Happy As A Clam

So I got to sleep in this morning. And yeah, I was a little bummed about it. hehe. Cause I wanted to go Black Friday shopping. 2 years ago, I went with Andrea. And last year, Captain America was gonna go with me, but I got a migraine. But he was totally gonna go. He'd even napped on Thanksgiving so he'd be ready. What a trooper, right?

Anyway, I woke up at almost 10am. And posted something on Facebook about wishing that I could go shopping. And Kim responded, and said that she'd go with me! Oh yeah, a shopping buddy!!! But she "bad mouthed" me into showering for the day. How rude, right? hehe. Actually what she said was that she was stinky and that she wanted to shower. Peer pressure at it's worst.... LMBO!

I got up, and started to get ready for the day. And yeah, it was about time for a shower. hehe.

And I decided to take a picture of the kids, too. Here's Tom.
And Joe. He's a squirmy one. Doesn't like to sit still for pictures. hehe.

And Jim!

Eme's such a cutie :)

Me by the tree!
And boxer. Jake had spent the night at Justin's house.
I left Tom with directions on what to do (and what not to do), and Kim came to pick me up. And out we headed. It was about 11am. We decided to hit Walmart first, and see if they had any deals yet. And see all of the crazy busy crowds. Cause that's always fun to do.

Nope, no crowds! It's wasn't that packed! We were somewhat disappointed :( hehe. We got an up front parking spot, even! Kim's handicapped sticker helped. LOL! Her broken back has it's perks. (did I say that outloud???)

We headed inside, got a cart, and started looking around :) And you know me, I always find the BEST stuff at Wally World... hehe :)

Kim does too!

There weren't really too many good deals at Walmart this late in the day, so we just got a few things. They did have the fake Scentsy things for $9, and they included 2 bars. That's not bad! I got 2. hehe. We got some popcorn shrimp from the deli, a Diet Mt Dew, paid at the express isle, and headed out. On to the Mall! Heaven help me! I'm SO not a mall person!!!

Kim had some gift cards for Macy's, so that was our first stop. $100, in fact! Pretty cool. Of course, that doesn't really go very far. hehe. But they did have some good sales, I guess. It's not Saver's $0.99 or anything, but still. It was ok, I guess...

We looked around, and found some clearance racks. And some funky mannequins. Like this one. Really? They have nipples? Are you kidding me???

And this scarf? Sure, it's pretty cool. I like the sequins. But is it really 40 times better? I paid $1 for my scarf, and the other ones is $40. Yeah, not so much...
And whose idea was this. Lets staple a slipper to the mannequin... Great idea...

Kim got a few clearance things, and some sweet deals on sweaters. Some SUPER cute ones! I got a few $5 tops, and we paid, and were out of there. We walked around for a bit, and found out that they'd opened a Jewelry Box back up there! We found a few things, then headed upstairs to Hot Topic! And got a scratch off coupon for 20% off! Oh yeah!!!

Check out this hat that we found! hehe :)

Kim tried on the pink and teal one hanging wall. Super cute!
I tried on the brown one, and yeah, it was LOVE at first sight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I tried on the purple one too, but it wasn't doing much for me.
Kim ended up getting a sock monkey hat, and I ended up getting the brown furry hat with the horns. LOL! Who knew that I'd end up with a "Look at me" hat!

We paid ($17.50), and headed to Marble Slab for some Ice Cream. I'd never been, and Kim wanted to share! She said it was like Cold Stone. Bring it on!

Check out the Santa's Village area! Super cool from up above!
White chocolate raspberry goodness!


We headed to the car, and drove on over to the Dollar Tree. To one on George Dieter. A new one that I'd never been to before! Gotta love that. hehe. We walked around forever! And when I'd gone down almost the last isle, I checked a message from Brent, and he wanted me to send him something, so I took a 2nd sweep through the store to get a few things for his package. ha!

We paid, and headed out, and then decided that we needed to put on our cool new hats! We'd totally forgotten about them! We could have been wearing them the whole time! ha!

I tried to get in the car, and my horns totally hit the roof! So Kim opened the sunroof! Much better! ROFL!

Even the tassles were hairy!
Next stop, Fallas. They had some fun stuff there too. We weren't sure what this was... Looked like funky pants.... We finally decided it was a jacket of sorts...
People liked my hat. They kept asking where it was from. One lady asked if it was mine. hehe. Um, yeah. LOL! I'm not wearing a strangers hat!

Kim! Where'd ya go???

This was SUPER cute, but really? Chest fur????
We paid, and headed out to the car. Check out our shadows!!!!!
On the way home, we went to Weinerscnitzel (or however you spell that), and got some corn dogs and chili dogs for the kids, then headed home. And had the kids meet us at the park. It was getting dark, and was windy. And chilly. So we didn't stay long. But the kids ran around and ate and blew off some steam. They were cooped up for quite a while today. But mine had had fun playing on electrons and watching TV. Especailly since yesterday was spent cooking and cleaning the house. hehe.

It says that it wasn't that cold but I SWEAR it was colder with the wind chill! Like 35-45 or so!
We were only at the park for about 20 minutes. Until we froze too much, then gathered the kids, and headed home. Kim dropped my stuff off at my house, then she headed home. I put all my stuff away, and the kids and I cleaned up the mess that they'd made while I was gone.

We watched some cartoons, then some Christmas shows. I blogged, and the kids played on the computer. Joe spent the night at Kim's house, and Jake did his homework from the week or so he was at the hospital. Not all the classes had a ton of homework, so it only took him a couple of hours.

And yeah, I'm ready for school to start again. The kids are getting a bit stir crazy. At the moment, everyone is getting along. But fights have been breaking out. hehe. You moms of boys, and of teen-ish boys, you totally know what I'm talking about. That Christmas song that talks about "Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again" is SO true in my case!!! LOL :)

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LOL, what a cute smile!!! Sweet layout, Sharon, my dear!!!

Eye Candy

New stuff in the store!!! And happy Thanksgiving, you guys!! Hope your weekend is terrific!!!! Click HERE to go to my account to look at all my new stuff!

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Hey guys! So I woke up this morning around 8 or 9am, and started getting ready for Thanksgiving. We'd decided to have dinner at 4pm, and yeah, I realized that we usually have dinner at 1pm. Cause it's hard to keep kids good until 4pm. ha! And hard to keep the house clean until then. ROFL!

Around 10am, Captain America was on Skype, and we got to talk for quite a long time! And the kids too! It was great!!!
I put the turkey in the roaster oven, and made a few pudding pies while the kids were skyping with their dad, and got to skype too. On and off for about 4 hours. So we DID get to spend Thanksgiving morning with Dad!!!! See, things do work out - hehe ;)

After we were done with the computer, we had 2 hours to finish off Thanksgiving dinner. It was 2pm, and we told Kari's family 4pm. So I went into rush mode. I had the kids help me peel potatoes. Who knew that I had 6 potato peelers. We all split up the bag of potatoes, and started peeling. It went fast when we all worked together.

I made a green bean casserole, and got my cheesecake out. It looked fabulous. I made stuffing, and heated up the rolls, got the cranberry sauce ready, and all the while, having the kids keep the house clean. I'm not sure who we did it. hehe. And I replaced the scentsy in the house with a clean scent. So the house smelled clean. ROF!L If all else fails, fake clean smell works, right? hehe.

Luckily, Kari's family was running late. Because it was taking me longer to cook than I'd hoped. Because of the extra long Skype session. They were about an hour late, and it worked out great for me.

We had dinner around 5pm, and the kids were STARVING. hehe. Kari and family brought all of the same foods, so that they'd have the same leftovers at their house, and yeah, we could have fed 5 families. Oh well. It was a fun time! hehe :)

Here's my turkey on my fish platter. ROFL!

My dinner plate

My dessert plate
The grown up table. Brian and Kari, and Tom and Jake and Justin, and then me.

Mmmm, pie!

Tom :)

The kid table

Jake

Our plates... Um, yeah, sale halloween plates.... hehe :)

After dinner and dessert, Kim texted and said that her in-laws had JUST left for Illinois. I said to come on over for Pie. So her and her kids walked on over, and had some pie with us. Brian eventually went home, and the kids all played nicely outside, and Kari and Kim and I chatted and watched some Myth Busters with Tom, and hung for about an hour. It was a nice relaxing Thanksgiving evening. I think we all had a good evening chatting and hanging.

And soon, we were all sleepying, and the kids were "ready" to go home. hehe. The loaded all up, and headed out. My kids watched a movie on Netflix, and I loaded my store. I debated going to Black Friday sales, but I had no one to go with. So nope, since I can't get any social time out of it, not gonna do it. I'll just sleep in. hehe. Andrea would have gone with me, but she's in North Carolina. Captain America would have gone with me, but he's deployed. Amanda would have gone with me, but she's in Arizona. So I'm by myself. So I'm sleeping in.....

It's now 10:24pm. I'm sleepy. All that turkey and pie is making my tired. Jake is spending the night over at Justin's house. Joe fell asleep on the floor. The other kids are watching Phineas and Ferb's movie. And I'm gonna turn this off and go to bed, I think. I'm sleepy :) Night, all! Hope your Thanksgiving was great!!!

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Nice whimsical layout, Sharon!!! Lovin' it, my dear :)

Couch Potato WordArt

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!!! Well, it's later here than I'd originally planned - hehe :) My day was jam packed full of stuff. Sometimes it's good to keep your mind off of stuff. Like the fact that a major part of your family is gone. And a major holiday is quickly approaching.... But we don't talk about such things....

I woke up around 7:30am, and started working on a Thanksgiving menu and shopping list. And Joe was the only one awake. So he was gonna be my Walmart shopping buddy. Works for me :) He and I got ready, made sure Tom was awake, and we headed out.

We took the Saturn, and headed out. And thank goodness, it wasn't crowded! Yet. I'm sure that it would pick up. But the 8-9 am hour was just fine. We shopped and grabbed all the food items that we needed, then paid, and headed home. It was a fun little shopping excursion. Thanks, Joe, for keeping me company!

And off to the house we headed. We got all the food put away, and did a few chores. Then got the kids ready for the zoo. We were gonna meet Kari and Veronica there at 11. But I wanted to go to Fallas first, and see if they had an area rug first. So we got all changed and loaded up in the truck and I checked my wallet for my zoo pass. No where to be found. Crap. It was gone.

I think I may have donated it with my vest thing I was wearing last zoo trip. Dang! And the kids didn't wanna go bad enough to get another pass. Sigh. So Jake and Tom went back inside the house, and Joe and Jim and Eme and I went to Fallas. I got some more garland and a tree skirt. But no rug.

Big Lots next. They had a rug that I liked. And a few other things. And we headed home. I got these as a reward for Jake. When he cleans my truck, he gets them. Wash, and clean out the inside, plus vacuum.

And I found this at Big Lots, and LOVE the print!

We were home for a short while before Kari texted and said that they were done with the zoo, and headed over to McDonalds. And that we should join them. Perfect! We loaded up in the truck, and headed across town to McDonalds. I let each kid had $3, and the chose wisely. hehe. I'm SO my mother's child. ha!

I've got my cool red hat on today :)

Josephine and Kari

We let the kids play for a while to blow off some steam, then we headed back home. And it was a long day at the house. ha!

I boilded up 3 dozen eggs for Deviled eggs tomorrow :)

I baked 2 pumpkin pies, 1 apple blueberry pie, and 1 pecan pie. The pecan kinda burnt, but I'm sure that the under part is yummy!
In between cooking and cleaning and such, the kids and I got the Christmas tree down, and set it up. SUCH a great time of the year! I just like the season :)
I'd gotten spring form pans for my birthday last year, and have never used them. So I finally broke them out, and used the 9 inch one tonight! I made a homemade cheesecake! Oh yeah!!! baked it in the oven and everything :) I'm excited to see how it turns out.


That's what they're supposed to look like, right? Please say yet. LOL! Anyway, I cleaned and baked and baked and cleaned and then rested. Then hopped up and did it some more. It's now midnight, and I'm sleepy. The kids are all in bed. Who know's how many phone things I've missed. It's been on vibrate. And before that, we were using it on Pandora for music. Sorry, outside world. I wasn't staying in constant contact. hehe :) OK, now I think I'm falling alseep and am not making sleep. I mean sense... hehe. And getting goofy, apparently. Gotta stop while I'm ahead...

Click on the link below to go to my account tThat's o download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. thanks!

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LOL! It's a man thing, huh? My boys do this, too! Great layout, Sharon! thanks!

2 Peas in a Pod

Day 2 of Thanksgiving break. I woke up at 9am. And Captain America was on Facebook chat! I typed with him for a bit, then got on Skype. And was on Skype with him until the time to go to the movies at 11:25! Yeah, my morning disappeared! Needless to say, I went to the movies in the same clothes from yesterday! hehe :) Somedays are like that, right?

Luckily the kids were all dressed and ready to go when I got done walking with my sweetheart. We loaded up and headed to the movies. We were going to the "Rise of the Planet of the Apes".

I left Tom in line for the tickets with money, and I got in line for the popcorn and drinks and hot dogs. Multi-tasking works best, you know :) We were done at about the same time. And were only a few minutes late for the movie. Luckily, we'd seen the movie before. GREAT movie, by the way.

Our friends, Veronica and her 4 kids, and Kari and kids were there. It's great to have friends, you know :) After the movie, we chatted outside in the sunshine for a while, then all headed out to our various activities. I took the kids to big lots to see about that elusive record player. Kari had found one yesterday at the Mesa Big Lots. But this one was sold out too. Drats! I did find some outdoors Christmas decorations, though. Apparently the Mesa Big Lots is the only one in town that has the record player. I wonder if it still has any....

Poor Tom was devastated. I'm not really sure why, though. He had his heart set on going across the street to Goodwill and buying a record and playing it on the record player.... Hum... Oh well. On to the next store. We went to the Dollar Tree, and I got some bread, and a few Christmas things. And managed to get all of the "Mom, can I have this" crap out of the cart before I got to the register. I hate it how they throw stuff in there when I'm not looking. Especially Jim. A Snickers bar ended up in the cart and I almost paid for it. Caught it at the last second. Tricky. Very sly, Jim... I'm watching you....

And we headed home. I texted Jake and had him come home, and we all did chores. It took some poking and prodding, but they got done. Jake thought he was gonna get off easy, but I made him do the backyard well. And he really did. And I went and supervised, and the backyard got done REALLY well. 3 bags of trash later, and the backyard is looking might fine!!! Captain America, you would be proud of your oldest son's effort!!!

And speaking of my oldest son, those new meds are fantabulous. He really is a changed child. He seems to be less of the goofy child that he was before, and more of a normal teenage boy. More social. Wants to hang with people his own age. And his happy. And joking around. I'm enjoying it, actually. And he's able to be reasoned with. That's a new one for me. A shock, actually! But a pleasant one! hehe.

Anyway, after the chores were done, I went outside and set up some Christmas lights. Tom and Joe and Jim helped a little bit. It was kinda fun :) My kids were finally done with what they had to do, and had earned some free time. The TV and electronic had been off all break long. Amanda texted, and asked if I wanted to make a Walmart run with her. She hadn't left the house yet today. Sounded like a fun trip to me!

I left Tom in charge, and headed out with Amanda. We went to the "Jaurez Walmart" because it was closest. And dang, it was packed. You could tell it was close to Thanksgiving. Which reminds me, I sure do need to make my Thanksgiving dinner and shopping list. I know, slacker me. It's getting close, and I still haven't done it....

We walked around, and she got the few things that she needed. But mostly we just wandered.
She price matched these veggies at $0.49 a can, and had buy 4 and get $1.00 off coupons. She had 11 coupons! Nice, huh???

Um, yeah, interesting game???

Bike helmet???

Is this bow just for me?

Man or woman??? hehe :)

We wandered around Walmart for a bit longer, then went to pay. And headed home. And stopped by Taco Bell for a Beefy Cheesey nasty and a soda before heading back through the gate.

My kids were doing just fine when I got home, watching TV and playing computers. And Joe was sound asleep on the couch. hehe. I put up the last of the new outside Christmas decorations, and took a final picture. What do you think??? Aren't they pretty???
I cleaned up a little bit, then sat down to yesterday blog. Then started on today's blog. And now I'm feeling my headache coming back. I should take some meds and go to bed. Or maybe I'll just take a sleeping pill and go to bed. I'm not sure. I'm super sleepy, though. It's almost 11pm. I wonder what would help me feel the best in the morning? A super good nights rest, or some meds?....

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Ha! Such funny faces! This little girl TOTALLY looks like my sisters kids!!! hehe. You sure she's not related to me???

The Whole Enchilada

Hey girls... Yeah, this one is late. I woke up on Monday morning, after getting to sleep in for a bit. I didn't have to be anywhere until around 11. But wanted to go to the Dollar Tree and the game store for Jake early. So around 8:30 or 9 we started getting ready. And yeah, we were running a bit behind. But it was ok.

We cleaned up after ourselves, so the house stayed mostly clean. Which is good! Since Jake and Justin had put in SO much time and effort the day before! And it looked SO good :) I started some crock pot rotissarie chicken, and cooked up a pot of pasta with sausage. And we got the kids ready, and we all headed out to the stores.

I picked up Amanda and Austin, and we dropped off Jake and Tom at Game Stop. Then we went to the Commissary. We got some drinks and some disposable forks. And some chips and some cookies. We paid, picked up the boys, and nixed the Dollar Tree stop. Commissary works just as good! And off to the Park we headed! We were a bite late, but still met up with our friends. Sorry, Ms Kari, so leaving you hangin'... Don't hate us too much. hehe.

We hung out and had a grand time with the kids. Kim and her kids eventually showed up too. It was a pretty good time. The weather wasn't fantastic, but the sun did come out a few times. The kids played, the moms chatted, and the kids burned off a lot of energy. Perfect! The moms all had shopping errands to run, so after a few hours, we went our separate ways. Justin and Jake (fused at the hip these days!) wanted to go to the Youth Center, so I volunteered to take them. I didn't have enough seats, though, so Kari said that she'd take Joe with her.

And off we all went. First stop, though, Dollar Tree on Mesa. The biggest one in Town. hehe. It was an exciting trip. 4 moms, 13 kids (11 boys and 2 girls, 4 of which have special needs....) We only pretended that we didn't know the kids a few times. hehe.

Amanda and I dropped Justin and Jake off at the youth center, then dropped Tom and Eme off at home. Tom totally could have been dropped off at the youth center, but he hadn't cleaned his room yet. He informed me that I was ruining his Thanksgiving break. Last I checked, I didn't mess up his room.... We headed to Amandas house with the little boys, and loaded up her broken chairs from Ashley furniture, and returned them to the store.

I waited in the truck with the boys while she dealt with them, and they came and got the chairs. Then we went to Big Lots. We'd seen that they had a 5 in 1 Record player on sale for $59. Record player, MP3 player, Cassette player, radio, CD player. Sounded pretty cool. Um, yeah, they were sold out. Drat! I was looking forward to showing the kids what records and tapes were! hehe :) And guess who we ran into??? KIM!!! Clear across town! What are the odds??? hehe :)

We got a few christmas decoration things, then headed to Target. We looked around for a little while, then headed home. My head was starting to hurt. Migraine time for me. Oh darn! We put the stuff away, and I had the kids work on their chores some more. And get their rooms clean.

Kim had texted and said that Scotty had had a melt down while Amanda and I were at Target, so when she offered me some cereal that her kids didn't want, I jumped at the opportunity to come over and get it. I needed to check on my friend and make sure that things were ok.

She was a little rattled, but otherwise ok. I totally know the feeling. I offered to keep the little boys so that she and her hubby and Scotty could go to dinner. So Cory and Austin came to play with my kids for a few hours. They had a TON of fun running around my house with my kids. Literally. Running laps around my house. LOL.

I had taken some migraine meds, and I laid down on my couch in my room with my neck massager for a while. I helped a little, but not enough. I decided that it was probably a hormonal headache. Which sucked, because there wasn't really anything that I could really do for it... besides medicate the crap out of myself. hehe. Bring it on!

The kids played nicely for a few hours, and Kim and hubby came back, bringing a pizza for my crew. Awe, SO sweet! At around 8:45pm, my kids all were ready for bed, and Jake was spending the night at Justins house again. And I was going to the movies with the girls. We were going to see "The Help". But my head was killing me. So I took some of everything, put the kids to bed, and headed out. Kari was driving, don't worry. hehe. Kari and Kim and me and Veronica went. It was a good time! About 1/2 way through the movie, the meds kicked in, and I didn't feel a thing. LOL :)

I got home, and was exhausted! I remember crawling into bed with my laptop and my glasses and my clothes on. And laying down, and opening the laptop up, and realizing that I needed to make up a preview for the wordart. And "resting" my eyes while photoshop opened. And then it was 3am. And I couldn't for the life of me think of how to change the resolution from 300 dpi to 72dpi. I've only done it for the past almost 4 years. But I couldn't remember how to do it a 4am. hehe. So I went back to sleep. LOL. So yeah. That's why there was no blog. And why it's here now.... Blame it on the migraine :)

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Nice one, Sharon! Great family picture and great family layout!!!