Faith's Teeth...

Faith has six teeth! I had to get them in two different pictures...but here they are in all their glory!

Our First REAL Snow...

We woke up this morning to our first REAL snow of the season! Pictures of just the snow wouldn't be much fun so I let the dogs out. For the record...they dislike snow...A LOT! As soon as I let them out Abby ran right back into the house, leaving snow everywhere, at least she didn't make it past the kitchen rug! It's definitely a snow day. The kind of day you want to sit on the couch in front of the window in your PJ's and watch the snow fall while drinking hot chocolate...unfortunately I've got church at 1 and work at 430...so instead of watching the snow fall, I'll be driving to Boise in it! Welcome Winter!

Justin's Christmas light OCD

This is a post from Justin. It is very long, and is really a vent session. Hope you enjoy, or ignore however you see fit!!

This year it was time for new lights. We have had icicle lights for years and they have just become a mess. It was time to try something new.

I found these really cool lights at Home Depot, but they were not affordable and they were out of stock. I was disappointed. I looked at Home Depot, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Kmart, Shopko, Fred Meyer and Costco. I could only find these lights at Home Depot and Lowes. Luckily, Lowes had them on sale for fifty percent off, but stores were out of stock locally.

I went home and spent hours trying to find these lights online. I checked Ebay, Craigslist, and Googled them. Everywhere was either sold out, or way too much money.

With the help of the manager at Lowes in Nampa, I was able to find some at a Lowes in St. George Ut. I called Lowe in St. George and they had four boxes...exactly what I needed. I asked them to ship them to me which they were more than willing to do. The seasonal department guy got my number and called me back with a final price. Cool. I was excited. They had my lights and they were going to UPS on Thursday and should be to Middleton on Tuesday.

Friday and Saturday I was just waiting for those lights. All I could think was...you should have got a tracking number. Who doesn't get a tracking number? Oh, well, they will be here Tuesday. Hopefully they come early enough to get them up before piano lessons on Tuesday.

Tuesday came and I saw the UPS man drive past my house. This is typical UPS route as they will go into the subdivision and hit my house on the way out. A few minutes later the brown truck went by my house again without stopping. I was wondering what could have gone wrong, so I called Lowes in St. George.

Luckily, the guy I had worked with on Thursday was again working on Tuesday. He said he had made a minor mistake. He lost my address because he shredded it with my debit card info. He still had the lights. They were boxed and ready for me. I about lost it!! While I was glad that he shredded my debit card information, I was really upset because I was already late getting lights up this year. I asked him if they could over night them to me, since they made the mistake of losing my address.

After being transferred between the guy in Seasonal, Customer Service, and supposedly Shipping and Receiving, I finally got the store manager. He said he would over night them to me and call me when he had dropped them off at UPS.

I waited impatiently for that phone call. Thirty minutes went by and I was hoping he would call soon. An hour went by and I was getting nervous. After two hours, I had to give piano lessons so I called back right before piano started. The manager was in a meeting, but I could call back in an hour. After an hour of piano, I called back and he was still in his meeting. I kindly asked the lady at customer service to please have him call me when the meeting got out.

A little later he called. The lights had been taken to UPS, he just didn't get a chance to call me. I asked him for a tracking number, and he said he didn't have it. The UPS store is in their parking lot so he had one of his employees run and get me the tracking number.

I jumped on the internet to ensure my package was on it's way. UPS said the tracking number was invalid. WHAT??? This couldn't be. I called the manager back and verified I had the right number.

After an hour or so, the tracking information finally pulled up. The package had left St. George at 6:30pm!! Yeah it was on it's way.

Finally, the awaited lights arrived today, and I was able to put them up. I am not sure that these videos due them justice, and I am very glad I have these lights. I have however, asked Jamie to please remind me of this experience the next time I get a crazy idea for something like this again.

The lights are really cool. They will change up to 7 different colors, and run their own 7 minute light show. The are energy efficient and are really fun to watch. I am truly obsessed.

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes...

My cousin Sarah designs these amazing shoes. She's a senior in high school and a fantastic artist! You just send her your white canvas shoes, $20 and shipping for her to get them back to you (price for shipping depends on where she's shipping them to) and you can have your own custom Sarah shoes...I love mine!! Each side of the shoes is completely different!

(click on the picture to make them bigger)

If you're interested leave me a comment with your email and I'll either give you Sarah's email or have her email you!

Black Friday...

My mom has NEVER been shopping on Black Friday. We usually shop on Black Friday, but we wait until 11 or 12 to get started...so this was her first year getting up before the sun to brave the crowds...oh, and we brought Faith along too...

3:24 am--we were up and getting ready...we left Faith in her pj's until breakfast

4:20 am--our first stop was Wal-mart...which was much better than our strategy last year of hanging out at K-Mart in the cold before they opened. They usually have all of the "blitz" items on palettes wrapped in brown paper, but this year they had it all unwrapped and were announcing over the store to not put anything into your cart until 5a. Well...at 4:40 everyone else was putting stuff in their carts so we joined in.

5:17 am--we were done at Wal-mart and headed to Shopko. Shopko took forever...they had the WORST check out lines...they had you wrap around through the aisles just to get to a check stand. When we walked in we sent Justin and Faith to stand in line and mom and I went to get what we were looking for. Justin's mom and sisters were at Shopko while we were there and Justin saved them a space in line as well, after mom and I checked out, we took Netta and Jeannie to Kmart while Justin stayed behind at Shopko with Janeen.

6:11 am--Mom, Faith and I were hanging out at Kmart waiting for Justin, they didn't have the toys I was looking for there, they sold out quickly...but we were waiting for Justin to check out a Christmas Tree. Here's Faith at her third stop...

While we were waiting in line at Kmart Faith fell asleep.

7:10am--After Kmart we decided it was time for breakfast and stopped at Sherri's luckily for us Faith slept through the entire breakfast!

8:00--After breakfast we changed Faith into some real clothes and headed to the mall next for Macy's, Joann's and Steve and Barry's. We took a cart from Burlington to push Faith around...she loved hanging out in the basket instead of the seat.

9:30--off to Fred Meyer...where Justin forgot his phone in the car and him and Faith got separated from Mom and I so when he ran into our friend Robin he borrowed her phone to find out where we were.

10:00--back to Macy's to pick up something we forgot the first time!

10:30--Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and finally Michael's.

Faith was amazing through the whole thing! She was the best little shopper I've ever shopped with!!