Texas White Christmas

Charlotte wasn't a big fan of posing with Santa this year, but she did enjoy the friendly cows at Chick-Fil-A and we enjoyed all the free food they gave out during their 12 days of Christmas.
We got a surprise storm on Christmas Eve, bringing a few inches of snow and a lot of ice.

Showing off her new kitchen and boots...

and princess set which was a big hit.

Our backyard tundra.

Thank you so much to everyone who shared beautiful greeting cards, treats, meals and gifts with us to make our first at-home Christmas special. It looks like our final present will be a big one - the doctor said our new babe is weighing 7 lbs, 10 oz right now with three weeks to go!

Merry Christmas!

Little bookworm

Charlotte is a book enthusiast. When we went to Houston for Thanksgiving, she made sure no one was spared from their book reading responsibilities:

Deal Reminders

Charlotte, the ever-present tiara, and Uncle Mark
More Thanksgiving stuff to come, don't want to overdo it all at once
photo by Kalina

The lady in front of me in line at Kohl's the other day bought $250 worth of stuff and used no coupon. Unbelievable, since you really have to go out of your way to avoid Kohl's coupons - they really come at you from all directions. A genius marketing move, kind of like their "biggest sale of the year" ad each and every week.

Since I don't want anyone I know to overpay for anything this year, just remember a couple tips:

- When shopping online, use cash back sites! Since starting to do this I have gotten around $150 in checks mailed to me. A lot of this was buying airplane tickets and entertainment coupon books ($10 cash back each last year made them free around March). I've only used Ebates and Cashbaq so far, but there are a lot of them out there now and most have at least a sign-up bonus. Evreward.com is very helpful in finding out which one to use for what sites.

- This year I've gotten $45 worth of Amazon gift cards just for doing online searches on my Swagbucks toolbar. Also not a bad deal.

- Don't buy anything for yourself! Though it is tempting when doing a lot of shopping, if you need something wait until after Christmas - the deals are always better.