The After Thanksgiving Sales!

Ok kids, this is how its going to go down! For those of you that don't know how to get up at 4:15Am the day after Thanksgiving for a crazed morning of shopping, let me tell you how.....














The first step is what President Bush and I like to call Strategery. You have to find the Thanksgiving day paper stuffed full of all the delicious ads! They may make you add 23 or so more items to your Christmas shopping list, but all of them well worth the extra dough! You only have 6 hours at most stores. So you have to figure out what stores open first and then what do your really want more of?? 20% off all Wii accessories and Games at Freddie's or 50% off of Old Navy fleeces for all your nephews and neices. Since they both open at 5am! Good thing Target and Game Crazy open at 6am or we would really have some decisions to make!! Now lets get going!

An added bonus, our car was not frozen solid this morning! Perfectly mild weather for a morning of shopping!



















Ok, Starbucks? Check!














One adorably cute smiling baby? Check!














One heavily bearded shopping partner? Check! Ok, that is just me, but you may take one too if you like.

We pick Freddies first of course because we need 1/2 off socks and 20% off Wii stuff! (We will hit Old Navy later and hope all the sizes we need are there!) Now for the craziness of masses of people trying to politely push their way through aisle and aisle of socks. You must be prepared forcuts and bruises from rouge shopping carts, or insane old ladies that just don't care if they hit anyone. When everyone has 2 packs of socks each we head for electronics and stand in a herd of people gathered around the Wii locked window. A helpful Fred Meyer worker is taking orders and handing them out. "I need a Wii Mario Karts Please!", I yell with my hand reach out to her. "Me too!", yell about 4 people around me. I keep my hand up with everyone else and much to my great luck, I get one!!!! I just won the freakin' lottery of Black Friday sales!!! Can you all feel my excitement?!?! I know you do.

Thats done, so we head to toys to get buy one, get one free board games and wrap up Freddie's with the new Guess Who for our kids and a free one for some lucky other kids somewhere....hey it was free! I will give it to someone I'm sure.

We now rush to Old Navy and quickly score all 7 sizes of 50% off fleeces that I needed. The line is pretty long, but only takes about 15 minutes. Its now 6:40am and we head to Game Crazy to get Wii Lego Indiana Jones for $15 off. This is a gift for Payton from Aaron's mom, but we told her we would get it for her if she would watch our kids after Thanksgiving. Its sort of a tradition with us!

Its closer to dawn and we decide to try Target. Note the word "try", we had to wait 10 minutes in line to get a shopping cart! Ok, that should have been a sign! All the good sale items were gone and the line wrapped completely 360 degrees around the store. Right. I like me some good deals, but not worth the line! So we packed up our gifts and headed home!

Are these few bags worth all the effort and craziness?? You bet! I live for it! I'm glad I'm married to a man that gets just as into it as I do! You have to be some kind of special to do this every year! I hope all your families had a great Thanksgiving!

Autumn Leaves are Falling!!!

Well at least they were last week! I took the kids out to the forest and took some pictures of them with the leaves. It was an event to be remember. The scenery was beautiful, it was the subjects themselves that gave me difficulty!









Please enjoy the following photos....

























Stella was yelling at me in this picture! I was holding her up with my hand, thats why its so close to her! I think she was yelling, "Mom! Please help me!".
















I love this one! Stella was looking at me and smiled because, well I have the boobs.



Her are my babies! All cute and ma

Daylight Savings Time

Do you remember the days in high school and early adulthood when DST was the most amazing thing in the world?! You could snuggle in your bed for a whole extra hour, all snug listening to the rain. What happened to those days?? Now I get woke up by two kids thinking its a respectible time to get up and its only "6:30". I will have to work the next 2 weeks to get them back on a schedule, and essentially lose all the amazing possiblities that the extra hour of sleep offers!

Payton The Wonderful

I was having one of those days where I thought I was Mom of the year. I hiked me and my 3 lovely children through Forest Grove down to the Dutch Brothers cart to get us coffee and chocolate milks. The air was crisp and cool, with a little bit of a burnt smell from all the chimney smoke. I was truly enjoying the walk with my kids. I couldn't have been more proud to be a mom of 3! We were picking up different colored leaves and the kids were pretending they were birds, using the leaves as wings. About half way to Dutch Brothers something in Payton flipped a switch and I was suddenly walking with ADD boy. He was hugging trees and jumping around flailing his arms and really just raising a whole lot of a ruckus. I didn't mind that, but it was just him almost falling into oncoming traffic a few dozen times that I really started getting irritated. I had yelled 'Payton Johns!' about 20 times in course of 5 minutes and it really wasn't helping. I said it one more time, and he looked at me and said:

"I wish I had a different name"

"Like What? Payton the boy who doesn't listen to his Mother?", I replied.

"No, like Payton the Wonderful.", he answered.

So I hearby proclaim from this day forward my son Payton Michael Johns will now be called Payton the Wonderful.

Banks BBQ

I cannot believe its October and I never even blogged about the Banks BBQ that happened in August! Of course it was on the day my baby girls was supposed to be born, so I was a little distracted! Anyways the above picture is my son throwing the ball to knock the poor dance team girl into the water. He got her twice, and I must say I was gloating while all the people around him exclaimed how great he was. (Bragging, I know!)
Now here is the frog jumping contest. There was much build up in the Johns' family household as we awaited the big day! Payton's frog 'Snoopy Froggy Frog' and Chloe's frog 'Frogalicious', were caught at Daddy's work for just the occasion. We fed them Crickets, which brought a little ambiance to my home every night. They filled our home with gentle chirping....although at 3 in the morning it can really wear on a person. Not that I was really sleeping anyway because I was as big as a whale. The above picture is Payton's frog that only jumped 64 inches. Each kid has to make their frog jump 3 times and that is measured. The frog that jumps the furthest wins.
Here is Chloe and Daddy setting out her frog, which she was very scared of. She jumped back everytime the thing moved, or she thought it was thinking about moving. Her frog faired better and jumped 72 inches! That held the top spot until the family that has won every stinkin' year for the past 10 years brought in their ringers! They I would classify as Toads, not frogs and they were huge! Jumping over 100 inches each. Seriously next year I am going to demand they test these things for HGH.
My poor children were devastated that they weren't getting a trophy! I was so heartbroken for them, I almost thought about buying them a trophy! However, its building character. Lucky for Snoop Froggy Frog and Frogalicous that I don't eat frog legs, because part of me was tempted! Daddy took them back to the land of their birth the next day, so they could be safe from the wrath of a angry Mama!! My kids got over their sadness soon enough because it was time for the Combine Demolition Derby!! Thats where local farmers take perfectly good combine tractors, decorate them and then smash them into each other until only one is left in one piece. Its awesome! Some of these farmers work year round on these things.
Here they are all lined up and ready to go at it! The yellow one was the winner. It was my favorite, the Crash Test Dummies, as it were. He has won 5 out of the 7 years they have done this. The kids loved it and thankfully made up for the sad defeat in the rigged frog jumping contest!

Sisters

I dare you to guess which one is Chloe Ava and which one is Stella Rose. (The pictures aren't their best) You can probably tell by the clothes their wearing, but the similarities are pretty amazing. I've put a picture of Payton below. As you can see, he looks nothing like the ladies. BTW, Stella is the first baby and Chloe is the second baby.

My Little Sunshine

Just a little update on my sweet baby girl! She is growing so much! I am already feeling sad that the newborn phase is fading. She is filling out in her cheeks and her thighs, like a good girl should. She doesn't fit in any of her newborn clothes anymore. She is smiling and cooing now and is constantly looking for my face. Stella is already very attached to me, she knows where the goods are!! She sleeps 5 to 6 straight hours at night, nurses, and then sleeps another 4 hours, nurses and sleeps another 2 hours. So I could be getting a ton of sleep if Chloe Ava didn't wake up at 6:45 every morning. (This is a new thing...she used to sleep in until 9.) Anyways our little Stelli Bean is doing great and has kept her quiet sweet demeanor. I am grateful everyday for such an easy going 3rd born!