It's Black Friday!

As countless millions of people across the U.S.A. are out in crowds and germs and crazy today going after and hunting those AMAZING deals (or working) that put the stores across the country in the "black" for the year.... 

......   I am at home eating left overs!  MUAHHAHAHHAHAA ....   There are 31 Days until Christmas!

I put up our tree the night before Thanksgiving.  Our tradition is to do it ON Thanksgiving but I knew I'd be too tired after getting home from Mom's ... and I was right.   So it's been up - but un-decorated. 

 The only problem is .....  our cat seems to think it's an open invitation and  more specifically that it's a huge cat toy for her.  

  This morning we finished our tree.  We put ornaments on it ....    Our angel at the top, by the way, changes colors...  it's pretty awesome. 

I spent some time this morning preparing for COOKIE to arrive.

Who's Cookie?

Well Cookie is the kid's magic Elf on a Shelf.

So I "found" a letter in the mail today ....  it magically appeared there.... it was announcing his expected arrival tonight, and how he's looking forward to seeing them tomorrow when they wake up.  AND ... how he's looking forward to spending time with them this year - for the first year - because last year they got him too close to Christmas.   His letter included a photo of him on vacation at the beach.

Noah got the envelope so he could try to read it to his brothers....

Here he's telling them it's from Cookie and giving his address ...

 Opening it up

 Reading the letter .... 

 Here is the letter and the envelope ...

I also wrapped up the Angry Birds PJ's that Nana and I picked up last night and a couple movies I've been hanging onto ....  for some of the gifts they can pick from each week.

Explanation .......  Calahan's first Christmas he had SO MUCH stuff and he was only (a few days away from a year old) ...  so I got to thinking.  Well, kids want to snoop in their gifts, and they always beg to open them early ....  so.... we started a tradition where the kids could pick one gift (or a joint gift) to open each week.   So either on Thanksgiving night or Friday night following Thanksgiving - we start it.  And they open one gift each week on that night - until Christmas. 

So tonight they got to get an individual gift. 

 The three younger boys got Angry Bird PJ's and Cal got X-Box 360 Live time....

 Nathan and Kaedyn in their PJ's

 Noah in his PJ's

Nathan made me take another photo of him too ... lol...

But that's about all for tonight - time to get my gremlins to sleep so Cookie and I can have a discussion about their behavior.