Here in the Valley of the Sun winter means fall and fall means playing in leaves. My brother Mark and his family moved to Nebraska so he could attend law school there. It has been so good to have them home for Christmas break. How thankful I have been for Skype so we could video chat with Mark, Ashley and Sam boy. They always try and get Sam to say Connie but either I couldn't hear him or he would say it but when he first saw me he said Connie & it melted my heart.
Sam loved getting leaves thrown on him.
We had so much fun playing in the leaves and being together.
My sister Debbie and I decided that we needed to enlist the help of an expert to help get our Christmas projects done. So this past Saturday we went out to our mom's and had a Super Saturday. I made our traditional popcorn cakes, with help from my mom of course.
The recipe we use is:
1gallon of popcorn
1 stick of butter
1 lb bag of marshmallows
1 cup of candy of your choice
I decided to use dark chocolate & mint m&m's for my friend Melissa's popcorn cake and she seemed to really like it!
Stolen from her facebook page, this is after having it for 3 hrs.
My best friend decided to help me out with the cakes and ran with me to pick up some supplies. We are super fast tough girls so watch out.
Here is one of our finished small cakes.
After we went and watched one of our brothers little girls dance recital, here are the sweet ballerinas.
Gracie had declared it the greatest day of her life, and I have to admit it was one of my favorites. I love working beside my mom & sister and spending time with my nieces and nephews. I think one of the reasons Christmas time is so great is the traditions we keep they remind us of past good times & make making new one sweet because we know we will look back at them with love next year.
I read about the band Tennis on a blog, their story is what got me to listen to them. The couple met in college after graduation they saved up money bought a boat and spent a year sailing the eastern coast. I had imagined them sailing & writing music but according to this interview with NPR they wrote the music after as a way of documenting their experience.
When I asked Mimi if she was interested in going she said she liked the opening band Miniature Tigers so it was perfect. I was excited to try out the newest venue The Crescent Ballroom. Which I liked very much it has some risers in the back which we went and sat in towards the end. Also if you are wanting to attend a show I would buy tickets online, there was a pretty long line waiting to get in.
Miniature Tigers
The lead singer of Tennis was pretty much the cutest person I have ever seen on stage, a girl from the audience even yelled out "you're adorable".
Tennis has a new album coming out on Valentines day this coming February, I am digging it, give it a listen. Deep in the Woods by tennisinc
Sixty nine years ago my dad was born (a year after pearl harbor). On Thanksgiving I was riding with my dad when he called another driver on the road "old man", I had to remind him he is no spring chicken. I don't see him as an old man, even if he is getting a little grumpier :). Growing up it is hard to see your parents other than anything as parents but looking back I see now how their tastes influenced me.
For most of our youth Debbie & I we shared a room, which we had a hard time keeping clean to my mothers dismay. On Saturdays she would often try and banish us to our room till it was clean. Some of my favorite memories are from those Saturdays, I will just say that Debbie and I have always been creative and could find lots of ways to not clean. I remember one of those rare Saturdays that we were actually cleaning we had brought our dad's record collection into our room and would play them and sing along, at the tops of our lungs I am sure.
My dad, Mike (in the chair) with his brothers Tim, Danny, Pat (we are not Irish or anything)
One summer as a pre-teen the video rental store was doing some sort of special, I don't remember what exactly. But I remember my dad taking me probably every week and over the summer I think I rented every "classic" movie they had. I would ask my dad about a movie and he would tell me about when he saw it and could usually tell me where he saw it as well.
A few years ago I put together that all my dad's favorite movies were done by the Cohen brothers and just this year while my brother said a movie that sounded like Bottle Rocket my dad asked "does that have Owen Wilson in it?" Apparently after my dad retired he started to watch Wes Anderson films as well. It is sure fun finding more reasons to love my dad, the original hipster.
It is December the busiest month of the year and this weekend was just the beginning. Friday I heard about Crafeteria (a craft fair) from Angela Hardison's twitter and thought it would be a good place to get ideas for Christmas.
While there I saw these branches covered in scrapes of material. I had already wanted to use branches to decorate and liked the idea. So when Debbie called me on Saturday to say that she and William were sick I grabbed some material and headed over to help with the other kids since Russ was working & it was also Gracie's Dance recital.
When I got to Debbie's I went and got some branches and went to work in covering the branches.
Then Debbie talked me into covering some not very pretty ornaments in yarn.
Now I have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
My mom came in and took us all to Gracie's dance recital. Here is the excited princess ballerina tough girl elf (she told me she was all those things).
After we went to go visit our nephew, cousin & grandson Miles grave, he passed away three years ago. It was a sad and hard time but how blessed we are to be part of a family who are there to give each other strength.
Sunday we celebrated my dad's 69th birthday that is coming up on the 7th and this little guy was dressed like this.
And grandma had made these girls Christmas dresses. If you can't tell these girls were very excited!
Over a year ago my mom decided she did not have room for her piano and gave it to me. Thanksgiving we finally worked out getting it moved. While my brothers were over I also had them put up my picture ledges.
Thank you Laini Taylor for giving me the inspiration I needed.
It is amazing how homie my home feels now.
After eating and naps Gracie got out the dress up & Joe loved making us laugh.
I can't believe how big William is getting
Friday night William & Gracie came over for a sleepover.
Gracie had fun playing with my Jane Austen & Legolas action figures. A wedding even took place.
Such a beautiful match, she can help him gain a sense of humor and he can take Jane on adventures.
Saturday we got together with my dads side of the family.
Debbie and her kids waiting to ride the train.
Joseph hitting me with Williams wand...stupefy
How stinking cute is that caboose?
It was such a lovely weekend my mom out did herself with making a marvelous meal, check out Debbie's blogs for pictures.
A woman at church once had us write down a list of our favorite things, I wrote a new list of some of my favorites and things I am grateful for.
I transferred the list to a site that makes word collages. I thought I had Family down but left it off, I have my nieces, nephews, mom & dad but left off my brothers (who deserve a huge thank you for helping me move my parents I mean my piano to my home) my sister, sister in laws and brother in law I love you all, more than words can say.
I also would like to say how excited I am that I will be seeing Radiohead in a few months!!! Every time a Radiohead song comes on (at least once a day) I get a huge grin on my face.
I always wonder why it is that things seem to come in waves, it wasn't that long ago everywhere I turned I saw Alice in Wonderland. Now it is Snow White...
ABC has a new series called Once Upon a Time and Ginnifer Goodwin is playing Snow White one of the main characters on the show.
There are two movies coming out as well.
Snow White and the Huntsman
and Mirror Mirror which is a comedy
I am thinking the movie minus Julia Roberts plus this guy (Chris Hemsworth aka Thor)
AND a Hot British Male in it (Sam Claflin)
will be the one I like best.
Unrelated (other than Gale is brothers with Thor) I hope you all saw the trailer for The Hunger Games!
First I just need to say that I listened to No Light, No Light by Florence & The Machine three times in a row while driving to my parents yesterday. No Light No Light by uidnewmediaberlin
I have listened to Shake It Out a lot as well.
I like that the music video is a less creepy version of THIS video.
Second I need to confess that I have watched some Doctor Who at least two episodes from each season (spoiler). Well of the newer Doctor Who, oh and I have not seen any of the current season. I was hesitant to watch the show first because the only thing I knew about it besides being a long running show on the BBC was that Ricky Gervais on Extra's did not want to play an Alien on the show.
But I kept seeing and hearing things that got me curious.
And after Community did a spoof on Doctor Who or should I say Inspector Spacetime, how could I not.
and
Their fake British accents kill me! Speaking of fake accents the episode of Doctor Who where they go to New York and you get to hear British actors doing New York accents is pretty awesome. Actually Andrew Garfield (future Spiderman) did pretty good with his southern accent.
Guess what I have realized, for the majority of our stay in London we were by the Earl's Court tube station and guess what was out right in front. Oh just the Tardis...
Also I saw an episode that had Harry Lloyd who I met while in London after seeing him in a play.
Boom, that practically makes me married to David Tennant.
I always love when he puts on his glasses.
The show can be silly but in an entertaining and fun way.
A year ago I gave William the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone and can I just say my plan worked out brilliantly!
This year William invited a few close friends to his Harry Potter birthday party. There was way to much awesomeness for me to document so I will just share a few pictures. Keep an eye out at Debbie's blog for a full report.
The Quidditch Pitch
This is just Debbie's pomegranate tree, it made me happy so I took a picture.
I saw this lady made a Marauders Map of her house for a party & William is obsessed with maps so I stole her design and made one for the kids. My hand hurt the next day, it was a lot of writing, but totally worth it.
Here is Professor Snape & Professor Joe teaching Potions.
The surprise of the night was when William got the Elder Wand he was literally speechless, finally a little dazed William said "it's good."
My favorite part of the party was when I was pretending to be Professor McGonagall I was speaking with a British accent (I know it should have been Scottish but it was impromptu) then for the rest of the night when he was thinking about it William also spoke with a British accent. It melted my UK loving heart!
Here is Gracie playing with the potions kit I gave to William for his birthday.
Joseph loved it as well. I bought the box at Hobby Lobby and painted it myself & found all the bottles, jar & little caldron at thrift stores. Yes I did know the kids would want to drink out of them don't worry I washed them.
