New Decor & Riley turns 8

Fall is my favorite time of year, not only because I love the weather, but also because it's pretty much the only time of year I can buy things to decorate my house. And the awesome thing is if I wait till the week before Thanksgiving, everything is like 80% off!

After work a few days ago I ran by Hobby Lobby to check out their ornaments. I had a $2o gift card from my birthday I've wanted to spend for weeks, but was holding out till the fall deals rolled around. Here's what I got.

This metal platter was normally $38...I got it 80% off for $8!

This one was $35...I got for like $6.50.

They had all their Christmas ornaments 1/2 off too. I got 2 of these for $3.Since I'm still needing to fill my tree some, I decided to check out a few of the $1 places just to see if there was anything worth even looking at. Orange is a little hard to come by at Christmas time, so i was surprised when I found these little gems 3 for $1 at Dollar Tree. I hated the shiny gold they had on the hanger part, so I bought this pretty ribbon for $1 a roll to cover it. I think it finished them off nicely.

Here's a close up of the ribbon. I looked for 2 weeks to find something I really liked. My tree topper ribbon is awesome, but way to expensive anything more than the topper. Had I found this BEFORE the other ribbon...

Ok, enough about my tree...RILEY TURNED 8 TODAY!!

My sweet baby went from this...

To this, in a few short years!

Since Riley's, Cade's and Bran's birthdays all come between now and Christmas Day...things have to be kept pretty simple or I will go completely broke.

Riley had 2 friends over after school for a little party of snacks & games.

We played the dress up relay game.

And then the boys decorated their cupcakes.

Then of course, he opened gifts.

After the party I took Ri and Noah to Lokomotion for a few games. They rode the bull first.

Then they played laser tag...just the 2 of them. I slowed my shutter speed to get these delay shots. They would have been better had I taken my mono pod, but I can only carry so much. The blue streak you see is Riley running by me.

This is Noah

After that, we hit the go cart tracks. Now that they are 8 they are both old enough to drive on the mid size track. With only the 2 of them on the track, they sure spent a lot of time crashing into each other.

Well, that about sums up Ri's big day. Even as we speak, he and Noah are playing Mario Crash Cart on the Wii. They're stoked they get to stay up till midnight. I even made the other boys go to bed at 1o:3o so they would really feel special. It's not often Ri gets to feel like a grown up!

One more thing, we got Ri the new Sorry Sliders game for his birthday. AWESOME!! Sorry is a fun game anyway, but the this new version takes it to a whole new level. I highly recommend it as a Christmas gift.