The madness known as "Black Friday"

I saw something interesting on facebook the day after thanksgiving. Someone's status read, "why is it, that just hours after sitting around the table contemplating our thankfulness for the things God has given us, we find ourselves standing in line ready to fight the crowds for those items we 'can't live without.'" (my personal insert: if you're up at 3:00 am and willing to risk being trampled by the other manic shoppers, you obviously can't live without it!). Interesting observation...we partook in the insanity anyway.

My original plan was to sit out this Black Friday. I figured Braxton was a good excuse, right? It was a good plan...but I got sucked into the madness.

It all began when we started looking at the sales flyers. $9 boots?! $2 movies?! $7 collage frames? Come on! Who can resist that?
Then we started making lists...and checking them twice. This is where I really started to get sucked in.

and our ever frugal Justin compared price to see which ones were the best. Oh goodness...I could already feel the adrenaline rush. Could I resist the temptation?

Obviously not because here I am at 4:30am all bundled up with my baby ready to embrace the shopping frenzy all in the name of cute $10 boots. Which were only $4 because my sis-in-law gave me a gift card. Braxton was wide awake at 3:30am anyway so I figured "why not?" and piled in with my family. Justin went out separately with his family because he wanted to be at the mall at 3:30. I wasn't quite brave enough to do the mall with a baby, but I did do Burlington Coat Factory, Walmart and Target.

All bundled up in his baby bjorn and ready to go. Braxton loved being around all the people!! And I think they all loved him.

So much fun! Every year I say it's my last black friday, but who knows?! I'll probably be the lady toting her 4 kids around in a couple of years; but if it's all in the name of cute $4 boots who can say "no?" (and yes...i did get my boots and they are incredible! :-))

I didn't get a good picture of our spoils of war so I shall list them off (and btw, these are just the things we got for ourselves. If you think we're listing all the Christmas gifts we got you are kidding yourself!)
-$4 boots!!!! (did I mention these already? I can't remember...)
-Awesome collage frame
-GPS (fantastic!)
-Shop vacuum for the garage.
-Christmas tree (we finally caved and bought a fake one)
-Justin got almost all his Christmas shopping done! Woot! All I have to do now is wrap them and all he has to do is act surprised!

Overall it was a success and we were both happy with our excursion! Best of all we didn't run into any rude people. After all...who can be rude to a lady holding the cutest baby in the whole world?