Beauty and the Beast

We took the kids to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D tonight and they loved it! G had seen the original version at her Great Gran's house, but they were excited to wear the glasses and have the objects come out of the screen at them.

This was B's first movie in the theatre and he was very good, but maybe we should have had a lesson on theatre etiquette....
#1: No eating popcorn off of the floor
#2: Only take a drink out of the cup that is in your cup holder
....there may be more rules to add next time we come home from a movie at the theatre.

Daddy was a good sport and watched the whole movie....even pointed out his favorite part....Belle wearing the yellow dress and the Beast having their dance. He woke up Sunday and Monday morning with the song stuck in his head! Tale as old as time, True as it can be, Barely even friends, Then somebody bends, Unexpectedly.... Ha! I love that man!

Happy Birthday Pop!

We went to visit some of J's family and to celebrate Pop's birthday. We left early Saturday morning to make it to Caden's basketball games. We haven't been to any of his games in way too long. It is hard traveling with our kids because they get car sick, but that is no excuse. We need to make a HUGE effort to visit more. We had fun watching Caden play and then we ran some errands before meeting our family at Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner.

The kids had such a fun time playing. Grandma got down her button box that J use to play in when he was little. G enjoyed sorting the buttons and finding her favorites. When G wasn't looking, B would steal her favorites and hide them somewhere. Ha! The kids also had fun making tents with Grandma and Grandpa using blankets and chairs. I think G was surprised that they knew how to make great tents- with three sons and three Grandsons I bet there were a lot of tents made through the years!

Charlie and Grandpa were making catfish, shrimp, hush puppies, and all the fixings for Pop's birthday dinner. Grandma taught G how to make fried pies. I paid close attention because I have been hearing about these fried pies since J and I began dating 13 1/2 years ago! I hope that I can make them like she does or close to it when J requests them in the future. We had such a fun time visiting with family. Happy birthday to Pop!!

Keep, Toss, Donate

Our one big project over the holidays was cleaning out our storage building. While we were building our home, we rented a storage building each month for all our stuff we didn't have room for at the rent house and things we could do without while at the rent house.

I have to admit, when packing up boxes before the move to the rent house, I would get a little sad if I had to mark "storage" on the box. Isn't that silly? It's just stuff. And 1 1/2 years later.... I was opening up the boxes and it was like Christmas! I didn't even remember having all of it!

Other than being able to wash and put away all my china and crystal, I was very excited about my table linens! I could finally set up my naked tables!

Our storage building is completely cleaned out, everything is put away, and we have an extra $49 in our pocket each month. Woo-hoo!

Day with Dad

While Mommy and sis had to start back to work and school, Daddy and brother had a BIG day together. They slept in and then called Pop to join them for a little drive.

They drove to a neighboring city for a little McDonald's (B's fav) and furniture shopping.


B tried out all the reclining chairs and took a peek in all of the consoles on the sofas. None passed inspection. :( We are looking for some seating for upstairs. J has made the bonus room into a "man theatre." It is wired and we have the projector and LOUD equipment. It is actually quite awesome. There. I said it. If you enjoy a good movie it just makes it 10 times better. I'm not much of a movie person, but J rents about 5-10 videos from red box each month. He is LOVING it! He just bought dark, dark blue paint for the whole room, even ceilings. And after painting every room in our house he can't wait to get that brush wet again.



I'm glad he can have a place to relax and call his own. He deserves it.

Happy New Year!

My husband plays drums in his band "On the Verge", so he was ringing in the New Year by playing at an event sponsored by our local Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber did really well raising money for our city and it sounded like everyone had a great time. I stayed home with the kids and we ordered pizza, ate popsicles, and watched The Wizard of Oz. We had our own fun and I wouldn't trade it for the world!
We don't really make "resolutions" in our house. One thing I want to do this year is have more time with our friends. We have an awesome group of friends and we have been together as a group since high school and the guys have been friends since elementary school. Of course, once we began our careers, got married, and started having children we weren't able to get together as often because of our schedules. I really want to make a big effort to go to dinner or just hang out at each other's homes together. We all go through trials at one time or another and we need to be there for each other just to talk, laugh, and have a good time.