Highlights for July

Here's what happened in a nutshell :)

**Husband had tonsils and adenoids out about 3 weeks ago. Luckily, he isjust barely starting to eat regular food. still sore, but every day is getting better. That was a rough surgery and a whole lot worse than one would expect. He pretty much lived off drinking water, suffering through jello for the first few days. After 2 weeks, he lost 15-20 pounds.

**Reading a lot of books -- working on a different post on all of the books and what I'm excited to read, coming soon

**Went to opening night of Harry Potter with my sister Lisa. Definitely enjoyed the movie, but they left out a lot of fun parts in the book. But overall turned out better than I expected. I actually liked the director and I'm looking forward to what he'll do in the last 2 movies of the last book.

So it was crazy at opening night. A LOT of people dressed up, but here are 2 pics of our favorite outfits from the night. 1st place to the guy dressed as a Nimbus 2000 broom, he got points for creativity and most unique. Then 2nd for the lady that looks just like Professor McG. She is surrounded by a little red headed harry potter and a very young Dolores Umbridge.

**We got a bunk bed for girls to share! The girls have been sharing a room since January and have done sooo well! We decided to get them out of toddler beds and into a fun bunk bed. I love this bed.

After the first couple nights of the 2 yr old falling out of the bottom bunk, we got some bed rails. Now they both like sleeping on the bottom bunk. I posted a picture to show you how they share.

**The girls wanted to put curlers in their hair one day --Here are the results!

Trailers

Honestly, I haven't felt like blogging. I may have pictures to share, but until I get around to it, I'll leave you with a few movie trailers i'm really looking forward to :) If you'll notice, I did not include the New Moon trailer. I'm stil planning on seeing the movie opening night, but I do not have high expectations, and the acting in the trailer is dreadful. ;)

Enjoy these trailers! sorry they are a bit cut off.

Where the Wild Things Are - October 16

Sherlock Holmes - Christmas

If today was your last day -- Nickelback.

I can't get this song out of my head, I ended up buying the CD. :)

Birthday Day Pics

We kept most things low-key this year for her birthday. I decorated the house, made a cake, and bought a few presents. We were lucky to have my husbands mom and sister in town and they were able to come that morning for opening presents.

Opened her present and couldn't wait to blow it up so she could jump!

Later that afternoon my dad made a quick visit to our home (when I say quick, I mean quick, maybe 20 minutes) but he was already running late for a meeting. I was just happy to see him. He gave my girls bubble toys, Play-Doh, and a few other fun things. They've already opened up the play-doh...outside.

All dressed up in her jump-o-lene with her new red microphone! Her dad got her a mirco-phone because she LOVES to sing ALL the time. our little song bird. Now the trick is keeping it from her sister. ;)

After we sung happy birthday, had cake and ice cream, my mom came by the house and gave Melody a little tricycle. I think she enjoyed being in the spotlight all day, her sister on the other hand did not like it at all. :)

On her new set of wheels...needs shoes to touch the wheels. :)

Birthday Cake Pics

My sister has been asking me to get these pictures up. So here are the pictures of the cake I made for my youngest last week. :) the top was fun-fetti and the bottom was strawberry. In the middle I did a whipped cream cheese frosting that ended up dripping down the sides, which I ended up liking. The frosting I made for the top wasn't stiff enough for the stars I was planning on doing, so I improvised. That's about it. Fun to make!

Weekend Reunion

This weekend was the family reunion on my dad's side. All the festivities were up north, closer to where the majority live. I missed the first day, but managed to make it up for the 2nd day. Honestly, I chose one day and committed myself to the entire day, I didn't want to drive up for both days. :) I thought I took more pictures than this. Anyway, the day started at my uncles house where we had a DELICIOUS breakfast and socialized. I hadn't been to this house in years, and they made some really great improvements to made it comfortable for 50+ people to be there. :)

Afterwards, my dad and his little family (and older kids+their kids) went to his house for the afternoon. The rest of the reunion went swimming. Darn...forgot my suit! I assumed the original plan was cancelled due to all the rain we were having. We let the kids play at my dads, which was really fun. My dad has a little playground, a new trampoline, and a tire swing. All the kids were having a great time.

My dad and 4 of the kids on the tire swing.

My little one on the tire swing. She LOVED it, couldn't get her off.

My little sisters, Lydia and Leah. Cute curly red-heads. :)

My girls with my hubby on the trampoline. My girls LOVE to jump.

Had to put a picture of Amy and Alice.

The evening ended with a huge buffet of food and talking. For me it was really nice to see all my Aunts, Uncles, cousins and cousins little kids. :) I'm not up north enough to see them very often. And this family keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'd need a pen, paper, maybe a few charts and graphs to figure out how many we are up to. haha. Had a great weekend with family!

Hair Drama Pictures

Some of you may have heard, yesterday my neighbors son decided to cut my daughters beautiful LONG blonde hair. For those that know my daughter, she has never really had a lot of hair from the start and it has taken almost 5 years to get it to that length. Obviously their is not very much you can do except work with what you have and HOPE that it grows out fast. AND it could have been worse, right?

To make a long story short, when my daughter came home with her new haircut from the 5 yr old boy, I was upset, shocked, worried....all in one. The cut was far past my abilities to fix, so I rushed my girls in the car and paid to get her hair fixed before my husband arrived home from work. Now I know everyone has a story. My sister and I cut eachothers hair when we were 3yrs old, but it has happened to my daughter. I have mostly pictures to share.

This is a picture from the day before at her preschool program. long and curled under.

BEFORE

Front view: 5yr old haircut

left side view: probably the worst part of the cut, up to her ear. hardest to hide.

right side view: where some the long hair survived.

Back view: you can see how they left SOME of the long hair on the right.

AFTER

New haircut: after I parted it differently to hide shorter hairs

side view: can see where we try to hide the shorter hairs.

Back view of new haircut. tried to save what we could..looks layered.

Today's hair, pulled up in the front.

Double Feature Night

I know I keep saying this, but I LOVE movies. With kids and not having easy access to a babysitter, movies don't happen very often. So when there's a movie that we HAVE to see, we usually have a girls/boys night out. My husband usually meets up with a couple of his brothers and they go see a movie, and then on another night I'll meet up with my friend and we'll go see a movie, or I go by myself. This way one of us is with our kids, and the other gets a little kid free time. :)

Saturday night was my movie night!! Originally I was just going to see one movie, but I figured, what the heck, my kids are asleep and I can make this work into seeing 2 movies!! My friend and I started out at Angels and Demons, which I thought was a great show. I recommend the book more, but the movie was fine.

I read the book years ago and purposely didn't read it again before the movie...it always makes the movie worse. Even though I knew how it was going to end, I thought the movie was fun and I LOVED seeing the art, the sculptures, and the architecture from Italy--ok that my have been my favorite part of watching the movie. While watching the movie I was missing my art history classes, naming off the artists pieces that I recognized, and admiring the architecture. Now I want to pull out my old history books, or take another trip to Europe. :) someday....

In the movie they used Anagrams, and this is an example of one anagram, where if you flip is over it's the same phrase. Here's another example of an anagram that I LOVE. It's from the 20th anniversary edition of the Princess Bride.

I'm going offtrack, this is supposed to be about the movies I saw on Saturday night! Ok. So after my friend and I saw Angels and Demons, we wanted to see the new Star Trek. My friend had already seen the movie 4 times, but was more than willing to see it a 5th time, but only if it was in the IMAX. I am sooooo glad we waited for the 11pm showing of Star Trek in the IMAX, even if I didn't get home until around 2am. All I have to say is WOW. I LOVED the movie. Growing up I watched Next Generation and re-runs of the old Star Trek with my dad, so I was really looking forward to this movie. I was not disappointed. Loved the cast. Loved the movie. If you have a chance to see it in the IMAX theatre, do it, it is totally worth it. I would see it again. and again. :)

Found this picture on the web. thought it was neat how it compares the old cast with the new.

My giant cupcake cake pan!

I've been on the search for a fun cake pan for my daughters birthday coming up this month. While I was searching online, I came across this FUN cupcake cake pan. This is a pan I would definitely use more than once. I wanted to do a "test run" on the pan so when I actually made the birthday cake I would know what I was doing. So here are my pictures from my test run. :)

Here is what the pan looks like.

My daughters are always the best at helping in the kitchen (and licking the bowl later). AND the pan is in the oven ready to go. I did a chocolate cake and swirled in a white cake that I colored pink for the girls.

Here's my cake after I trim and put it together

Here's the finished product. :) It was late....not sure what was going in my head, but I had way too much fun decorating! Yup those are cinnamon candies with blue sprinkles. hehe.

So in the end I LOVE this pan. I'm excited to make a giant cupcake for my little ones 2nd bday in a couple weeks. :) It'll be white frosting with star sprinkles...at least that's what I'm thinking about today, could change tomorrow.

Doggy Sitting

Finally, I can write about this cute little puppy. We have been watching this puppy for almost 10 days. My husband and 2 of his brothers decided that now was a good time to get their dad a new dog (I am crossing my fingers that this works). Well... it's so he can have a dog to call his own. Almost all of the animals that they have acquired have been from one of the 8 kids in the family. Only once has their dad ever gotten a dog of his own, and it was a Golden Lab named Cruise (or Cruz?? not sure on spelling), but then it was stolen from him. That was over 30 years ago. Anyway, so the three of them decided to surprise their dad with a little Golden Lab puppy for an early Father's Day gift today! They drove down this morning, and from what I hear it was a good surprise. :) hooray!!

I'll miss him, but at the same time I don't have time or patience to train a puppy right now. It was fun to watch him for week and I'll see him when we visit the farm. The best part was when all the neighborhood kids wanted to give him a name. :) On the name tag we made for him it had Jack's Dog. hehehe. We tried to tell the kids that we were just watching him and he wasn't ours to name. Now I believe that Jack has given him the name Cruz. Happy Father's Day early!