Shopping Black Friday Madness

Ok, so I always thought that getting up early to hit the sales was fun. I stopped for a paper at Albertson's yesterday. Of course I was happy they were open on Thanksgiving so I could get my sale ads but I did feel bad that they had to be open on Thanksgiving Day for people like me. Any hoo, I went through the ads last night and nothing really jumped out at me, but I told Matt that I would go out if I happened to wake up. Well don't you know that I couldn't really sleep just thinking about the possibility of getting up. I went to bed dressed so I wouldn't have to waste time looking for clothes. I was up at 3:10 and ready to hit the stores. There was a small item at Best Buy that was a good deal and I decided I would hit them first since they opened at 5am. I thought I should get a pretty good place in line if I am there before 4am. WRONG!!! I got to Best Buy at 3:30am and the parking lot was pretty full already. I went to the end of the line that was all the way around the corner and literally going behind the back of the building. I couldn't help but laugh as I was making the long walk. People were there with their sleeping bags wrapped around them, camping chairs were set up and some tarps. Seriously....did these people sleep here? I stood in line for about 20 minutes when a guy came back to use the porta-potty and said that he had landed the second place in line....however he had been there since 5pm on Thanksgiving Day. I decided to leave at that point. There was no way the small item I was going for was still going to be there. So I decided to hit another store not far from there for an item for Matt. I really didn't think there would be people at that store yet, WRONG!! It was now only 4am and this store didn't open until 6am and there was already a significant line. Are your serious??? I was determined that I was not going to go home empty handed since I had gotten up so early. So like many others I waited out in the cold for 2 hours until the doors opened.
About 10 minutes before the doors were to open the store people came around and handed vouchers to you for the item that you wanted. If they ran out of vouchers before they got to you then you were out of luck. I was saying, please let me get the items I want and not have been out here for 2 hours to actually really go home empty handed..... Lucky for me I got the vouchers I needed. SCORE!!! The guy that was standing in front of me was in line for a laptop and unfortunately for him they ran out of vouchers just before they got to him so he had to get in his car and go home. Oh My Gosh!! I think that it gets worse every year. The other thing that was happening is that there was a line in front of me, but people would show up and not come to the back of the line. Apparently people were saving places for late comers and so the line in front of me was getting bigger than the line in back of me. Not fair. I do not have a line friend. The lady that was in front of me actually had pneumonia and was standing out there CRAZY, but she said that next year she would be my shopping buddy. I said only if she was the one that would stand in line and let me cut when I got there. She agreed. SCORE!!! I had to come straight home to get here in time for Matt to leave for work so I didn't get to finish my shopping. Now that Keegan is up we are heading out for more. I don't know if anything will be left but we will give it a shot. By the time we get home we will both be ready for a nap. YES.
Happy Black Friday Shopping to everyone who is crazy like me and gets up to do it.

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Delicious Homemade Carmels

Homemade carmels are one of my absolute favorite. I just almost can't resist eating these oooey gooey delicious treats. But I will have to. Earlier this year I bought a candy making book and I just had to have it when I found the carmel recipe. These treats are going to be up for sale when we do our PHOTO'S w/ SANTA in the upcoming weeks. All the sales will be donated to the Cure JM foundation. For those of you who don't know my nephew Mason was diagnosed with Juvenile Dermotomyositis when he was only 18 months old. He suffers plenty from this disease and Matt and I are trying to raise money for the foundation to help find a cure. Our first major event will be the photo's with Santa. We will be taking pictures by donation at a Christmas tree farm on Nov. 30th, Dec 7th and 14th. All the proceeds will go to benefit the Cure JM foundation. We will also be doing a photo with Santa at the Little Gym in Beaverton on December 13th. We are really hoping to get a great response from the community. Our current goal is to raise $5000.00 for the foundation. On top of our events we have a tab on our website for people who wish to just make a donation. We are really excited to be doing this and hope that one day there will be a cure and no more children will have to suffer. If you would like to know more about JM I encourage you to go to www.curejm.com. In the mean time I just have to look and not touch these yummy carmels.

YO GABBA GABBA "MUNO"

Everyone meet Muno. He is an all time favorite around our house. Keegan's favorite TV program is Yo Gabba Gabba on the Nogn Channel. We seriously have to watch these 6 shows over and over and over. I decided that I was going to give him a special gift and I made him this Muno doll. I have had it ready to go for about 4 weeks now but I couldn't get our sewing machine to work. Finally Matt set it up for me tonight and...tada...Muno is finished. Ok so I am a little rusty on my sewing skills. Ok a lot rusty (I'm no Jen Holyoak thats for sure) He has a lops sided head and one arm is longer than the other and a bit higher than the other, but Keegan loves him, the imperfect Muno, and I love that he loves him. For the first 15 minutes he wouldn't put him down. Keegan came and sat on my lap and hugged Muno. It was a happy moment when I could hold and hug Keegan and he could hold and hug Muno. Unfortunately I don't think that I can make the other 4 characters. I'm just not that talented. So we stop with Muno. It's a happy day. Welcome to our home Muno!!

Priceless

Dental for Children

I am wondering when other families have added their children to their dental plan. When do you take a child in for their first dental visit. How do you keep them from freaking out?

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Can I be a Balloon for Halloween?

Heather and I picked these balloons up from the Intel Halloween Bash last night. Keegan just loves them. He walks around the house with them most the day. I think that he wants to be a Balloon this year for Halloween, but we already have his costume. Sorry, Kee. Maybe next year.

Howl-loween at the Zoo

Yesterday they were having a Howl-loween event at the Zoo. Since we bought a year pass to the Zoo in March we thought this would be a fun, no more cost event to take Keegan too. Plus he always likes to go and see the elephants. When we were driving down the highway there were signs saying the Zoo parking lot was full, but we took our chances and ended up scoring a spot in the parking lot. There were hundreds of trick or treaters at the Zoo. It was so fun to see all the little kids and some of the big kids in their halloween costumes. They had a scavenger hunt for the kids and we have to get a stamp at each location on our map. Once we made it through all the stops and all the crowds and of course after we stopped to see the elephants we were able to turn in our map for a Howl-loween bag with tattoos and candy for Keegan. He loved being there and we had fun getting out as a family. This week is full of fun events and we are excited to attend all of them.

Happy Howl-loween!!!