Staycation?

The husband finally got some much needed days off work. He had not had a week day off in over a year! We fantasized about laying on the couch for four days in our pajamas, pigging out on yummy food and watching TV until our eyes hurt. HA! Those four days he had off, went faster than we had expected. I went to my friends house for Thanksgiving, the food was not the best though. It was the first Thanksgiving that I did not have to unbutton my pants at the end of the night!

I made some cupcakes to bring over to her house. I have to say that I think these might have made the top three list! I used a new cake mix called hot chocolate that had marshmallows mixed into the batter.

The mix comes frosting that you can make, I added some White fluffy frosting to it though to thicken it up. I filled the cupcakes with Vanilla Cool Whip frosting that tasted mousy just like I had thought it would. I then used a small heart cookie cutter to make heart shapes out of marshmallows, took a little water to moisten the heart and then dipped it in powered hot cocoa. They were not only cute but super good too!!

The best friend, her husband and daughter accompanied me to Walmart after dinner to get some of the Black Friday sales they had. Normally every year, I dread walking into that store, but this was by far the best year ever! It only took us one hour to get our shopping done AND check out. The store was well organized and I got everything that was on my list! When the husband got home from work, he thought it would be fun to start our vacation by going Black Friday shopping together...at 1AM!. I was really tired and thought there was no way that I would have enough energy to go shopping. Our first stop was Target. The store was empty and they still had a ton of door busters. I got a lot of my Christmas shopping done and even found some yummy holiday treats.

This year I noticed that a lot of the stores were open all throughout the night which seemed to make the crowds not as big. I hope they do this next year too. After Target, we headed to Bath and Body works, my most favorite store in the world. My haul included:

10 soaps
6 wallflower refills
1 car scent holder
3 car scent refills
2 three wick candles
2 mini candles
Snowflake mini candle holder
1 hand sanitizer
1 VIP tote bag filled with stuff

I saved over $200 with all my coupons and the sales that they had going on!

We then went to Game Stop where their deal was to buy two used games and get the third free! Next was Kmart where I got the younger kids in the family clothes for 50% off and I even got a free gift card. I feel like I got some amazing deals and did not spend a lot of money. All my planning had paid off and it felt great to get all my Christmas shopping done.

We did not get to bed until 7 AM that morning. We woke up a few hours later to get our turkey started so that we could make our own Thanksgiving dinner together. After cooking for hours, our dinner ended up not turning out very good :( We sat on the couch and watched three movies while enjoying each others company.

 Saturday the alarm went off early again so that we could get started on decorating the house, inside and out. Our hand and face were frozen, but we managed to get the outside done before dark. I am not one known for tooting my own horn, but..*TOOT* our house looks like a Hallmark store! I am pretty proud and think that we should get an award. I will take pictures soon of the house all lit up at night.

Finally putting the expensive flower box to good use!

 

Our feet and backs hurt, but we trucked along and got the inside decorated too. That was a lot of work for one day! But it was nice to wake up the next morning to a festive house :)

We finished the weekend by going to that yummy buffet I talked about before. The husband loved it there too! Afterwards we thought it would be a good idea to get our grocery shopping done. We had to waddle down the isles and I am pretty sure I split my pants somewhere during the trip. I feel bad that we did not end up relaxing during his days off, but it was nice to spend time together while getting things done. This past weekend really got me in the mood for Christmas. I cannot wait for December to be here and enjoy all the fun things that we have planned. Merry Christmas!