Thanksgiving 2011~Christmas Tree!

Jaron and Mikenna - almost done!  Mikenna was feeling a little claustrophobic trying to get the bottom branches done and wanted out!  Jaron on the other hand liked being under the tree.

The finished tree!  They were tired afterwards!

Thanksgiving 2011~Outdoor Christmas Lights!

Today we decorated the outside of the house for Christmas!  The kids all enjoyed helping Toby put the lights on the house.  Toby even let Jaron and Mikenna scale the roof with him.....all I can say is I am glad I wasn't watching because I would have freaked seeing them on the roof.  Brielle and I did some inside decorating while they were outside.  I so love to see the Christmas lights on every night!  One of my favorite things about Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2011~HUGO Movie!!

Two of my kids - Jaron and Mikenna have read this book - Hugo. They both really loved it!  We went to see an early showing of this movie during Thanksgiving break.  Very good family film!  We all enjoyed it!  If you are looking for a good family movie to go see - which they seem to be very few and far between these days - this is an excellent one!

Thanksgiving 2011~Shopping

So Toby and I tried something new this year.  I usually do all of the Christmas shopping myself; Toby doesn't usually shop for his own clothes, let alone Christmas.  He's just not a shopper....at all.  So we decided to try and hit some of the 9pm, midnight, 5am sales during Black Friday.  It was CRAZY!  I usually do the early Friday morning shopping the day after Thanksgiving - which is still a little crazy-but we started out Thursday night at around 9:00pm - and there were lines of people outside stores already.  Immediately, I knew this was not going to go well with my not so savvy shopping buddy.  He really tried though and I really appreciated his willingness to go with me and brave the crowds of crazy people.  He stood in lines for me while I shopped - I would get done shopping and bring the stuff to him while he was waiting in line - and then we would wait in line until we were able to check out.  We really found some great deals that saved us a lot of money that we probably wouldn't have been able to afford if we hadn't made the Black Friday shopping trip happen.  We were able to get all of our Christmas shopping DONE-and we saved a good amount of money doing so - it did reek havoc on our patience, because both of us hate huge crowds of people - so claustrophobic~ and we basically had no sleep since we stayed out from 9pm Thursday night to 6am Friday morning.  Thank goodness it's a once a year thing!  Oh the things we do for our kids!

Thanksgiving 2011~Pie!!

We are pie lover's at our house! Basically they all finished their dinner - so they could eat the pie!  If you give my kids a choice between cake or pie - they will say pie hands down-with the exception of cheesecake - they love that too.  Toby and I made quite a few pies the night before.   We also bought a couple.  Altogether we had 7 pies just for our family. We let the kids pick what pie they wanted to have for Thanksgiving.  Mikenna picked Key Lime Pie, Jaron picked Pumpkin Pie, Brielle picked Marionberry Pie, Toby picked Coconut Cream, and I also made a Pumpkin pie made with pumpkin spice pudding - really good! Toby and I made them all except for the Marionberry - we bought that pie at Yoke's! We had a yummy dinner with all the fixings! We also went around and we all took turns saying what we were thankful for. The kids also made up their Christmas lists for Santa.

Thanksgiving 2011~Rollerena!

Our family planned some fun things to do together over Thanksgiving....1st activity was Roller blading at the Rollerena.  My kids loved it!!  Brielle was able to by the end of the night go a little by herself without help.  She was very determined to learn.  Jaron and Mikenna haven't roller bladed much - but they took to it very fast and didn't have any problems.  Toby and I on the other hand....are sore!  But we had a great time together!  We had chili afterwards for dinner; and after Toby and I got our kids to bed, we made 5 pies for dinner the next day!  

Thanksgiving 2011~Rollerena!!