Thanksgiving, Family, Black Friday, & Decorating

As previously mentioned, we went to the doctor on Wednesday and had an ultrasound. We found out that we are having another girl. The sonogram that shows that it is a girl was apparently taken from a weird angle. I seriously cannot tell that those little dots are not toes. So... hmmph.

That night my brother, Nick, came to stay with us. Claire really likes Nick. We had dinner while Peter worked late in preparation for the extended weekend. Peter came home and cleaned out and rearranged the garage some more so that we could fit a second car inside. We are currently borrowing his dad's car for commuting while he is in China. So we needed the drive way space seeing as no one is allowed to park on the streets from 12a-5am. Peter also installed the TV antenna in our attic. Hooray!

Thursday was fun and relaxed. We woke up and ate hot chocolate and toast for breakfast with strawberries and Cutie oranges. Then we watched the parade after Peter did a bit more tweaking with the antenna. I made sweet potato casserole--mandatory Thanksgiving side dish. And we headed to Aunt Jana's for Thanksgiving dinner with some of my extended family--and my brother.

Claire became obsessed with Grandma "teasing" her. She loved chasing.

Aunt Jana had gingerbread houses ready for us to decorate. Claire was only interested in the candy.

She loves playing with her uncles too.

That night Peter ventured out to Walmart at 6pm to try and buy some movies for cheap. He left without buying anything after realizing that I was right about the ridiculously long wait to check out.

Phillipa and Francesco arrived around 7:30p to have a movie night with us. They stayed over too so that they could get up with Claire the next morning if we were still out shopping.

Nick and I went to the Outlet Mall across the freeway at midnight because I mistakenly thought it opened then rather than 9pm when it actually opened. We got some sweet deals on outerwear!

Then at 4:20am Peter and I went to Home Depot to wait in line for the 5am opening. We fortunately got our Christmas tree that we were hoping for! It's a 7.5' Denison Fir with DUAL color/warm white LED lights that we bought for $70. The entire stock was gone within 10 minutes of opening the doors. Peter also bought a really versatile extension ladder for cheap. Home Depot was actually a great place to shop. It wasn't terribly over crowded and the workers were SO GREAT. All of the lanes were open in addition to people standing by with scanners to check you out wherever you happened to be standing. We stood in line outside--about 1/3 of the way back from the doors--and ate and drank the complimentary hot chocolate and donuts while we watched The Santa Clause 3 for 30 minutes in the cold. We were done and in the car again by 5:20am. Awesome and worthwhile trip for great savings!

We then headed next door to Walmart to see if there was anything left. We scored some great deals on various toys and games. By this time, the store was pretty much deserted. There were carts, in various locations, stuffed full of random items, and some of the shelves were in serious need of reorganizing. But we found some great stuff and were home just after 6am.

I made bacon and pancakes for breakfast and then everyone started leaving. Peter played with Claire
while I took a much needed 2 hour nap until 9:30 when Russell and Lis showed up after their adventures in Black Friday Shopping.

We went back out to fix a purchase and found a coupon on our car for Pizza Pie Cafe when we got back. So me, being pregnant, of course had to have pizza after such a suggestion! So we went to lunch.

And that was our Thanksgiving holiday week.