Getting ready for the Holidays!

Hi all!!

I've had a busy but fun last week or so. Our Thanksgiving was very nice. It was also Steve's Birthday!! It started with the incredible shopping trip to CVS with Sonya!!! I got pretty much the same thing she did, so there's no use in posting that deal. I was so excited when I got home from that, that I couldn't sleep!! I ended up getting about 2 or 3 hours of sleep, but it was so worth it!! I got up Thursday and and the kids and I gave Steve the gifts they picked for him. Noah got him a Wii game and Abby got him an orange frog with a Bengals shirt that sings and dances!! They were both very cute! I then made some cute napking ring holders and the green beans for our dinner and then went to my Mom's. I also made the pumpkin pie and pilgrim pies (a pumpkin moon pie type concoction, that's really delicious!) on Wednesday. We hung out there for about 3 hours, I helped my Mom cook the dinner and Steve and my Dad debated politics, it only got loud for about 5 minutes!! SM My brother and his family came right as the dinner was ready, they had been at Tiffany's parents first. We had a very nice and yummy dinner. It was just sooooo goood!!!!!

After that we went to STeve's mom's for more deserts with her and Steve's Sister's family. The kids had a blast playing together there and it was a nice end to the evening. We left the kids there to spend the night, so Steve and I could shop early in the morning. But since I was already a bit sleep deprived, when the alarm went off at 4am, it just wasn't happening!! We ended up getting up around 8, went to Meijer, Target, back to Meijer, Walmart, another Meijer, lunch at Panera and then went to pick the kids up. We got lots of good deals and had a great time.

When we got home we put up the Christmas tree in the family room together and then I started decorating the rest of the house. We now have a 7 foot tree, a 6 foot tree, a 3 foot tree and two 2 foot trees up!!! I love decorating, especially when we're having a party or something during the holiday season like we are tomorrow. We're having a small family dinner to celebrate mine and Steve's Birthday's. His was the 22nd and mine is Dec. 7th. We're having our siblings and parents over for a total of 14 people. It should be nice. I decided to make a sort of pasta bar for the dinner. I'm making the three different Disney pastas at Kroger now and I got a MIckey one while in Walt Disney World, then I'm making my homemade Macaroni and Cheese sauce, my homemade alfredo sauce, a hamburger spaghetti sauce and a just plain spaghetti sauce. Then some garlic bread and salad and that's it!! It should be yummy!!

I've been busy cleaning up the house and finishing the decorations this week. It's a lot of work!! The kids are now studying Christmas in school. That's actually a lot of fun. We're reading all kinds of stories, learning the sign language to Silent Night, reading the Bible and learning about God's greating Gift. Today we talked about the traditions celebrated in Mexico. It's a really great study. Oh, last week we did eventually go to Sunwatch Indian Village and that was really neat. It's in conjunction with Boonshoft Museum in Dayton, so if you have a membership to the Cincinnati Museum Center (or COSI, I think Charity), you get into the Indian Village for free. So that was a nice surprise!! It's really cool though. They have started to rebuild a village that was discovered and it's just really cool to get to go into the buildings and things. I really enjoyed it.

Our church is doing something called a Christmas ADVENTure on Friday night and basically it's a chance for parents to get out and do some shopping while the kids get to do some great activites. It's for 3 hours and they are doing crafts, singing carols, eating, watching movies, all kinds of things. I can't wait to get another date night!!

Then Saturday I get to go meet Amanda with Sonya and Crystal. I can't wait to laugh our butts off all the way there!! It's gonna be so much fun!! I can't wait to meet Amanda finally and see the kiddies. I just want to give them all big giant hugs!!!

Oh, just a quick deal update, I only found a few things worth mentioning this week. Meijer has Kellog cereal on sale 3/5 and if you have any of those $1 off one box coupons left, you can get some for .67. Hamburger Helpers with sale and coupons are .50 a box. Kroger just had Tony's frozen pizzas for 1.88 (a favorite here) and the frozen OJ for $1, both good sale prices but sadly no coupons! Has anyone else really missed Money Saving/Making Mom this past week or so???

Well have a good day/morning/evening, whatever!! I'll post pics soon!