Black Friday

I LOVE Black Friday! Something about getting to shop in the middle of the night is just so fun to me! Ellis, Christy, Jon and I went to WalMart at midnight on Thanksgiving. It was CRAZY! The crowd was so thick you could hardly move, and people were shouting at each other and throwing boxes through the air to each other! (It was a little scary.) Meanwhile, back at home, Jerry was doing his research on LCD TV's, and at 2:00 a.m. decided to go wait in line at Conn's to get a replacement TV for our media room. What was funny about that, is that my mom's car was parked behind the van, but he didn't want to wake her up, so he spent about 20 minutes very carefully zig-zagging inch by inch across the garage to the other bay so that he could get out. He's got some serious skills! He also stopped at Staples to pick up two chairs for our office. My dad bought a new computer and printer for my mom. We were all very tired the next day!

Thanksgiving 2010

This year, my entire family was able to come for Thanksgiving! It was our first year to host Thanksgiving in a really long time. Luckily, my mom still cooked the turkey and made the stuffing, and Christy made the yummiest rolls. I made pies and everything else. We had lots of fun game nights and yummy food. Miles had so much fun with his cousins Tommy and Joey - we didn't even see them for most of the time; they were just off playing. Thanksgiving evening ended with a dance off with almost everyone getting into it! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures - just video. Sammi was a dancing machine! We are so thankful that we can spend our holidays with family!

The Secret Code

One day when we were walking home from school, Darren wanted to go ahead of us, so I told him the code to open the garage. Several days later, he came downstairs all excited.

"Guess what, Mom?! I was trying to watch a show on TV, but it was blocked - so I put in the code for the garage, and IT WORKED!!!!!"

Great. He's a smart kid. But now we need to change our password for everything.

Claire's "Make-over"

I took the kids to the Dollar Store to pick out prizes, and Claire chose a make-up set. Here she is looking all beautiful(she did her makeup herself, then asked me to take a picture:)


. . . and up close!


My brother asked if "play makeup" is pretty much the same thing as real makeup, except in really terrible colors? I think he might be right . . .

The Treat-Monster Guards Her Stash

My Lil' Pumpkins

The kids had a day off from school, so I took them to the pumpkin patch. The weather was beautiful, and they had fun picking out their own pumpkins, playing in the hay maze and bounce houses, and going on a hay ride!

New Looks

Darren got glasses, and Claire got a haircut! I can't believe how fast they are growing up!