For those of you who know me, know how seriously I take Black Friday shopping! This year was no exception! Our Black Friday Team designed and ordered our t-shirts back in September. We were so excited when they were delivered!
Our MVS (most valuable shopper) last year was Qua! She was determined to be MVS again this year!
Of course, there is a lot of planning that goes into Black Friday shopping. You have to make your budget, cut your coupons, make your list according to store and price, and know your route. I made sure the team had color coded maps and plans for the night. These proved to be very effective!
We all met at my house at 4pm on Thanksgiving afternoon. We had to go over our color coded plan and add/delete anything of importance. Then we were ready to shop. We left the house at 4:30 and we made it to the Oakland Walmart by 4:45.
Of course, Carol is now allowed to drive (a written rule on the shirts) so I drove the momma mobile!
We were amazed at how easy it was to find and load our baskets. We had everything loaded and ready to go by 5pm.
Of course, we all needed big ticket items which were not supposed to be released until 10pm. So we all found our lines and sat and waited and waited and waited. They even issued bathroom passes if you needed a break.
Some of the big ticket items were released at 9pm which was nice so we loaded up Kevin's truck and we were on our way.
By the time we checked out at Walmart and loaded everything into the truck, it was about 11pm. It was time for a 5 hour energy drink. (Not sure these really helped by the time 4am rolled around.)
After Walmart we headed to Target where we got everything our list and stood in a Walt Disney World line. The line literally wove in between every aisle all the way back to the Christmas section.
By 1:30am, we were eating at Chick-fil-A at the mall where we met up with the rest of our team.
Then we hit the stores in the mall and once again, got everything on our lists.
By 5:00am we were back at my house where we had to divide up all the packages and load into everyone's car.
Once again, Back Friday was a complete success!! Until next year 2013........................
It is hard to believe that my youngest daughter turned 8 years old today!!! I remember bringing her home from Guatemala and getting off the plane with that little sack of sugar. No one in our family, waiting for us, could see her because she was so tiny. She weighed just 8 pounds at 4 months old!
Here is my big 8 year old today!
She had to have a cake with an electric guitar. Luckily, we found one at Kroger.
Ava had her party at Putt-Putt which was a lot of fun. The kids got to play 4 games of Laser Tag, eat pizza, cake, and ice cream, and play games in the arcade.
Ava was SO ready to open her presents.
Thankfully, she used her manners and read her cards first.
Once the presents were opened, Ava hit the ropes course. This kid truly has no fear!
Then everyone hit the arcade.
Once all that was over, it was time to spend those tickets. Dalton was the funniest because he took a while to pick his prizes. Check out the intensity in his face.
Ava opened her presents from us at home. She was most excited about her ripstick!
We let the girls pick where they want to eat dinner on their birthday. Ava chose Mexcal. Of course, she won a stuffed animal on the crane machine. I honestly have no idea how she wins EVERY time she plays that game!
Then the waiters sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her a free dessert! The kid was on cloud 9-attention on her and free dessert!
Happy Birthday Sweet Ava! You are a blessing to us every day! We love you!
I have not blogged in forever so I have some very random pictures to post. First of all, one of the most exciting days of the entire year is coming up-BLACK FRIDAY! Our BF team is getting ready! We have our t-shirts getting made.
We have the MVP trophy ready to go! Qua won MVP for 2011. She is bound and determined to win for 2012!
Of course, we have to include pictures of our 3rd child, Miley. She got into Ava's spaghetti O's the other night.
She did get cleaned up, complete with a new, pink hair bow!
She is one spoiled dog!
Speaking of dogs, we kept Mrs. Gallimore's dog, Ginger while they went out of town. Ava loves Ginger!
I had to include this cute picture of Ava going to her last soccer game of the season.
I also had to include this picture of the back of my van.
Those of you who know me, know how much I LOVE being a minivan mom with the soccer ball on the back of my car. Well, Kevin bought me the stick people family. Now the momma minivan is complete!
The girls got tickets to see Justin Bieber in concert! This was their first concert so they were very excited! I was excited too because I think the last concert I went to was New Kids on the Block. HA!
As soon as they got home from school they changed into their Bieber shirts. Then we headed out!
We met Abigail and Michael in front of the forum.
We also met up with some other Arlington moms and kids!
We ate dinner at the Flying Fish where we met one of Bieber's prop workers. She said she was the one who had to clean up his throw up. We tried to get back stage passes but no luck.
As we were walking to the Fed Ex Forum we came across this Justin Bieber impersonator. He was so cute and so sweet to pose with a picture with all our girls.
Here are the three girls just inside the Fed Ex Forum!
Our seats were pretty much in the nosebleed section but we still have a ton of fun!
This was Ava on the way home: (Elia was still going strong!)
And this was both girls the next morning when I had to wake them up for school.
I think they had a little too much fun!!!
