Black Friday

This morning was the first time I have ever participated in a Black Friday. I've always said that I was going to go, but by the time 4 a.m. came around, whatever I thought I had to have the night before, didn't seem all that cool or like such a great bargain and sleep seemed like a much better idea.

This year I decided I was really going to go. Chris has gone before and after he tried to warn me of the mass destruction I was about to witness, he said he was willing to go with me to help me through my first Black Friday experience. I figured Bubby only sleeps until about 7 anyway, so me going shopping at 5 wouldn't really mean that I was losing much sleep.

So off we went, bright and early at 4:45 a.m., in the rain with poor Bubby all bundled up in his car seat to the only real store here in Tooele...Wal-Mart. I wasn't into this whole thing that much to convince myself to drive all the way into Salt Lake, plus there really wasn't anything in yesterday's ad's that I felt like I just HAD to have. There were however a few things that I wanted to see if we could get at Wal-Mart, and if we weren't able to get them, home is only a few minutes away, so we just stayed here.

We rounded the corner to Wal-Mart and there I saw a scene like I had never seen before! The parking lot was completly full! People were parking on the street or in other business parking lots, and taking off in a dead run towards the doors. We parked across the street in the Applebee's parking lot and when we got across the street there wasn't a shopping cart to be found! We got inside and Chris told me to go to wherever I could make my way to and he would look for carts. I was a little scared I have to admit. Chris kept Bubby out of the crowds and over by the doors at first until he found a cart. I was glad, because man those people can be CRAZY! I didn't want Bubby to get hurt!

One of the things I wanted to see if I could get were some really cheap Pajama's and slippers for the kids. I figured these wouldn't be at the top of the "hot items" list, but wow, was I wrong! It may not have helped that they happened to be right at the front of the store by the doors. I ran over there and assessed the situation. At first I was trying to be polite, saying "excuse me" and "sorry", but after getting pushed and shoved one too many times, I decided being polite was getting me no where! I pushed my way back into the crowd and amazingly I found pajama's in all my kids' sizes and even got some decent ones. Believe me it was a HUGE accomplishment getting a pair of Hannah Montana Pajama's AND matching slippers in Reagan's size, and the fact that Cameron wasn't stuck with Winnie the Pooh Pajama's was another huge accomplishment. I don't think Bubby is at the age where he cares what his jammies look like, but I did get him some rather cute Sponge Bob jammies. I'm not the biggest Sponge Bob fan, but then I also wasn't a real big fan of the Dora or Princess ones in his size either.

From there we went on to toys. I thought the pajama's were a mess! I eventually ended up being the cart monitor, and Chris bless his heart was the runner! I tried to navigate my way through the crowds with my huge cart and sleeping baby while Chris and I tried to find the things on our list. Eventually we found it was just easier for me to find an aisle that was empty and stay put while Chris went hunting.
What in the world did people do on Black Friday before there were Cell Phones!?!

It was all a very surreal experience. I kept thinking, I can't believe I am actually here in this mess, and it's totally by choice! Thankfully Keric slept through the entire thing and we got pretty much everything we went there for, plus a few extra things we didn't. We even got brave and went over to Home Depot afterwards. We found some really good deals there too.

By the time we were done, we hardly had room for Bubby AND ourselves in the car. Our poor car was pretty loaded down!

All in all, I guess I have to say, if I can get more then half of my Christmas shopping done in about 3 hours, and save as much money as we did today, I suppose I can live with the bruises and anxiety that go along with it. I don't know if I will brave the crowds again next year, but we'll see. It was actually pretty fun once we got into it, and I'm glad Chris was there to help me! If it had been me by myself, I'm afraid I would have either turned around and come home, or else walked out with one pair of pajama's and a life time of trauma.

Even though Keric slept through most of the shopping experience, he was nice to his mommy and daddy and took another 2 hour nap after we got home! I have such a GOOD baby!

I hope the rest of you, whether you were at home in your nice warm beds, or out braving the chaos like us, enjoyed your Black Friday too!

Look what I got last night!

I'm not quite sure who has been spiking Chris' drink the last couple of days, but I sure do appreciate it!! :) He has been like the Energizer Bunny the past few days!They need to come spike my drink too! My house could use some deep cleaning that I just have no desire to do!

After he got the yard all dug out, he cleaned out the garage and took a whole bunch of stuff out to the dump and then over to DI. Yesterday on the way to the dump he said "I want to paint your door today." So who am I to argue with that!?! If he was willing, I was more then happy to pick out paint!

We went to Home Depot and picked out some paint and new hardware. I had originally thought we would be able to take the brass kick plate and the brass door knocker off, but sadly that was not possible. He tried and couldn't get them off without ruining the entire door. If I had known that before hand, I may have picked a different color, but it actually turned out kind of nice I think.

It looks black, but it's actually not. The sun wasn't out very well today so you can't get the real brownish grey color. Anyway...here is my new door! My house is now all complete!

Thank you my love for all your hard work, and for putting up with my silly requests!!!

Pictures of my New House

So Chris got the entire front yard finished up this morning. He had one little side of the house left to do when it got to dark to work on Monday, so I waited to take pictures until it was all done. I should have shown you the before and then the after, but I didn't really want to remember the before. :) We kept some of the bushes. We have a huge pink Rose bush that I like, so Chris just trimmed it way back, and we have some other cute little bushes that can be saved that we kept too, but for the most part, it's all gone!!! YEA!!!! I am SO HAPPY about my new house! I can hardly wait until Spring!



This is the side of the house where the garage is. That entire right side next to the house is a flower bed. We had an infestation of Holly Hocks that had to be ripped out! I'm telling you I have never seen the likes! They completely took over that whole side of the house and killed about three bushes! I will NOT be planting any of THOSE! See my new roof? Isn't it cool? It's called "weathered timber". I like it!


Closer picture of the roof.



This is the front of the house. That's what is left of the Pink Rose Bush. It had gotten way overgrown, but I do like it, especially when it's full of pink roses! The rest of the flower bed got ripped out. I would like to put some purple and pink and white tulips there to go with the pink roses? We'll see? I do love tulips though, so I'll have them somewhere.


This is the front and side of the house. I would like to put flowers and bushes here I think.



This is the front left side of the house flower bed. This is the flower bed where we kept the most stuff. Sad huh? :) I like the little bush and there are two little miniature rose bushes that the Holly Hocks hadn't completely destroyed.


This is the only "before" picture I have. This is a picture of my very WHITE front door! I don't like it. So it will be painted another color, I just haven't quite decided on what yet. I have some idea's, but I'll post a picture of the final product when I decide for sure!

Keric's big owie

Well...Keric made it 6 whole months without any injuries, but sadly, he didn't make it 6 months and 1 day! :(

Tonight when Chris got home from work, he was playing with Bubby, and he took him upstairs where Cameron and Reagan were. I was downstairs finishing up dinner when all of the sudden I heard a huge thud sound! I didn't think much of it until I heard Keric screaming and Chris saying "OH NO!" I dropped everything and ran up the stairs!

Keric still has not rolled over yet, so we are probably not as cautious as we should be about where we lay him down. Even though he doesn't roll he is pretty wiggly! I guess Chris had give Keric to Reagan because she wanted to hold him, and then after she was done, she just laid him on Cameron's bed. Chris was doing something with Cameron on the computer and somehow Keric threw himself off the bed and landed face first on the ground! No one saw how this little trick was executed, but he has a big red bump on his head to prove that it happened, and he did fall right on his little face!

I felt so horrible! Poor, poor little baby! He's gonna have a bruise on his head! Perfect timing since he goes to the Dr. this week! He was crying so hard his little eyes were all puffy. He really looked pathetic! I did not like seeing my child hurt at all! I thought watching him get shots was bad, but this was horrible! I know it's not the first time this has happened to a baby, and it won't be the last time it will happen to Keric, but I hope for my blood pressure's sake, it's a long time before it happens again!

The new rule in our house: No more putting Keric on bed's or anywhere else alone!

My "NEW" House!

I have never claimed to be a very easy person to live with, in fact I know living with me is probably no picnic and that's on one of my good days! I tried to relay this message to Chris as best I could before we got married, but he married me anyway. Crazy boy! :)

After we got married, I moved into Chris' house. This was the house that he had bought during his first marriage, and I was a little reluctant to make this our permanent home. I haven't been shy about letting Chris know this. I have wanted to feel like this is my house too, and not like I moved into someone else's house.

Chris has always promised me from day one, that I could do whatever I wanted to this house to make it my own, and to make it seem more like our house and not his house from a past life. I have held him to that promise for two years and counting now! Yes, it's true, I can be that shallow, and insecure about myself!

We, (and say "we" LOOSELY) have done lots of things to the house in the past two years! We have re-painted the kitchen, and family room, with more rooms on the list to do. We ripped the carpet out of the family room and laid lamanent flooring down. We put a brand new office down in the basement and then of course turned the old office into Bubby's room. We have replaced furniture in different rooms in the house. We replaced the roof with shingles that I picked out, it was kind of a hard sale, but I think Chris likes them now. They are very different from the original ones, and I LOVE them! We will eventually paint the front door, I hate the plain white door, but I just don't know what color I want yet.

So you may ask...what in the world MORE could you do to your house? Well let me tell you!

This past summer has been somewhat crazy for our family,(had a baby four weeks early, Chris switched jobs, I quit my job, replaced the roof, lost Pampa Fraig) and as a result the yard has really SUFFERED! I mean it had really gotten bad! I have to admit that I could have been a lot more help in the yard, but I will spare you my selfish and insecure reasons as to why I wasn't.

So...since most of the stuff was either dead, or overgrown, we decided to tear it all out, and START OVER! I am so excited to have my OWN yard now! I will get to plant flowers, and bushes, and even put in a little garden. It will ALL be different!

So there ya have it! My NEW house! I may even be able to give up on the argument that we need to sell this house and move somewhere else!

I truly do have the best husband in the world! Who else would dig up their entire yard along with everything else I have had him do, just to make their wife happy!?! Thank You honey!! I love you!

These are some pictures of our "new" backyard. I was going to take pictures of the front yard but by the time it was finished, it was too dark. I'll have to post those tomorrow, along with pictures of our roof!


That's the Arbor we stood under at our wedding reception. I want to plant vines that climb up it. The spot on the left, is where I want to plant a garden.


I'm not sure what to do here...maybe just flowers? I'm not sure what kind yet. :)


This will have bushes and flowers also.

Keric's first "word".

OK, so it wasn't really a "word" per say, but it sure sounded a lot LIKE one! :)

On Monday one of my friends called me and asked if I would sub for her class today. Chris usually works from home on Wednesday's and in Tooele, Wednesday is always a half day of school for Elementary kids, plus as a sub you get paid for 8 hours even though you are only there for 4 1/2. All in all, it's a pretty easy day to be a sub! I talked to Chris and he was willing to take care of Bubby while I went to school today. So I got up and got ready, fed bubby and got him ready to hang out with Daddy.

I got ready to leave and gave Bubby a hug and a kiss goodbye. I said "Mommy will be back in a few hours, she has to go to school." He looked right at me and grunted a very audible "Huh uh". Chris and I both looked at each other, and said, "Did he just say 'huh uh?" It was so funny. I know he was just grunting, but his timing couldn't have been more perfect.

As it turned out, I got all the way to the school, only to find out my friend had not let the office know I was coming, and they had already found another person to sub for her. So Bubby got his wish, I was home in about 10 minutes. :)

I love how he is getting to be such a little "people"! He has such a funny little personality and is already so much his own little person. He's a sweet boy, and I'm so glad he loves his mommy so much.

Why does this make me so happy!?!

Ever since gas prices started going through the roof about a year ago, I have become somewhat "obsessed" with what the marque outside the gas station says on a daily basis. A year or so ago, I would drive to work and look at the marque and be totally disgusted. I would notice when the price had changed by one cent, and it would infuriate me. There would be times that I would need to get gas in the car but not have enough time to do it before going to work. My plan would be to fill up on the way home, and more then once, I would go to work with gas at one price, and come home with gas at another.

I know it's really just so stupid, because when you look at the big picture, what am I really saving, a few cents here and there. I guess it's just the principle of the thing. How could a gallon of gas cost more then a gallon of milk?

Well now that gas prices have been falling, I am still obsessed, but I am obsessed in a much happier way. I love to drive by Maverick and see what the new price is that day. It is even more fun if I find a gas station who has a lower price then Maverick. Sometimes gas prices change as much as three times a day, and it just makes my whole day!

My sister in law and her husband have a little "bet" going. Several months ago, Matt made the comment that he would never see gas prices at $1.89 a gallon in his lifetime again, she disagreed, and the bet was on. I really hope she wins!!