Black Friday

Esteban offered to stay home with the kids so I can go shopping for Black Friday, an event I look forward to every year. I didn’t like the idea at first because we always go together, but I knew he wasn’t really interested and I knew the kids would slow us down quite a bit so I took him up on his offer. I nursed Maya at 5:30am, got ready and left. When I got to Target, the line was around the block so I met up with Maria at McDonalds and had breakfast instead. Afterwards we headed over to Target. I got everything I wanted, including 4 new sets of sheets for our bed, Jayden’s Christmas present, and a new broom vac. Then we hit the mall. I got Esteban’s Christmas present and scored a new cutlery set, which I’ve been dying for. I also got Maya’s Christmas present and her Christmas ornament.

I came home very excited and since Esteban was home I started to cook Thanksgiving dinner. It was terrific. While I worked in the kitchen, Esteban worked on the exterior lights. Then we had our dinner. This year I went with a turkey breast, which was just a expensive as a large bird, just as much work and left very little in the leftover department. I also made arroz con gandules, which was very yummy. Esteban made a green salad and I made a sweet potato casserole. I make one every year, but this one didn’t make me as happy. Never try a new recipe on a holiday. For dessert, we had leftover pumpkin pie because the yummy pumpkin cheesecake I made two nights before stayed behind at my aunt’s house.

After dinner, we watched the Thanksgiving Day parade, which I had DVRed and put up the tree. I must say, it was the first Christmas ever that we put up the tree without arguing. I usually get upset because Esteban doesn’t want to help so this year, I put it up without bringing up the subject for fear of ruining an otherwise perfect day and what do you know! He started to help all by himself! Son of a gun! The lights had to get trashed because they were barely working as usual. This is a source of stress for me. Why can’t Christmas lights last more than a year? Anyway, we started to decorate the tree and for the first time ever I had help. Jayden was so excited. He grabbed the beads and wore them around his neck and had a ball dragging them around the house. When I got him to understand that the beads were going on the tree and staying there, we got to work on the bows. Jayden started to hand them to me one by one but when I wasn’t fastening them fast enough, he started to shove them into the tree into any gap he could find. It was so cute.

Then we got to work on the ornaments. For the second year in a row, I’ve left my glass ornaments in storage, but I guess that didn’t make the others safe. Two ornaments ended up being retired. I was ok with that, but Esteban was hysterical. Well, he was as hysterical as he gets (He's very low key.) He kept going on and on about the ornaments and Jayden breaking them and I shouldn't let him play with the ornaments etc. But there was no way I was getting mad at Jayden because I always dreamed of Christmas decorating being a family affair and it was finally happening. Jayden was helping mommy and I was on cloud nine. I’m sorry Pinocchio and Aladdin broke, but I’m ok with that because it was a perfect day!