Tis the Season to Shop!

Before I start my blog post for today, have you entered my latest giveaway?  Check out the Movie Tickets & General Mills Cereal Give Away.  With all of the holiday movies out, you'll want to see if you can win this one.

What a crazy and wonderful weekend it was for us.  Of course we had Thanksgiving, then Black Friday and then Saturday was my birthday.  DH and I got to spend the day together going around shopping.  We got the kids shopping finished and just had a great time. I don't remember what it is like to have a meal or conversation without being interrupted.  I had received a number of gift cards for my birthday, so it was great to be able to shop on Black Friday and Saturday and to get some great deals.

DH went into the early frame on Black Friday because it is his tradition and he loves it.  He only went out for about an hour and came home.  He was disappointed and said there was nothing he saw that was a super deal.  We've actually done the bulk of our shopping online.  Even this weekend and on Thanksgiving we saw some great deals.

So, are you doing any shopping this Cyber Monday?  Did you get any great deals on Black Friday, or have you found anything great today?  By the way, I've found it helpful to follow @ShopCyberMonday on Twitter.  And they are also on Facebook.

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Lights, Camera, Free Movie Tickets!

I think it is official that the busy holiday season is now underway.  And one thing I love about this time of the year is that great movies seem to get released around the holiday season.  I haven't had a chance to get out to see the latest installment of the Harry Potter films, but dh and I hope to go soon.

I'm excited to share with you that now when you buy two specially marked boxes of General Mills Big G cereals, you can get a free ticket to the movies. Who doesn't love that?  And with the way ticket prices have increased, it isn't cheap to go on a date night, let alone try to take a family of four to the movies. I love it that you can get rewarded for buying something you like and use every day.  I've included a picture so you can see the cereals that are included in this promotion.  When you buy your boxes, you'll visit this url General Mills Movie Cash and enter the special code inside the box.  You'll then be able to print off your Movie Cash Certificate. 

The folks at General Mills and My BlogSpark were kind enough to send me a box of Reese's Puffs and Honey Nut Cheerios and some movie tickets.  I had to take a picture of my youngest son, Logan a.k.a. Mr. Picky Eater.  This kid won't touch ice cream or cake, but he tried and loved the Reese's Puffs.  I thought I would fall out when he tried this cereal.  And then wanted more!

So this week is a great week because of course you've got Thanksgiving tomorrow and then the fun of Black Friday shopping and who doesn't love a long weekend?  I say let's start celebrating even earlier with a giveaway!  You can enter to win a Family Flick Night Gift Pack which will include cereal and movie tickets. 

You have 4 opportunities to enter. You must post separate responses to this thread for each entry to count. You must also include your email address so I have a way to contact you. This giveaway will end on Friday, December 3rd at 12:00 a.m. EST The winner will have 48 hours from when I contact them to get in touch with me, otherwise I will draw another name.

1.) Which of the five General Mills Cereals shown above are your favorite, or would you like to try?

2.) Follow me @chiccraftychick on Twitter.

3.) Follow the Chic Crafty Chick Blog. Check out the right hand side of my blog to follow. If you are already following, please leave a comment saying you are a follower.

4.) Add Chic Crafty Chick to your blog roll, or add my badge to your sidebar. Be sure to come back and leave the link to your site in a separate comment.

Thanks to the folks at MyBlogSpark & General Mills for sponsoring this tasty give away!

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

Surprise Party

This coming weekend is my birthday, but the festivities started early this past weekend because dh threw me a surprise party!  I'm not having a "big" birthday this year, so it was a nice surprise. He did a great job. And it so explains some of his odd behavior over the last week. LOL

He was so sweet and had it at a local rec. center where I've actually thrown him surprise parties in the past. It is a great building, perfect for doing a party.  He just told me to dress nice because we were going to do a family event that might have pictures taken.   And on a side note I'd show you pictures, but literally every picture taken of me at the party stinks.  But, I will pull some pix off the camera to show you how cool the decorations were.  The theme was luau.  Our family all pitched in and did a great job.

As we are on our way to the party (unknown to me) and dh pulls over at a 7-Eleven and tells me I have to get blindfolded.  It is a good thing after so many years of marriage, we have trust because I'll tell you riding in a car blindfolded with headphones on hanging on to the oh sh#! bar praying you don't loose it is just crazy.  And I'm not usually a claustrophobic person, but I have to admit that was kind of making me feel claustrophobic. 

Once we got there and had the big reveal it was great.  I have to say it was so nice having family and friends together.  A great kick off to the holidays coming up.  And I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, thoughtful husband.  I think a great time was had by all.  Especially my two children.  My youngest especially enjoyed throwing marshmallows into the chocolate fountain and my oldest had fun attacking the punch fountain.  Good times.  Good times.

So, that is what is going on here today. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

p.s. There are going to be some great giveaways coming up this week, so be sure to check back!

Target Happy Shoe Dance

Have you seen these Merona Ballet Flats at Target?  I wish the link I had sent you to see them in black.  I bought a pair yesterday in the black and thought I'd do a happy dance right there in Target.  I have been on the hunt for a pair of flats.  My problem is I wear a wide size in shoes and the ballet flats I've been finding in the stores have all been too tight.  I also recently saw some cute ones at Charlotte Russe, but they had sequins on them, or they were velvet.  Those were so cute too and a great deal at $10, but I needed something plain that would go with more. These Target shoes seem to be the ticket.  And they are on sale this week for $18.

They also come in zebra print.  Be still my beating heart.  But, I had to leave those in the store because I told dh I'd try to be good with Christmas coming. But I knew I had to snatch up the black pair to make sure I'd get them. 

I am so excited about finding these.  Do you have any ballet flats or have you found any good shopping deals lately?  Are you excited for dressing up for anything coming up over the holidays? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Don't send the posse yet...

Oh blogging how I've missed you.  And oh laptop how I've missed you.  And breathing clearly, how I've missed you the most.  I've been suffering from a sinus infection and finally made it to the doctor yesterday. I think both kids have one too, so they are off to the doctor's today.

Gateway was able to replace the hard drive in my less than a year old laptop so praise the Lord it was under warranty.  Once my antibiotic kicks in I think we can salvage the rest of this week. 

So, that is what has been happening here. I can't wait for things to settle down so I can get back to blogging about cool stuff. I've got some great giveaways coming up.  That should put a jingle in your step.

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Dragging

I'm playing hooky from blogging today. I've felt crummy from allergies and I just don't have the energy to blog.  So, hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

Gingerbread Jubilee

I haven't had time to post in the last few days because these kids I live with seem to think I need to feed them and drive them to preschool and change their diaper.  What are they thinking? 

I'm also working on a project that is near and dear to my heart.  It is an event my church is going to be putting on in December and we are calling it the Gingerbread Jubilee.  We are going to open it to the community and we are having activities around Gingerbread.  Kids will decorate cookies, face paint, have games, and story telling. I'm so excited about it.  We are hoping this will be a great way to minister to our community and provide some joy in a season where so many people are hurting.  So, trying to coordinate this is a big undertaking and has been taking up my time.  I know I don't write about my faith a lot on my blog, but I can tell you that God is working for this event to happen. I've already had a number of things happen to show me that.  I'm so excited.  I'll be sharing more about this in future posts I'm sure.

If you happen to see any Gingerbread decorations (i.e. ornaments, banners, etc) at any stores, would you mind leaving me a comment or shooting me an email or Tweet to let me know? I'm keeping my eyes open for these things.

So, that is what is going here. Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Football Crafty Goodness

I have to admit I'm not usually a football fan, but this story was just too cool not to share. This 8th grade middle school quarter back fakes out the other team in a big way. This kid could give some Hollywood actor's a run for their money.  I had to share this because I appreciate folks who are smart and crafty.

The boxes are down..

Yesterday we took down our fall decorations and dh started pulling down the Christmas decorations.  I usually don't start decorating until Thanksgiving night or the next day, but last year I started a little earlier than that and I think that I will again do that.  With having the kids, it makes it so much easier to do a little bit at a time.  Also, this year it will be fun talking about Santa with the kids and I know they both are really going to enjoy the Christmas lights.

Once our Christmas lights get put up, I'll be sure to post video like I did last year. 2009 Christmas Lights Video  This year I'm excited because the lights system we have will allow you to plug an MP3 player to it so you can customize the songs that play. I am all over doing that.  So, we will be changing it up a bit. 

So have you started thinking about Christmas decorating, or is it still too early for you?  What is the first thing you like to decorate?

BTW, if you celebrate Hannakuh I noticed that Target is selling a lot more Hannakuh decorations.  How do you feel about this?  Would you put up Hannakuh lights?  I did see those.  Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. 

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods?

Target 75% off Halloween

What an exciting morning it has been here.  First, I have to shout it from the rooftops that my baby boy who turned 2 pooped on the potty today for the first time!  I know from just having gotten the oldest finally potty trained that I'm going to have to take a relaxed attitude, but it is nice to get that first time out of the way.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post. LOL  After preschool drop off this morning, Logan and I went to Target.  We hit the mother load people.  Target had gone 75% off on the Halloween stuff. We got two costumes (one for $3 and one for $5) and some fun Halloween signs that were 50 cents a piece.  I figured the Halloween costumes would be great for dress up.  I also stocked up and got two bags of M&Ms.  They are great for potty training.  We got some spooky spider webs.  I also got three of those Disney Light Spinners. There was a Tinkerbell one which I'll give my niece and the boys will get the Mickey Mouse spinners. I thought they would make perfect stocking stuffers for my boys. 

So all in all it was a great shopping day at Target.  I was so tempted to buy more Halloween lights, but I know we have enough so I was trying to be good.

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Outta Here

Running out the door for preschool drop off, but I'll be back posting later today.

Laptop died

My Gateway laptop died and so my time on the computer has definitely been challenged.  We've sent it back to Gateway and I'm hoping they can get it back to me soon.  Not a good sign when I haven't even had the thing for a year.

So, I hope to be back to blogging tomorrow.  I have to steal time on dh's laptop. Computer time is a hot commodity. LOL

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Elmo Cup Cakes & Halloween Weekend

So Friday was Logan's 2nd birthday.  And what a weekend it was.  He was sick, but started getting better by late in the day Friday.  His poor brother was not so lucky.  He got this mess and wasn't better until yesterday.  And it wouldn't be complete if dh and I didn't catch the crud and we were up all night Sunday night.  Fortunately we were all over our stuff in time to be able to take my oldest son to a few houses for Trick or Treating. It was a tame Halloween.  DH is still on the mend and I feel like I'm at about 95%.  I think once we get some more rest that will help. 

I wanted to share a few pictures of the Elmo cupcakes I made for Logan's party.  I saw this idea at a cupcake shop and thought I could make them too.  As cute as these were, my child wouldn't even take a bite of them.  He is more of a Chips A Hoy connoisseur.  So momma gave him two of those.  Because everyone should have something they like on their birthday.

 Crazy me with my pumpkin master's kits. I was able to get the pumpkins carved before I got sick.

My son, Sawyer was Thomas.  He was so cute and very excited about ringing doorbells.

 Sawyer had taken his costume off, but Logan is a member of Lightning McQueen's pit crew. 

This picture pretty much sums up Logan's thoughts of Halloween. He was constantly screaming and didn't want to wear his costume, hold the candy bucket. Nothing.  Hopefully next year will be better.

This was our huge pumpkin. The cat turned out really cool, I just wish I'd thought to have the pattern blown up on a copier one size bigger.  This one was actually not as hard as the other stencil.

So that is a recap of our birthday and Halloween celebrations.  Did you or your kids dress up? I'd love to hear about your Halloween celebrations. 

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.