Christmas is when???

So, we survived Thanksgiving. It was actually really nice. Well, other than the fact that I was sick. That's a sure way to lose weight during the holiday season! I think I lost 5 pounds in the past 4 days. But other than that, it was a fun visit with family. My sister and her family came up from Bend. Although we don't really get to spend much time "chatting" with everything going on, it was fun to see her and her kids (even her husband too!). Both my brothers came and my parents too. So, lots of kids and good food. It was nice.

I was feeling better by Friday. I had dreams all Thursday night about shopping. I usually ALWAYS go shopping on black Friday. For the past couple years I've gone with a friend from church. Because I hadn't been feeling well, I didn't even call her and plan anything. However, at 2:45am I felt ok, so I go up and did all my "cyber shopping". Walmart offers the same deals on line at 5pm est as they do at 5 at my local store, so I like to shop from home. Got that stuff done and fell back to sleep. I woke up at 7 and felt really good, so I woke up Ann-Elise and we headed out for the last couple hours of early bird shopping. We only got as far as Target before we called it good and headed for a fun breakfast at Shari's. Then home. We are shopping light this year for Christmas. Hoping that Santa will bring us something big (like maybe a Disneyland trip...). Anyway, I pretty much got everything done. Well, for now anyway! The problem with shopping early is that I tend to spend more because I never think I have enough.

So yesterday, we got up and dressed warm. Headed into the garage for some "fall cleaning". We were able to get the garage cleaned out and swept out in a couple hours. Now we are ready to build some storage shelves for our food storage. I'm really excited about stocking our "store" shelves. My inside pantry is really tiny, so it's just a mess. Everything is crammed in there and you can't find anything! So, by putting our year supply of food out in the garage, I can "shop" in my garage weekly, then move the week supply into the pantry. Then I only need to replace what I've used and I should only have to do that once or twice a month. Oh my, that is HUGE! Not grocery shopping with, at the very least, 2 babies will be amazing! I'll only need to run to the store for perishables based on our weekly menu. Piece of cake!!! How cool is that? I am hoping to have that done by the end of next week. However, we'll see what Mikes plans are!

Speaking of Mike, he's on this "energy conservation" kick. It's kind of cool. We are really interested in solar energy. He bought this meter that he is using to test EVERYTHING that uses power. It's very interesting. I don't know why I always feel the need to say this but...It's not for the global warming craze. It's because we have a large family and would like to save money! Anyway, there are some really cool things out there. And the plus side is that he wants to get all new appliances because ours aren't "energy star". Cool aye! The down side to that is that he feels the need to cut power to everything at night. Not a big deal except when I get up and have a screaming 2 year old wanting to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that we have recorded on the dvr and it takes about an hour for the dvr system to "warm up" and load our saved data. Oh, and we can't even watch the tv if the remote is missing (like now!) because it's all password protected. Again, the system doesn't connect with the main menu to display what shows are on, so it all registers as "to be announced", therefore, it doesn't have a kid friendly rating, so there is no tv either. Not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination, just inconvenient. An inconvenient truth, you might say!

Random Thoughts

So, I was up most of the night with this gigantic horrible tooth ache. I thought that after having 5 c-sections and almost no pain after that I had a very high tolerance for pain. I AM superwoman, you know. Anyway, last night proved me wrong. It was awful! Miserable! Horrible! I turned into a sick man. You know how men get when they're sick. Whining, moping...you get the idea. So, that was me. Between 3pm and 8pm I took 3 Tylenol 3 and 7 Advil. Not to mention the baby Ora-gel that I used (and I will NEVER torture my babies again with that poison!). I kicked back in the recliner with a heating pad... No dinner... Must be bad if I'm not eating! This happened a couple weeks ago and I marched my behind into the dentist but they couldn't find anything. I called them again this morning and told them I was planting myself in their chair and I wasn't leaving until they figured out what the problem was. So, we'll see how that goes...

Next thought: That stupid hamster that is STILL in the bathroom is driving me crazy! I got so sick of hearing him destroy his cage that I got up in the middle of the night and put him in the cupboard. In his cage, of course. You should have seen the look on Alia's face when I told her that's where he was.

Ya know, at 3:30 this morning I had a lot more random thoughts to write about...

Thanksgiving is 2 days away. It's at my house this year and in some warped way, I'm really excited. I love to cook. I like to come up with fun new recipes to try. This year's menu consists of: Maple Roasted Turkey and Gravy; Sausage, Apple and Cranberry stuffing; Mashed Red Potatoes; Whipped Sweet Potatoes and Bananas with Honey; Green Bean Casserole (of course!); Spinach Gratin; Cranberry-Orange Sauce; Yeast Rolls; Cherry Pie and Pumpkin Pie. Oh, and Baked Brie with apricot/jalapeno sauce and pecans and the basic cream cheese, cocktail sauce and shrimp dip. Where would I be with out Food Network? Love them! Anyway, I love to cook so this will be fun. And it seems that we are only going to have 18 people here, so not too bad!

Well, until an idea strikes me...we'll leave it at this