Thanksgiving Weekend

The kids Thanksgiving outfits were a success! It took longer then anticipated but what DIY project doesn’t. Tess’s outfit was actually really easy to put together. The tie for Colin was a bit more challenging. Reading a pattern is seriously much harder then you would guess. The instructions are vague and they use lingo that only an experienced seamstress would understand. Thank God for my mom’s help. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to make Colin’s tie without her. It took me probably 10 minutes just to identify which pattern I was supposed to use after I opened the pattern packet. For clarification patterns get sold in bunches. So when I bought the pattern of a tie for a little boy I actually got the patterns for 2 different kinds of ties for little boys, 2 different men’s ties and a couple of different vests. It was intense. I was relived when I saw the pattern I needed was the smallest in the packet. Things went pretty well until we were doing the final stitches and realized that we laid the pattern upside down on the material so all of the words on the tie were facing the wrong way. No big deal though just had to start over completely. Ha, actually it went about 10 times faster the second time around so it was too bad. Tess’s outfit was super easy to put together. If you ever want a tutu made I would be happy to offer up my services. They are so simple, and so cute!

After all of the work of putting together the outfits the real challenge came into play. How do we convince Colin that wearing a tie all day is a good idea? And how do we get Tess to wear a tutu without trying to eat it? All I can say is we did get the kids to both wear their outfits at the same time long enough to get a couple of family pictures. It might be a couple of years before we are able to get a picture where all 4 of us are actually looking at the camera and smiling.

Keith decided to brave the crowds and do a little Black Friday shopping this year. I think we are the only family in America who doesn’t have a flat screen TV and we figured if we were going to breakdown and finally get one that this would be the time to do it. Now there was no crazy standing in lines in the middle of the night or anything like that but Keith was able to snag us a really good deal. He woke up when the kids did around 6:15 on Friday morning. He headed out to Wal-Mart to see if the TV we wanted was still
available. The TV’s didn’t go on sale till 8am but we were unclear when people would start lining up for these since the store was open all night. Turns out they handed out line tickets so Keith knew he had no shot of getting the TV. Just for kicks he stopped by SAMS on the way home and there he found the TV he wanted for the same price that Wal-Mart was advertising. So we now finally have a flat screen tv. And I have to say it does look pretty nice. Granted we spent a couple hours adjusting the wall mount and cursing our plaster walls. In the end though I think it was a good purchase. And I feel like we proved we can do some home DIY projects after the whole ordeal with getting the TV mounted. If you don’t have plaster walls you are just going to have to trust me that this was a big feat. Now much to Keith’s delight (please insert heavy sarcasm here) I have started a nice little home improvement to do list. I wonder if he will be as willing to work for a new back splash in the kitchen as he was for a new TV…