is it really worth it?

We finished Thanksgiving today, after 3 days in Missouri with my parents, and then today with Dave's family! I will definitely not be skipping Butz and Gutz class this week with all the food that I consumed.

So do you want to hear about our Black Friday shopping?!?! And all the unbelievable deals we got!?!? OK!!!

First of all, this was the first Black Friday experience Dave and I have had, except for 2 years ago...we went out in the afternoon to Target in Springfield...no craziness.

We've been talking for months about going out EARLY to try to snatch a Kitchenaide Mixer for me, and a TV for our "new" living room (I mean, for Dave).


We also decided on a whim to hit ToysRUs at midnight in Springfield. My parents only live 10 minutes away. So we headed out at 11:45 to get there by 12. If you have ever been to ToysRus when they open at midnight you are probably laughing outloud at our complete inexperience. Because I am STILL laughing at how we thought we were just going to walk right in the store. Don't get me wrong, I knew we'd be dealing with a crowd...but we had NO IDEA this is the crowd we'd be dealing with.


This is the side of the store.

In the blocks before we got to ToysRus, we noticed that parking lot after parking lot was packed of cars. I wondered what other stores around were opening at midnight.

HA! Little did I know that was the overflow parking for the ONLY store opening at midnight.
Our jaws just dropped as we drove up on the store.

This is the front of the store. The lines began at the front and wrapped all the way around both sides of the store, all the way through the parking lot and in many places were 10 people wide!


You can just imagine my husband's comments about how we would NOT be getting in these lines. Lucky for him, I didn't bring my coat, so I couldn't anyway. Yeah, no coat. That's because silly me would have never assumed we'd be standing outside for hours to even get in the store.

Needless to stay, after a few pictures and laughs and stunned looks on our faces, we left. Back in the car by 12:07.

So we decided for a breakfast stop at McDonald's instead.

Which came back later to haunt me.

We made it to bed by 1am and then back up at this time...

Ready to try this thing again. HOPING that the midnight experience was not a sign of what we'd be dealing with all morning.

We hit Kohls for my mixer - SCORE!! Dave got in line right away while I shopped more and got a few other deals! We were in line for 45 minutes, which I don't think is that bad compared to stories I've heard.

Then Target - but the lines that wrapped around the entire store and through many isles scared us off after we realized we weren't holding enough things in our hands to even make the wait worth it.

We hit Home Depot a little after 6 when it opened to try to grab one of the shop vacs on sale from $99 to $20. We were told right away they were gone. Dave was bummed. They only had 100 of them and 700 people were at the door when they opened at 6. I guess it was one of the hot items....we should have figured. We DID snatch a couple packages of 60 batteries for $10 each.

By this time, I was not feeling so hot. Dave was about to have to pull over so I wouldn't throw up in the car. Yeah, pretty sure it was that McDonald's sausage, egg and cheese biscuit I had at 12:30am. I made it to my parents house and then crouched in their yard throwing up.

We were back in bed by 6:30am. Our kids were still sleeping.

Oh, and about Dave's TV - because if you know him, you know he's been talking about getting this for awhile now! We had been checking Black Friday ads the entire week before online, and then Thursday night we found that the one he wanted was not on sale anywhere. WELL, actually, it was....at Ultimate Electronics. The ONE store that Wichita has and Springfield doesn't. So he was bummed and trying to figure out WHO he could call that would get in line and grab it for him. HAHA!

So instead he ended up finding a great deal on Sony.com. He ordered it and it may be here today!! He's pumped! (understatement).

That brings our Black Friday experience to an end. Not so exciting. Not any SUPER great deals, although we did get $50 off my mixer. I'm not sure if we'll do it again. But it was fun to experience and to just catch a glimpse of the craziness.

It was fun do do with Dave...I was shocked he was even up for it. He just kept saying "is it really worth the savings?" (that would be why we put our Target selections down and walked out). He said unless the items were FREE when he got to the counter, it was NOT worth waiting in line for several hours just to pay. I tried to get him to let me take a picture of him so you could see the absolute pure excitement on his face...but he wouldn't let me. So I'll let you imagine that.

I'm always just curious to know what people are out to get? I wanted to ask all the people camping out at Best Buy what they were in line for? Do people come out for the HOT things or just for the general idea of great savings? Do people base their Christmas lists and what they purchase for others based off the ads? Yeah, so I think it would be fun to just walk through the lines and ask people.

So did you go out for something in particular? Did you get anything good??

so thankful

So thankful that God put me here...

Right where I am...

With these 3 blessings (and so many many more).



I am thankful more than ever this year.


Because this year has been so different. Maybe one of the most impactful years of my life so far. I won't even begin to explain here, I can't even explain it all in my head. But this year I'm more thankful than ever for ALL that I've been blessed with because I know God chooses to give and chooses to take away, but loves us all the same through it all. And I am more thankful than ever for that love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalms 107:1

God, why did you create this animal?

Man, I haven't posted in awhile and I HATE that I am even getting ready to share with your our latest news.

Do you remember this little problem we had back in June. Well, Pepe Lupe along with his whole entire family is back!

A month or so ago our dog, Anni, got sprayed at 6 in the morning when Dave was heading to work. She was out front when it happened, Dave had the truck doors open taking carseats out. It freaked her out and she jumped directly in the truck and wouldn't come out. I woke up to the STRONGEST and most AWFUL smell in the world, later to find out that it happened directly outside our bedroom window. I couldn't sleep anymore because I couldn't breath, I tried breathing into my covers and going back to sleep but couldn't.

We never saw that skunk again. But we had to deal with that smell for a few days and that smell is STILL in our truck.

This past week, Dave spotted the skunk in the early morning ours AGAIN, so we knew it was back.

He set a trap (this time NOT a live trap as in our previous post - getting rid of live skunks is not the most easy or fun thing to figure out). No luck for several nights with the trap. So we were not FOR SURE they were back under our porch/house or not.

Yesterday he decided to move the trap directly in front of the hole, with boards funneling the skunks out of the hole to make sure they go right into the trap.

It worked. BUT OH WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE THAT WAS!

Last night at 2am, as I headed to bed, I noticed the porch light was still on, and decided to turn it off, thinking the skunks would come out of the hole in the dark easier. There was no activity at the trap.

Out of curiosity, I went to Taylor's room quietly to see if I could have a good view of the trap from her window. But I couldn't see out the window with the porch light off. So I went back to the door to turn the light on. And WHOAH!!!!

There was definitely activity at the trap now. 4 or 5 skunks just hovering the hole. We didn't have a good view of the trap, so we couldn't tell if anything was in it. But we figured there was as the others were hovering it so much. I woke Dave up and we just stared out the window in helplessness as our house is being taken over by these AWFUL rodents. There was nothing we could do but just stare out at them and wonder what in the world we were going to do.

We also figured something was in the trap because one of them OBVIOUSLY sprayed. It got stronger and stronger and I was worried we would NEVER be able to sleep. I stuck my head under the covers and just PRAYED I would somehow fall asleep with that horrific smell flooding into my nose and mouth. I'd try to breath in and out of my mouth instead of my nose and I swear I could taste it.

Somehow I fell asleep for a few hours, because 6am came. Dave woke me up to inform me that there were TWO skunks in the trap and we needed to leave the house. The smell was seriously unbearable. One of them had been alive all night and continued to spray all night long. Seriously, right up against our house. I had to tie a shirt around my mouth just to breath as I packed up some stuff for me and the kids and we headed to Grandma's. Dave got rid of the skunks and the trap, opened up all the windows, turned on the attic fan and we PRAYED the smell would subside soon.

The smell was on us.
In our hair.
On our skin.
In our clothes.
(okay, MAYBE not in our skin) but definitely in our clothes
Through our dryer vent.
The clothes in the dryer may have to be washed 15 times or just throw away!

We tried to go back at lunch time and couldn't stand it. So we stayed at Grandma's all day. The CLEAN clothes I grabbed to wear for small group smelled of skunk.
SERIOUSLY!?!??!

We came back home about 9:30 tonight and it is tolerable.

I'm pretty sure we will be washing every last piece of clothing in this house...just for my mental state. The smell of skunk has always been awful. But until you smell it like this...you have NO idea. It makes me want to throw up.

Obviously there are more skunks. But Dave is pretty sure they were OUT from under the house this afternoon. He dug deep and put up wire fencing. So they can't get back under.

People have asked us about animal control. We talked with them back in June. The problem is that they come with live traps (which yes, worked for us in June for BABIES), and sometimes it is several days before they can come, depending on where you are on the list. From what we have heard about skunks, they are smart. They will not usually walk into live traps. And we found this out after having one set for the adults for MANY nights. So other than paying lots of money for pest control (maybe it would have been worth it in the end), Dave's just taken it on himself. Animal control will NOT come take them away unless it is their trap. So once we catch them, dead or alive, on our own, we have to take care of them. They did warn us that they will come back. The same family, even seasons later, will come back. Guess they were right.

So hopefully this story can now come to an end.....except for the lingering smell.

Unless they ARE still under there and we have now caged them in. Wonderful.

(Dave took some kind of pictures this morning, but I haven't looked at them yet. I'm not sure if they are appropriate for the blog - you don't want to see them anyway, do you?)

tinkerbell and peter pan

A few months ago my sister found Taylor some cute Tinkerbell shoes. It then sparked the idea for Taylor to be Tinkerbell for Halloween. Which of course then led to the idea of putting Mason in green tights as Peter Pan! She asked me what I thought and said she'd make their costumes....OF COURSE I took her up on it. Cute, hand-made costumes, and I didn't have to do the work!

So here is a our beautiful little Tinkerbell and darling little Peter Pan, and our night of trick or treat fun.

First stop....Papa and Nana's house


Nana always has such fun treats - that aren't always full of sugar - YAY!!!

FLY TINKERBELL, FLY!

2nd stop...Aunt Barb and Uncle Jim's house - for some more fun treats and a new book!


Our community life group all got together for pizza, pictures, and trick or treating...such a fun night!

At one point Dave said "man, our group has a lot of kids!" 9 to be exact. With 4 not present. So 13 to REALLY be exact.



Taylor with her farmer friends Eli and Ollie and Princess Ellie


It was so funny to see them actually walking down the street and walking up to houses to ring doorbells. This was really their first trick or treating experience and I'm pretty sure they loved it.




HA, although Laurel doesn't have her stroller in front of her, I realized I was the ONLY mom without a stroller! I'm TOTALLY okay with that.


Instead, we had a pokey little Peter Pan who refused to let anyone help him walk or carry his bucket that was about as big as he was.

Seriously, isn't this the cutest little Peter Pan ever!?!??!


Now if only having this candy around the house didn't cause so many meltdowns and fits. We'll see how many days we can make it before all the candy gets tossed in the trash secret drawer that only mommy and daddy know about.