O' Christmas Tree

We have put up 2 of our 4 Christmas trees today. The big one looks really bare right now. Until the kids are older all I put on that one is candy canes. We haven't bought the candy canes yet, so I have to wait until probably next week when we go to the store to get them to put them up. The second one gets our soccer ball ornaments. The other 2 trees that go up are the kids' trees. We have a fiber optic tree-which is G1's. He gets all of his ornaments on that one. The other is a little prelit tree that we bought last year for the girls. I'm hoping to possibly get another this year so each girl has their own, but we will see.

Hopefully I can keep the kids from attacking the trees too much. Last year G1 did real well around the trees. He liked to turn the lights on and off. We ended up taking all of the candy canes off last year because he didn't want to leave them along. But this year I have the tree up on our coffee table so hopefully the children can't reach them as easily.

G1 enjoying checking out the tree and presents

The 'big' tree

The soccer tree

Why do people really go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

I know the sales are great, but really what motivates people to get up to go shopping at 5 AM on Black Friday? This morning we got up at 7-ish. I probably didn't really get up until 7:30 and Matt had to drag me out of bed at that point. I thought getting up at 7-ish was nuts, but I guess normal people do that daily. Anyway, so we got up and got all 5 of us ready to head out the door.

We went to Menards. Now I am not a big fan of Menards on a normal day. But that is probably the absolute worst store to go to on Black Friday. The reason we went was because they have breaker boxes on sale today (and tomorrow and possibly Sunday???). We were looking for one for the new house. So we go. There were NO carts. We had to carry the girls and try to keep G1 walking beside us. It was not fun. I figured while we were there we would look to see if they have one of the things I want to get for all the kids for Christmas. They of course didn't have what I wanted. We ended up getting nothing. We went into that crazy, over-crowded, would probably get in trouble with the fire marshall store and got nothing. But that's okay.

We went to Lowes to see what they had. They, being the lovely store that they are, had carts-plenty of carts and we were able to walk through without fearing we would lose G1 in the crowd. It was bliss after Menards. We ended up getting the breaker box there for the same price we would have paid at Menards. I decided that anything we need for the house will definitely come from Lowes. They have much better customer service than Menards and they don't have crap all over the place blocking the aisles.

I really can't imagine heading to the mall at the crack of dawn and hitting all the over crowded stores, especially not with the kids. And yet there are people that hit every store in town every year after year after year after year....... Seriously what are they thinking??? It's cold and stressful and *to me* just the most horrible experience ever. Now that is not to say that I will not be going shopping later today, just not at 5 AM. I don't think it's too bad in the afternoon-well except at Wal-Mart. But that's an every other day of the year thing.

Well, I think my rant (or whatever you would call this) is over now. Maybe if I go out later I will have more to add, but until then..........

Happy Thanksgiving--Take 2 (&3)

We had Thanksgiving at my mom's on Wednesday, which also was her birthday. Happy birthday again Mom!! We had a good time and good food. After dinner and everything G2 puked all over Matt. That wasn't much fun, but other than that I think the day/evening went pretty well.

G3 eating an apple

G1-not quite sure what he was doing

G3-she's actually spitting in this picture

G2

G2-playing with Uncle Jacob

G1 and Aunt Marcia

G2 and G3 eating Jell-o

G3 loving the Jell-o

G2-she thinks the Jell-o is 'okay'

Matt and the kids all enjoying Jell-o (no Jell-o is not the only thing they ate--it's just the only thing I got a picture of them eating)

G2 and G3 riding the horse

G3 climbed up on top of the ottoman thing--she's getting so big!

Yesterday (real Thanksgiving Day) we had Thanksgiving with Matt's family. We finally got to see his grandma's new house-which is real nice by the way. We had a good time but had to leave right after eating. I didn't take the camera so I have no pictures to post from then.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving--Take 1!

We had our first Thanksgiving of the year yesterday at my dad's. The girls (and G1) had a lot of fun. I had to share pictures from their first Thanksgiving celebration.

G3

G2 and G3 being goofy

Uncle Ricky and Ginny

G1 and Aunt Mallory

G3

G2

G1-he was supposed to be saying "Cheese" but I'm not sure what he was doing. :-)

I was trying to get a picture of the girls together, but G3 didn't want G2 to be seen.

G2 (and Grandpa Prickett in the background)

G3

Cousin Lydia wearing Aunt Marcia's shoes.

The dog bites

I finally got a few pictures of the dog bites on Matt's fingers. The pictures aren't the best-the sun was too bright-and they don't look as bad as they had-because they've had a few days to heal. He says his fingers are still hurting a little-which I don't think it helped that G2 decided to bite one of his wounds.

Babies and permanent markers do NOT mix!

And this is why:

G1 got ahold of a permanent marker and decided to make G2 "Pretty".

11 Months Old

Today G2 and G3 are 11 months old. This year has just flown by. Every month it is unbelievable to my how big they are getting. G2 is able to stand on her own-for just a few seconds at a time. But it's great. She's very timid and doesn't really try it much-but she can do it! G3 still hasn't tried, but I'm sure she could too. Both can say a few words each. One of their newest words is "Rub". They say "Rub, rub, rub". My mom taught G1 to say "Rub, rub, rub" when he would hit someone-so then he will rub instead of hit. Well, it has 'rubbed' off on the girls a little.

We have found a house that we will be buying on contract. It is a pretty big house and needs a lot of work, but I love it. The garage is pretty nice and it's big so of course Matt loves that. It's got a nice big yard for the kids to play in. I'm pretty excited about this, but I'm nervous too. We will be moving out of Iowa sometime around the New Year probably. I'm glad it's not too far of a drive (about an hour) so we can still come back fairly often to see our friends and family that will still be here.

We've been pretty busy, but not much new is going on-other than the house. So, I guess it is picture time. :-)

G2

G2 and G3

G2 and G3--"I've got your face!"

G2 and G3

G3 (she wasn't really in the mood to get her picture taken)

G2 and G3--Best Friends

G2 and G3-I think G3 was wondering what G2 was going to do with the shoes!

G3 (and half of G2's face)

G2 and G3

G1 got jealous and wanted his picture taken.

*ETA-I forgot to say--Matt got bit Tuesday night by his parents dog. It's not bad at all. The dog just got 2 of his fingers. I was going to get pictures of it today to post, but we ran out of time. Matt was calm as could be when it happened but it sure scared me!

Let's see those teeth!

G1

G3

G3

G2-Not the best shot of her teeth, but that's as good as it gets

G3 (again)

Look it's Uncle Ricky's teeth!!

Thanks to Aunt Marcia (Dar-da to G1 :-) ) here is another picture of G2 and it shows her teeth really well.

Halloween treats

Rick sometimes takes treats for FHE (Family Home Evening) with the YSA (Young Single Adults). For Halloween week (October 29th) he decided to do rice crispy treats. We/he used food coloring and dyed them orange and then put Jack-O-Lantern faces on them. Here they are: (Rick's 2 looked better than my one.)