SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN...

Oh I felt so bad today. Our town had a reindeer parade today and Santa Claus came to town. No they weren't real reindeer. people dress up their dogs as reindeer I think! I've never been to it before but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Anyways, I had told Jace that I would take him and even looked earlier to see what time the parade started. Well we slept in today and by the time I got ready and went to the bank etc... it was to late. I felt terrible :( but Santa was at his house until 2:00 so my mom and I took the boys to see him there and they were giving horse and carriage rides so we all went on that! Jace LOVED it. My mom, Grady and I sat in the back and Jace sat in the front so he thought he was king of the buggy ha ha! The money spent on it went towards Big Brothers Big Sisters and they took our picture and are supposed to have them posted on that site sometime in December and you can download them then. I should have had someone take our picture with my camera and I didn't, oh well!



Before we went I tried so hard to get pictures of the boys for a Christmas card only because right now on Seehere.com you can get 50 4x8 photo Christmas cards (or any cards for that matter) for just the price of shipping!!! So it only costs you $3.19, it was free, but so many people ordered them and they started charging for shipping, but that is still such an awesome deal. You only have until November 30th to get your order in. Once you make your cards and add them to your bag use promo code freebies4mom-1109 and it will take the $24.50 off and only charge you $3.19 for shipping! My mom ordered some and got them 2 days after she placed the order, we were so shocked they came so fast!

So there are some of the pictures I tried to take of them at home and at the courthouse by Santa's house. If one looks the other one doesn't. If one smiles the other one has their eyes closed etc... I mean really, why can't my kids just cooperate for 1 good picture?


Why are my kids so wild and so out of control at times? Jace is so bossy and just thinks he knows EVERYTHING, I think he is a 16 year old trapped in a 4 year old's body sometimes! Grady on the other hand has such an attitude these days, omg if he doesn't get his way he'll just throw himself on the ground! This is probably the best out of all of them, I think I'll order the cards with it...


Santa gave the boys M&M's and candy canes and I tried to take them away so they wouldn't be in the pictures, ha! What was I thinking, just look at Grady's face....that was clearly a bad idea! Why didn't I take some before going to his house? Hello, what was I thinking!


I also had my mom take a few of me with the boys. They were a little better, but they still didn't want to cooperate..gotta love'em anyways!

BUSY....BUSY....BUSY!!!

We have been so busy the last few days! Wednesday night I went out with some old friends from high school. My friend A.J. was in town from California and it's always so good to see him and catch up when he's in town.

Me, Nikki, A.J. and Andrea

We also met up with Jeff, another old friend of ours from high school and his cousin Nikki. A.J's mom, brother and his mom's friend came as well. They were all so much fun and we all had such a great time together!

Me, A.J. and Jeff

Then yesterday we had Thanksgiving at my grandma's house. She fixed so much yummy food! Thank you granny-bug for having us all over and for all of your hard work! It was all great. We were a little sad though because my brother's little girl Emme has the whooping cough and it's very contagious so Josh just came to our Thanksgiving and Sara went to her mom's while Josh stayed with Emme. Sara's mom's house is a block over from my grandma's so I snuck out for a bit and went to see them. I wish we could have all been together, but we didn't want to take any chances with getting the boys sick since they are already on antibiotics for their own cough!

My sister-in-law Sara and I

Sweet little Emme, poor girl! Hopefully she gets over it soon!


Jace trying on grandma's reading glasses, doesn't he look smart? ha ha!


Grady was so tired when we arrived at grannybug's and my cousin Ryan tried to keep him asleep, as you can see that lasted all of 5 minutes!

Grady cheesing it up :) Gotta love him!

This morning at 4:30 my mom and I ventured out to get some deals on Black Friday. Oh my goodness is it crazy! Have you guys ever done that? I mean I just can't believe ALL of the crazies out that early just for a bargain. It blows my mind. We only went to Wal-Mart and Menards since we live in a smaller town and the thought of driving into a bigger city with all of the madness just isn't worth it to us...not this year anyways ha! Last year my mom, dad and grandma went to the outlets at midnight and waited forever to get into Coach for some purses, all while freezing their butts off! Well they did get AWESOME deals and super cute purses but the thought of doing that again made my mom cringe this year, ha! I can't say I blame her! Wal-Mart alone this year was out of control. At one point we were back by the toys and their were so many people around us that we were in a dead stand still. It really was a mad house, but hey we did get some fun stuff for Christmas :) We got our McDonald's breakfast and were back home by 7 a.m.

Doesn't my mom look great this early in the morning! I however looked terrible and am not going to scare you with the picture she took of me! SORRY :(

So now that Black Friday is over are you all ready to shop till you drop on-line come Cyber Monday? I might just have to get some more deals...at least I can stay in my pajamas, in my bed with my laptop without fighting the crowds!!! That sounds like a much better plan!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

Today I am thankful for my awesome husband Craig!

I am thankful that I have two very healthy, handsome, ornery boys!

I am thankful for my parents who do so much for us, including letting us live with them for the moment while we figure out our future home plans!

I am thankful that I found my biological sister Jenny 6 years ago who is expecting her 2nd child in January!

I am thankful for my brother Josh my friend and sister-in-law Sara and my niece Emme!

I am thankful for my granny-bug who means the world to me!

I am thankful for the rest of my family and friends as well!

I am thankful for this blog and all of you who read it and comment on it :)

I am thankful for my husband, who works so hard, which allows me to stay home and raise our kids, even if some days they drive me crazy :)

I am thankful for so many more things in my life as well, but I thought I would list the most important one's! I think we all have so many things to be thankful for this year, what are you thankful for? I think a lot of us take so many things for granted in our lives and if we just stop and look around us and around the world I think we all should be thankful for what we have as so many others are less fortunate than us in this world!

I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoy the time spent with your families and friends. I hope you enjoy all of the good food, I know I am so looking forward to some good eats.

Have a great day everyone!

I will post some pictures from Thanksgiving and from my night out with some friends later :)

GETTING TO KNOW US A LITTLE BETTER...

1. WHO ARE WE? Craig 31 - Jenna 29 - Jace 4 - Grady 1 - Harleigh 6 (the dog)

2. WHEN DID OUR FAMILY START? April 26th 2003 was our wedding day. Jace was born September 18th 2005 and Grady was born April 1st 2008! He's our April fool's baby!

3. HOW LONG DID YOU DATE BEFORE YOU WERE ENGAGED? About 3 months! It's hard for me to look back and think we only dated 3 months before we decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Almost 7 years later now we look back and think wow, we were so young and maybe we would have both thought twice....KIDDING! ha! We do joke about it but we love each other and can't imagine being with anyone else :)

4. HOW DID YOU MEET? My mom and I had just bought cell phones from the Verizon Wireless booth inside Wal-Mart and we sent my grandma out to buy one a few weeks later. She started talking to the handsome Verizon guy and told him that her daughter and granddaughter sent her. He asked her who they were and she told him. He knew who I was and said something to the effect that I was cute. She told him I was single and told him to call me! She came over and told me that and I was like "yeah right." She said she was serious and oh my goodness was I embarrassed!!! He didn't call right away and my grandma went back out there and told him he had better call me! OH MY GOSH!!! He called and I told him that he DID NOT have to call me just because my grandma threatened him LOL! He said he did however want to go out after all of that ha! So we went out and have been together ever since! :) THANK YOU granny-bug!

5. WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING? I am a stay at home mom. I was a hairstylist for a few years. I still love to do hair and play with makeup but I love my boy's so much and love spending time with them everyday! Craig is an Asset Protection Manager for a large retail chain.

6. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? We are both from the same small town in Ohio!

7. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO FOR FUN? We love spending time with our kids, watching movies, I love to shop, Craig loves football, the boys like to fight ha ha!

8. WHY DID YOU START A BLOG? To let our family and friends stay up to date on our lives and to meet new friends through blogging! I love when I get comments on my blog and I love leaving comments on others! It's a fun community to be in :)

I hope you all enjoyed getting to know us a little better. I read another blogger's questions and answers the other day and realized how little I knew about her and I have been reading her blog for awhile. I just thought this would be a fun way to let you all know a little more about us.

Well today was the BIG Ohio State and Michigan game. We are Michigan fans and almost everyone else that we know are Ohio State fans since we live in Ohio.

Here are the boys with my dad a.k.a. papa Kevin who is a HUGE OSU fan..can you tell?!?

It's technically the biggest game of the year and once again we got beat! BOOOOOOO! Honestly I don't even understand the game of football but that doesn't mean I don't love my BLUE! My husband on the other hand is a die hard fan and despises Ohio State! He was pretty upset about another loss on Michigan's end this year...but what are you gonna do? We'll try again next year :)

CRAZY DAY

Today I will have 5 kids at my house all 4 years old and younger! You must think I am crazy, ha! Jace is 4, Grady is 1 and then I started babysitting two little kids a few days a week. The little girl is 3 and the little boy is 10 months! Then my brother and sister-in-law went to a business party last night and since they live an hour away and the party was in between they asked if I would keep my niece Emme over night. I said sure, why not! So 5 kids it is today. Emme is also only 10 months. I am going to be a busy busy girl chasing all of these kids! Thank goodness it is Friday and the weekend will be here at 4 o'clock when they all leave! They are all SUPER cute and also pretty good so I'm sure it will be fine.

Today when when I had them, they got Emme's glasses out and were all trying them on. They ended up breaking them, sorry Sara :( Check out Grady, LOVE the pink shades on him and don't mind all of the drool ha ha...

Emme is pretty stylish too, don't ya think?

Here is a picture of Emme and I last night. She is so cute! I love her, she is changing so much. Her looks are changing all the time and she is moving and doing so many new things as well.


Yesterday I took both boys to the doctor. They have had a cough for a few weeks now and it just won't go away. Grady was on an antibiotic but now he needs it longer. They think they have a touch of bronchitis. You wouldn't know that anything was wrong with them during the day but once night hits, this awful coughing starts....ughhhh it's so awful! So hopefully this works, I can tell today that the phlegm is breaking up and Jace was almost puking it up, YUCK!!! I'll be glad when all of this sickness goes away, who isn't sick right now!?!

AND THE WINNER OF THE MALLY BEAUTY GIVE-A-WAY IS......

Suzette!!! Congrats!!!

You have 48 hours after I e-mail you to contact me with your information! Thank you to everyone who entered and to all of my blog followers! I love all of your comments all of the time :)

(I used random.org's True Random Number Generator to be fair)

75% OFF OF HALLOWEEN

So yesterday we went to Wal-Mart and they were having 75% off of their Halloween stuff. Jace was so excited. He got an alien costume and some face paint.


I picked Grady up the cutest clown costume. It was a 2T and I thought maybe he could wear it next year. Well it fits perfectly now and he will not be wearing it next year but look how cute he is.

I love this costume on him!!! He however hated the hat! He was cracking me up.


75% off is such a good deal. I hate spending so much money on a costume that the kids will only wear for a few hours. You can get like 4 costumes on clearance for the price that you normally pay for one. I also got some super cute paper plates, cups and napkins. They were so cheap and the boys think they are cool all year long. I found another great deal while there. They had Kraft macaroni and cheese in Halloween shapes for $.34 box! We bought all that they had, like 15 boxes lol, but the kids love mac and cheese and who cares if they are shaped like pumpkins and bats, they will eat them better that way!


So when we got home Jace ripped open the face paint and started painting himself. The next thing I know he had most of his clothes off, paint all over his sweatshirt and look what we had... oh my, what a disaster he was! He was loving it. Craig even helped paint him. He got so mad though when we made him get in the shower, and do you know how hard it was to get that paint off!!!

So I'll be drawing a name for the blog give-a-way tomorrow. You still have until midnight tomorrow night to sign up. I'll post the winner on Monday, are you all so exciting :)