Twilight Saga: New Moon

Do you hear that? -------- It's the millions of fans screaming "thank-you" to Chris Weitz for his adaptation of New Moon from the book to the silver screen.

I first heard that Catherine Hardwicke was being replaced by Chris Weitz, I'm sure I wasn't the only one singing "halleluljah". I'm sorry, but Catherine Hardwicke was too cooky for me and her interpretation of Twilight was off. She missed the mark and gave us a shell of a story. Do I hate the Twilight movie --- not entirely. Do I want to start a petition for a redo of Twilight with Chris Weitz at the helm? ----- You betcha.

Knowing that I have no clout whatsoever in the world of moviemaking (to say the least), I will digress and focus on the movie at hand ---- New Moon.

It was awesome and I loved it!

New Moon is the slowest read of all the books, but the movie was great! I watched it and realized at the end, I did not have any complaints really (ok, maybe one, that vision that Alice had was a little weird).

Just from the trailer alone, I could tell that Summit had stepped things up, from the director to the special effects ---- this movie would at least be better than Twilight, and so it was ---- 10 x's better!

The story flow compared to the book was great, the acting was believable. My favorite scenes were mostly the break-up scenes: Edward and Bella in the woods, Jacob and Bella in the rain. I loved the reunion of Edward and Bella. My favorite line from the movie though was given by the wolves, which by the way were spectacular. I really did feel like the earth was shaking when I saw them. If you want to know which quote, text or email me ; ).

You always hear that the book is better, but when the credits rolled, there wasn't anything that I felt was left out or missed. The New Moon movie was the New Moon story.

Randy enjoyed the movie as well. Unfortunately, being that this was Jacob Black's story ----- he (meaning my husband), among many others are chanting TEAM JACOB. That's ok, I still love him.

We'll be revelling in the hype of New Moon for a while, but I'm sure the countdown for Eclipse has begun. My 9 y.o. is already asking when are we going to see the trailers for Eclipse. Yeah, I want to know too.

SURPRISE!!!

When Leigh suggested that we throw a surprise birthday party for Kara, I was excited at the idea. We had never done one before. I knew Kara would not expect it. With the help of my good friend Jen, we were able to pull it off.

We did it on Veteran's Day --- the day before her actual birthday. We really wanted to make it a surprise. We arranged for Kara to hang with her BFF for the afternoon. Her friends from Activity Days were invited. We had everyone meet us at the pool at Turtle Bay. Then we waitied. Jen (Emma's mom) walked the girls to the pool. We waited. As soon as Kara walked through the gate, we all yelled "SURPRISE!!" She truly was. The look on her face was great, she was shocked and surprised. She even dropped the plate of cookies she was holding.

There are the girls hiding in the pool just before yelling, "SURPRISE!"

The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming, eating pizza, cake & ice-cream!

The birthday girl enjoying the party.

Kara and her friends swimming. They swam for about 2 1/2 hours. They only stopped because their parents came to pick them up.

Getting ready to blow out her candles.

Her "Hello Kitty" cake that I made. It's very amateur (don't look too closely those of you professionals), I know, but it was fun. At the end of the day, Kara declared it "The BEST birthday ever!!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARA!!!

Growing up ---- as a Mother

Today I was napping, while my kids were watching TV. Randy had taken Leigh to her volleyball tournament.

Sooooooo . . . . . . I was a little bit alarmed when Kara woke me to ask me where the baking soda was. (Very puzzled look on my face).

Mom: Why do you need baking soda Kara?

Kara: For the Triple Chocolate Quick Bread I'm making (of course).

Hmmmm.

Mom: Why are you making that? Mommy did not give you permission to do any baking right now.

Kara: Well, I'm bored. So where is it?

(At this point, I'm so tired because I had worked the night before, I explain to her where it is and then doze back off to sleep). She comes back again to ask me another question (don't remember what it is). Then I realize she said chocolate.

Mom: Kara, did you use the bag of chocolate chips that we have?

Kara: Yeah, I needed them for the recipe.

Mom: Oh Kara, we were going to make chocolate chip cookies out of those. Well, I needed them.

(Big sigh of resignation from me). Kara marches back off into the kitchen. I lay there thinking, "I'm afraid to go into the kitchen to the possible horror of mess." I calmly get up to check on her. She's in there stirring away at a concoction that looks more like a soup gone awry than a quick bread batter. (Another sigh, the kitchen's not too bad). I walk away and come back.

The concoction looks more like cookie dough now.

Kara: I added more flour because it seemed like it needed it.

Mom: Kara did the recipe ask for more flour?

Kara: I don't know. There's a lot of things in this recipe I didn't know. Like what does 1 slash 2 mean, and the other numbers?

At this point, she's done throwing all the ingredients together. I think trying to explain what "1 slash 2" means was a mute point. I try not to look alarmed and think, "Well, this should be interesting." She put it in a bread pan, helped her with the temperature settings and baked it. When it was done baking, it actually looked pretty good. I was honored to have the first taste. I'm sure the recipe was not followed to a "T" to say the least, but it did taste good. Kara was very proud of herself and so was I.

I was happy for my daughter's little accomplishment today, as well as my own. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm getting better, I think especially in the patience department. I still lose my cool sometimes, but I do feel that I've gotten better about not getting worked up over little things and letting my kids enjoy their creativity, instead of focussing on the big mess that was made.

Here's a little secret I've found (which maybe many of you already know). I find when I don't get impatient and upset about situations like this and just praise my kids for the creativity part, they are so much more willing to help with the clean-up part. They are also more humble about the reprimanding part about the rules that were broken, and do follow the rules next time around.

I love growing as a mom. It makes me appreciate my kids so much more!

*** I did take a picture of the last piece of bread, but I am having trouble uploading from my phone.

Not Forgotten!

I'm sure those of you who do check our blog site once in a while have probably thought we've bitten the blogdust with this one.

No, not really. I've just been extremely busy to say the least. That busy? ---- Yes, that busy.

Anyhow, I am going to try to catch up with the month of October and get November started, as we've already had things going on. Bear with me.

Hopefully, I can remember October (LOL!)

Super Raider - Kara's turn to be by herself

We've kicked off the school year with a good start. The first month in and Kara was chosen to be a Super Raider for her class. She was happy this time to be the only one in our family for the month of August. Last year, she and Micah were Super Raider for the same month.



Congratulations Kara ------ keep it up!!!

Happy Birthday to our Favorite Dad!

Today was my hubby's birthday. Many funny things were said by my kids when dad's birthday was coming up. Upon discovery of his birthday being on a Sunday, one exclaimed that "we need to get him a Jesus tattoo." I know, a little irreverent, but funny. When hearing that Randy was turning 41, another of our precious children commented, "Awwwwh. He's growing up."
His birthday didn't turn out the way I had planned in my head (we've been EXTREMELY busy to say the least). One of the reasons why I love him, is that it didn't bother him at all. Leigh made him breakfast in bed. The kids made him a card. Randy's leaving on a trip to Seattle for a conference, and he's been asking me to come along. Well, after looking over things, I figured I would be able to go. So Happy Birthday Dear!

We LOVE you!!

New Moon Trailer

I did this last time when Twilight came out. Let's just say I felt the need to be consistent. The New Moon Extended Trailer debuted at the VMA's tonight. It was nice to watch it on my new flat screen TV in all it's HD glory! After watching it (maybe 20x's), it's obvious that Summit has stepped things up a notch, or two, or ten, with the quality of movie-making in the next part of this saga. Majority of people will say that New Moon is their least favorite, but Chris Weitz has definitely made it look exciting! New Moon comes out this time, the day before my birthday. Like I texted to my Twilight BFF (you know who you are), I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who can't wait for her 33rd birthday to come. Let the countdown begin (actually, you know that countdown started the day after Twilight premiered. LOL!). So, go ahead and watch it. It's all you got till November 20th, baby.