juno...

i loved this movie. it was funny, sweet, painful and seriously touching.
i also LOVED the soundtrack, it's definitely getting downloaded from iTunes.

hope you had a very merry christmas

ours was wonderful!

am i the grinch...

i was beginning to worry that i had turned into the grinch. i seriously was lacking in christmas spirit these past few weeks. i am sure it's because jason was gone for most of the month. i know he often travels for work and he's even been gone near christmas before but i think this was different because we got less than a days notice that he was leaving AND we hadn't put up our holiday decorations or our tree before he left. it helped doing some of our usual things, like decorating cookies with amy, rach and their families and watching the girls make their gingerbread houses. but i completely found my christmas spirit when i found out YESTERDAY that jas would be home today. i probably should be cleaning and making the house nice for him instead of blogging, but hey when you feel it you've got to let it out!

happy holidays!

twilight movie...

if you've read the stephenie meyer series about bella & edward then you are probably excited about the movie. i was worried they would find a good match for edward, but i think they did it. who knew cedric diggory (robert pattinson) would grow up to look like this? holy toledo!

kristen stewart is playing bella, not sure if she's a perfect fit, but i guess we will see.

i can't wait to find out who will be playing the other members of the cullen family, especially alice!

now i am just praying the movie doesn't disappoint.

have a great day!

hopefully i can make this into something nice...

i am not feeling very inspired about my christmas card this year, so i picked colors that weren't so christmasy and a VERY simple idea. well at least i THOUGHT it was simple until i counted up all the steps. still, the finished product will look simple and pretty plain, but i decided to be ok with it and MAYBE i'll be inspired to create something i love next year.

now i guess i better get started on assembling them.

first snow of the season...

my day was busy with taking pictures for kelly (scary...she's a way better photographer), getting the things i need for my christmas cards, buying ceb's LAST christmas gift and then heading to mary ann's for a craft day. so i wasn't too excited about the idea of snow, but once it was here i truly enjoyed the beauty of it...especially once i was home and inside where it was warm.

now i better get started on my cards.

have a wonderful day!

3 thanksgivings and SO much to be thankful for...

we had 3 thanksgiving celebrations this year. the 1st with my family the weekend prior, the 2nd in portland with jason's brothers family and his mother and the 3rd with jason's dad & stepmother. we are so lucky to have so much family near by and we enjoyed spending time with all of them.
i recently saw a list posted on a blog by my friend kelly's sister in-law jaime about the top 5 things she is most thankful for and it got me thinking about my own list.

i am thankful for many things, but these are the 1st 5 that come to mind...

5.starbucks...yeah it's a big corporate conglomerate, but they seem to hire some of the coolest people and those cool people make a very addictive venti black iced tea.

4.the awesome ladies i work with. kiki and ally are my sanity at work and make having to go there each day a good thing (well as good as it can be). i can't imagine being there without them. it helps that they totally rock and constantly make me laugh. betsy, debbie, mika & ashley also contribute to my work happiness.

3.my friends. i have wonderful old friends like kelly, amy & rach and amazing newer friends like mary ann, jennifer & christina. i feel really blessed with the friends i have made over the years. they are all good people that i am proud to know.

2.my family. i have amazing parents who do SO much for me and my family. i have great nephews and a sweet and sassy niece who make my life more interesting and full. AND i have the most amazing girls ever. they are so cool and fun and wonderful and kind and good. i LOVE those girls so much.

1.jason. he is the best guy ever. he completely loves me and thinks i am practically perfect just the way i am (except for my starbucks mug issue). he is totally supportive of me and always wants to make me happy. he is my best friend and i can't imagine my life without him.

now that kiki is blogging and hopefully ally too, i think you both need to make your own lists. i am sure kiki's will be all mushy, but i will try and deal with that.

thankful for weekends...

the girls and i went with 3 of the boys to see my father in his annual church play. my dad always does a great job and has a lot of fun getting into character. they alway do a funny family friendly play. the little boys were so good it was amazing...of course i did bribe them with HUGE candy bars afterwards if they were on their best behavior. surprising it worked amazinly well.

we also held our family thanksgiving get together on saturday. my mom does it early every year so that we can all be together and not have to worry about conflicts in our schedules. it's not the date that's important to us it's the time we spend with each other.




we are heading to portland on thursday for some more thankgiving celebrating with jason's brother and his family...and i know we will all be thankful to get there since cebastian is driving part of the way!!!

a little ghoulish fun...

my girls, along with their cousins, went to trunk or treat with my parents.



nobody was too scary this year, unless you count my dad who was a clown. a super creepy clown in my opinion!

i wasn't really in to halloween this year, but i did manage to make up treat boxes for my niece and nephews and cool starbucks cups filled with treats for my girls.


i have some ideas already for next year though...i have already decided to be more in the spirit of the holiday

life lessons...

time has flown and it’s been forever since i posted anything.

i went on a relaxing and fun scrapbook retreat the 2nd weekend of october. connected with some amazing women, ate lots of yummy food and almost got some digital scrapbook pages done.

it was perfect for me because just prior,in less than a week, 2 people i knew were killed in separate car accidents, both involving drunk drivers. the 1st was a sweet boy i met at starbucks a few years ago. KC was a passenger in a car driven by a man who was drunk. he chose to get in the car and paid with his life. it made me really have some frank discussions with the girls about never getting in a car with someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol. i also made sure they knew that no matter what the situation was i would always pick them up, no questions asked.

the 2nd person was an 18 year old girl who jason & i have known since she was about 2. bawny was jason’s friend chris’ cousin. she was in a car with her boyfriend driving down the freeway when a woman who was drunk AND driving the wrong way on the same freeway crashed head first into their truck. she killed bawny instantly and seriously injured bawny’s boyfriend. this accident was much harder for me to deal with since there was just no clear way it could have been avoided. how do you protect your children from other people’s bad choices? i took it as a reminder to enjoy, appreciate and be thankful for my family.

last thursday i received a call from kial's school because she was in the vice principals office. kial threw a girls phone in the garbage during soccer practice. long story short this girl has been bullying and harassing kial since last year. a friend of kial's saw this girls phone on the ground, handed it to kial and kial threw it in the trash; figuring she could pay her back a little bit for all the hurt. the phone was supposedly broken. kial was suspended from school for 3 days, suspended from the soccer team for 15 days and told she would have to replace the phone.

jason and i went to the school and had a meeting with the principal on monday. we were not contesting kial having consequences for her poor choice, but we felt like she was given too harsh of a punishment. we got kial's suspension from the team changed to 7 days, got the wording on her referral changed from theft to possession of stolen property and got the principal to agree that we needed to see the phone and a copy of her phone usage before we would replace the phone. (the reason we are contesting the phone damage is because of rumors at the school that the girls found the phone by calling it and that she used it after she found it.) we left the meeting feeling better than when we got there. we were reassured that kial was still considered a good kid and that her poor choice didn't change the way her teachers thought of her.

it was a hard and painful lesson for kial. she was humiliated and upset by the bad choice she made. the hardest part for her was worrying about us being disappointed, even though we completely understood why she did it. it's such a hard thing to see your child hurt.

kial will now be going straight to the principal if anything happens between her and this girl, no matter how small or trivial it seems. this has also helped some of kial's friends start to deal with their issues with this girl. the fact that kial's friends and their mothers have all rallied around kial really helped keep her spirits up. i seriously doubt we will ever be called to the principals office again. i think once was enough for all of us.

ps..it's been over a week and the girls mother still has not produced the phone or the usage information.

i guess retirement gets boring...

so my dad decided to become a crossing guard for the seattle school district. after a long process which included a background check and interviews with practically every person my dad's ever known, he got the job...and he LOVES it.


so if you are ever by greenlake elementary, on a school day, in the morning or afternoon AND you decide to cross 65th my dad will probably be the guy helping you out.

i'm so excited...

i am blogging for the 1st time from my brand new computer, and not just any computer a new HP Pavillion Entertainment PC notebook!
i have been wanting a laptop for a while now. thinking that i could greatly reduce the stuff i bring to my scrapbook retreats by doing most of my layouts digitally. now i can.
it's also nice to have another computer (that doesn't belong to jas's work) for the kids to use for homework, since they both always seem to need a computer.
i love my new hp with it's 17 inch screen (so i can see what i am working on)and it's fun features.
i wanted a macbook pro, but we just couldn't justify the cost right now. maybe some other day OR maybe i won't even miss it.

this was supposed to be a family computer, but by the time we got it home even jason was calling it mine...

fun weekend...

1st we had ceb's birthday party...actually her 4th birthday celebration, this time with friends. she had a vampire themed party, inspired by her love of twighlight, new moon & eclipse. she had a great time and so did we. who knew having a party for 15 year olds would be so easy and casual. they actually hung out around jas & i until they started watching movies around 11pm...they were all sweet girls! so nice to know ceb's got such good taste in friends.

saturday afternoon kial, julie & i took adam on a surprise birthday trip. we told him that we were going out to get stuff for a school project which kial & adam both have due next week, but in truth we "accidentally" happened upon the apple store and of course we had to go in. once we got him looking at the newly unveiled nano's i let him in on the surprise...we were really there to buy him his own brand new 8gb video nano and he got to pick the color he wanted. he was so excited and i am SO glad i thought of it. his parents, my parents & i all went in on it. it was worth every penny to see him so excited and happy. he's such a great kid and he really deserved it.

when we got home he came right upstairs and we set it up on our computer since we already have such a huge music & video library. he named it iFreak...very adam!

i've got to admit i am a little jealous of adam because this new nano is SO cool!


last, but not least jas & i had a FABULOUS meal with amy, clark, rachel & tyrone at lanna thai in everett to celebrate amy's birthday. the food was too die for (larb...who knew?) and the company was even better. happy birthday amy.

catching up...

and putting my feet up for a moment.

i think this has been our busiest and most fun summer EVER. well, at least the girls have been nonstop busy; i still had to work through lots of it.

between ceb's 15th birthday and the 1st day of school we had our annual leavenworth "kamping" trip and a fabulous whale watching trip with jason's dad & stepmother.

school started back up today and i must say i am happy for the return to routines. i love fall (yes even the rain) and the slower pace that life seems to take on...except for soccer games & practices.

ceb got her driving permit and she starts drivers ed on monday...are you feeling a little nervous? cause I sure am. i think she'll do fine, but i don't feel ready for this.



today i really feel the need to remember the wonderful summer and just how lucky we all are. between friends, church and family (especially my very amazing parents) my kids have so many great opportunities and experiences that many kids don't get to have. we truly are blessed!

putting on the ritz...indeed!

so jas & i just got home from seeing young frankenstein the musical at the paramount theater. it was wonderful. thanks to 2 of the best people ever (rob & kelly...love you guys and not just for your ticket magic) we had amazing seats and a perfect view of the stage...well at least I did, jas forgot his glasses so things were just a bit fuzzy for him.

i loved the whole show. the sets were amazing, the music was great, the humor was smart, witty and bawdy (much more than the movie). the dancing & singing were incredible. i'd happily go back a couple more times.

jason liked the show a lot but...

he's VERY attached to the characters in the movie and he felt disappointed because the actors in the musical didn't induce the same feelings in him as the actors in the movie did. i agree with him that they didn't, but i didn't expect them to. the movie is a classic, the actors in the movie were ALL pure geniuses who could top that?

jas did say he didn't feel like it was a waste of time...high praise, huh? well, maybe he's just tired. i could easily waste more time seeing it again and again...now if i could just get jas to pay for it.

a few things are for sure, i will be getting the soundtrack once it's out and i will be singing along to puttin' on the ritz! oh yeah and i love jas, even when he's tired!

a little traumatized...

so ceb & i both just finsihed reading eclipse, the 3rd book in the stephenie meyer vampire/werewolf series.

ceb was upset because she thought it was the last book in the series...luckily i was able to put her mind at ease when i told her there would be at least one more book that will probably be called breaking dawn, scheduled for release next fall.

i was traumatized by how heartbreaking the book is. jacob is my favorite character in the series and i'll just say i was not happy how things ended for him. i'm just keeping my fingers crossed that all is happy when the real end comes.

ceb & i are going to a q&a and book signing with stephenie meyer next tuesday. we are both excited about that and both hope she will give us a tiny bit of insight on what the future will bring for all the great characters in the series.

don't you just love how a good book sucks you in and when you've finished reading it makes you want to find another book that grabs you just as powerfully.

shopping for power rangers...

i took malakai for his 1st trip to pick out his birthay present with me. he did have him mom come too and we all had fun finding just the right thing.

happy birthday malakai...

we had a little party for malakai today at nana & papa's. after we had cupcakes and malakai opened a few gifts we all headed to the pool at eric's apartments.


the kids swam for about 2 hours.


of course they would have been happy to have a little more time.

i love a fun musical...

we just got home from seeing hairspray and it was wonderful! it was missing a few of the things that made the original movie great, but in general it was fabulous!

i bought the soundtrack a few weeks ago and have barely listened to it...but i have a feeling it's going to be a favorite for a while!

a little about vegas...

so, vegas was fun.

it's so crazy and overwhelming and truly over the top in excess, but as a voyuer of sorts i really enjoyed myself.

the thing that will make this trip (my first if you didn't already know that) live forever in my mind is that we (christina & i) actually met the lead singer of the band snow patrol (the reason we went to vegas). i took a picture of christina and him. i wasn't thinking straight or i would have had one taken of me with either him or nathan (the guitar player) who was standing right there also, but still we got proof that we met him. what a cool moment and it made the concert even better.

i have to wonder though how christina is going to manage to marry him since she couldn't even get a word out of her mouth. i ended up doing all the talking (which was mostly nervous chatting). she was going to be content just standing there looking at him and so i asked him if i could take a picture. he looked tired and a little worn down, but he kindly consented and didn't even run screaming from us like we were crazy...and I am sure between her silent worship and my inane chatter he thought we were!

so tired...

i got back from vegas last night at 9:30pm and went STRAIGHT to the barnes & noble downtown to join the enormous crowd waiting for hp7. got the book after a 30 minute wait. got home about 1am started reading and kept reading until around 5am (when jason made me stop). slept for 4 hours and resumed reading. FINALLY finished around 9pm...what a great book!

i am SO ready for bed now...more about vegas later!

today i'll find out...

what happens in vegas!!

christina and i are off today for our vegas trip! i am sure the highlight will be seeing snow patrol, but you never know...right?

we will be back in time to grab our harry potter and the deadly hallows books friday night at the barnes and noble downtown...a perfect way to end our little trip!


have a great week!

a perfect saturday in the park...

jas, kial & i had a great time saturday hanging out at the park with kiki, ally, travis and lots of other people at kiki's family bbq. the food was FABULOUS and the company even better.






makes me tired just looking at the photos!

can't hardly wait...

only 12 and 1/2 more hours and i'll see HP5 on the big screen AND only 11 days until the book is here. it's the little things that REALLY make life fun.

ceb is leaving tomorrow morning for a pioneer trek with her church youth group. i am seriously concerned she's going to get heatstroke, but otherwise hope she has a great time. she is going to harry potter with us tonight at 12:02am and then has to be ready to go at6am tomorrow morning. her plan is to sleep for the 5 hour bus trip...good luck cebby. I love you!

movies and July 4th...

so in the last week i have seen 3 movies in the theater.

last sunday we took the girls to see ratatouille. it was great; fun, sweet and a wonderful message. we all enjoyed it. not that we'd have expected any less from pixar and disney.


the girls left the next morning (at 5am) for montana. they went with my parents who took ALL 8 grandkids to visit my mother's brother and his family for the 4th.
from all accounts it sounds like they had a fablous time, hiking, swimming, watching fireworks and just playing. since they were with my parents pretty much no pictures were taken, so i'll just have to try and imagine it all.
i was also informed by kial that she was never reminded to brush her teeth, so that never happened either. gone 5 days and she didn't brush her teeth the whole time. she actually commented to me how nice it felt to brush them when she got home...hmmm. i am not sure WHY a 12 year old kid needs reminding to remove the sweaters and food from her teeth, but there you go.

with the girls gone we decided to see live free or diehard on tuesday night. we got to the theater, got up to the front, requested our tickets and they had JUST sold out. i knew i should have used fandango, but for some reason i didn't. so we went to dick's got cheeseburgers and rented a few movies for jas.
we went back wednesday morning (after buying the tickets on fandango) and watched and really enjoyed the movie. it was just fun, no thinking required, just action and a little humor. i really liked justin long, who was the dorky side-kick, he was hilarious.


after the movie jas and i putzed around until it was time to meet up with jason's cute (because jas REALLY cares that he's cute) work buddy chris and his darling girlfriend sarah for dinner at my new FAVORITE pizza place, tutta bella. if you haven't tried it you should and if you have you know.

then we proceeded to a "secret location" where we watched the fireworks with chris, sarah, dylan, allison and wes; all great people from jason's work. the view was awesome and we had no problems with parking or the drive home.

but my FAVORITE thing all week was the movie transformers. yeah, i know i am totally dipping into super dork territory, but it was SO COOL! the graphics were amazing, the characters were awesome and the movie itself was really well done. in my opinion it was the perfect action flick; fast paced, interesting and FILLED with humor. i may even need to go see it again. it's ok, call me a dork...i can take it.


now i just have to pace my self until tuesday night when we are all going to a 12:02am showing of the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

yep, i already fandango'd those tickets!

no more birthday parties...

at least until cebby's in august.