Thanksgiving PART I..long post

It has been a busy three days so far. We started off at Ross's parents for Thanksgiving. Riley ate celery and pimento cheese which I would NEVER have imagined him to enjoy. I'm sure ants on a log would be a big hit too...(gross). I ate so much that I was still uncomfortable the next day, but it was GOOD!

Then he made ornaments for our tree.

Nana Karen mentioned going shopping the day after Thanksgiving and I thought we should pray for her safety. I've never been shopping on black Friday because I heard it's just plain dangerous and that doesn't sound very fun.
Well, guess who's eyes popped open at 3am! MINE DID so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I began to question my decision as I was turning left at the stop light around 4:50am! I couldn't turn back at this point. I had to face my fears so I pulled into the less popular Walmart of our town thinking it would be less crowded. The parking lot wasn't all that bad which confused me a little. As I entered the store, the people greeter handed me a map of the store. Still being naive to the black friday shopping, I questioned why she would hand out a map of the store. Are there people that only come to Walmart on black Friday so they need to know where to locate the lawn and garden center of our local Walmart?

THEN I FOUND THE PEOPLE and the reason for the map! The associates lined the aisles of "action alley" to stand guard over the pallets covered in black tarps. The maps gave the vincinity of where to find all the sale items. You can forget trying to shop with a cart! People had walkie talkies, buddy systems, and strategic shopping plans. I grabbed my two or three Christmas items, face powder, and a few other things just to justify my trip and was outta there in 30 min. It was intimidating!
I brought my stuff home and then I was feeling brave so decided to see what Lowe's had to offer. I had to stand in a short line before they opened at 6am, but it wasn't near as bad as the Walmart crowd. Later that morning, I headed to Target where it was really crowded, but I managed to get in and out of there in a reasonable amount of time. The parking was scary though! Finally, I headed to Sams where NO ONE was shopping. I've waited in line longer on a random Tuesday so I got my baby wipes and called it a day.

ARTS and CRAFTS: I got this really cute canvas idea from www.bibsandcribs.blogspot.com so I had to attempt it last night. I think they turned out really good for my first canvas project.


And finally, we put up the tree and wrapped some presents.
Here's Riley putting up the first ornament and the star. He LOVED decorating the tree.
I told him about the ornaments as we put them up. Here's how one of the conversations went:
A: This ornament was from my grandmother
R: (grabbing another ornament) yeah, and this one is from my grandmother
A: No, I'm pretty sure that one just came from Hobby Lobby.
He was more about putting them on the tree then hearing the history of them.