Kung Fu Panda

Quick movie review - THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME!

We rented it over the weekend - I hadn't really planned on seeing it. But it was great. The characters were good, the awesomeness never got old. It wasn't too long, had a great moral at the end, no innuendo of any sort and just a lot of good clean fun. This is definitely one that I want to own.

More Funny Things

Eli was a lot of fun this weekend, saying funny things. Here are some of them.

'Good night Beth, Good night Grandma. Good night, other Beth.'

This is a picture of Beth, and Amy (holding Josh). When Eli said goodnight to everyone Amy was Beth and Beth was other Beth. They do look similar, and we spent the rest of the weekend trying to get Eli to be able to tell the two apart.

On Thursday night Morgan and I were heading to go out to the movie and left Eli with some Aunts and an Uncle to be babysat. He grabbed both of our hands and said "Daddy, Mommy, stop walking." He didn't want us to leave him. :0)

I hope my sister-in-law will forgive me for writing this, but it was just too funny. I'm not sure what we were talking about, Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, but my sweet SIL said, "I'm not a retard, I'm 14!" We laughed about it all weekend, giving it as a reason for one thing or another.


Eli jumping off the couch.

Eli: Mommy, look at me.
Say woo-hoo

Me: Woo-hoo

Eli: No mommy, say woo-hoo jumping

Me: (as he is jumping) Woo-hoo!

Twilight Thanksgiving

We had a really good Thanksgiving Day with Morgans family. We got up Thursday morning, loaded our van and drove down to Chillicothe. Lunch was great, we played some games, and then decided that we should go that night to see the movie Twilight.

8 of us went and saw the movie and generally liked it. It wasn't the most fantastic movie ever, and there was some acting that needed to be worked on, some special effects & sound effects that were quite laughable, but has a whole it was a good film.

The movie stayed quite true to the book, at least the spirit of the book. It added and took some things out, but not in a way that made me frustrated. I will definitely buy this movie some day and am looking forward to the sequel.

Morgan said to...

Today I was telling Morgan some funny things that Eli does nearly every day and he said that I needed to blog about it. Apparently he thinks my blogs are boring and he liked these stories. Just kidding.

Anyway, apparently I am always putting Eli off by referring to Morgan. If something is broken I'll tell Eli that we need to wait till Morgan is home and "Ask Daddy to fix it." So it seems like if anything is going on and I am saying no, or hesitating, or if something is not working Eli always says, Ask Daddy? And usually he's right, we'll wait 'till Morgan is home and then figure it out.

The second thing is that Eli often tells me to do something "Like Daddy does." I'll be getting his socks on in the morning and he'll say, "No, Like Daddy Does." Meaning that I need to scoot back and pretend that the sock is a car. But nearly everything we need to do it, "Like Daddy does."

But while Eli tells me to do things like daddy does, he is always trying to imitate me. He pretends to feed his doll Lucy breastmilk, he wants to use my lotion, puts my headbands on his head and today while I was shopping for a new clothes he wanted to try them on too. Ahh, imitation is the best form of flattery.

Happy Birthday Morgan!

Morgan's birthday was Saturday and I never got around to blogging about it until now. I have pictures on my camera, but I am going to write without them because if I wait it will take another week.

Morgan celebrated his birthday at work on Friday - their policy is that the birthday person has to bring treats in. So I made a pineapple/cherry cobbler and a pineapple/blackberry cobbler for him to take in.

We didn't have a party on Saturday because it was our Stake Temple day and we decided to go down. We were a little slow getting started because Morgan thought I was awake and I was waiting for him to come get me after his shower...But we left before 8am, picked up Charity, who was carpooling with us and started the 3 hour drive to Nauvoo.

We let Charity go in first while we took care of the boys and then after she was done she watched both Eli and Josh for us so we could go in together. We were a little worried about when Josh would wake up and be hungry so we decided to forgo an endowment session and did sealings instead. It was very nice, we saw a lot of people we knew from our temple working days and also saw several people from our ward, too. Unfortunately we missed Morgan's sister who was in the temple at the same time, but none of us knew it. We made the long drive home and checked the BYU v Utah scores, sad to see BYU lost.

Sunday was the big birthday party. I didn't want to wait so as soon as we were all up I wrapped Morgan's presents and had him open them. We got him a zip up sweater to take to work (it gets cold in his office and he doesn't want to wear his suit coat). And I also got him the DVD The Secret of Nymh. He really likes the book and I saw the DVD on sale at Walmart and had to get it for him.

That's all for this post, more news to come later if I have the time.

More Movies

More movie reviews for you:

Made of Honor
I watched this movie without Morgan, during naptime today and maybe that is why I didn't feel is was a romantic as I was hoping. It was a fine movie. Basic plot: play boy realizes he is in love with his best friend, when he goes to tell her, she is engaged and asks him to be the maid of honor. He accepts hoping to break up the marriage and get the girl.

I don't really have anything to say about this film. It was fine. I don't think I would own it unless I got it for really cheap - less than $5.00. I didn't really care a lot about the characters. There were a few little scenes that were really fun/cute.

All in all this was a fine movie, but not that memorable for me.


The Jane Austen Book Club Some Spoilers
We watched this movie last night and really enjoyed it. Basic plot - 5 women and 1 man get together once a month to discuss the various Jane Austen books (and by extension their lives). Four of them are old friends and two of the people are new acquaintances.

I should start this off by saying that I really enjoy Jane Austen, but this movie (like the book Austenland by Shannon Hale) seemed to me to only use Austen as a vehicle to explore the characters and their lives.

I really enjoyed this movie. I expected the husband/wife to stay divorced, him obviously pining after her but she living her life without him. Even as the movie was going and he was showing obvious remorse I was just like "serves you right." But in the end when they got back together I was fine with it. He knew he had made a mistake. The wife still loved her husband and wanted to be married to him - the director didn't go with the 'modern, independent woman' cliche.

My problem with this movie is that there were a lot of sexual references, innuendo, etc. I would not allow my kids to watch this movie until after 14 or so (depending on their maturity). I'd like to watch this show again - which generally means that I want to own it (I like to own movies - I probably have about 100).

Before I go on, I would like to say that I am already planning on having my movies separate once my kids get older and actually want to watch movies. There will be the movies that the kids can watch and then the movies that Mom and Dad watch. And when they are older they can start to watch some of the other things.

So, to my dilemma. Do I someday buy this movie and put it in the Mom and Dad pile, or do I forget about it and shake my head at the movie industry for putting unnecessary things into movies?

Good Movies, Bad Movies

Morgan and I have watch some good movies and some not so good movies lately. Start with the bad. I borrowed The Other Boleyn Girl from the Waterloo library, I was excited to see it because I remember a lot of people talking about it when it first came out. (I had also read the book and found it...interesting-in a weird way.) Anyway, the movie was terrible. It was just depressing and didn't really live up to the book (which takes place over about 20 years) the movie looks like it could have happened in a 2 year time span. Definitely not a movie that I want to own.

Now for the Good. I also borrowed The Spiderwick Chronicles from the library and we both really enjoyed it. It was fun, 'fantastical', and surprisingly funny. I loved the ending! First with the question to the ogre and then the hobgoblin doing his thing. There aren't many better things than that!
We have seen several films lately where it seems a child is transformed into a magical land and this one was the best of them.

We've also been watching season 2 of The Office and really enjoyed it. We are going to pool our allowance money together and buy Season 3. Hoo-rah!

Book Club

Last night we had book club at my home and it was a lot of fun. We discussed Ella Enchanted, comparing the movie with the book (they are NOT the same), talking about free will, agency, and Satan's plan, and enjoying fruit soup, egg nog and peaches and cream cake. (We were going to do an 'elf inspired meal' with only soups/liquids but I need cake.)

Morgan was great and hung out with Eli and Josh so I didn't have to worry about them. But he did call me into the living room to take the above picture of them. I can't blame them, they are cute boys/man.

50-50-100

Monday was Josh's 2 month well-child check up. Because we got on Morgan's work insurance I decided to change doctors and go to a pediatrician for the boys rather than a family practice doctor. Our appointment was at 2:30pm and we didn't get home until after 4pm. We were mostly in the waiting room because since this was the first time Josh had been seen by them they had to make a chart and I overheard some of the nurses say that they were swamped that afternoon.

Anyway, Josh was 11.1 pounds 50%, 40cm head circumference: 50% and 25 in. in length which was the 100%. It was nice to see that he is growing and doing so well. I won't worry that he's not chubby since he's so tall. He also did really well for his shots - cried a bit but calmed right down after.

The Fire Station

Several women in my ward have a preschool they run and sometimes when they have 'field trips' they will invite others of us whose kids are a little younger but would still enjoy the activity. Today they had a tour of the Waterloo Fire Station and invited Eli, Josh and I to attend. We had a great time, Eli was the first to follow Fire Fighter Brian everywhere. He wanted to be in on the action.
One of the things the fire fighters kept seemed to be trying to get across to the kids is that Fire Fighters are not scary - especially when they are fully dressed in their uniform. While I believe this in principle, I can imagine that if my house was on fire, dark and smoke-y and then a fire fighter burst into my bedroom in full dress, I would be a little scared myself.
(The fire men introduced themselves as Fire Fighter Brian and Fire Fighter JD. So that is what I am calling them.)

Below are some pictures of our fun day.

First - Eli by the fire truck. Eli and friends.
Checking out the pole. (Fire Fighter JD showed the kids how to slide down it...twice!)
Carly showing Eli the lights on the fire truck.
Eli and Fire Fighter JD.

IT'S OVER! HORRAY!

I am so glad that this election season is finally over. Living in Iowa it has seemed to last even longer (since we have to deal with the primaries). I had a really difficult time choosing who to vote for. I liked McCain during the primary season - mostly his immigration plan (let people stay - path to citizenship). But once he got the nomination he started talking about building the wall. I thought his international ideas were terrible, if we don't talk to people we can't fix problems. And then his choice of Palin really bothered me once I thought about it more. She seems like a nice person, but I did not like the thought of her being President (I know she was running for VP - but stuff happens.)
I respect Obama, I like many of his ideas (especially on diplomacy). I had actually decided to vote for him but Monday night I realized that even though I had made my decision, I didn't feel any peace about it and still felt that I should be researching the opposing platforms.
So I decided that since I didn't feel peace about it I was just going to vote for McCain (I didn't really think he would win, nor am I sure I wanted him too.) So, that was my voting experience. I am looking forward to see how Obama's Presidency goes, and I wish him well. I think that he has the capacity to be a great President.

Crazy

Do you ever have one of those days when you think you are going crazy and you are going to be the crazy mom on the evening news. That was me this afternoon. I don't think I'll make the news tonight, though...apparently something big is happening nationally.
Anyway, this week we've started putting Eli in underwear when we are at home. Thomas the train underwear for toilet training. Very cool. Josh didn't eat very well earlier today so around 2:30 he was acting hungry and I was more than happy to feed him. Two minutes into it and he starts wailing (I am assuming because of bubbles). For the next hour he is screaming bloody murder, giving occasional burps and absolutely refusing to eat. About 10 or 15 minutes into this I decide that I am in no mood to help Eli if he has any accidents so trade him from underwear back to a diaper. (I've got to try to keep my sanity, right?).
45 minutes into the screaming (and of course Eli is acting up too) I decide that I need a break or I really just might snap. So I put Josh in his bassinet in my bedroom and told Eli to play in his bedroom for a little while. I pulled out my computer and was going to try and find some sort of discussion group to tell that I was going crazy but there was an interesting article on baby slings which I read instead.
I let my two boys come out of their rooms, Josh was still crying strong, and I knew that he had to be exhausted, but that he needed to eat too. I had some frozen breastmilk in the freezer which I warmed up and stuck in a bottle. To my absolute amazement, but it made me OH SO HAPPY) Josh after a few moments took the bottle and drank it all. Now he is sleeping soundly in the crib...I forgot to say, I am trying to have him sleep in the crib now too.
Normally I would never write a post like this. Admit that I am one of those moms who seriously think about going crazy! But it has been too hard of a day to not try and get some sympathy from somebody.
The worst part about these crazy days is that it makes me not want to do anything...just sit in a dark quite place. But now things are looking up I am actually looking forward to going to Enrichment tonight (which I was considering skipping) and I am now going to start cleaning up my house. Because let's face it. I actually DO feel better with a clean house.

Halloween!

Above: Eli with his load of candy - almost too big for him to lift!

Below: Some of the kids we went Trick-or-Treating with. You will notice me on the right with Josh in my sling.
Morgan and the Tadpole Josh
When Josh wasn't dressed in costume he had this sweet onesie to wear.

We had a really good Halloween. The boys and I hung around at home waiting for evening to come. In the afternoon we went to the library to get No More Diapers for Ducky and Once Upon a Potty (any idea what we are working on?). I didn't feel like making dinner so we stopped by Papa Murphey's and bought some delicious pizza for dinner.

Once Morgan came home we ate our dinner, fed Josh and then walked to a Niki and Jeremy's house where a bunch of friends were going to be meeting to go trick-or-treating. We started the festivities around 6pm and it was still pretty light, which was nice. We made a little loop, got some good stuff (some people even gave our full-size candy bars) and when we got back to our house we just went inside and let Eli have a few pieces.

Eli really enjoyed having people come to our house and being able to give them candy. Eventually we put Eli to bed them Morgan and I stayed upstairs until about 8:30pm giving out candy. After that we turned off the porch light, went downstairs and watched The Office.

Ward Trunk or Treat

Afterwards - Eli eating his candy.
Morgan showing Eli how to eat a doughnut.
Eli's attempt.

Thursday night we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat party. We had a great time. Morgan hid in the back of our trunk behind a Halloween tablecloth and then when kids went to get some candy from the bucket he would either poke his head out and say "Boo" or with the older kids he would grab their hand. He was quite the hit!
They also had a fun doughnut-on-a-string eating activity. When Eli first tried he just grabbed the donut with his hand and took a bite. Morgan had to show him the correct way to do it. It was a really great activity and we had a lot of fun.