lucyismycat

LOVE it!

So, it looks like this is the only deal on a Cricut Maker? $400 (regular price) with a $50 gc? Anybody seen anything better anywhere else?

THANK YOU!!!!! I am ordering this TODAY! I mean...they COULD have lived without it, but their childhood would have been ruined and all. LOL This thing looks like such amazing fun for a little kid!

I was really hoping to see that Power Wheels Wild Thing listed again. By the time I got there last year they only had pink ones left, and I needed orange. My kids will outgrow it before next Thanksgiving and it seems like TRU is the only store that ever has these in stock, sooooo this will go down as a missing piece of their childhood. They WILL survive without it.

This is so much me...my kids aren't even older yet, but they have SO MUCH STUFF, and there's nothing they really need. I already can't get through their toy room. They have so much more than I did when I was their age, and they need to learn some responsibility towards taking care of what they have. The few things I was kind of looking for (Switch games, a Cricut Maker and maybe that Power Wheels Wild Thing) aren't showing up in ads too much, so I think my mama and I will go out just to be out. We have such a great time acting silly and giggling at our own behavior...primarily our apparent genetic disposition towards Joining The Herd - you people that go crazy over those sheets at Walmart know what I'm talking about. I have sheets in sizes for beds I don't even own. I can't imagine not ever going out shopping with her on these days.

Not smart home related, exactly, but our mailbox has an additional flag that raises or lowers anytime someone opens the door. Every evening when I get the mail, I make sure it's pointed down, and then the next day when the mail person opens the box to put the mail in, it automatically raises the flag and stays that way until someone opens it again. I can't see it from my house (too far and too many trees), but if they have a good line of sight to the mailbox, it would work.

Michaels, ToysRUs, Menards,but I promise not to cry if we get Ulta and Gamestop

Can't handle candles at my house, but I do LOVE doTERRA's On Guard essential oil in my diffuser, which I think smells like Christmas. I probably like it more than their actual Christmas scent, Holiday Joy. I use it as a cleaning product in my house and car, laundry detergent, hand soap in bathrooms and kitchen, toothpaste, etc. I might go a little bit overboard. lol

Well, you've all created a monster. After reading all your posts, I decided that lightbulbs I can talk to are a thing I need in my life. So I went to Best Buy and bought the A19 at the bf price ($60) and came straight home and installed it. This is going to never end, I can already tell. I used all 4 light bulbs and now I need more. NEED. I'm going to give myself a seizure turning them off and on. My poor dog doesn't know what's going on and has started barking at the lights. I think she remembers when we had those clapper lights and she could turn then them off and on herself. Anyway, I blame you all for starting this sickness.

I don't think it would be Thanksgiving night if my mom and I didn't: start at Walmart, immediately go for Starbucks after that, then head over to what's left of ToysRUs, the mall and then Denny's at 11pm. And for some reason we always seem to end up at JCP around 2-3am. By that point we are slap happy and everything is hilarious LOL Friday morning we get DH and the boys and go to Menards. He takes FOREVER, looking at every little thing, which is okay for That Day because the lines move so slow. This year I want to start a new tradition of mani/pedis on Friday afternoon.

I shop with my mama. Thanksgiving night and Friday are the only days of the year I'm guaranteed to get to spend with her by myself, without having to drag at least one of my boys around with me. Hubs knows that he is on tap for childcare for those hours/days. She is 70, and I worry about her being out all night, but we don't do anything crazy (no Best Buy or anything), and we have so much fun together that I hate the thought of not going out.

My office. I have zero willpower and have been known to hand out gifts way ahead of time if they're left in our home somewhere. It's better for everyone if they're at work. My coworkers and I have had lots of fun playing with new toys. As for keeping track, I keep my list in my OneNote Christmas notebook. Password protected, always available.

I bought one this summer, and in an online ordering snafu, I ended up with 2 of them (they were super hard to find at the time, and I inadvertently ordered 2 and decided just to keep the 2nd one). I think it's great if you have younger kids; I think if our boys were older, they'd want more grown-up games. Our whole family has MarioKart throw downs, and it was a HUGE hit on our vacation. (just plug it into any hotel tv USB port and away you go). We stayed in a cabin for a week, and it was good for filling in downtime for the adults. The second one I purchased will be a Christmas gift, with the idea that when we're on road trips (they travel a lot for hockey), each kid can sit in their own row of the car and they can still play against each other and see their own screen. They like playing MK8, Just Dance, Lego City Undercover and Cars. I preordered Mario Oddysey for them, and they'll get that for Christmas, along with the Minecraft game and a Lego Ninjago game. I'm also hoping for some game deals on BF. It's very portable, and I like that my 70yo mother can play with them because the controls aren't hard to learn at all; it lets her connect with them on their level. The only complaint I have is the battery life isn't that great in handheld mode, but I've never really put that to the test too much. I'm anticipating that it will be a hit with the adults at some upcoming holiday parties. I'm so glad that we got it!

6 and 7yo boys here and they both play hockey. The sports stuff is fun to add, they get: an orange in the toe iTunes gc McDs gc toothbrush/fun toothpaste shower gel then the sports stuff: superhero hockey stick tape shin tape stick wax skate laces in funky colors hand deodorant mouthguards skate socks maybe another lightup training puck for the driveway maybe new toques I'm thinking about doing drawstring backpacks instead of (or more likely, in addition to) their regular stockings. They could use those for laundry after practice.

My DH's mama is one of those people. I've started making Shutterfly calendars with a different photo collage of our kids for each month, made up of pics from the same month the previous year. She really likes those. I also get she and I tickets to a play or a mystery dinner theatre or something. Every year since my hubby and I got married, I've bought her a Waterford ornament, and I always get her some bath stuff in her favorite scent. Outside of the ornament, no clutter, and that's become such a tradition that I can't bring myself to stop doing it. I think this year I will include a gc to a local restaurant so we can go out to dinner before our play. Now that we have kids, I don't get to spend as much one-on-one time with her, so I try to make at least one gift all about that.

I picked up 3 iPads at Meijer Thursday morning. I panicked because my alarm didn't go off and I slept until 5:20, but when I got there, there was no line for them, so they let me buy whatever I wanted. Not many people in that store at all. Went home and cooked thanksgiving dinner for 9, and then my mom and I headed to toysrus to check on a toy for the boys. The line was pretty long waiting to get in, and this store is notorious for having crowd problems, so we ditched that and went to Walmart for sheets and whatever else. There were a lot of people, but nothing like years past. We bought sheets, pillows and I got some $3 socks for the boys. The worst problem at that store was the checker in our lane was new and couldn't figure out how to use the handheld scanner on the big items. We waited for 45 minutes to get checked out (and we're close to the front of the line). By 6:45 we were back at toysrus and there was no one in the store. No one shopping, no line, and they still had a couple of the ride-on thing I was after, but they were pink not orange so I skipped that. Next up was the mall. We hit Bergners and Macy's, and it was more like a crowd would be on a regular Saturday. We didn't buy anything there, and the biggest observation I have about the entire 2 days is that we saw a LOT of people walking around empty-handed. We also hit jcpenneys (more sheets lol), menards, scheels and meijer again, and overall I didn't spend half of what I thought I would. Usually BF is a day at I will get a few gifts, but also stuff for myself, and this year I just didn't see anything to entice me. I'll end up doing most of my shopping online over the next few weeks. Oh, and I drove past Best Buy Wednesday night and there was no one in line. I can't remember the last time there wasn't at least a few tents set up outside. It would appear from my perspective, that in my town, BF is definitely wounded, if not dead.

I'm in the market for iPads this year. I need minis for the kiddos (boys, aged 5 and 6), I'm thinking about the Mini 2 for them. They've had the Nabi and the Nabi Dreamcast, but they beg to play with my mini 3 all the time. It looks like Meijer will have the best deal on the mini with the $100 off coupon, as long as it's the 32GB version. DH is a little trickier. I think I'm leaning towards the Air 2, but I want to get him something really nice and I'm not sure that's it. Maybe the Pro? Also, I'm seeing a lot of the same deal (125 coupon or save 125), but nothing really stands out. It would help if I could make up my mind on which model to get. He doesn't play games on his existing tablet (6 year old HP webOS tablet that I rooted and loaded with Android), or watch movies or anything like that. I like the idea of 64GB (which the Pro doesn't come in). Ideally, the price will come in under 500. Thinking about the Air 2 for my mom as well, she has a 1st generation iPad mini, and it's beyond time for an upgrade. It looks to me like Meijers has the best deal on iPads, but I'm not sure about getting all of those coupons...if I knew I could buy the boys' minis, and then use their $200 towards the Air 2/Pro for DH, and then use the coupon from his towards my mom's Air 2, I would do that. Not sure if they allow that. I guess the good news is that their iPad sale is on Thursday, so if I miss out on something I can just get them elsewhere after that. Is it any wonder I'm crazy? So, does anyone have a recommendation on Air 2 vs. Pro, and is there a better deal? THANKS!

I've used a planner for years, also from Organized Christmas! For the past few years I've switched to using OneNote on my iPad mini/iPhone. I have one notebook for household items (window sizes, room sizes, etc), and others for Christmas lists, ideas, etc. I like that I can easily add websites to it, to refer back to later. It's like a cross between Pinterest and a diary. And bonus: no one in my house can get into it and see what I'm getting them (that happened once with my paper planner).

I have sewn for many, many years, and I'm not easy on machines...my friends joke that sewing machine companies should hire me to test their machines before they take them to market. All that to say, about 3 or 4 years ago my hubby bought me a Brother machine from Walmart, very similar to the Project Runway machine listed above. I've used it alongside my (very pricey) computerized machine for years, and while there is a difference in stitch quality (as there should be), I'm convinced you can't get a better machine for the same money. I've made hundreds of fleece hats and scarves (sewing through 4 layers of fleece at once is a challenge for any home machine!), and I haven't killed it yet. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat if I needed it. I might pick up the PR machine as a backup anyway, this week. My experience has been that with new sewists, it's better to have a machine that works well, than it is to have one with a lot of bells and whistles...timing issues, tension problems, etc, all make for a very frustrating experience, especially for someone who's new to the craft. I think the Brother machines balance the "fun factor" with the "it just works" factor pretty well.

My best experiences have been the past two years. My mom recently moved nearby, so for the first time in my life I have a BF buddy. She and I head out as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are cleaned up. The first year Macy's was open on Thanksgiving, they had a dj playing techno music and it was so loud I thought she wouldn't be able to tolerate it, but she LOVED it. We ended up at Penneys around 2am, where she saw a scarf hanging around a wooden moose's neck, just standing in the store. She really liked it, so we grabbed it...imagine our surprise when we got to the register and they wouldn't sell it to us because it was part of the decor! What department store has Christmas scarves sitting out that aren't for sale? We've laughed about that all year! I love spending this time with her and making these memories. My worst experience was probably around 2001-2003 when Circuit City was still in business. I got there several hours before opening and stood in line. I was 5th in line behind 4 people who didn't speak English (or at least didn't claim to), and I was waiting for a laptop. When the person came out to hand out tickets, several more people got out of cars in the parking lot and said they were with the 4 people in front of me, and I ended up getting nothing. I was a lot quieter then than I am now. LOL

Love it! My mom and I had so much fun shopping in 2013 that we are already talking about this year's BF!

LOL jakesmommy403 - too funny...I've seen TSO before, so I didn't know if there was something that went wrong or what. It's our family tradition to go and have fun, so I think we'll be ok. I agree with the hair flinging...that cracks us up every time. It's very "theatrical" (and I use that term somewhat loosely) I STILL have not wrapped anything. I'm looking at the pile of presents next to my desk at work and starting to think maybe I'm only going to wrap a couple of things and put everything else in gift bags. I think the trains will just be set up ready to run, so that alleviates having to wrap them. My boys are getting some stuffed characters and those look tricky to wrap, so they might just be sitting by the fireplace. I'll have to wrap Santa's gifts, and probably one or two others for each kid. I feel better already I'm trying to forget the notion forming in my mind that I should do stockings for all the people that are going to be with us for Christmas. That's just crazy thinking. Well, that and the fact that my almost 4yo told me the other night that he secretly hopes Santa is bringing him a puppy.

Oh no, why was TSO bad? My mom and i are going to see them a couple of days before christmas.

I'm done shopping, outside of some McDonalds gc and oranges for the stockings. Oh, and lottery tickets. I have wrapped nothing. I don't know if I think elves are going to do it for me, but I just can't get the motivation to do it. Right now all my kids' presents are at my office. I use the argument that if I wrap all the gifts and take them home, the boys will drive me up the wall wanting to open them. Does anybody want to come wrap them all for me? I can pay you with chocolate covered pretzels and lasagna. LOL

Well, I got my outside thanksgiving stuff down yesterday and the Christmas stuff up. The weather didn't exactly cooperate this year. My pumpkins were frozen solid, so i really missed the satisfaction of seeing them smashed on the ground. I ended up having to throw them at the neighbors' culvert to get them to break. Also, since the ground was hard as a rock i had trouble getting my light stakes to go deep enough. Maybe it will warm up a little next week and I can make some adjustments. Definitely need to take down the Santa windsock. That thing is just a little too morbid. Looks like we hung him. Decorating inside today. My family has a pool going on how many trips to hobby lobby i will make today. Sometimes they are not very nice. Lol