Our weekend

This weekend has been a great one. I had to work for about an hour on Saturday and that wasn't so fun, but after that it was good. Poor Maddy doesn't understand why mommy works all the time. Once I got done with work it was time to get ready for a day full of shopping. My mom came by and picked us up. While we were waiting me and Maddy got to play for a little bit together. We checked out Hobby Lobby for a Christmas wreath for our house. They had a couple that I liked, but it just wasn't quite what I was wanting. I will say they had a great deal...all Christmas stuff was 50% off. The wreath I really liked was $129.99 so it would have been around $64. That's a good deal, but it was a little more than I wanted to spend. My mom got a snowman that tells the Christmas story. Maddy loved it and kept making it play. After Hobby Lobby we went to Bi-Lo. If you coupon Bi-Lo has sugar for $1.99, but there is a .55 coupon which makes it .89. That's the cheapest sugar I've paid since I started. Publix was our last store. I now know I didn't get the best priced ham (Kroeger has their brand $1.99/lb), but they were cheaper than what I had previously seen at Wal-Mart. It completely ruined my trip as far as staying below a certain number, but I am beyond excited to have bought our first "holiday" ham. We always go to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving so I don't have to prepare a meal, but I did want to have a mini meal. I wanted to cook it tonight and make dressing, but I didn't realize I was out of bread and I don't have sage so I will wait till this weekend to make our Thanksgiving meal. I also bought us a Christmas dog that sings Deck the Halls and actually walks around. My mom has one so Maddy is very familiar with it. I'm not quite sure where I'm going to put him (or her...Maddy says she is a girl) but I'm so happy to have him in our home.

Once we got done shopping we came back home and played outside on Maddy's playground. You pretty much know how your time outside is going to be spent. She always swings first. The first time she hops in the swing she actually stays on for a good bit. After she swings she climbs up to slide and then will either climb up again or go to her swing, but the time she spends on the swing the second go round is like half the time as the first. It just keeps repeating until she's pitching fits or she will go in her playhouse or on her table under her playground. I do love the conversations we have while she swings though.

On Sunday we went to Lowes and got our Christmas wreath. I was so happy to find something more on the lines of what I was looking for. Maddy had fun looking. What I really wanted was the "no strings attached" prelit wreaths...it has a control on the back to turn the lights on or make them twinkle. It was only on one wreath and it was pretty plain. I don't want my wreath to look good only at night. I did know from that, that I wanted a lighted wreath. I finally chose this one:

I had to test it out. I'm not putting it up until Thanksgiving. I don't like the cord, however, it will only be plugged in at night and during the day I can tuck the cord away. I liked it in the store, but I still wasn't sure about it. The more I look at it the more I am just thrilled over it. I also got us a cheap Christmas tree skirt that says Merry Christmas. I refuse to buy things that say Happy Holidays. I intentionally look for "Merry Christmas." The skirt I really want is plaid on the ends and embroidered with Merry Christmas on it too. I plan on upgrading next year:)

Besides the wreath the most exciting part of the weekend was my trip to CVS. I bought the following:
(1) Advil 10 ct ($2.99)
(1) Children's Advil-1 oz.($2.37)
(2) Airwick oil warmer (.99)
(1) Glad oil warmer ($1.25)

I used a dollar off coupon for the children's advil, $2/2 airwick, $1 off the glade warmer. Out of pocket I paid $5.40. What made this so great is I got ECB on everything I bought for the price I bought them at. I believe there is a limit of one on the airwick, which means it wasn't 100% savings, but I couldn't have done much better than that. I was so excited...I sat in the parking lot for a while just soaking in the great deal I just got. I was supposed to get a command hook, but I couldn't find them and I didn't have a coupon anyways. I'm gong back and hopefully going to do as good.My next trip I plan to pay nothing out of pocket by using my ECB, but will also get back some ECB.

I had orchestra practice at 7:00 tonight. Once we got done and came back home Maddy made a picnic in our kitchen. She spread out her blanket and said she wanted to eat there. We had a great evening and a great picnic. We ate, we talked, and we laughed. Our weekend doesn't sound that exciting, but it's been a good one. I'm stressed about work but love knowing I only have 3 days and it's going to feel like 2.5 cause I hope to be done early on Wednesday. I get to spend Thursday and Friday with Maddy and I'm going to love every minute of it. We are going to finish our Christmas decorating (minus the tree) on Thanksgiving.

I want to get some bows for our shutters and candles for the windows and I'm really hoping we can do icicle lights, but I'm thinking that will be a no. I have to get our greenery with lights up above the cabinets and then that will probably be all this year. Can you tell I'm just a little head over heels for Christmas???