It's a Christmas shopping miracle!! (Miracle #2 if you're keeping count)

Our three youngest kids started Christmas break this week, so today I took them to Costco to load up on the samples so I wouldn't need to feed them lunch. (seriously, they had a sample of the best clam chowder!)

I also planned to buy a few Christmas gifts while we were there, specifically two movies that I was looking for, and I knew that Costco would most likely have the best price for them.

When we first walked in the store we went directly to the DVD section, and we split up to look for the two movies.

We thoroughly scoured the shelves, looking for the two DVDs then finally came to the conclusion that Costco just didn't sell these two movies.

We walked through the store and completed the rest of our shopping. (and samples, we tried every one of the samples) I was disappointed that we hadn't found the movies because now I would need to stop at yet another store on the way home.

As we headed toward the check stand, I remembered that we needed Oreos. (what, you don't ever have a situation where you NEED Oreos?)

We wove through the different aisles and dodged the many overfilled shopping carts until we found the Oreos.

We put two boxes in our cart. (Hey, I said we needed them)

As we turned around to go to the Check stand, Brielle noticed something on top of some boxes of granola bars.

"Hey mom, look! Isn't that one of the movies that we were looking for?"

Sure enough, sitting right there was the first movie.

I picked it up and inspected it in disbelief, then I noticed another movie just a little farther back on the granola bars. I turned it over, and it was the second movie we were looking for!

(You just got tingles going down your spine, didn't you?)

I was in disbelief. I even dragged the kids back to look through the DVDs one more time, just to see where we had missed the movies, but we couldn't find any more of them, anywhere.

It seems that we found (and purchased) the last two of those movies in the store.

It's a Christmas shopping miracle!!

It's a Christmas chocolate candy miracle!!!!

Last night I opened the kitchen closet and sitting there right in plain sight, and at my eye level, was an unopened package of Cadbury Christmas candy! (solid milk chocolate in a candy shell, to be exact)

Here's the deal, I don't remember buying it (seriously, as if I would forget buying chocolate) and no one else will admit to putting it there.

I do believe in Santa Claus!!

How many family members does it take to pull out the wiggly tooth of a very whiny six year old?

Three.

#1 to tie the string around his tooth and the other end of the string to the door.

#2 to hold the kid's head still.

#3 to slam the door.

Yes, Max has lost his first tooth! (or had it forcibly removed.............)

It was most definitely ready to come out, the new tooth has already popped through. Now if we can just trick him into letting us tie the string around the other loose tooth.

The reason why someone in our family will be getting an entire case of scotch tape for Christmas.

Today the kids were making ornaments to decorate the new Christmas tree that we got for our kitchen. (What, don't you have a tree in your kitchen?) (OK, so I may or may not have purchased the tree as incentive* for the kids to do something that I wanted them to do) (and I like having a tree** in the kitchen) I had planned to decorate the tree with chili peppers or something like that, but today the offspring*** were too excited and decided to take matters into their hands and use a case of printer paper to make ornaments for the new tree.

They made tons of snowflakes, a big paper chain and a really cool star for the top.

Max is an amazing kid, if he has access to a bunch of paper, scissors, tape, crayons and a stapler, there is no limit to what this kid can create.

Earlier today, Max was working on a new creation for the tree when it appeared that he needed some tape. He asked everyone if we knew where the tape was.

Due to the fact that Max is generally the only one who uses tape, none of the rest of us knew where it was.

I even checked in my super secret tape hiding place, and there wasn't any tape there. (apparently, Max discovered my super secret tape hiding place)

Max was continually growing more agitated, and kept asking us where the tape was. (because everyone knows that asking someone the same thing over and over and over will make them know the answer)

"Where is the tape?"

"Who hid the tape?"

"Why won't anybody help me find the tape?"

"Why am I the only one looking for the tape?"

And finally.........

"IT'S NOT FAIR THAT I'M THE ONLY ONE LOOKING FOR THE TAPE!!!"

I calmly suggested that he look in his room because he WAS the last one to use the tape.

"IT'S NOT IN MY ROOM!!! SOMEBODY TOOK IT!! I NEED THE TAPE!! WHY ISN'T ANYBODY HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE? IT'S NOT FAIR THAT NOBODY IS HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE!! WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS ............

Then he spotted the tape sitting on the kitchen table right next to where he was standing. "Oh there it is." he said simply, then grabbed it and walked away.

Here is what the tree looked like when the kids were finished. I actually like it! (The huge decorations kind of cover the fact that the tree is incredibly scrawny) The big square snowflakes were made by Max.

*Some people prefer to call it bribery, however, I feel that bribery is such an ugly word.

Bribery is when someone says "I'll give this to you if you do something for me" and incentive is when someone says "Do this for me, and I will give you this"

See, completely different.

**And I use the term "tree" very loosely. It was $20 at Wal Mart

***The boys actually wanted to drape the tree with cords and cables from multiple electronic devices.