Tis the Season

We had a pretty quiet Black Friday around here. =) I'm not really much for power shopping and don't like to fight with people, so I generally don't do much shopping on this day. I'm much more of a Cyber Monday type of person.
What do you think about stores opening on Thanksgiving day this year? It seems to be a pretty hot topic. Coming  from someone who used to work retail, I'd have been pretty ticked if I'd had to work on Thanksgiving. I've had to work at the hospital for the graveyard shift on Thanksgiving night before and even that was annoying.
Anyway... now we are looking to Christmas! Can you believe we only have about a month to go!! So after spending most of the day home, I just couldn't quite sit at home the whole day, so my mom and I headed out to ToysRUs for a little shopping/browsing. I'd been looking at a few things online that I really wanted to see in person.

First on the list - Home Depot Tools 
This stuff if pretty stinking cool. Malachi was all about it, which I thought he would like them. They had a 45-piece set for $9.99, but it was sold out. That was the only item on sale though, so I think I'll be checking back closer to Christmas for some possible sales. I think when your daddy is a contractor, it's essential that you have tools.

Next, my mom is thinking of getting him this nifty (that's Malachi's new word) garage for his matchbox cars - they didn't have it in store and I thought it was sold out online, but just found it listed a little differently on the website. Nice!

I was also leaning towards getting him some dinosaur playsets put out by Animal Planet, but he didn't seem too into it. I'm not sure if that was because there were too many other things to look at or because he really didn't like them, but regardless, they're getting scratched off my list.

One thing I wanted to get him was a Nerf gun to play with his dad. I was thinking I might get two, just for that reason and was happy to find a Buy 2, Get 1 Free deal on Nerf products tonight! I just got the smallest guns $9.99 ea. That ended up being the only thing I bought and I had to convince Malachi that they were for his daddy to take hunting. =)

All was not a waste though, because I was really contemplating getting him one of those LeapFrog Tag learning systems. But at $40, I was really hesitant. If he didn't like it, that was a lot of money invested. Well, they had a doorbuster starting Thursday night on it for $19.99. I thought for sure they would all be gone, but I found one sitting over with the Tag Jr's and told my mom she should snag it for him and save it for his birthday! I think he would like it now, but give him a few months and I think he'll be more ready for it.

Now, the kids are in bed and I'm thinking of sitting down to plan out the rest of my Christmas gifts. Last year I made Homemade Vanilla and gave away some of my Caramel Apple Jam with some Eggnog Pound Cake. Yum!
I'm doing some more homemade packages, so I have to figure out what I'll need and when I'm going to have time to make them!!