audrey06

I agree. Plus, I look at the engraving as a sort of theft protection if they take it to school....name is there and if it is scratched out, they are going to know it was stolen anyways.

I can't agree more about the toy sale after BF. I got a Melissa and Doug art easel with paper, paint, paint cups and paint brushes for $40 2 weeks before Christmas. Thank goodness I had Amazon Mom at the time - free 2 day shipping :)

i hate to say it, but for the homemade edible goodies, it really depends on the family!

I just recently bought a paint bucket filled w/ metal cookie cutters (about 10 of them) at Aldi's the other week. Walmart has cute one that are semi big in the christmas candy section also. Are you near the Grove City outlets? They have a couple of kitchen stores there that have cutters I think also.

Thought of another thing- if you write a heartfelt note, send a copy to the principal and superintendent, saying this is a letter you are sending to your child's teacher and thought they should know what good things the teacher is doing. I did this for a teacher my DD10 had for 2 years (the teacher bumped up a grade and we ended up having her both times). I got an email from the Sup. thanking me for the letter, that he was going to read it to the entire staff at the next meeting and it was nice to get a positive email/letter from a parent for once. I ran into the teacher a few weeks later, who thanked me profusely and said she was moved to tears when she heard the letter.

A gift that I got last year from one of my preschool kiddos was a huge metal cookie cutter that they had filled with fudge they made. They just laid the cookie cutter on a piece of wax paper and poured the fudge in. Once it was cool, they put in a clear cookie bag w/ a really nice tag that she wrote my name and her name on w/ some cute ribbon. I'm stealing the idea for my DD3 this year for her teachers @ daycare. They'll get one of those and a BBW soap. (I keep those on stock for gifts - uuber cheap when you hit the sales and we teachers love them!)

Waiting patiently For the best deals on laptops This Christmas season!

For example, when I got into the one local 24 hr walmart, the line for the 32" flatscreen was wayyyy deep for the few they had. I thought "Hey. Electronics has those computers where you can order stuff to be shipped to the store for free. Wonder if they are on there." YAHTZEE!!!! I calmly ordered one to be shipped to my house for a nominal fee - 2 girls saw what I was doing and blocked the view behind me so that others wouldn't storm over. I logged off, made sure it was logged off and they happily jumped on and ordered theirs! I gleefully skipped around the store after that, laughing hysterically to myself after hearing about the hairpulling fights that happened at 5:01 am over the tvs!

1. In your opinion, what store had the best Black Friday ad last year (2008) and why? Well, it was actually Walmart. The $10 sweeper, $30 printer, cheap yoga pants, and the $400 32" lcd flatscreen Emerson TV was the killer steal for me. People were fighting over the 5-10 they had in the store. 2. What would be your #1 piece of advice to someone totally new to Black Friday? Get to the store early and peruse the aisles to know where they have set everything out. If it is an electronic item, it may not be in that department. Last year, the 32" tv was in the girl's dept., and the 52" one was in grocery. 3. Besides offering great deals, what else can a store do to get you to shop there on BF? Having ORGANIZED CHAOS. Having cashiers at every lane that are highly trained and not thrown on there to just cover. Having staff that actually know where each BF deal is located. **And of course, having killer deals!!**

as of right now, our dd2 and dd9 get up at different times, so the past 2 years we have been able to watch each one individually open gifts - kinda nice for the older one the first year (avoided jealousy issues). hubby and i exchange gifts at this time - makes it nice so we can focus just on each other and so that the next day is solely the girls. night before is inlaws and hubby's grandpa (only grandparent left)- a few gifts there. come home and into bed. i lay out all of the gifts and put a few underneath their tree upstairs (small 3ft bright pink tree). these they can open as soon as they get up. xmas morning - they have to do the stocking first. they can do this while hubby and i are waking up, getting things ready (camera, food, drink, ourselves, etc.) i am the mean wrapper who has wrapped a pencil before. my mom always individually wrapped everything (and that was with 4 kids) and i have just continued that (2 years ago i ind. wrapped a 6pk of the small pepsi cans - refuse to buy anyother time, so.... dd9 didn't find it too funny). dd9 passes out all of the gifts and we let them dig in. i have them stop from time to time to pose w/ gifts. once those gifts are done, we give the big gift. this is the gift from hubby and i (the others are from "santa", at least when dd9 still believed adn this will stay the same for dd2). last year, a 4wheeler for dd9 and a cast iron tractor for dd2. i think so far this year dd9's gift is a pink cricket .22 gun and no clue for dd2 yet. we then head down to inlaws to get rest of gifts, my parents come out after that for gifts and breakfast, then lunch and more gifts at my grandma's house......makes for a really crazy day, but it's fun.

i hit local auctions T-day evening.....it's a tradition in my family and we love to just go and see the stuff, buy a few things and gets ourselves warmed up for the rest of the next 36 hours of hell......lmao.

the main one is red/green/gold poinsettas, complete w/ poinsetta lights. the upstairs one (girls) is pink fiberoptic w/ a mess of minature ornaments (they picked them out w/ hubby when i was at work:eek:)

I am hoping someone can clue me in as to when TRU may release their awesome coupon (Spend $75 and get xx). I am on a Toys for Tots committee and we use the crap out of them to help spread out our $$ further.