huh?

not sure what to say about that game tonight. osu did not even show up! it was not to fun to watch, but we still had fun with all of our friends who came to help us celebrate...even our uofo friends. who actually put more effort into than i did....yellow and green U of O water that they made labels for. Good job erik! super cool. i was a little distracted today with getting the tree and helping my mom at fred meyers. i had all these great plans to go to the party store and do it right, but another time! at least i got to make the fabulous and amazing mountain dew apple turnovers! yummo.

beavers............you still played a great season and you still get to go to "a" bowl game. lol

Tis the Season

As we were sitting outside circuit city today, trying to turn out into traffic................I literally cannot get out. I say out loud to myself "seriously, what is this?"

Noah turns to me and says "it's just holiday traffic!"

Since Everyone Has Seen It Now

Well I made it through the twilight movie night. I had been sick the night before with the pukies and took thursday off to recover from a very long night of no sleep. But by afternoon I was able to eat and had slept a bunch, so I decided to try and make it to the movie. I picked up my friend Kim and we headed to Old Navy for a little "stay awake" shopping, then on to meet some other friends at Applebees for appetizers and "stay awake" chatter. It helped that I made a pot of coffee at 7pm and was on a little caffeine high, until around 12am. We were so blessed that night, because it was cold and we arrived at the theater to find that our other friend had saved us a place in line! We literally were in the building within 15 minutes! We got amazing seats, played a little guitar hero on my phone, saw more friends in the theater and chatted. The movie was late starting, which made it an even later night. Now...........

I am not going to dissect the movie, but I will say that I never thought it would live up to the book and it did not. But it really lacked that chemistry and connection that I was hoping it would have in there. Chemistry is not made up of smoldering looks for 2hrs. I seriously laughed several times over the looks that were given in this movie, especially when Edward was "drinking" the poisen from Bella, I laugh even now. I am not sure that the studio intended for there to be so much laughter about the movie!

When we sat down at Applebees my friend was saying that her husband told her that evening "that this movie is almost like star wars" with all the hype and lines of people. I leaned over during the movie and told her to tell him that the dialogue in this movie was just as bad as star wars. ha ha.

Plus, did anyone else get caught up with the whole Raineer Beer!!!!!!!!! I keep hearing that jingle in my head, it did not help that everytime it came on screen bobbi and i would say it. And it came on screen a lot.

But overall it was a great night and we had lots of fun and laughter and good food. And let's face it when is the next time I will stay up until 3am just for a vampire movie?

Tonight's The Night

I am ready to swoon and be dazzled. (hopefully)

let's just say that the movie did not get good reviews, but it has such a huge legion of fans that I am sure it will rock the box office this weekend. I love that so many of my co-workers are finally starting to get into it and are talking about it. It brings that initial excitement back!!!

Only 14 hours left!!! Hopefully my pukie stomach will calm down enough that I can go tonight. I was really looking forward to doing something fun. I think that by staying up most of the night last night, I am fully prepared to stay up tonight. ha ha.

I caved

I finally joined facebook and I am totally addicted. now I understand where all my blog friends have gone too. They are on facebook. ha ha. It has only been two days and I need more time to play on it, but real life calls. I need to put a photo up, but I don't have any photos of myself and really bad ones with the family, so I will have to work on that one. So I need all my friends to help me figure all this out. do I have to visit your pages everyday, does it update on my home page so I can read what you have written? Anyway. just thought I would say that I have finally gone and done it! It is nice to see all my girls on it from way up north, excluding DDR.

Plus, update on thursday night. a group of us are going to hit applebees on lancaster around 8:30ish to get some appetizers, then head over to the theater to wait in line so that we can swoon!!! ha ha. anyone else up for it?

Mr Rodgers Neighborhood

The kids are makin' some noise!

look who they met on saturday! the Rodgers' boys!

Always fun to go OSU and watch some Beaver football. The kids really loved it this time. Probably because it was a much closer game and there was lots of yelling and chopping (first down) involved. Noah actually told us he had a great time. We got down there just in time to do two things at fan faire and then head into the game. It was a sold out crowd and it really was a great game. Afterwards we met Julanne and her family at American Dream for some pizza...yummo! The place was packed! Had I not called in the order from the shuttle bus, we would have been sitting there for hours waiting for our pizza. And since we were all completely stuffed, we decided to visit the little gelato place next door. Double Yummo! I got chocolate and autumn suprise, just blogging about it makes me want some! I am really thankful that OSU has started this whole kids go free and parents only pay 1/2 price! It makes it much more affordable for the four of us to go and have fun together.

Lil' Reader

I thought I would post something a little more light hearted than the last post. So today noah came home from school and pulled out his "book" bag. This is a new program for first grade this year and he is very excited about it. In previous years our "language/reading" program consisted of spelling and a reading log. This new program levels off your kids at their Just Right reading levels and they bring home three JR books for an entire week. The goal is for them to read their books, not for you to read to them...although we do both now, because we are right in the middle of Tale of Desperaux. Plus they come home with sight words that they need to practice reading and writing. All in a nice tidy little take home bag!

I will fully admit that I have not worked with Noah very much on his writing, at all. He did not sit around and draw and make up stories like his sister. So at the beginning of the year we had several "letter" practice sheets come home to work on. He is getting better and he has been writing little stories at home, which only helps him in the long run. I can tell that we have a long way to go in the spelling department, but having these sight words come home as homework has been great. We would sit down last year and work on our sight words together and since it was not homework, he really did not want to do them. But now he has no choice. So we read sentences, write them and use our sight word flash cards as homework this year.

I will say that Noah has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 6 months. I finally found several books that he loves to read, some are much higher levels than he is currently "leveled" at, but he handles them just fine. This year we let him stay up for 20-30 minutes after we put him to bed, so that he can read with his headlamp and he loves it. We have let sydnie do that since first grade and we always just read to noah before bed. But this year, he finally gets to read in bed, although I am pretty sure that he would lay upstairs and read last year (we just pretended that we did not know).

He has changed levels three times since school started and is reading at the beginning of second grade level!!! He is so excited about that. He finally found that confidence that he had been lacking. His comprehension is amazing and he knows that he can read harder books as well as the little story ones that he comes home with. He is an excellent reader and I am thankful that he loves to read so much.

Did anyone else see?

Did anyone else watch the special on TLC about Purity Balls? I have been processing this today, not really sure how I feel about it. Let me state that I believe in purity for my kids. That they save themselves for their spouses, but I will admit that it really disturbed me to watch these little 5 year old girls parroting what their parents had taught them about staying pure and waiting. They were so little, do they really understand? But then on the same hand, you have to start training them young with the right way. Because before you know it they are grown and talking about boyfriends and all that good stuff. It happens so quickly.

I don't know.......I just thought some good discussion could come out of it. I think that it really bugged me when the 11 year old girl was talking to the interviewer and she was sitting next to her dad and every time she would answer a question, her eyes would shift towards her dad and she was extremely nervous.

But I also love that dads "date" their daughters, because it really is true that your first experience with men is through your father. And how you view your heavenly father is ultimately decided by how your father treats you.

I am just not sure. I believe in praying for my children and their decisions now, things that will affect them. That they will meet their spouse and be pure. I believe in talking with your children and helping them along that path through prayer and open honest communication. But a ball? Now discuss..................can you tell i am all across the board with this right now. sometimes talking about a concept like this can help me sort through what i am thinking.

Ariel, the bear

Took the birthday girl to Build a Bear for her third Bday today. It was a complete suprise, she had no idea what BAB was, she was super excited once we went into the store. I could not wait to see what she would chose and how adament she would be about it. She looked at the puppies and kitties, but suddenly she saw the pink heart bear and literally ran over to it, picked it up and never looked back. ha ha. She chose the giggle sound to put in her bear's paw and hugged and kissed the heart to put into the tummy of her bear. She was fascinated by the stuffing and how her bear came to life. Then it was off to the bath.......loved it. Then came the fun part, dressing your bear. Unfortunately we did not get far in that process, because she found the ariel mermaid costume and that was it!!! It even came with a red wig!!! So we named it (ariel) and she picked up her birth certificate and she carried her bear out to the car to love on it the whole way home. Good memories!

Conversations

A conversation had between children is almost always adorable and totally sincere. This one occured tonight as we were in the car, Thad was explaining one of his apologetix songs to the kids and my niece:

Thad: This song is about what is wrong with our world and heaven and stuff
Noah: I know the "H" word dad, I know what it is, but I just can't say it
Ryen: I don't know what it is, can you tell me
Noah: It is hell, it is where you go when you don't have Jesus in your heart. you just need to have your dad pray with you to ask Jesus into your heart, so that you can go to heaven.
Ryen: But I don't know how you go up to the sky?
Noah: You don't you just "pop" out of this world up to where Jesus lives!
Ryen: Ummmmm....aunt shell can you help me open my juice now?


I was seriously laughing so hard I was crying. I am sure that I don't have it written down correctly, but it will in my memory for a long, long time.

Home

Just got home from a retreat this weekend, tired! I am ready to head to bed and sleep off the lack of sleep. I love girl time and hanging out and just being. Ate at McMennamins, Yum! I love the beach so beautiful, even when it is stormy. I was nervous to go, since I am still figuring out who people are and don't know them very well, but it was great. I was probably more quiet than usual, but I was observing and watching. But it was good and I am glad I went.

The kids are at my parents house, so once I got home Thad and I went on a date together. Went to see Fireproof. Not bad, certainly cheesy, but the message was the most important part. Then we went and had some mexican food.

So now I am off to bed to sleep the night away. Don't have to work tomorrow and the kids are gone. YAY!

i have them

i have the tickets in my hot little hands...........anyone else up for the 12:01 showing of Twilight. Just because I have to work the next day, does not mean that I am not going!!! I think we have decided that we are going to go to applebees before and have some appetizers and maybe some strong coffee, so that we can stay awake for the movie. One of the ladies I am going with said that if we were at home at 8pm, that we would be in my pajamas ready to watch some tv and then we would probably fall asleep, i totally agreed with that, so out on the town it is.

Anyone else up for it? I know the church group is going, right? We will be there, ready to watch our beloved book take its turn on the big screen. I have no doubt that Rob will live up to the edward fantasy, but hopefully it is well written and edited well. I know the soundtrack is going to be amazing!

Historic Night

No matter what you believe or don't believe. Last night was a historic night for America. My children will remember this election and it will be in the history books. They watched the updates with us last night and by the time my husband was home, it was decided. I can only imagine that the country feels like and has this ferver that is similiar to JFK. I don't know the statistics of margins and all that, but the feel and mood and tone reminds me of an era that changed our country.

This is not a political blog, but I felt it was important to remember the significance of this night in our countries history.

It is SOOOOO Almost Time

I was at the local movie theatre yesterday and saw the poster for twilight! It is almost here. all the waiting, all the blog checking, all the "should-i-go-to-the-set" thinking! I love this pix of the guys mocking their Huge, Phenomenal Hit in the making. I will have to say that the guy who is playing jacob, I love him. my kids still remember him from shark boy/lava girl movie, ha ha.

I will tell you that I am cautiously, optimistic about this movie. I am really hoping that it lives up to the book, but they never do. I have not been too impressed with the trailers that i have seen, I hope they have some serious editing going on, but if not, it will at least be fun to head to the midnight showing with my friends and just enjoy!

Worst Fears Realized

Took the kids to Gilbert House today with their cousins and my two had a blast in the amazon room, even went so far as to dress up. Until Noah looked over at his sister, both dressed like flowers, and he exclaimed

"Oh NO!!! I'm a girl flower!!!!"

He saw the bow on the neck and the immediately took it off....I am still laughing. This is going to be a great blackmail picture one day. He cracks me up. He has this serious aversion to all things girly right now. Last week I was going to take Syd to HSM 3 with some friends and their daughters, but I had no where for Noah to go and he begged me to not take him to a girly movie!!! So we waited until he could stay home with dad and do yardwork and build legos! He came home from school this week, so excited about a story he had written about going fishing with Grandpa. He is all about the boy stuff right now, but he still gets his feelings hurt when his one girl friend won't play with him at recess. So cute, how can you not just hug on him? He is dressed in a flower costume, from jedi master to flower 12 hours!

A Little Fruit

Rock Star

Anakin

Sleeping Beauty and Chiquita Banana

So here is the official recap......................WE HAD A BLAST!!!! We are still on a sugar high and hopefully will land in bed early tonight to recover from the costume wearing, candy getting, sugar eating, major hyper fun.

We started our day with our annual Book Character Dress Up day at school. Of course this year I had to participate as well and since it was a last minute decision, I went as Meggie from "Inkheart" a twelve year old who can read book characters to real life. We partied in Noah's room with some games and cupcakes, Syd had some serious cookie action going on in her room and I was completely exhausted by the time we left school. But being the super mom I am, I decided to make dinner for our guests that were coming and make a special, suprise dinner of Mummy hot dogs and ghost breadsticks for the kids. YUM!

My adorable niece and equally cute and cudly nephew came to our house to trick or treat, thus the princess and the chiquita!!! We were walking door to door and the older kids would run and leave ryen in the dust, but the princess just hiked up her skirt and ran right after them! At one door she even won the motherload of all candies and received a huge, giant candy bar for being so cute. It was a really great night to be out and have fun with family.

So of course once we got home the kids rifled through their candy, picking out their favorites and deciding which to keep and which to give to the candy fairy! Sydnie received the HSM3 Soundtrack and Noah got a lego set. This morning he ran in to the art room to tell me that he already had this lego set, I said that maybe we could exhange it at Target to which he replied....

"I knew it, I knew you were the candy fairy!"

"Are you the candy fairy?"

I am not sure how much longer I can pull off the whole candy switcheroo, but at least they know that they get something really cool in return!!! I love halloween. I think I wanted to go to more houses than they did. When your eight year old tells you that she has enough candy, you know it is time to stop. ha ha.