the past few days

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great time over at my sister-in-law's house. Thank you to her and her family for hosting this year. The food was great and the company was wonderful.

Black Friday...love it! This year I got up at 2, left the house before 3 and was at Target around 3:15. The line was already all the way behind the building. No joke I was in the back by the dumpsters in the dark with several gazillion of my newest friends. Ha! I truly do love talking with people in line. I am not sure why as I usually tend to be a shy person. I met a lady and her husband (behind me) in line this year who said she was adopted. The lady in front of me was only there for one phone...for her husband...who had decided he was too tired to get out of bed to go get it. :) She said that she had actually been knocked over before at a different store on a black Friday opening. Yikes! I am not sure I would be going out again during the craziest shopping day of the year. I am thrilled to say that I was able to get everything I wanted at Target. I had to stand in line for over an hour to check out; but, of course, I talked with those around me. I even saw one of the ladies later at Toys-R-Us. My family tends to think I am nuts to go shopping at that time; but, this lady had been out since midnight! While waiting to check out, I bumped into one of my former kindergarten students and her mom. This beautiful young lady is getting ready to graduate from high school this year and is planning on studying psychology in college. I am so proud of her! It was so nice of them to come over and say "hi" to me. Very cool!!!!

Today, we started to get the Christmas stuff out of the attic. Max is such a big helper now. He was actually the one who climbed up in the attic and handed the stuff to Ron who was on the ladder ready to carry the boxes down. This was a huge help for Ron! I carried the boxes into the house and sorted them by rooms. Emerson enjoyed shutting the door between the house and garage on me...not helpful. :) The girls, Emerson, and I set up the tree in the family room. I started to set up the tree in the foyer while the girls and Emerson ate lunch. After Max was finished in the attic, he helped me assemble the rest of the tree. We now have two undecorated trees up in the house. Like Ron always says, "Incremental progress." All the kiddos were a huge help today and we appreciate that for sure!!!! Ron and Max decorated the outside and the lights looked beautiful when we got home from church this evening.

I had to laugh when we were setting up the tree in the family room. Emerson smelled the tree a couple of times. I was hoping to get a picture of this but have not been successful yet. I just thought that was so cute. One has to wonder what he is thinking about all of this. When we were at Target the other night (not Black Friday), Emerson's eyes got HUGE when he saw the Christmas decorations all lit up. Wait until Christmas morning....