Thanksgiving Week

This week has been absolutely wonderful.

I am thankful for:

• My salvation in Jesus Christ
• My amazing husband (who puts up with way more than any man should)
• My amazing family (both blood and in-law are amazing)
• My wonderful friends (especially those who have stuck around for years)
• Getting to spend time with friends and family this week
• My sweet new little cousin Reagan born last Thursday
• Me and my husbands wonderful stable jobs (or atleast they are stable for now)
• Having the week off.
• Being freed of almost all my responsibilities until February (Gifted Endorsement class and soccer)
• And of course a million other things
• And the things that God has planned for us that are still to come!

I have gotten to catch up on sleep, cleaning the house, spending quality time with Jonathan, decorating the house for Christmas, and spending time with family this week. Yesterday was pretty busy going from one family to the next so I did not get any pictures, but believe me I'm sure most everyone reading my blog was doing the same as I was....eating lots of yummy food, so I'll leave that one up to everyone's imagination ;)

My love-hate relationship with Black Friday: I love to shop and get AWESOME deals, I REALLY HATE long lines that have rude, pushy, greedy people in them.

Today I got up with my sister and mother-in law and we headed into the mall around 7am, stopped and got doughtnuts on the way in and began our day of shopping. For all you avid black friday shoppers we think we have figured out the best time to go....about 7:30ish you have missed that early morning rush but you still get the great deals. We hit up Khols first saving a total of $350.00 between the three of us. They had fleece blanket for 3.99, great inexpensive gift you can buy and then have monogrammed. We do $10.00 limit gifts with Jonathan's family, so we got awesome deals on the blankets and a metal thermos also $3.99. After Kohls we headed to target for their movie deals. They usually have great movies on black friday for $3.99, $5.99, or $8.99 but unfortunately by the time we had gotten to target there was not a great selection left....but I don't think they had as great of a selection this year as they did last year. After that we headed over to Merle Norman for some Vera Bradley....they had a great deal, where you purchase $100.oo of Vera Bradley and get a free purse. The purse is a $48.00 value and it is gorgeous, which we will be giving to a family members name that we drew for Christmas. One of Jonathan's gifts to me this Christmas is a Vera Bradley duffle bag, so we went ahead and purchased it with 2 other gifts for family and then got the free purse so that was a pretty good deal seeing I had to add a $5.00 gift to reach the $100.00 limit. Then off to the mall where there were a whole lota people. We stopped in New York and Co where they are having EVERYTHING in the store 50% off...but here is the disclaimer if you are an avid NY&Co shopper like myself you would know this is really NOT a great sale for them. They turn over their cloting in sales constantly, so for example a week ago I went in bought a shirt for $10, it was 70% off plus another 15% because I am a teacher. Today because of their 50% off on everything this same shirt originally $36.00 was only 50%. For some reason they have been doing that lately, putting things on and off of sale, but usually their clothing goes on sale pretty quickly and they are pretty reasonably price when they have their sales. I did not buy anything there today, because I know their sales will be better when it is not Black Friday. After that I needed 2 pairs of fuzzy socks from Old Navy originally $5, on sale today for $2.50!!! So I did not break the bank to bad and came home with some pretty good gifts. I'd love to hear some of the great deals you came across today...leave a post if you'd like:)