Thanksgiving Week

Last week was my Thanksgiving Break...Yes I get a whole week off of work!  On Monday I watched 5 children at our house.  We put up barriers to keep kids out of the living room that is totally under construction and strollers blocked the stairs.  Connor knows to stay downstairs, but Calvin does not.  Basically we stayed in the family room/kitchen and backyard.  We played in the morning, then Calvin took a nap.  When he got up it was Connor's turn.  Then when everyone was awake we cleaned up and then walked to the park.  The day went by pretty fast and the kids were all well behaved.  When we got to the park Connor wanted to swing, so by default Calvin got to swing too.  They both thoroughly enjoyed their time on the swings.  They also played on rocking animals and the slides.  We were only at the park about 30 minutes when Chris came to retrieve his kids.

Claire enjoyed the swings too.

The other two girls were off playing on the play structures...I don't have pictures of them.

On Tuesday Connor and I walked to the park again.  It's maybe a 10 minute walk.  Connor spent most of his time on the swings and then enjoyed the slide.  He liked the twisty slide best.

Wednesday morning we watched the 5 kids again.  Peter took the early morning shift 5-7am while I woke up around 7 and helped out until Mary came shortly after 8.  After they left, we got in a little bit of cleaning and then people started arriving.  Connor and I headed to my parents house to visit with my aunt and uncle.

On Thursday morning Abbie and Rafe arrived.  Peter and my aunt got together in the morning to stuff the bird and inject it with some yummy sauce and then Peter baked it.  While it was baking we went up to Hilltop Park to play around.  Everett, Abbie, Rafe and my dad joined us there.  Connor had a blast and was quite exhausted when we were done.

After a nap it was time for dinner.  Connor sat in a big boy chair (he hates his booster seat now).  After dinner he enjoyed playing a game of "eek a boo" under the table.

He also enjoyed fixing the little nook under the kids' counter with grandma's screwdriver.  He pushed the shelf up so he had a place to sit.

After dinner Abbie, Rafe and I geared up for the big sales.  We hit Walmart and Target.  After waiting in line outside of Walmart that wrapped halfway around the store for about 30-45 minutes we were let in to the craziness inside.  Okay it really wasn't that bad.  At least not as bad as you see online.  People were somewhat courteous and nice and there was no shoving.  I headed straight for the toy section.  I wanted a play kitchen that was advertized for $50 instead of the usual $80.  I got back there and looked all around.  Then I asked someone, who checked a paper of all the in stock items and she told me that that store didn't receive that item.  "What?"  Now really if you're going to offer doorbusters, you should make sure that every store has them.  I could understand if they were all sold out, but that wasn't the case here.  I was annoyed!  Well after striking out I went to find Abbie and Rafe.  They picked up movies for me but didn't find them in the piles that were on the discount.  So we took the movies and the ad and what they wanted to buy up to the cash register.  My blu-ray movies each rang up as 19.96, but when we showed the cashier that they were the ones in the ad, she fixed the price to the sale price of 8.96 and then took 3.00 off each because they rang up wrong.  So I got two blu-rays for 5.96 each....so Walmart wasn't a total loss.  Then it was on to Target.  I picked up three more movies and that was it.  The line to check out at Target was clearly longer and slower than the Walmart line.  I swear we stood in line to leave FOREVER!  We started our evening adventures at 7:40ish and returned home around 11:15.  And my Christmas shopping...well the movies we're keeping, so I guess you can say I haven't started for anyone else.

Saturday afternoon Patty, Peter and I went to Walter Andersen's.  Patty loved the train as so did Peter.  I loved picking out all the flowers I wanted to buy.  After that we went to Home Depot.  We came home with a Christmas wreath like thing that smells really good for $5.  We also walked by these super cute rocking horses.  You pull the ear and the horse makes noises, wags it's tail and moves the head.  (While visiting at his cousins' house Connor always plays on the rocking horse.  He also loves the rocking animals at the park.)  When we went to check out Peter had a horse under his arm.  So I guess we have started our Christmas shopping.