Santa and Hollister Co.

D took the day off on Monday to finish his Christmas shopping. We decided to meet at the mall to take N to see Santa. After we saw Santa N and I did a little shopping and D went on his way to finish his errands. I wasn't sure how N was going to react to Santa. We walked by Santa a few days ago and watched him interact with the kids. We looked at the pretty artificial scenery surrounding Santa and talked about that, but I didn't take him to sit on Santa's lap because D wanted to be there for that. We returned to the mall on Monday with D to see Santa. N rode the train while I waited in line behind a school group. Luckily the school group took one group photo so the wait wasn't too long. When it was N's turn D took him up to Santa to talk to him. N wasn't scared, but he wasn't too impressed. He didn't want to sit on his lap or talk to him. We thought maybe he was respond differently if I took him to see Santa, so I took a turn...There was no line by this time. Still no interest. N was more intrigued by the train ride across from Santa. N ended up sitting on my lap and I sat in front of Santa for a picture. Then the lady asked what package I wanted... Without asking the prices I chose the sheet with four 3x5's on it. Then she rang me up and told me my bill. Yikes! $25 for four 3x5's. That was much more than I thought it would cost. I guess I was naive about it. But I remember getting my picture with Santa at the mall every few years when I was little. I remember pulling those pictures (which I think we later made into ornaments) out of the Christmas decorations each year and looking at them. I plan on making N's Santa pictures into some sort of ornament or keepsake so we can look at them in the years to come.

As I said above, D went on his way and finished his errands after we saw Santa and N and I shopped a little at the mall. On the way to the "soap store" (as N refers to Bath and Body) we got distracted by the thumping music at Hollister. You have to walk up a couple steps onto what looks like a front porch decorated with two weathered leather chairs and manikins dressed in Hollister clothes to get into the store... Well, this wasn't a porch to my child... This was a stage!! N loves music and dancing.. So, with no shame whatsoever, he busted a move to the music outside Hollister! And another move...and another move. He danced at that store for four songs, so I'm guessing that was a good 15-20 minutes. He was so into it. He played the air guitar, stomped his feet and swung his arms through the air. If you are in the same room (or car) with N when he is doing his dancing he tells you what imaginary instrument to play. I usually have to play the drums and D usually plays the tuba. I had my camera with me (thinking I was going to get pictures with Santa), so I thought "What the heck, N appears to have more interest in Hollister than he has in Santa, so I'll take some pictures!" Several customers come in and out of the store in the amount of time we were there. They laughed on their way in... and laughed ever harder on their way out at that fact that we were still there. I finally had to tell N it was time to go and we had to tell Hollister bye bye. He was a good boy and said bye bye to the store and cooperated very well.... Until we got to Abercrombie... Which also has loud, thumping music. So he had to dance at Abercrombie, too. The sales associates (mostly girls) loved the entertainment. The cutest part about it is that he was all dressed up in his argyle sweater and tan slacks because we were there to see Santa. Anyway. Maybe you had to be there to find this humorous, but look at the pictures below. If you scroll through them kind of quickly it might remind you of one of those flip books that they used to do cartoons on.

An early Christmas

So last night my phone kept ringing and ringing. Someone would call, I would answer and say hello several times, then the person would hang up. I was a little freaked out by it the first few times, but I could hear children in the background the next few calls. I knew it couldn't be some sort of weirdo pranking us if I could hear children playing happily in the background. The last call I heard my neighbor's voice in the phone and wondered if her youngest child had pressed a preset button to call our house and I laughed about it.. I heard my neighbor say to her husband, " He likes the chocolate ones with the icing on top." When I heard her voice I knew I had to call her back and give her a hard time... Anyway. She was calling me to tell me that they had received a package with our address on it on their front porch and wanted to know if she could bring it over. She asked me if I was expecting a package from Amazon and I said yes, I was waiting for several things in the mail and she said "Oh, so you know about the mixer then?? Good I didn't want to ruin......." and that's all I heard her say before I started jumping up and down and clapping. She said " What?!?! You didn't know about the mixer?? Is this a gift for you??" She said. "It must be.. My dad must have bought it.." I then went into the explanation that my Dad ordered me a Christmas gift and accidentally had it sent to my address instead of his address... As I was telling my neighbor this I was thinking that a mixer was an awfully generous gift for my Dad to buy me! I then started to tell my husband about the situation while still on the phone with my neighbor and my husband rolled his eyes and made a funny face indicating that he was the one who had bought the mixer...My neighbor felt terrible.. She was sorry she'd ruined the surprise and apologized many times. She then sent her husband over to our house to deliver the package. Much to our surprise the mixer was not packaged in any sort of extra box to cover the contents of the package so even if the mail man had delivered the package to the correct home the surprise would have been spoiled. As my husband and I talked about it more I realized that it would have been a real bummer if someone had seen the Kitchenaid picture on the front of the box and stolen it right off the front porch!! (Note to self...make sure Amazon packages items in an extra box to hide contents of box..)

Anyway. My husband let me have the mixer last night because he could see how excited I was and because he knows I will get a lot of use out of it throughout the holidays. I am ecstatic about it! I know this is dorky, but I have been dreaming of getting a red Kitchenaid mixer for a looooong time, but never wanted to buy one because they are so pricey... Apparently I have done more than dream about it. I guess I've been talking about it so much that D finally just went ahead and bought me one. He did tell me that I would be proud of his shopping, though. He said he found it on sale and there is a rebate on it right now so he got a good deal. I must be rubbing off on him. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

We had another great Thanksgiving. We went home and ate lunch with my husband's side of the family and had supper with my side of the family. Both meals were delicious, but I must admit, eating two Thanksgiving dinners in one day is plenty for me. At the end of the day on Thursday I felt like I had eaten so much food I wouldn't need to take another bite for the rest of the weekend. N played with my sister's boys really well. He and his cousin R (if you know us, you can probably figure out who R is) were like two peas in a pod. R was very interested in everything N could do and say and N wanted to do everything R was doing. R is about six years older than N, but N managed to keep up with him every step of the way. We decided not to stay the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house this year because, once again, we are all sick. (N was sick last year on Thanksgiving so we didn't end up staying over night last year either.)

My husband was up at 4am Friday morning coughing and couldn't go back to sleep, so he headed out to Best Buy for Black Friday (BF) to buy the TV he had his eye on. This was the first year he's ever done BF and he actually handled it very well.... In fact, I think he kind of liked it! He got the TV he went for, but later found out it's not exactly what he thought it was. Apparently Best Buy has a special model made specifically for BF. A few of the bells and whistles are purposely left off this model so it can be priced for the door buster deal. I think that's kinda naughty of Best Buy to do, almost false advertising in my opinion. So my husband is following some chat boards where people are talking about the TV to see if he wants to keep it.

D got home about 7:30 from his BF trip, so I headed out. And honest to God I only made it to one store.....I was there for 3.5 hours!! I was at Kohl's. D and I always joke that Kohl's is a black hole for me. Early on in our marriage we decided that we could not shop at Kohl's together because I get so caught up in my shopping there that I end up losing track of time and that drive's D crazy. We can never find each other while shopping at that store and always ended up fighting because of it, so Kohl's is a place we absolutely do not go to together... :)

Anyway, back to BG. I used the wish list feature on the Kohl's website to make my shopping list the night before. I found lots of gifts I wanted to get for my family...and myself. I also had an additional 15% off coupon they sent me in the mail, so I saved another good chunk of money by using that. Kohl's was running a deal that for every $50 you spent you got a $10 coupon... I got a few of those and was only one dollar and some change from reaching another $50 to give me one more $10 coupon and the lady wouldn't give it to me! Darn! If only I'd bought that $2 place mat
I put back on the shelf I would have gotten $10 more in coupons! Bummer!

As I stood in line at Kohl's I did notice something really funny. Have you ever noticed that some of the stores have their holiday candy/cookie tins strategically placed near the check out line? Well I wonder if they do that because they know that on BF you're going to be in line for a while and might need a snack while you wait. I think they put the goodies there because they know it will take a special kind of self control to resist buying the overpriced goodies. I must admit I was momentarily tempted by the puppy chow/moose munch they had packaged as "reindeer food." Man, that sounded good after three hours of shopping... Chocolate and peanut butter is my favorite combination! Then I looked at the price tag and it was $20!!! $20 for 10 ounces of puppy chow??? No way!! I could make a boat load of puppy chow for $20! I did have a snack with me... Not quite as fun and much more healthy, but also much cheaper!! So I ate my little package of trail mix while I waited.

I am happy with my purchases. I give props to those of you who stayed out all day and shopped!Some of my friends shopped like it was their job and that's awesome! I wish I could have. I have in th passed, but this cold thingy I have wouldn't allow it. I just didn't have the "gas" to shop more than a few hours. That night we made M&M cookies and watched N's new favorite movie Wall-e.

We put our Christmas tree up today. D brought the tree inside and opened the box. N stood over the box anxious to see what it was. When D opened it N exclaimed " I love it!!" He pulled out a few tree branches to help us and then lost interest in less than five minutes. That little turkey. Our tree is color coded to indicate where the branches go. N is getting better and better at his colors each day, so I thought he'd like finding the colors we needed... Nope. No such interest.
After eating lunch and playing for a little bit N went down for a nap. While he was sleeping D and I finished decorating the tree. N will see the finished product when he comes downstairs after his nap. I'll be interested to see what his reaction is. In the past D and I have surrounded the tree with baby gates to keep N away from the tree, but we haven't put them up yet. I want to see if we can teach him not to touch the tree so we don't have to put the gates up. D and I decided that if N touches the tree (and doesn't stop touching it after being warned) that he'll get a time out. N usually responds pretty well to that method so I hope it works. Keep your fingers crossed, but don't hold your breath. :)

After taking a nap and taking it easy today I do feel a little bit better so we are going to attend our local parade of lights. The tradition we have developed over the years is to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant before heading to the parade then we get bundled up and watch the lighted floats drive out of the barn they are stored in. We usually don't make it long enough to watch the whole parade then we head home. It actually works out pretty well because N's attention span works in our favor. We end up leaving before the traffic gets too congested.

Sick

Everyone at our house has been sick for a while. I think we are finally out of the woods, but we're all still trying to kick the cough. Because we were sick N and I did not leave the house that much last week. I get "cabin fever" verrrry easily, so one day N and I drove around town finding and watching all of the construction equipment we could find. I think we hit a few drive through's for meds and food just to get out of the house. While we were at home we did some more crafting when we felt well enough. We also built just about everything you can imagine with couch cushions - ramps, forts and "the Olympics" as we call it. The Olympics thing started this summer when N found an interest in the Olympic gymnastic events. I gather several cushions, pillows and blankets and position them next to the couch. N and I then take turns climbing, rolling, and walking down the cushions. It's a fun thing to do together and it's good exercise for N.

We did a neat craft today that I found on the internet. I taped a piece of clear contact paper sticky side out to our sliding glass door. I printed out Thanksgiving themed clip art and bought colorful feathers for N to stick to the contact paper. After he was done sticking things to the contact paper I placed a second piece of contact paper on top of his little creation and made it into a place mat.

We don't have much going on tomorrow, but are looking forward to a play date with friends on Friday. I'm sure N will be extactic to play with his little friends again.