Thanksgiving & Babysitting

This year we had Thanksgiving in Upland. It was so nice to see everyone and catch up. I actually got my big brother chatting and we talked for hours. He's usually pretty quiet so it was a great experience! MacKenzie always loves coming up to visit Macy and Madison, too. They all got plenty of turkey. I saw to it. ;)

I'm thankful for the cutest puppy on the planet.

All three pups taking a break with Guy

We got home just in time to change and head out to Target to get a Black Friday (gray Thursday as Jackson called it) deal on a t.v. for Susie's birthday. No worries, as of this writing the gift has been given and she loved it. Anyway, we went to bed for a bit and then I was out at Castleton at 5:30 with Shannon. It was amazing. The mall opened so early on Thanksgiving that by Black Friday morning itself the place was empty. Cha ching! We did some major damage and enjoyed a leisurely brunch before she headed for a Thanksgiving celebration and I went home to do some wrapping.

MacKenzie "helping" me wrap presents

Jackson got home from work and wanted to experience some of the all-day deals so we went back out the the Fashion Mall. Oh, dinner at Cheesecake Factory? Nope. Jackson "cheaper than cheap" Petefish took me to Noodles and Co. for dinner that evening. Yep. We actually walked into Cheesecake so that he could pee and then walked out and had fast food. I swear I'm not still bitter.

Saturday morning we headed down to Evansville to help my sister with her big move. As you may or may not know, Kylie and Nick were divorced earlier this Fall and she bought her own home. It is a nice place in Newburgh and I think she'll be very happy there. Alex's bedroom is adorable, too! When we got there on Saturday morning I made the rookie mistake of showing Alex all of the presents I brought down for him. Yep. That was not wise. See below:

"I WANT TO OPEN ALL OF THEM!"

"I WANT TO OPEN THIS MORE!!!"

HA! :) He got to open them really early because I'm a sucker. Oh well! We got him an Elf on the Shelf and look forward to seeing how "Fred" (can you tell Kylie helped to name him?!) ends up each morning. Kylie needed to run out with my Mom & Guy so she left Alex with us to help unpack. Yeah, it was my first time babysitting. Ever. We all survived! Did we have a few meltdowns? Yes. Were they all Alex? No. (HA!)

Alex got angry and hid. The dogs found him. :)

Once Kylie came home and order was restored the unpacking progress was more noticeable. Jackson and I spent hours in Target over the course of two days buying the things we thought Kylie and Alex needed to make their new house a home. We also grocery shopped for Kylie and thought for sure that Target would say that any trip with both mac-n-cheese and Oreos in it couldn't be real Petefish charges. They didn't and we got them all stocked up. :)

Alex's new art wall!

Kylie running from Alex. Typical. ;)

CLOTHES HUNG UP IN A CLOSET!! 

Kylie is not an especially tidy person. She never has been and it caused plenty of tension between us growing up. I joke that she could see something and say it is black and I'd see them same thing and call it white. We just don't see eye to eye on this very important aspect of life. ;) I thought that this move was the perfect time to finally organize her stuff without annoying her. I was wrong. I annoyed her. A lot. I also got through all of her boxes and hung up clothes (!!!!!!!!!!!), had Jackson hang pictures and send 36 pounds (not kidding. 36 pounds) of paper to bed shredded at FedEx Office. She actually had junk mail from 2003 in her files. Yep. True story. She was a pretty good sport about me throwing out all of this old paperwork, though. I kept joking that I'm used to doing this kind of work once someone has passed away so getting feedback during the process was a little startling. It was a big purge and I loved it. Her house looks great and she even has been making her bed! Dare I say we turned over a new leaf?! One can hope! ;)

We got to quickly see Kathi and Susie (who was in town for the holiday) before heading back to Indy on Sunday afternoon. I had a 4 day weekend that I fit about a month's worth of activity into and I'm still tired from it. Ok, just the babysitting part is still tuckering me out. ;)