Black Friday

The women in my family have a tradition.  We wake up in the middle of the night on Black Friday and hit the stores.  It’s crazy and it’s fun.  This year was no different.  We woke up at 3:30 AM so we could leave the house around 4 AM.

The men in J’s family have a tradition as well.  They go to the Orlando Auto Show the day after Thanksgiving.  Since we went to Orlando for Thanksgiving this year, J decided to spend the night at his aunt and uncle’s house and join the menfolk at the auto show.  The boys spent the night too and were so excited to check out all of the cars.  It worked out pretty well since I was not going to drag our kids out of bed in the middle of the night to shop and J wanted to introduce the boys to the family tradition.

I left Orlando after Thanksgiving dinner and made it home in time to hit the sack by 9 PM.

Steph, my mom, my aunt, Jo (Steph’s sister), and I hit Wal-mart first.  My mom wanted to purchase Nintendo DS’s for her friend and Wildman.  We stood in line in the windshield wiper section of the store waiting for 5 AM when they started handing out the merchandise…  A nice lady, who was probably on meth given her crazy, erratic behavior and bloodshot eyes, took this photo for us.

That’s my retail warrior face…

Let me just say that Wal-mart had the organization going on this year.  There was no chaos.  No one got trampled.  No fights broke out.  It was very calm and very orderly.

We hit Target next.  It was still pre-dawn when we arrived in the Target parking lot.  It seemed like a good photo op to me.

By the time dawn broke, we were headed to Michael’s to buy some crafty things for Christmas projects.  From there we took a breakfast break at the Cracker Barrel.  Yum!  Fried apples never tasted so good.  🙂

It was on to Toys R Us after breakfast.  Here is what Steph’s car looked like after all of our shopping!

We were doing our part to stimulate the economy…

We dropped off all of the stuff from Steph’s car at my mom’s house and hit the stores again.  It was a long, exhausting day. My Christmas shopping is almost complete.  Woo hoo!

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H and M Purchases

Orlando finally got an H&M!  As I mentioned last week, the kids and I made a little trip over there to check it out.  Shopping with two boys is less meandering and browsing, more grab and go.  So, I grabbed some great items and prayed that they fit.  Which they did.  Yeah!

Here are a few photos of my purchases.  Forgive the towel on my head and the wet hair.  I took these pictures quickly after my post-Zumba shower and before I had to leave to pick up the boys at preschool.

Let’s start with the lounge pants.  They get an A+ for comfort.  I bought these in a medium.  I’ll say that they are a very generous medium which makes me feel good.  🙂  By the end of the day they get pretty stretched out and become kind of saggy, baggy though.  Since I don’t wear them out of the house, I really don’t mind.

They have a drawstring and pockets.  The pockets probably make me look a little saddle-bag-ish…

Onto the little black dress!  I love this dress!  I’m currently looking for an occasion to wear it.  The skirt and sleeves are very flow-y.  The empire waist and peasant neckline are quite flattering as well.

I have to share some photos of the shoes too.  These were not purchased at H&M but I think they rock, especially the bows.  Again, looking for an occasion to wear them…

Check out the awesome bracelet I picked up.  Don’t you love the colors?

Now the sweet, frilly tank top!  I’ve actually worn this out to dinner!  I really like how feminine this top is.  The pale pink sheer fabric and silver bead work is just lovely.

I did not wear this top with lounge pants like in the photo, however.

I put this cute gray sweater over it.

I love the silver threads that are woven into the sweater.  It’s a nice touch.

The last thing that I purchased during my grab-n-go shopping trip was this sweet white flower.  It can be worn as a pin on a jacket or sweater.  It also has an alligator clip so it can be worn in your hair as well.  I am not able to currently locate my sweet, white flower and suspect that my two little culprits have made off with it.  I’ll question them later.

I’m pleased with all that I was able to find especially when I was warned that they had nothing but winter stuff in stock.  Sweaters and heavy coats just won’t do for Florida winters.  I was pleasantly surprised by their selection of non-winter wear.