Today I got out of the house ... with no kids ... TWICE! I know I know, I am spoiled.

I started the day off just drinking coffee at the bar with the hubs waiting {im}patiently for the semi-local Walmart Photo shop to open. I got an email letting me know that 1/3 of my photo order {1/7th of my ENTIRE order} was ready for pick up! It was the photo I'm putting in our Christmas cards and I REALLY wanted to get those out so I sacrificed the CHAOS that is our house on a Sunday morning and went to Walmart.

Last night I finished sorting out and addressing all the cards so I'm ITCHING to get this OFF my list! The cards are handmade and therefore a bit bigger than the normal ones and all the envelopes say "MAY require additional postage" SO that means I drag one or more kids to the post office tomorrow, bright and early. F.U.N. But at least that will be done. I wish I had a printer, I LOVE getting the Christmas Letters with the cards and the pictures! I sent cards to people I haven't spoken to much this year and it would have been great to get them all caught up, BUT, I guess not this year.

I did get some pricing done though, and got one present for the hubs, something he TOTALLY won't be expecting :-D We ended up getting a small personal loan - ONLY because we got a good interest rate and will be able to pay it off when we get the taxes back in like FEBRUARY. So we're not being TOTALLY irrisponsible, just trying to do what we can to get through this financially rough time of year. And we're using it for things like taxes and for the hubs to get his flooring and tile licenses, and for things like timing belts and tires. The last of it is for presents.

So he has this great idea of getting bikes for the kids for the big Santa present. And that SOUNDED like a grand EASY idea :-D HA! It started out that way. I found resonable bikes at some online stores but they were out of stock, so I when I was out I went to two stores and found that they didn't have THOSE bikes in stock either but had different ones for only ONE kid, then I came home and found a cheap one in an add, went BACK out to the store to OF COURSE find that they were out of stock. So I looked online again and the ones they DID have in stock would be TOTALLY out of our budget by the time we paid for shipping.

::sigh::

So after battling for space in Target {why or why would I subject myself to Target on a weekend in December when I could just go during the week? OH yeah, no kids :-D = time well spent} I left with some clothes for the baby and a gift for the man. We have discussed it and the bikes are just too much work {and MONEY} for gifts that can't properly be enjoyed during the winter, so they will wait until their birthdays!

Anywho {as if you're still reading ;-)}, in between those two stops, the hubs and I took the boy and the baby to the store to get a tester Prime Rib. He decided he has perfected turkey and must now move beyond it and perfect a prime rib recipe. So since he has a kind heart {and would hate to give family the heaves} we got one early to practice on. I guess his kindness only extends to EXTENDED family ;-) I am excited though! We got all the trimmings and as I sit here it's smellin up the whole house in that yummy prime ribby smell :-D

So I guess I should get going and get the table set, or potatoes made, or see what fun Christmas movie is on tonight - thank you ABCFamily's 25 Days of Christmas shows! Thanks for checking in and I'll talk to ya tomorrow!