Twilight

How do I even begin to describe that insane night? Tons of teenagers, women, older women, a few brave dudes trying to impress their girlfriends.....hormones out to wazoo.



Let's go from the beginning...I was hightailing it back to town so that I could meet up with my girlfriends to stand in line at 6pm. We all carpooled over to the theater and it was already packed. Apparently the highschoolers beelined it to the theater once school got out. LOL. Well, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we split into two groups--half stayed in line while the other half went and got sushi. Of course, I was with the group getting the sushi. :) Kelly and I made ourselves comfortable at the restaurant (Mijuri--oh yum!) and ordered a yummy feast. About an hour later we made our way back with an order for Gail. We highly recommend the shrimp tempura.



So we're in line FOREVER. There were actually five auditoriums showing Twilight that night. We were supposed to be seated at 9pm...but it didn't happen til, oh, 10:30 or closer to 11. So annoying. Not annoying having to stand there, but it was annoying cause people in front of us were letting TONS of late-coming friends get in line with them. Dude, there's a reason we show up so stinkin early--to get a good seat. Call us old (well, being 25-40 is reasonably old with this angst crowd), but it was really gettin on our nerves when the line which was only about 20 ahead of us swelled to almost twice that size. And you know, it was hot, everyone was anxiously excited--and we had a pregnant girl in our midst (in my group). She had NO qualms with bringing our irritation to the managers attention (no qualms WHATSOEVER). I believe that my group was trying so hard not to laugh (I believe some were ducking their heads out of embarrassment). Well, the manager took one look at Suzanne's furious face and her expanding belly and quickly set a guard at the front to watch for line cutters. And when the guard didn't catch them all and Suzanne complained again (LOL) they placated her with her choice of ice cream AND pulled her to the front of the line so that she could be the first one in the auditorium. Note to all--when you want a good seat, bring a hormonal preggo with you. :)



Now I have to say, as much of a "gotta go to the midnight show" person that I am, I was nervous about seeing THIS particular movie at that time. I seriously considered actually going Friday morning so that I could avoid all the shrieking "OM-EDWARD!!!" teenagers and all the screaming that was surely to happen at his every appearance. However, fate was with us that night--a group of girls in front of our row requested of the auditorium that all screaming/cheering/crying wait til the credits. Everyone turned to eyeball the crazies beseeching this request but kept their opinions to themselves when they noticed Suzanne sitting behind them. :) (Again, gotta love her). So we got to enjoy the movie thoroughly--there was appropriate enthused applause at the right times, muted squeals, and silent cheering. We got to sit back and enjoy the movie--and WHAT A MOVIE!!!!! Absolutely hilarious at times, right in with the book (at other times)--definitely a must see. They've already announced the making of New Moon--hopefully with a much bigger budget, they'll be able to stick to the book storyline a bit more.

Ah yes, last photo. Of course Gail and I had t-shirts made for the occasion. Tons of girls were wearing Twilight shirts although I think ours were the only one-a-kind (we went to a place downtown that does graphic designs for shirts). :) It was still fun to check out what everyone was wearing. Well, it was fun til I spotted some dude wearing a "bite me" shirt. It's the one with the bitten apple on it which you can order off of Stehpenie Meyer's website. No big deal--except that this was a girl's fitted shirt. So, really high in the sleeves, tight around his chest, curvy around the waist--GUH-ROSS!!!!



So to end the crazy-but-totally-worth-it night, we car pool back home and I crashed at Gail's (I believe hit the sack around 3am). My alarm woke me up at 5:45 so that I could be on the road just before 6am. I was able to roll in at 7:30am to finish getting my kiddos ready for school (a HUGE thank you to Meg for coming and watching my kiddos for me!).

I was pretty much worthless the rest of the day--not just from sleep deprivation, but I was also getting sick. Penance for a day off? I'll take it! But my question now is--who's gonna go to the midnight showing of Harry Potter with me next summer? :)

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice....

This was the absolute best thing EVER that I bought last year. I help Santa with his nice and naughty list on a daily basis. We brought this out yesterday.

Let the games begin....hehehe.

Testing...1,2,3..testing....

Here's a lovely topic: potty training. Jacob has had the hardest time staying dry at night. Every night he wears a pull up (and up until 3 nights ago that pull up has been absolutely soaked by morning). I tried everything--no water after 8 (and when that didn't work then I moved it to 7pm), making sure he goes right before bed, going first thing in the morning. Nothing helped--he's just an immensely deep sleeper and simply doesn't wake up when his body says "I gotta go!". So for the past week, I've been getting him up at 10pm and around 4-4:30am to go (I personally don't set my alarm for that--I just randomly wake up each morning and force myself to get up to get Jacob to the bathroom). Amazingly, the past 3 nights he's been completely dry! Honestly, that the first three nights of dryness in almost 7 years for him. I totally owe him some yummy Andy's for this.

So here's the test--let's try to stay dry with UNDERWEAR on tonight. His poor face became terrified at the thought when I suggested it earlier today. But he's putting on a brave face and prepping himself tonight. And I think he's actually a bit excited now. I'm still gonna wake him up at the wee hours on both sides of the sound tonight/tomorrow.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.....(and I'm still keeping a water-proof pad under him just in case). :)


UPDATE: Test was successful. :)

I'm headed to see the midnight showing of Twilight Thursday night with my girlfriends from back home(!!!!). Since picking up the books a few weeks ago I've been obsessed with them--in fact I haven't touched Harry Potter since then (that's quite an accomplishment right there). Well, I happened to check out one of my favorite sites (www.the-leaky-cauldron.org) and glimpsed this new trailer:



OH. MY. GOSH. I'm thinking it's about time to ditch the Twilight series (for a while at least) at pick up my Harry Potter books again. Maybe start listening to the audio books in my car again. Or put them on my mp3 player and listen while jogging...back on the wagon again!

Just more fun pics of the kiddos....

Allow me to explain this one--remember how a few posts back I said that the kids were all learning to run/chase very carefully in the house? And mainly it was Jacob and Julia aquiring all the injuries? Well, apparently Evelyn's hitting a growth spurt. That girl has been biffing it left, right and center the entire past week. See the whole side of her face? That from tripping over her own feet right outside Walmart (of course it was before going in...). The very next day she fell again and scraped up her knees and the palms of her hands. For three days after she continued to fall and bump some sort of body part. It got to be so bad that I banished her from running, jogging, skipping, ect. She was to hold my hand at all times whenever we were out. I just couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt again. But she hasn't fallen in about two days now...maybe she's done growing for now. I hope so!


Here's a rare moment when they were actually all smiling AND sitting still!

Putting up the tree

Yeah, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but hey....why not? I found a Christmas CD and put that in the surround sound in the living room (A Normal Rockwell Christmas) and the kids and I had tons of fun decorating.







The kids were so excited to have the tree up--they begged to be able to sleep in the living room. So here's Jacob completely konked out (Evelyn's on the next couch over).


Mind you, we, for the first time, don't have a fire place and Julia's first question was "How is Santa going to get into the house without a chimney?". It has slipped Ryan's and my mind how that works exactly.....Mom? Papa? Any suggestions?

It's in the air....

Dad, this new look is for you. Ryan's out of town and the kids and I have plans to put the tree up this weekend. Julia and I were debating where to put it in the living room.

So Joycelyn...when are you putting yours up? :)

And for anyone heading to St. Louis, check out the radio station 101--they're playing endless Christmas music. :):):)

Our new home

Our house is actually a very long duplex...the middle wall was taken out of this one and so we get the entire thing to ourselves. :) You'll get to see how it's entirely wood floors inside. I thought it was great--for about 30 minutes. I think that was how long it took til one of the kids biffed it. And it didn't stop there. The first weekend here, Jacob fell so often that he aquired two huge bloody noses, the biggest fat lip I'd ever seen (he couldn't even speak right cause of it), and his very first black eye. Julia received her first black eye too. They've quickly learned how to run on their toes. :) Of course, we could just avoid the spills if there simply wasn't any running in the house....but good gosh, we're talking about kids here! ;) So one of the first things I invested in was a large rug for the living room and a couple of floor runners for the hallways.


I wasn't able to fit all of it in this picture...it's missing the other front entry way, the other drive way, ect....it humors me that it's yellow. Reminds me of the house which I grew up in. :)



Here's my awesome living room...it's HUGE! (Looks are deceiving, I have the furniture pulled out about 1-2 feet from the walls on all sides to make it more cozy). It's actually supposed to be a living room/dining room, but there's NO WAY that our living room furniture would fit in there along with the dining room table...talk about scrunched.










So we moved our dining room into this room instead...



It was originally a bedroom (hence the closet right there)...you can see on the floor where it divides and there was a wall at some point. It was a wall that connected both sides of the duplex.



Here's the other end of the now very long room. I use it for a computer space (since it's the size of a normal bedroom over there anyway). The closet right there is nice...stores extra computer/desk such. You can catch a glimpse of the kids literally running from one end of the house to another.









This is the other living room/dining room (since we have both sides of the duplex, that means we have two of these along with two kitchens--though I use the extra kitchen for my laundry room). This room is just as enormous as the other living room. I thought it'd be perfect for a play room (or as a wii room, as we call it around here). I LOVE the huge windows (which take up almost the entire wall). If we were actually going to be here longer, then I'd be investing in tons of curtains. As it is, this place has 26 very wide windows. So much better than the FIVE we had in our old house!


My very outdated kitchen...but oh well. It actually has lots of cabinets (there a whole other row on the other wall next to the refrigerater) and then if I still need more, then there's always my spare kitchen (which also has a refrigerater in there too).




And here's is Julia's very own room (she's loving having it all to herself!).




We're all settled in--it only took maybe a week to get it all put together. The kids adjusted wonderfully to their new school and new schedules. The ward here is nice...mostly military. And I found out that when a new military family moves in, they're typically only there for maybe 3-4 months. So if you miss a couple of weeks at church, when you go back, it's like walking into a new ward. LOL. And I thought the bishops at BYU had it bad trying to hand out callings and such.

We are sooooooo happy to be living as a whole family. I'll never take that blessing for granted ever again!

More pictures of our daily life to come soon.....

Witch Crap and Weirdry

I know it's been FOREVER since the last post...and truly, I've been meaning to get around to it, but life happens and there's always something that is needing my attention. Well, life happened just a minute ago and I simply have to share this funny tidbit......

So Julia wrote a Harry Potter chapter today. It's called "Harry Potter and the Mystery of Malfoy". She was so excited and quite frankly, I was very interested to read what she came up with (she has a very creative mind). Well, a few lines into it, she wrote how Draco's dad put a spell on him which caused him to be the mean boy at Hogwarts Witch Crap and Weirdry!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!! I could not stop laughing....soooooo funny! She read the line out loud to me and apparently she thinks it reads "Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry". :) LOVE THIS GIRL!!!