I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. 

We went to Richard's house for Thanksgiving and had a marvelous time.  Thank you Carla for making all that wonderful food.  It was delicious.  Leslie also came to visit from England and all the little cousins got to see each other for the first time.   It's really amazing how time is just flying by.  I remember when we first went to see the twins, they were so small and tiny.  They are now almost as big as Mackenzie.  She a little taller than both of them, but she is much lighter (in weight) than the two boys.  Rufus looks so small right now, but I'm sure the next time they come to visit again, he will be walking and running around.  That's be an interesting sight when all the kids are able to walk and run around. 

On Friday, I went on my traditional Black Friday shopping spree.  I got up at 5 AM in the morning and headed for ToysRUs.  For some reason, I thought they didn't open until 5:30 so it was a big surprise for me when I got there at 5:20 that the doors were already open.  Since I got there late, I couldn't get a cart so I had to resort to plan B.  I went in and grabbed a few big items that I wanted and started standing in line.  At this point (at 5:35 AM), the line to pay was already wrapped around half the store (and we have one of the bigger ToysRUs around).  As I was waiting in line, I would walk by things that I wanted so I grabbed them and piled them onto the big items I had.  By the end of the wait, I had about 12 items stacked up in two neat piles on the floor.  I was on my hands and knees pushing the two piles as the line moved.   Now, the wait in line was the easy part.  The hard part was getting all those toys out to the car (which was parked way far out there) without a cart.  And good luck getting help at 6 AM in the morning because everyone is hectically running around doing something.  Luckily the store manager saw me and offered to give me a hand.  I couldn't believe I filled the entire back trunk of Michael's car in that one trip.  (His car can fit four of me in it and have plenty of leg room left). 

Well, it was past 6 AM by the time I got out of ToysRUs so I decided to try Staples (which opens at 6 AM) and get the hard drive I wanted to get as a Christmas gift.  Of course, I didn't get there early enough and they ran out.  I did find the microSD memory card I was looking for, but the line was so long, I decided to buy it another time.  By this time, it was 6:30 in the morning and I was wide awake so I decided to call the siblings and figure out where they were.  I got a hold of my older brother and they were headed for ToysRUs so I decided to go back there again since I didn't get "everything" I wanted. 

This time, I was a bit more lucky.  Someone was leaving and she had a cart so I took her parking space and her shopping cart.  Back to ToysRUs I went.  Oh boy, I think I'm beginning to master stacking toys on top of each other.  I had so much toys stacked up on the cart that I ran out of room.  My bother ended up having to help me cart some while we waited in line.  I didn't think about it at first, but after a while, I started thinking if I would be able to fit all those toys in the car.  Luckily, Karen woke up and called to ask where we were.  She came by and ended up putting all the toys from round 2 into her SUV.  (And I filled her SUV also.) 

From there, we went home to drop all the toys and headed for the mall.  I didn't buy much there, but didn't get home until 4 PM that day so 11 hours of shopping overall.  Am I crazy or what?

Okay, enough about shopping and my craziness for sales.  How's the family, you're asking?  Let's see, Michael is doing okay.  He's thinking that I'm a psycho for shopping that much on 4 hours of sleep.  He and I work together now so we get to spend lunch with each other.  He's still doing the same old stuff, working around the house, doing the bills, watching the kids, and complaining that there's not enough time in a day for everything.

Mackenzie is 10 months old now and she's walking.  Can you believe it?  She start walking a little over two weeks ago.  She still can't go long distance without falling down, but she's getting better and better at it.  First, she was only able to take a few steps.  Then she was going sideways, but now, she's just walking normally.  She just gets up and starts walking when she feels like it.  She also talks a lot.  When she's in the mood, she can talk to you for over five minutes.  She still has her demanding cry.  Whenever she wants something or doesn't get something, she'll start her crying and boy, you cannot mistake her cry with anyone else's.  It's loud and demanding.  Like Nicholas, she still does not have any teeth.  I've been checking because she likes it when I put my finger in her mouth and I don't feel any rough surface.   She is getting solid food now.  She had some broccoli last night.  She likes rice, bao, beans, and bananas.  She'll actually eat anything you give her.  She also likes to pick things up from the ground to put in her mouth.

Zachary is doing pretty well in school.  He has calm down a lot and has figured out when he needs to be good.  When school first started, he got a lot of bad behavior cards, but now, he pretty much gets good behavior cards.  He is also very smart.  He picks up on concepts very quickly.  He does need more practice on his handwriting and his sight words.  He doesn't like writing as much because it takes time and he's not very patient.  He gives up on it very easily when it's not right because he's frustrated.  But overall, I'm very pleased with his work thus far in kindergarten. 

Nicholas is growing up to be a very big and handsome boy.  He's in third grade now and it's amazing how much he knows.  I'm extremely pleased with his school work.  He's very quick at learning new things.  He's working on division right now, but he has mastered multiplication for 1 through 10.  It really amazes me how well his math skills are.  He needs work on his writing skills and it's probably my fault for not making him write more.  Like Zachary, he doesn't like it because it takes too long and you know kids just don't have that much patient to write paragraphs.

Overall, the boys are quite helpful when it comes to Mackenzie.  Nicholas and Zachary can both carry her and when needed, they help me get stuff that I don't have hands for.  They also like to entertain Mackenzie and Catheryne.  Sometimes, they can be too helpful and we have to ask them to back off a bit.  Like Nicholas wants to make Mackenzie laugh and will pick her up and swing her around.  When I saw that, I stopped him and tried to explain to him how fragile she is and that he's not old enough to handle her that way. 

Who's Catheryne, you ask?  She's my niece that lives with me.  My youngest sister, May, is currently leaving with me.  She helps me pick up the boys and watch Mackenzie.  She also help around the house and does most of the cooking.  It's really nice to have dinner done when we get home from work.  It's also nice to have her around because she helps me out with a lot of stuff.  Michael and I both don't have to do the pick up routine where I have block out 1.5 hours of my time during the day to go pick Zachary up while Michael will pick up Nicholas.  We did this for a while and it was very tiresome and we didn't get home until really late because we had to drop off and pick up. 

Well, enough for now.  I'll try to write again after Christmas.  We are hosting Christmas this year so I'm sure I'll have a lot to talk about.