Twilight mania

I'm sure that it should be no surprise to anyone who reads my blog that I am a big Twilight fan! Not as big as Lauren, but still a big fan. I first read the books in November over Thanskgiving weekend while traveling to and from Idaho to spend the holiday with my side of the family. I could NOT put them down. From day one I have been a Jacob fan too. Oh yeah baby! Warm-blooded werewolves are way more my thing than cold statuesque vampires. Well...long story short....I just reread the books again in anticipation for Breaking Dawn's release and I found that yes, I still like Jacob a lot. Probably more for ME actually than for Bella. I have changed my tune a bit and I do now think that Bella and Edward belong together.
I have seen all the movie trailers and I am so excited! It is going to be a HUGE girls night out event with all my girlfriends. They are right on target with all the actors they got to play the different roles. I was a little iffy about who they got for Edward for a while, but I have changed my tune about that as well. He is very nice to look at.
Not so much in this picture. I think he looks weird, but I am still gonna buy the magazine anyway!Actually, it is this picture that convinced me. Seriously. I am not a teenager with raging hormones anymore. My husband would probably argue that I have lost my hormones (except the ornery ones that is), but HOLY COW! Is he not just HOT in this photo? I think I will take a page from Jenny's book and print off a copy of this to hang on my door! *(She has Jonas bros on hers)

I'm sure that Mike won't mind. ;]

WoRdLeSs WeDnEsDaY

He kissed and told about it

How can you resist this face? Ha Ha. No really, he can give this one look that will just make you melt. AND...he is only 4!

Today on the way home from church he told Mike, "Dad, I told Halle today that I love her. And she said I love you too."

Mike said, "oh really..."

Then the bombshell,"And then I kissed her."

Later when I was questioning why he was kissing ANY OTHER GIRL besides MOMMY...he said to me, "We kissed, so now we can get married."

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH! I am so Not prepared for this! This is just the sort of thing that I expected from Meghan, not from Jonathan! The problem is that Halle is so stinking cute, no little boy in his right mind could resist her. (I hope she at least told her mom that Jonathan kissed her and that it isn't being found out right now by them reading my blog. I don't even know if they read my blog....)

So yeah, we have a playboy around our house. The excitement never stops.

Random, random, random

So first off, some randoms need said....

1. Dark Knight ROCKED! Mike and I went on a date (a DATE!) on Wednesday night (thanks Shan and John for watching the kiddos) and we went and saw it. Mike was dying because apparently he "wanted" to fight the crowds and go on opening night, but we were in Idaho for the temple open house. So, instead we were 5 days later in seeing it and it did not disappoint! Love, love, love Christian Bale! And Heath Ledger was a VERY believeable Joker. I'm not jumping on the give-him-an-Oscar bandwagon, but he was super creepy and super good in character.

2. We try to take the kids to the dollar store once a month. Well, we have missed a few months as the kids keep reminding us, so today when it was too hot to work out in the yard, we loaded up in the car, got the kids their $2 each out of their money jars, and headed for Dollar Tree. Oh yeah! Fun times! I bought for myself a new heel scraper and some silicone brushes for cooking with. Oh yeah, and toothbrushes for the Stake activity thing we are having next month. (our ward got assigned to bring 200 toothbrushes) ...ANyWAy...
We always let the kids buy whatever they want. WHATEVER. Sometimes that backfires on us. Like the time that Jenny bought maracas. She now doesn't not get to buy anything musical...and for good reason too. Jonathan usually buys toy cars or guns, Rachel gets dolls, but Meghan....well, lets just say that she goes into the dollar store with a mission and does anything she can to accomplish it. Today was "mission accomplished"! She seriously is a fashionista. She just is. I couldn't help but take her picture when we got home of her and her $2 spent. YOU GO GIRL! 3. Sidney is apparently an "apprentice" fashionista because every day (no, seriously...everyday!) she pulls open the bottom drawer of my hope chest where random things have been placed and pulls out Meghan sling from when she broke her arm 2 years ago and then she drapes it around her neck. It's so cute! Sometimes Jonathan puts his batman cape on her too and then she looks really silly! And she will just toddle around the house dressed like that for hours and hours. :] It's all about accessorizing!!

"...Take a chance on me...."

OH MY FREAKING HECK!!! Me and the girls (NOt my kids...my girlfriends) went last night to Mamma Mia! It was so good! Even the singing, which I was worried about, was really quite good. I am not a big fan of Peirce Brosnan, but I actually liked him in this movie! And Colin Firth, a.k.a. Mr. Darcy, was so cute in this film! And Molly Weasley was one of the friends of Meryl Streep and she was HI-larious! (well, it wasn't REALLY Molly Weasley, just the actress that plays her on the Harry Potter movies) Anyway, we laughed so hard that we were almost crying. Plus, we got to go to the new Syracuse 6 Cinema and support the local businesses. I always like to do that.

Now I have ABBA songs running through my head! I love that!! Can't wait to get the CD!!

Wouldn't it be Loverly?

We introduced the kids to My Fair Lady last week on our way to Idaho. I had borrowed the soundtrack from the Broadway version (starring Julie Andrews) from the library and we listened to it in the car. They loved it! Especially Meghan, but then again, Mike and I are convinced that she has selective listening unless what you are saying is actually being sung. Seriously.

So last night, Mike didn't feel like finishing mowing the lawn, and so we went downstairs to our very cool basement and put in the video of My Fair Lady (starring Audrey Hepburn) that I had also borrowed from the library. Now let me preface this next comment by saying that I LOVE MUSICALS. I do. From Oklahoma to the Sound of Music to South Pacific. I am a musical lover. And this movie has by far been one of my favs my whole life also.

BUT....

After hearing Julie Andrews be Eliza Doolittle and sing all the songs....I am convinced that the movie producers of 1964 made a HUGE mistake when they didn't cast her to play the movie version of the Broadway show that she totally ROCKED in. Dipwods anyway. She was superb and I would take that any day over Audrey lipsyncing the songs. Really.

The best part of watching this with the kids though has been their reactions. Well, not even so much as their reactions as to hearing them sing the songs all week long. Even Jonathan was singing "Wouldn't it be Loverly" this morning. And to top it all off.... Rachel is our resident policeman-she is always telling everyone what they are doing wrong- she informed me this morning that "they said Damn on the movie 10 times Mom!" *sigh* I only counted 8 times. Guess I was wrong.

Flashback Friday and the Hotties

This is one of my most FAVORITE pictures from my childhood. It is so classic. The girl on the left is my sister Amy, then me in the middle, and then my sister Marni on the right. I LOVE our swimsuits and you can see the sprinkler in the background. Plus, check out the CAR! I lovingly like to call this photo our "Swimsuit Issue Cover Shot". 'Cuz it is!

*oh yeah, and I was probably about 3 yrs old in this pic, so Amy would be 5 and Marni 7. We knew how to "work it" at a young age, dontcha think??

Meghan and the Giant cabbage

Meghan was in 3rd grade last year and apparently as part of the curriculum, a cabbage is sent home with each kid for them to take care of and grow. Not just any cabbage either. A GIANT cabbage. Because why? That's frankly what I want to know.

Regardless of the why, we of course got sucked into this little experiment. Meghan babied her little cabbage plant in our house until we could transplant it to our garden. I was secretly hoping it would die from the shock of being transplanted. Unfortunately, it is super hardy too! Anyway, by the end of the school year, just Meghan's cabbage and one other child's were still alive and well. And then when Meghan came home on the last day of school she reported that she was the only one left in her class that still had a cabbage. Oh well then, hooray for us. *sigh*

I am trying to be a good sport about this and give my child this "wonderful" opportunity to do something amazing. But at the same time, my brain is yelling at me..."What the HE** are you going to do with a a50 pound head of cabbage?"

Anyway, enjoy the picture of Meghan and her cabbage. It just keeps growing and growing and .... someday, she will wake up and in the night the cabbage thieves will have come and absconded her cabbage. (Or at least I HOPE they will) Bummer.

WoRdLeSs WeDnEsDaY

We love to see the Temple!

On Saturday, we were in Idaho to go to the open house of the new Twin Falls Idaho Temple. I grew up in the small town of Buhl, about 20 minutes from Twin and I KNEW that I HAD to go see this temple! The kids were enthralled by the beauty of the temple and it was so neat. After the temple, Mike and I and our kids and my folks drove over to Shoshone Falls to see the water going over. It was supposed to be at full capacity, but I honestly have seen those falls fuller. It was kind of a disappointment, but my kids were still impressed.

Imagine the water going over the falls all the way around (left to right) the same or more as the amount going over on the left side in the above picture. That is what I remember.

We had a BBQ at my sister's house, and just generally "hung out" the rest of the time. That's what you want from a weekend vacation, right?

Flashback Friday and memories

Several months ago I borrowed some photo albums from my mom's house and brought them home to scan into my computer. They were photos from when I was a kid and stuff. It was so fun. Some things I remembered, some I vaguely remembered and some that I didn't remember at all.

I don't remember the above picture at all. Seriously, I'm all of 18 months in that pic. Like I am gonna remember that! Anyway, as I checked it out, some funny things occurred to me. First of all, look at that death-trap of a stroller that I am in. And apparently I would just "hang out" in that thing because there are lots of shots of me in it. Second, that is my sister Marni beside me. She is 4 years older than me. She's eating something, but I can't figure out what it is. Wish I knew... Third, CHECK OUT OUR CARS!! WOW! Talk about vintage, eh?? Those alone date me a little, but so fun to see. I remember that old Ford pickup like it was yesterday. I loved that pickup. (So did my brother!!)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this week's Flashback Friday! I know I did!!

Wordless Wednesday

Flashback Friday and Sidney is my twin

This is me when I was 17 months old. I was looking through my pictures the other day and happened to notice this one and how similar I looked to how Sidney looks. Even our hair curls up in the back the same way.
This is Sidney. She is only 14 months old, but the idea is the same. WE LOOK A LOT ALIKE, huh??

Tagged from Shannon

So my friend Shannon did this fun tag thing on her blog. She tagged herself and since I am a copycat, I tagged myself to do it also. Here it is:

10 things I hate but wish I didn't
1. Fish (it's the smell...can't stand it, but fish is good for me)
2. slow people, or people being slow on purpose
3. water (it's the reason I don't know how to swim)
4. making dinner
5. cleaning (cuz seriously, my house needs to be cleaner)
6. yardwork (I really should care more......)
7. exercise
8. water
9. ?
10. ?

10 things I love but wish I didn't
1. caffeinated pop
2. stupid television shows (girls next door, living lohan,etc)
3. sitting on my fat butt
4. food
5. surfing on the computer
6. Facebook
7. spending money
8. reading (my family gets SOOOOO NEGLECTED when I start a new book...)
9. juice (not the best thing for a diabetic)
10. chocolate (it's the reason I can't lose more weight, I swear!!)

So, if you think this is fun....tag yourself and play along!

Meghan

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family search - Old photos

Jenny

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family pictures - Geneology

Rachel

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Jonathan

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Printable family tree - Free genealogy websites

Who do I look like??

Sidney

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Ancestory - Family tree outline

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Slippin' and a-slidin'

After the parade, in the afternoon, we went over to Shannon's for a BBQ. She had the little pool and the slip-n-slide set up and the kids got their suits on and went to town! It was so hot out and they wanted to cool off! Jenny getting water in the face while testing out the slip-n-slide.
Meghan doing some sort of weird squinty thing with her eye while grabbing for the stick thing.
Even Sidney wanted to get in on the action!!
Jonathan trying the feet first approach to sliding.
And Rachel all tangled up a slidin'!

Parade time!

It was Heritage Days in Syracuse this past week and Saturday morning was the parade. My friend Shannon took her kids and went early to save a spot for all of us to enjoy for the watching of the parade. (Thanks Shannon!) Here is all our her kids, my kids, and her neighbors kids lined up with their bags ready to grab some candy!!!
Giving the policemen "5". So cool! (or at least, that is what Meghan said)
The best part of the whole parade was seeing the 6 missionaries serving in Syracuse ride their bikes in the parade. No joke, I think they got the most cheers and cat calls of any float in the entire parade!! It was awesome!!

The last is the best

I thought I would end the posts about the family campout by putting on my bloggy some pictures I took of the fun moments around camp.
Amy, Gina, Bryan (Gina's boyfriend), and Andi looking at magazines and talking about the latest stuff. *Amy,Gina, and Andi are three of my sisters. We had to stop on the roadside on the way to the campground for Jonathan to use the bathroom. What? You can't SEE the bathroom? Neither could we, but he dropped his shorts and went anyway!
Kelsey (who is 13) riding on Shiney's (who is 4) bike. She was just a teensy bit big for it and that is what made it fun!
Sidney cuddling up with Bryan. She seems to have a bit of a crush on him. She would just coo and almost giggle every time she saw him or he held her.
Sidney standing up in the camping chair with her binkie hanging out one side of her mouth. She is such a goof!