shopped til i dropped

My mom and I headed out bright and early yesterday morning for a day of shopping. We left her house at 8:45, headed to this....

It was awesome!! I have always heard amazing things about the Nutcracker Market but I had never been, and surprisingly my mom hadn't ever been either! So we got there around 9:15 and got in the enormous line to enter by 9:30. The doors opened at 10 and we shopped and shopped and walked and walked and had a short break for lunch. We didn't get in the car to leave until 5:20!! Neither one of us could believe it! We both thought we would be back home sometime in the early afternoon! I also woke up this morning with sore arms from carrying all our shopping bags!! haha! I wish I had thought to take a camera or take pictures of this momentous occasion. If only I had known how awesome it would be. When we first got there and were standing in line to get in, I took a little potty break and all the ladies in the restroom were SO excited. (the Reliant people had even closed some of the men's restrooms and turned them into women's restrooms. Good idea! I'm pretty sure my husband would have poked his eyes out if I had even attempted to take him to this!!) My favorite quote of the day was from a lady talking to her friends, "Ya'll are just gonna love this!! It's like a craft show on steroids!! EEEEE!!!" So funny!! But she was right, it was awesome, I did love it, and I loved going with my mom. If there was anything I thought was super cute but I couldn't afford to buy it, I would convince her to get it, so she got even more adorable things than I did!! Now I can just admire them in her home and hope that someday when she gets tired of them they'll get passed on to me. :)

I got:

5 rolls of wrapping paper

11 boxes for wrapping presents

3 rolls of tulle

1 roll of adorable metallic raffia

2 scarves

1 decor item for my house

1 Christmas kitchen towel

and 5 christmas presents

I wish I could post pictures of all the adorable things I got but then I would spoil the Christmas surprise for some special someones! Only now as I'm reading this am I kicking myself for not buying ANY christmas decorations. Oh well, maybe next year. My favorite booths we shopped at were:

Amber Marie & Co.

The Royal Standard

The Round Top Collection (I guess they only sell wholesale but I found this website that sells a ton of their stuff too at Elizabeth's Embellishments)

and

The Paul Michael Company (This place was awesome. Their "booth" was the entire back corner of the Reliant Arena. Texas has finally given me a replacement for TaiPan! Their only store in Texas is in Canton but hey, it's closer than Utah and it's a good excuse to see my girls in Dallas for a shopping trip!)

All in all, the shopping was great, I probably spent too much but at least most of it wasn't for me, and I had a great day with my mama.