November 26

November 26 ended up being a big day for our family. Not only did we have Thanksgiving dinner, but we also had Brooklyn's 3rd birthday AND Jace turned 4 months old! Ok, so we didn't do anything special for little Jace's milestone and we celebrated Brooklyn's birthday the day before....but you get the idea!

We thought the girls would have fun bowling so we took the whole family the day before Brooklyn's birthday. It was a little strange for me to be celebrating her b-day not on her b-day and a little confusing to poor Brookie who kept asking if she had turned 3 yet, but worth it in the end (worth it as in not having to gorge myself with pies AND birthday cake on Thanksgiving Day!)! The girls had fun and Jace was a troooper. We all bowled stellar scores and actually got recruited for the bowling league.....or maybe that was just in my dreams!

Thanksgiving Day brought me trying a new recipe called Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque Soup - it was good. Or so everyone told me. I, myself, couldn't finish my own cup of soup. A little too.....squashy. Instead I started in on the pie!

I tried to take a few cute pictures of Jace but he really wasn't in the mood - go figure. As soon as I get my camera out it's over no matter how smiley and fun he was being! So Grandma to the rescue - she got him smiling in no time.

Ok, moving on to .......BLACK FRIDAY! With being in Lamar Black Friday has to be done solely at Wal-Mart and online. The week leading up to Black Friday I got bombarded with emails telling me of savings that would make anyone's eyes pop. As we got closer to the big day I even got "special" sneak peaks and previews that not everyone was privileged to (or so I like to think:). And then came the real kicker. A 15 minute headstart to fill my shopping cart with everything I would need for this Christmas season!! I called Heather and let her know of my good fortune. We were on the phone and online a good 20 minutes before buying began just making sure that we both had seen everything there was to see. Once those red little lights turned to green it began! Unfortunately for me, "it" ended up being "nothing". The darn internet WAS NOT working. Did the net not get the memo - you know the one that said it was going to be the biggest shopping day of the year and get ready for the massive overload of crazy online shoppers!! Apparently not because I went to bed an hour later fuming with an empty shopping cart.

However, there is a silver lining. Darren, who despises anything to do with shopping unless it starts with a "C" and ends in an "abella's", happily got up at dawn's early light to wrestle with the old ladies at Walmart. Strange I know. He was hitting the store at 4:40am and hitting the hunting shortly thereafter. I'm pretty sure he thinks that if he shoots some geese right after shopping they cancel each other out. You know like, shopping + hunting = still manly. I don't really care as long as it means that I'm left cuddling with my pillow at that time of morning! The internet redeemed itself as well and I was able to get back online and start Christmas shopping from scratch. I spent some money but I saved even more!!