Fancy Nancy

On Monday, Em came down for a visit, and we put Dottie's hair in sponge rollers for kicks. As you may know, her hair already has some natural curl, so the sponge rollers made her have an afro.
Her hair calmed down on Tuesday, and she looked adorable. With a tiara and a lea, we had our own Fancy Nancy. If you have a little girl and haven't read this book, you're really missing out. Fancy Nancy is Dottie's twin. For real.

Favorite Thanksgiving Quote

Over Thanksgiving, Carrie had the privelege (or punishment) of sharing a room with Dottie, our little sleep-talker. She overheard many interesting things from her, but this was our favorite. She screamed: "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen!" which is how we end our prayers in our religion. At least I know she knows how to pray?!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, we stayed local. Em and Craig came down from Denver, Bry, Jared, and Carrie made the trek from Provo. We ate a magnificent feast at Mike and Maureen's, my mom's first cousins who live here in the Springs. It was very fancy, including a menu at each place setting. We had a good time with my mom's other cousins, Jeff and Stephen, as well as their mother Evelyn, and Mike and Maureen's son, Chris, his wife, Emily, and their new baby, Jens. No pictures of the actual event. You know me and remembering my camera.
The next morning was my big day: Black Friday. I roused my family at 3:30 in the morning (with the exception of Joe, Elliot, and Dottie), and we hit the stores. I got everything I wanted. It was a very successful Black Friday. We got done with the major stores around 7, and I dropped off the fam at home and finished a couple of other stores with Bry and Carrie until 8:30. Five hours of shopping. Pretty impressive, eh? The rest of the day was spent loafing around, watching movies, eating junk, sleeping.
We celebrated Craig's birthday later on Friday. The actual day is today. Em, Carrie, and I made a cake, the boys went to the new James Bond movie. We went out to a BBQ restaurant, then ate the cake.
The real excitement didn't happen until later that evening. Jared was struck first: stomach flu. I won't go in to the nasty details. Let's just say that we will now remember this Thanksgiving as the Barfarama. Jared, Craig, and Bryan were sick all night long. Carrie was sick in the morning. Saturday was basically a day of recovery.
Luckily, it was a 24 hour thing. They were all good to go Sunday, to make the trip back to Provo. But man, I feel bad. Joe and Elliot both had the stomach flu earlier in the week, but they were all better by the time the family came. I guess we were still contagious? Or my house is a haven for germs?

The birthday boy.

Everyone is still happy, unaware of what awaits them that night.

Morning after: everyone's best sicky faces. Except for Dottie. She's as happy as can be.

A Dog and an Indian

Okay, I know my posts lately have mostly been self-indulgent. I just think my kids are so funny and so cute, and the blog is where I showcase their idiosyncracies. This is the last one of its kind for awhile, I promise.

Elliot is teething. This means pain for me (you know what I mean, breastfeeding moms), less sleep for him, and a lot of crying. Especially if he's getting four teeth at once like last time. His favorite teething toy is this little purse of Dottie's. He crawls around the house with the handle in his mouth, just like a dog. It cracks me up.

Dottie had her Thanksgiving lesson at Joy School today. She won't take off her Indian hat.




My two little trouble makers sharing the love.

So next post, I will have pictures of my siblings for Thanksgiving. Carrie, Jared, and Bryan are making the trek from BYU to be with us. I'm so excited. Any fun plans out there for Thanksgiving?

Elliot and the Turtle

This is what I find Elliot doing sometimes when he's supposed to be taking a nap. He LOVES this turtle. Now that he knows how to push the buttons, it gives him immense joy. After he's done taking a nap, I'll just leave him in his crib for like a half hour so he can play with it.

Once Upon a Dream

Another Dottie video. She LOVES Sleeping Beauty. Here she is singing Once Upon a Dream. She knows the key words, but alot of the words are over her head. Plus she was playing with her Cinderella toy and was distracted a bit.

Charlotte the Bargain Hunter

I'll admit it: I am a bargain hunter. I don't know if it's a genetic thing, but my mom is too. I've become even more extreme now that I have children, my husband's finishing his master's, and we are a one-income household on a teacher's salary. We basically don't buy anything that's not on sale.

I thought I'd share some of my knowledge with you. The most obvious is searching the weekly ads. All kinds of deals are to be had this way. Getting the paper is definitely worth it's weight in gold. And people who say that coupon clipping isn't worth it are crazy! I save only about $4 with coupons each time I shop, but I shop once a week. So that's $16 a month, making a total savings of $196 a year. That's a lot!

Now for the websites. Reader's Digest had articles on saving money in the September and October issues. They were so good I saved them. Here are a few of the websites I learned about from them:

thriftyfun.com: all kinds of useful tips on saving money. If we ever got into a Great Depression again, this would be the website to go to to learn how to scrimp on everything.

retailmenot.com: This is my favorite website! You type in any retail website you can think of (amazon.com, even redlobster.com) and it will come up with discount codes for purchases, or even helpful hints on saving money from these retailers. It's an awesome site. Check it out.

Now for the Black Friday information. Hopefully you're still reading at this point. Black Friday is the day when I do the majority of my shopping. The deals are incredible. Well, I saw on the Today Show this morning that you can see the circulars to some of the stores now for the Black Friday deals instead of waiting until Thanksgiving! Here are the websites that will tell you all about the Black Friday deals: bradsdeals.com and blackfriday.com. I've already got my list started on what stores I'm going to, what I'm going to buy, and who I'm going to buy it for.

Happy Shopping!