A bunch of days!

I told Anderson that I was going to be off work for 5 days for Thanksgiving (including the weekend- I like to round up) and he said, "That's a bunch of days!!"

 First, we celebrated the soon (but not too soon) arrival of Baby Lucy! I did not get one single picture of Clare during the shower except an awkward one from behind as she was opening presents that does not do her precious belly bump justice, so a picture will have to come later! I am So excited about Lucy and my niece, both of whom will be here in February!

One of Brandon's friends gave us his daughter's old Power Wheels. "Old" in this case means basically brand new because it works perfectly. And, it was free, which was the best part. I was concerned about the trend we are starting by just giving Anderson a Power Wheels on a random Sunday, but it was free and it is pretty cool, so I, of course, obliged!

Hoarding 101: Order all of your Christmas cards in October by using various codes on different sites.I cannot resist a card deal & I think I paid $9 total for them.

No "bunch of days" is complete without a trip to the Fire Station!

Thanksgiving at GG's! How great is she at decorating? She does all holidays with this much attention to detail & everything is always so festive!

Anderson loves his GG's house & plays it up with the few (hundred) toys that he has there! Brandon recognizes quite a few of them because they were his when he was a baby.

Hoarding 101, lesson 2: Black Friday is really not where the good deals are because they best deals are randomly throughout the year (*see the pic below of my CVS loot that I got with a prescription transfer gift card, a bunch of coupons & I left with $7 extra bucks for next time!), BUT my family loves a tradition & Black Friday shopping is a tradition for us. We do it the sane way: wake up, hang out for a bit & leave whenever we get ready. The perk of having a non sleeping kid is usually all that has happened by 7am, so we were good to go. We literally had no plan that day, but found a few good things. The best deal I found was dog food at Petco. (They price match, stack coupons & give you cash back) But, we also went to Costco where I made Mom ride on the cart because her ankle hurts when she walks a lot & I was unsure of how long we would be gone. Plus, Anderson thought it was fun!

The CVS loot. I just love her. ( CVS, like Target, is totally a girl)

Then , we got to see Lily!! Anderson is always telling me, "Lily & Jack are my best friends!", so he was pumped about the visit. I tried to capture their excitement upon seeing each other, but you just really can't get in a shot.

Play Doh crane from Bobble Cole! This was his Disney souvenir because, honestly, I don't think he would have actually liked anything from there. A Disney trip is in the far off future for us, for sure.

On some kind of whim (prompted by a  $3 Amazon special), I bought him "The Polar Express" & he LOVES it! I like it because there are a lot of train shots & it is not just plot because he is not really old enough to sit through a real movie yet. Anyway, I bought tickets awhile ago for the "Three Rivers Rambler" ^ we pretended like it was the Polar Express! Brandon made these awesome tickets & we surprised him.

Love this Bug.

There were snacks (including Hot Chocolate! But, not dancing waiters) & an open air car and a visit from Santa! It was pretty fun and I hope we can keep going every year because I think he will like it even more as he gets older. 90 minutes is pretty long for a 2 year old, even it is on a train!

We had Santa tell Anderson that he would get a fire station if he keeps his patch on! He is fighting us a bit more with it, so we are desperate!