I had some great experiences shopping this year before and after the holidays.  Now, I am still not sure where there is a local TJ Maxx by me.  However, I did some shopping at the one in Wisconsin by my family after Christmas.  It is was just liked I remembered — great items for low prices.  With the economy the way it is, we all need to start shopping at places like this.  You get the same quality items — just at a way better price!

Now, the one of the best shopping experiences I had this holiday season was at Marshalls.  We had a holiday party to go to on December 20th.  Now, I personally hate shopping in the month of December, because well, it sucks.  However, my wonderful little girl outgrew her Christmas dress!  It fit at Thansgiving, and it looked like she grew 2 inches from then!  Instead of panicking, Madison and I headed over to Marshalls.  Now, this was high holiday shopping time, and I was impressed.  They had a great selection of kids clothes that were marked, so it was super easy to find what we needed.  The fitting rooms were clean and large enough for me to go in the room with Madison.  On the way to the fitting room, I found shoes.  I was able to try on about 20 different pairs that I liked.  I loved that they had the little foot stockings at the end of each aisle for you to use when you forgot to bring socks.   Being the weekend before Christmas, I was seriously concerned about checkout.  However, they had a great system going and every register was open.  (Nothing irritates me more when you go to a store that is really busy and they only have one or two registers open, and they don’t open any more).  We had a great experience on Marshalls, and I will definitely be going there for more presents and items for my kids.

What are your favorite places to shop and why?

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How do you clean up after the holidays?  For us, it is a tad more interesting.  Madison’s birthday was yesterday (she turned 5!), so we always have the quick cleanup that needs to be done from the time we get back from visiting Wisconsin and her birthday party.  I usually get about a week if we are lucky.  Since we have the basement now, Bill let me keep up the Christmasy decorations, but we did pull down the Christmas tree.  I need as much room as we can get, and this is pretty much the only way I was going to get it.  I figure everybody will hang out downstairs for her party just like they did for Christmas Eve.  The sad thing is that we are the only one on the block who still has their outdoor lights up.  Now, we don’t leave them up till June or anything, but it seems that it is kinda odd that on 8th of January that everyone has packed up everything already.  Now, I’ve slacked this week, and I have to get all my cleaning done tomorrow with the kids underfoot.  This should be interesting.  My sister is arriving tomorrow, so its not quite the end of the world if she’s the only one who sees my non-clean house.

How do you clean up?  Do you have a set plan?  Do you just do a little bit each day?

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Yes, we have already started celebrating Halloween.  That happens when you have a little one in preschool.  Since I have to dress Madison up anyway, I threw Will’s costume on too.

This would win any 2 and under cutest costume contest, right? I love this costume. It does come with a cute little hat. However, no matter how hard I try, he won’t keep it on. Madison came home already with an entire bag of candy from preschool. She’s already figured out how to sneak some of it already too! They trick or treated in her preschool building. Plus, all of us parent brought candy too! I do feel the need to smack the parents that brought pure sugar candy. Trust me, Madison does not need sugar to bounce off walls. You can only imagine how she is with sugar.

Madison would win for cutest costume 3 and up, don’t you think?  I love this costume.  It sucks that I caught the window glare in her glasses, but she looks super cute in her Cinderella costume.  It is suppose to be in the high sixties tomorrow, so we shouldn’t have to wear our coats out trick or treating.  We then are meeting at my sister-in-laws and going trick or treating by her house.  We also have a Halloween party on Saturday.  We have quite a busy couple of days just to celebrate Halloween!

Though I’d have to say that the best photo I took so far, I took at her preschool today:

She looks so excited and happy!  What are you doing for Halloween?

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Bill just called home to let me know he is coming home early. Since we haven’t had a chance yet to get pumpkins, we are going to go grab some tonight.  I know that Madison is going to be super excited.  She has been asking for a week when we can carve some pumpkins.

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Yes, I am admitting it.  We went to a work dinner for Bill’s work on Saturday night.  It was about an hour away, so we had already decided to get a hotel room.  It was really fun — there is no need to be sending out Chicago resumes or resumes anywhere else either.  We had Filet Mignon for dinner (yummy) and free drinks all night.  They even opened a tab up at the bar upstairs after the party was over!  We ended up staying up till like 2 am.  That isn’t all that late, I know, but man, I am still dragging butt.  Seriously.  I didn’t even have a buzz when I went to bed, so this isn’t even hangover related.  The only other thing I can figure that is making me so tired is that I am getting sick.

How old were you when you figured out you were old?  LOL

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