Small town Christmas Celebration...

Every year on the weekend after Thanksgiving, our small town blocks off main street on both ends so that all the locals can come down and watch the Christmas tree lighting.  All of the shops open their doors until really late and each of them have already decorated for Christmas and are offering cookies, cider, hot chocolate, candy canes, etc. 

This was the first year that we have actually watched the lighting of the Christmas tree and it was so funny...standing around the tree and every direction you look you know the families that are surrounding you.  I felt how the Who's in Whoville probably felt in the movie, The Grinch.  I really thought that if I broke out singing their song they sing while holding hands around the Christmas tree that the whole town would have joined in. 

The local book store had "Mrs. Clause" reading books to all the boys and girls who chose to sit around her...this was my girls' favorite spot. 

Then the parade started with Santa on the fire truck lit up with Christmas lights going down Main Street with the siren on...and that let us know that the festivities had begun. 

Santa then positioned  himself in the Wells Fargo Bank where he is taking free pictures for all who desire to stand in line long enough to receive it.  My girls could have cared less about their picture with Santa...they were more concerned with the fact that you get a balloon when you get your picture taken.  Needless to say, we weren't waiting in the cold for a balloon. 

We look forward to this night every year and love the feeling of our Small town Christmas Celebration.

Black Friday...to go or not to go...that is the question!

Ever since I had twins in 2003, I have been an avid Black Friday shopper.  You see when you are shopping for two of EVERYTHING, Black Friday provides a TON of savings. 

Living in a very small community, we have a Wal-Mart and unlike other Wal-Marts, ours is very nice, clean and upscale.  So 99% of the time my Black Friday consists of going to Wal-Mart at about 4:30pm.  What I have done in previous years is pretty much show up right around 5am when they open.  That way I wouldn't have to fight the crowd on the way in the door when people get trampled and harmed because everyone is so friggin crazy for that "one item" that they have to have. 

Being that the economy is the way that it is, I figured today might be a little more crowded than usual.  When I got to Wal-Mart at 4:30am...there wasn't a soul in sight.  OMG...they left Wal-Mart open all night long to prevent from having the long lines of people.  This way, you walked in to the store and then the items that were on sale until 5am...those were bubble wrapped and would be cut open at the time allowed. 

I always save SO MUCH MONEY!  And I am usually done shopping for the girls the day after Thanksgiving.  This does one of two things...1)  It takes away much of the stress of the season since the people you buy the most for are your own family.  2)  We have always been a family to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and this provides the opportunity to have wrapped presents under the tree from the first day that it is up.  So much fun!

There was no drama, a lot of chaos and more importantly a TON of awesome sales. 

For those of you who don't go to Black Friday...you may want to give it a try next year.  You actually feel somewhat "victorious" leaving the store when you have the items that you circled on the ad.  I am proud to announce even though my husband's not so thrilled that I got WAY more than the circled items today.  I made a huge killing.

You only live once...take it from me, give it a try!

Thanksgiving...success or failure?

This was our very first Thanksgiving in our new home and it was shaping up to be a very good day.  When you get family together you truly never know one way or another who is going to come to Thanksgiving and be a little sensitive or a little harsh for that matter.

I am proud to announce that this year was a screaming success! 

It's just amazing what a difference a large house makes for accomodating everyones needs.  Prior to moving to our new house, we owned an 1100 sq ft. house.  Now we loved our house, don't get me wrong.  But we were too big for it when we moved in to it, knowing that we were going to be able to add on to it within a couple of months after living there.  Then as you all know and are feeling the effects...the Real Estate market did what it did and the option to add on to the house no longer existed.

Our new house is 2500 sq ft. and is so much fun.  I was able to prepare the Turkey and all the goods and not even have a mess in my kitchen (so it seemed cuz the kitchen is so big)!  When you have a fun, gourmet kitchen, I have learned that you look forward to going in and preparing meals, snacks, etc.  (Considering my last kitchen had one drawer and one cupboard and we were there for 5 years.)  Can I get a what what?

All the family had such a great time...the turkey was PERFECT!  Thank you God...you just never know with those big birds. 

We ate, then we enjoyed a game of basketball...as our new house also came equipped with a basketball court.  After playing family against family...Thompson's against Yochheim's...we were proud to announce that the HOME team came out on top...1 for the Thompson's!  Yay!

A little game of Wii fishing was hilarious...an then we broke out my favorite game in the whole world, which you are not even able to buy and haven't been able to for many, many years...Mad Chatter.  It's just like a home version of the $25,000 Pyramid...and oh it is so much fun!  You can actually play up to 10 players and it is friggin hilarious.  All the family plays regardless of age and that makes for an even funnier evening with all the different generations.  What a blast!

You know there was a time when my husband and I would play games with me at home so that when we play other couples or members of the family...we dominate. (I'm not competitive at all yeah right)  Well it was obvious that we hadn't practiced, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt and took in to consideration that it was Thanksgiving and not a time to be upset at my husband's game performance.  LOL 

After all was said and done we did decide to go ahead and start up Saturday night family game night...can't wait!  :)

All ended well...we stuffed ourselves to the brim and now today are looking forward to the "holiday sandwiches" that I got off of someone's blog last week. 

Today we are putting up the Christmas decorations...let the holidays begin!

Hope you had a Thanksgiving to remember also!

Thanksgiving Day Thursday

Gobble Gobble!!! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! It's time for Thanksgiving Thursday,

the Turkey Day edition! I am thankful for:

*God being first and foremost in my life!

*My wonderful husband who shocks me every single day to still be putting up with me. :)

*My precious 6 yr. old identical twins.  I am so proud of them and all that they bring to the family through their smiles and sense of humor.

*My whole family...we have a big family and we are all very close and I thank God for that.

*My mom and the encouragement and support she offers me every single day, without fail.

*I am thankful for a woman who was like an angle in our lives and brought us this beautiful house.

*My health as well as my families health.

*My wonderful blessing of a business that has allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom for the last year and a half.  I thank God for this business every day.

*I am thankful for starting a blog, this provides daily therapy for me.

Happy Thanksgiving all!  Have a great one!

MY DH...

My darling husband (DH) and I have been really working on being kinder to each other and communicating with each other more...since our Marriage Retreat last weekend that is.  But how do you come home and not let anything bother you any more.

He is so kind and does so many wonderful things to help me that when he does good things...how can you complain about what he isn't doing.  For example, we have just moved into our new wonderful house...we had a bit huge amount of stuff left in the garage on the left hand side so he was not able to park in the garage.  He took the liberty of getting all of that stuff upstairs in to the house and cleaning the garage ever so tidy so his car would fit...but what about the STUFF IN THE HOUSE???? 

Perhaps I am the only one that remembers that this week is Thanksgiving and we are having it at our house...or no wait, I know...I am the only one that remembers that we have company coming over TONIGHT and there are boxes and boxes of stuff in my living room and bar area.  Ugh!

So unlike what I would have done last week...I kept my mouth shut.  Here is the hard part...I broke my back when I was 24 and am unable to assist him in picking up these boxes and moving them to the appropriate rooms.  So there they sit while my girls and are are living around them.  And yet...our company is in route to our house and will be here in about 5 hours.

Another thing that I will get off of my chest on this FABULOUS blog...so as not to have to mention it to the husband, is the fact that when I come home at night after my business meetings and he has every light in the house on, has put the opened orange juice in the pantry, shut the pilot light on the fire place off so I can't turn it on and has not done one thing with the living room...how does one keep their mouth shut then?  Well sadly, I didn't.  I'm not rude, if you can think of pointing out everything that he didn't do not rude, but I tried to be kind and didn't want to make it mean...just pointing out the obvious.  O.K. O.K., so I didn't think there was anything wrong with it until I just wrote it...it might have been uncalled for. 

So my question for all you "professional wives" out there is....How do you communicate the things that are making you borderline crazy to your spouse without offending them about the stuff that they did do?

And with that...I am off to go sweep around the boxes in the living room.

God bless you all and Happy Thanksgiving!

Random Tuesday Thoughts...

Oh yes, it is Tuesday again. Woo-hoo! Time for Random Tuesday Thoughts!  If you want to get down with your randomness head over the Keely.

Is it really almost Thanksgiving???  Where did the year go?  I am usually on top of the whole shopping thing by now but I guess moving 2 times in the last 3 months throws a curve ball in life, yo!

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Google 411...I just love it.  If you're not "down with it" you have to add the number 46645 to your cell phone and then make the name "Google 411" or whatever you want...that's just what I made mine.  Then when you text Google 411 the name of a business followed by a comma, the city and a comma and the state abbreviation...wait about 10 seconds and you will have a text on your phone with the name, phone number address, etc.  I friggin love it!  If you don't have it...come on...get jiggy wit it...it's 2010!

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O.K...so I started the whole NO CARB thing again this morning.  We'll see how it goes, what you can imagine, you can achieve and I can imagine myself the next Victoria Secret model, watch out world.

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So my friend that is showing signs of skitzophrenia, it's getting bad.  But let me tell you how "the system" works...her kids are actually being harmed mentally.  Obviously, when your mom thinks there are 3 of herself, its starting to get bad.  Apparently the family is afraid for their own well being that NO ONE...and I repeat NO ONE in the family is stepping in to help out with those kids.  So I had to do the unthinkable and call waste my time our CPS...Child Protective Services.  I have NEVER called anything like that in my life, it was hard to muster the courage, I did it  and was talking for about a minute and a half and the woman said, I have to go to the bathroom, can I call you back?  HUH?  I am telling you about children that are in serious harms way and you are going to the bathroom...whats worse, she didn't call me back for 2 and 1/2 days!!  I would have been more OK with her saying I have to use the bathroom, can you hold on for just a second...or even taking the phone with her vs. hanging up and not calling back for over 2 days.  What is wrong with our system?  If there is any suggestions on what to do here...I am all for them.

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My long time friend Amanda over at Garibay Soup is coming down from Oregon today for a couple of days!!!  Yay!  What's even better is that we both have a video phone and I get to see her and her precious children all the time so they won't be have to have the "warm up" time, they will run to me! 

I love that!

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I love fact that I work from home and really appreciate it during the holidays!  I love being able to make my own schedule and hang out with my girls while they are out of school.  Thank you God for the path that you have me on!

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The news...I just don't ever get a chance to watch any TV including the news.  I know that I should be up on the "current events" but when you have to muttle through so much misery and sorrow along with rapes, killings and molestations...I'd rather spend my time in a good book.

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Speaking of good book and you all have to get it and read it before the end of the year...it will change your 2010, I promise.  It's called...The 5 Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle" by Jim Rohn
It is seriously changing my life and will change yours too if you choose.

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Decorations...time to get them out...we decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving!  And I hit a HUGE after Christmas sale last year and have so many BRAND new decorations...I can't wait!

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Happy Thanksgiving bloggers...the next time I am on here I believe I will try the Nog Blog like the
Un Mom suggests.

Peace Out!

Bitter Sweet...

The last couple of days have been interesting slightly crazy to say the least.

My home phone and cell phone ring at the same time on Wednesday night...one call I picked up, the other my husband got.  My call was a really good friend of ours from high school, a guy who was in our wedding and has been my husband's best friend their whole lives, he called to tell us that his mom had committed suicide....everything in me dropped! 

On my husbands phone, the call was my husband's little brother calling to let us know that he and his fiance were expecting a baby (which would be the first kids on my husbands side of the family other than our twins) and that they were wanting to get married at our house on Saturday night. 

Talk about mixed emotions! 

With us moving in to our new house 3 weeks ago, we had already planned on having a "stock the bar" party in our new house on Saturday night.  The house that we just bought has a full bar and we are not big drinkers, so what better way to stock the bar than with a "stock the bar party".  We got the UFC fights and invited everyone to come over and bring a bottle of their favorite alcohol.  This was the night that Adam's (my husband) little brother (Mikey) wanted to get married.

Here's when things get crazy...so Adam goes online to become ordained to marry his little brother and his fiance.  This was a very rigorous actually the easiest process you could have to go through.  It actually took him about 7 minutes on the internet to be "ordained" as a Reverend to marry Mikey.  We were cracking up.  All that huh?

Then we were off to the funeral on Friday for our friends mom.  What a very sad ceremony...then following that there was a celebration of life.  You can imagine what a high school reunion this was.  So we took it upon ourselves to invite everyone there to our "stock the bar" party the next night.  I mean, why not.  Many of them came from out of state and it was going to be a long time until we saw them again. 

So Saturday comes and by this time we have since learned that Adam cannot actually marry his little brother and fiance until the following week because he has to be granted a one day pass by the County Clerk and they were closed on Friday.

Our friends start arriving for the "stock the bar" party...it was so much fun!  Everyone brought a bottle of alcohol and that totally stocked us up...for life pretty much considering that we are not big drinkers at all! 

Our friends were here from Southern CA, New Mexico, Nevada, Northern CA, as well as many from our local area. 

Things got very interesting...our friend Tim whose mom just passed away, learned yesterday that his girlfriend of less than 2 months was pregnant with twins.   Mind you, Tim's divorce is not even final yet.  The ex-girlfriend of Tim was at our house and was having an emotional breakdown because she has never really gotten over him and on and on and on. 

Adam and I are not big "party" people.  This seemed like a very logical way to stock the bar and was indeed a great time and so much fun to see our childhood friends, but in hindsight, we would like to go to other peoples houses for get-togethers because we always have a way of leaving before the drama.  I loved seeing everyone and was super excited to be able to dance and hang out...and I will keep you posted on the wedding of my brother-n-law.

Happy Sunday!