The Gang

The Gang
October 2008 Sweet Potatoe Harvest

About Me

I am a busy mommy of 6, seeking to be a loving, godly helpmeet to my husband and a biblical discipler to my children. God has blessed us with a child with Autism. May the lessons that the Lord is teaching me and our family be a blessing to you and yours!

My Favorite Books

  • Bible
  • Created to be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl
  • Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
  • Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
  • Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll
  • Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
  • Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
  • The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace
Saturday, November 24, 2007
So, do any of you take advantage of the Black Friday sales? Last year was my first year of Black Friday shopping. Elizabeth & I traveled to Marinette last year to shop at Menards, WalMart & Shopko for some "deals" that I wanted to get with the Grandparents Christmas money for the kids & us. Last year was QUITE an adventure since we left for Marinette in a THICK fog at 4 in the morning to hit the stores when they opened. We stood in line for a LONG time at each store, and ended up with a counterfeit $50 that I had gotten from the credit uniion only days before shopping. Overall it was quite an adventure.

This year was much calmer. I woke at 3:30 on Friday and left for Iron Mountain by 4:15 to get to WalMart. They had a portable DVD player for just $59 that we wanted to use in Thomas's Therapy room. He does his therapy programs with a token system. That means that he earns a token each time he complies and completes a program without fighting the therapists. Each time he earns 5 tokens he gets to pick a "prize" or fun activity from his prize box. In his prize box he has a remote control car, a slinky, candy, movies, etc. Since we do NOT want the kids watching movies all the time we need to put the full size TV under lock and key. If we don't Thomas will find a movie and turn it on. Anyone who knows "autism" knows that these kids like to watch a lot of TV/movies, I guess most kids do. Anyway, we don't want that for Thomas nor for the rest of the kids. So the portable DVD player will allow it to be kept in his Therapy box and only brought out during therapy to use if he choses it with his tokens.

The portable DVD players are usually around $100. So it was a great deal. Anyway I got to WalMart and found the spot where the DVD player was and stood in line with the other folks that were nutz enough to get up so early waiting for them to peel off the plastic at 5 a.m. I was able to get a DVD player and they were ALL gone in about 10 minutes or less so if I hadn't been there early I would have missed out.

While looking through the black Friday ad's Phil also mentioned that he wanted a digital frame to put on his desk at work so he could have pictures flashing through of me and the kids. Phil is a difficulty man to shop for so I was very glad to find out that he wanted one and was able to get one for a very good price at the Black Friday sales. Phil's folks give me the money to spend on the family since I know what everyone needs or wants and then Mom doesn't have to ship it all from Canada. So Phil's frame will be from his folks. He saw it when I came home so it wasn't a great surprise, however I did wrap it and am making him wait unitl Christmas to get it. That was tough for my techy hubby who is really excited about playing with it and trying to figure out how it works!! :-)

I only missed out on one of the Black Friday deals that I REALLY wanted. Shopko had a 250 piece set of Magnetix for only $29 which is normal almost $60. The boys love playing with these but you cannot do much with only a few. So a nice large set would've been nice. I was out of Walmart by 5:15 and off to Shopko, arriving there by about 5:25. Shopko opened at 5 and the magnetix were gone by the time I got there. I don't think they had very many which is usually the case with many of the door buster items.

Anyway, I was up at 3:30 and back home before 7 a.m. and back to bed! :-) Iron Mountain was much calmer than Marinette was last year! Last night I had fun wrapping all the Christmas presents. I only have one more gift to purchase for Phil which I will not write about since I really want it to be a surprise for him. He is very hard to shop for but I found something very fun that I know that he will like and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with a computer! :-) '

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