Need Your Ideas: Holiday Gifts

OK Blogger pals, I know how creative you all are so am calling on you to help me with suggestions and ideas for inexpensive but thoughtful holiday gifts for the kids teachers. I say inexpensive since Kaley has 6 teachers this year and Caroline has 2, so I have to buy/make 8 of whatever we come up with. The challenge is to not repeat something that's been done a million times, but give something that will be appreciated.

So what are you all giving the teachers, day care staff, etc in your lives this year?
Katie- what do you appreciate most as a teacher gift?

There is only 2 more week of school here, so I have to be able to put these together in that time frame too. If it helps, all of the teachers are female also. I would sure love any ideas you all might have... :)

Black Friday Shout Out

I have to comment about the shopping experience that I had this year on Black Friday because it was actually pretty positive, more so than any other year I've done it. Overall, the people were more friendly and not rude (didn't see any pushing or grabbing) and everything I got up early for was there for me to buy, nothing was sold out, yippee! I left the house at 4 a.m., hit 3 busy stores and was home at 7 a.m., not bad at all. I couldn't sleep and ended up being up all night, but it was worth it as I'm pretty much done shopping for my kids already. :) * NOTE* if you are a die hard bargain hunter and Black Friday shopper, I found out that rather than sleeping you can now head to the mall on Turkey Day as it opens at midnight. I met some ladies who cleaned up their Thanksgiving Feasts, tucked their kids and husbands in bed and headed out at 10:30!

What really made a good impression on me was what happened at Old Navy. I'm sure you've all seen the commercials that if you spend $20 you get a free mp3 player, right? They opened at 5:00 a.m., but when I got there at 4:15 there were already about 40 people in line. By the time the store opened, there were over 100 people in line. So rather than a mad rush at the front door, the store manager came out and passed out wristbands and thanked everyone for coming.
I was already impressed! Then he said that we could redeem our wristbands and get the mp3 player anytime that day, so if we had other bargains to hunt we could come back anytime before they closed and our mp3 player would be reserved for us...wow! Very smart on their part since we now could take our time shopping and probably ended up spending more $ there. The staff was all decked out in red too, so it was easy to spot them if you needed help and they had plenty of people on registers so we didn't have to wait forever to check out either. I must admit that I don't normally shop at Old Navy regularly, but they sure did make a great impression on me!

Anyone have any other cool Black Friday stories or shout outs? Let me hear from ya...

Thanksgiving

This year our family Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful! We (or should I say my Mom) decided that we all didn't need to go "all out" with the fancy side dishes and dressed up outfits and that we should be more casual and relaxed. It was sooooo much better and less stressful...as they say, Mom is always right! I only have pictures of my family and my folks as everyone else was shy. but here goes:

Kaley and Caroline pour Dad some spiced cider...yummy! Their tradition is to make the place cards every year, this year Caroline added a sign for over the table that read, "Thanksgiving Feast"...cute! She has called it that ever since she could talk. :)
Hubby and I getting ready to dig in!
The two things in this world that we are most thankful for...Kaley & Caroline!
This Thanksgiving wasn't just Turkey Day for us, it was also my parents 45th Wedding Anniversary...wow! That's just amazing to me and my siblings, what an accomplishment!
We are all going to a dinner show as a family to celebrate this coming weekend, but we also read them a sweet poem/toast at dinner, gave them a family tree with all of our pictures and various other silly gifts and a cake. Here is what they looked like 45 years ago on their special day:
And here's what they looked like 45 years later, adorable! Congrats Mom and Dad!!!
This is the cake my brother brought for one of the many desserts. Can you believe that after the huge meal we had, everyone still managed to find room for some cake?! :)

Our family is extremely thankful for everything that we have and everyone that touches our lives this year and always...that includes you blogger pals. Hope you all had a wonderful day too!