Thanksgiving & Black "Friday" shopping

This year, we had Thanksgiving dinner at Matt's parents' house, just our immediate family. Even JJ, Kimberly, Jacob and baby Samuel were in from out of town! It was a nice relaxed atmosphere and the food was good. We enjoyed the perfect weather by eating outside in the backyard.

{all the turkey cousins, minus baby Samuel}

Afterward, we stopped by my parents' house to visit with them for a bit. My dad and I have had this tradition, I guess you can call it, that every time I'm pregnant, we take a "belly shot" together. It's always around the holidays since I've only been pregnant the same time of the year every time. (apparently we got the wrong pose this time... gonna have to fix that) ((and I can't believe the variance in my shape/weight between pregnancies! eek!))

We got a serious case of the giggles, so bad we were crying!

Black Friday shopping (really on Thursday)--- I wasn't gonna do it this year. Maybe it was the Target Lady that made me do it. ;)

First of all, I was kinda miffed that the stores that I've previously shopped at were ALL opening at midnight. How could I stagger my shopping, hit each store and get everything I wanted??? Not possible. WalMart's sales (except for electronics) was starting at 10pm, which after a looooong Thanksgiving day, that didn't include a nap for this 9 month preggo lady, did not sound appealing. Plus there wasn't really anything in the ads that I just HAD to have. There were definitely items I could spend my money on, but didn't know if it was worth the hassle.

When I told Matt I was thinking about skipping out on it entirely, he almost had a heart attack since I've been so die-hard the last few years. This year, because of my non-planning, we didn't have someone to stay with the kids so I would be on my own and that's no fun either. Matt convinced me to go out anyway, but I felt silly for going for so few trivial items. I ended up meeting up with a few friends and we saved places in line, divided and conquered to make sure we all got what we wanted and managed to have a good time! I was home and in bed shortly after 2am, which almost seems better than having to get UP at 2am to head out and start shopping! I guess the tradition lives on after all! Too bad I didn't get any pics though.

School Schtuff

** Third grade is hard. For ME!!! Memorizing long poems, constructing dioramas, putting together a book report on a book I've never read or read a million years ago. I get so stressed about these dumb projects and thanks to my procrastinating self, we're usually trying to get them done at the last second.

Brooklyn and Blake had to create an animal habitat, so I bought all the materials I thought we could use. Blake had specially requested that Daddy help him, so I was Brooklyn's partner. Daddy got the easy end of the stick, I'll tell you!!! A desert is MUCH easier to construct than a rainforest! This is what we ended up with-

Blake -- desert animal: BOBCAT

Do you love the dead prairie dog with blood? Oh my.Brooklyn -- rainforest animal: GREAT HORNBILL

I secretly curse under my breath that they'd BETTER get 100% on these projects and thankfully, they've made the grade each time.

** Homework time for Blake has been much more pleasant lately. On occasion, he's had a day and this was one of those days. I think Mondays and Wednesdays, they are required to write sentences for 15 spelling words, each sentence containing at least 7 words. Most often, I get two kids, each asking me for a sentence for each of these words and I get annoyed sometimes. I was sick of arguing with Blake to do his sentences so he did this-I told him that his teacher probably wouldn't consider this acceptable, which means he'd have to do double the work, and I let him turn it in. Blake did tell me that his teacher made him rewrite the sentences during class. Still makes me laugh though!

** For a cute, optional project, Gavin was sent home with "Tom Turkey" and was instructed to disguise him so that the farmer wouldn't recognize him on Thanksgiving day! It was fun coming up with ideas of what we should disguise Tom as, but we decided on football player. ;)
** Last item of business, the unveiling of 2011 school pictures! I love them, tilted heads, crazy hairs, mousy smiles and ALL!!

Weekend Recap

Last night, we did a group date with Derek & Kristin, Jen & Dan (and Josh) to see Blue Man Group at Gammage. I've heard a lot about the shows but never have seen one so it was definitely an experience! A little bit of comedy mixed with a little bit of music and creativity and highly entertaining!
This morning, I was able to join up with a bunch of girlfriends for Time Out for Women in Phoenix. I've wanted to go to one of these for forever, so I'm glad that Matt sacrificed going to Youth Conference so that I was able to attend. The speakers were funny and inspirational and made me think about how I can work on myself in order to be a better wife, mother and friend. I was especially excited to hear from this blogger and her mother since I read her blog religiously!!

Nicole Cronin, Heather Oitzman, Celeste Caldwell, Amanda Strebeck, Kasey Turner, Melissa Thornes, me

(seriously, everyone else is the same height and I look like a giant!!)

This evening, Matt took the boys to motopark just up the way a few miles so they could watch the races. We've passed the track a million times and the kids are always fascinated with the jumping motorcycles. They finally got to go see some action! It was a freezing cold night (to us) so I bundled them up and sent them on their way, requesting that I get back ONE picture of all of them together in return. Well, whaddaya know??! ;)I think they had a good time with Daddy. :) I heard all about the little buzzing cars that were really loud, those were their favorite.