that Austin and Ryan are a little older and out of the toy stage 50% will still go to the bank and the other 50% can be spent how they wish, keeping in mind some of the money will be used for fun money when they want to doing something with friends. In the past Austin and Ryan have chosen to spend their money pretty wisely and will usually go out and buy something they have wanted and will also hold some back for misc. spending too. Anyways, back to Christmas shopping, we are done…. finally. My biggest complaint is I had the hardest time finding an African American baby doll for Elle. Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target had one style, a $40 doll that pees, cries, and spits up… I’m thinking why the hell do I need that… I have a baby that does that already. I was looking for a simple, inexpensive African American doll she could play with. I found a few dolls I liked on the Internet, but it really bothered me I couldn't find a simple African American doll at my local store. So, one night Chris and I had to kill some time so I thought we would stop by K-mart and walk around, would you believe they had a simple African American doll, perfect for Elle. They only had two styles, the one that pees, cries, and spits up on you and then this one. They had two dolls on the shelves of each style; I grabbed mine and headed out the door (after I paid for it). Anyways, Elle’s Christmas was finished. I have started writing a letter to Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys R Us about the importance of having all ethnicity represented equally in their store. I will be curious if I get a response. I will have to add a little kudos to Wal-Marts letter, in their Black Friday ad they had small soft Cabbage Patch Kids on sale, the ad showed one darker skinned doll and one lighter skin. I thought to myself, what are the chances... I will get into Black Friday a little later, but yes I was a crazy, up at 3am and I was at Wal-Mart by 5am to get what I needed and yes I got the Cabbage Patch doll I wanted. Of course, only one style to choose from, but we got it and that's what's important... for now.

Elle’s 1st Thanksgiving Dinner-
We had a great, wonderful, uneventful Thanksgiving lunch. We had Ham (I don't like turkey and since I host Thanksgiving everybody has to suffer), stuffing (yes, stuffing with no turkey... why, because I like stuffing), might as well add cranberry sauce too just because I like it. We served up green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, party potatoes, strawberry pretzel salad, deviled eggs, rolls, some green fluff stuff, pumpkin pie and peach cobbler. Thanks to my in-laws who helped out and brought over several of the dishes. It was so nice and took a lot of the pressure off me. Elle was such a good girl, sat at the table in her high chair and took it all in (the food that is). Thank goodness we didn't have turkey... she might have turned into my little butterball.

Black Friday-
Black Friday started on Thursday at 5pm for me. Michael's had a 4ft pre-lit Christmas tree I have wanted for years but refused to pay $40.00 for. They had them on sale for $14.99, you better believe I wasn't going to let those slip by. Friday morning my neighbor and I left at 3:30am and headed to Kohl's. I wasn't very impressed with Kohl's this year, but I did manage to get something off my list for $12 regularly priced $20. We loaded up and made it to Wal-Mart before 5am and I headed straight to the boys PJ's, can't beat $3 PJ's. Cody and Owen each got 5 new sets of PJ's for Christmas. Some might think that’s a lot, but not really. Cody and Owen refuse to wear underwear at night so it's not like they can re-wear the same PJ’s. After the PJ’s chaos, I wondered over to the toys were and picked up the rest of the items on my wish list. Overall I spent $115 and saved over $150. I was very impressed with Wal-Mart and the amount of stock they had for each item (at least the items I wanted). I was able to get all the items I wanted. I picked up my last item at 5:30am and there were 3 left. Kudos to Wal-Mart for stocking up for Black Friday Toys... if you were there when the sale started you more than likely got what you needed. We left Wal-Mart and headed to a few more stores and I was home by 7:30am… just a few minutes before Elle woke up… Perfect Timing!