Classic movie introduction for the girls

I have a problem. I love to watch my favorite movies when things get a little hectic. Pride and Prejudice, Ann of Green Gables, Little Women, and so on. They have a calming affect on my day. It is wonderful! I can remember the first time I watched each of these movies with clarity. For example, my mom rented Ann when I was sick in 7th grade and I was mesmerized! Pride and Prejudice: I remember laying on the floor with big pillows with Paige and Mom fast forwarding through the commercials because she had taped it off BBC!

Here is my problem. I want the girls to have the same moment of being totally absorbed in a wonderful movie they are watching for the first time! But if I keep watching these movies as they grow up I'm afraid they will just think of them as, well the same thing I think about Perry Mason*. (Sorry Mom)

At some point I will have to go on a "movie's to be saved for the future" fast and go without for a while. Sacrifice my little "escapes from reality" (and possibly my sanity) so that my Corie, Evie, and Brooks will one day say "I remember when we had a campout in the living room and watched ______ and I was obsessed with it for weeks!"

* I do however, remember being very small the first time I watched Star Wars. I have very skewed memories of what I thought it was about. But when I watched it again when I was older I was still as star struck, so to speak, as everyone else so maybe I am over reacting.

The girls and Pooh Bear watching Winnie the Pooh

Brooklyn's First Tea Party

Brooks joined us at our Tea Party, I think she enjoyed it

All dressed up

Brooks is one month old today! And I have taken pictures of all the girls at one month and thought it might be fun to compare:

Corie Lynn

Evelyn Nell

Brooklyn Leora

Brooklyn Joins the Crew!

She is here. Our littlest girl, with her fuzzy head, soft skin, blue eyes and perfect tiny body. She is almost 4 weeks old now and we can't imagine our little family before she arrived. Between a broken computer and a new baby this is the first chance I've had get her on here!

We are enjoying being a family of five, and here are some pictures of one of our first outings.

This is actually after the pumpkin patch, cooling off in the fountain (Brooks is in the sling)

On the Tractor Ride

Don't have a comment for Corie's face... being silly

My 3 Lil' Punkins

Our computer has been in and out of the computer hospital the last few weeks, and therefore I have no pictures to share. But I thought I'd give a little update on what we are doing and will be doing! 

Corie will be 4 yrs old on Sept 17!  She is turning into quite the big kid, and growing into a sweet young lady (when we can leave the attitude behind that is).  She is a wonderful big sister, she and Evie play very well together right now and fights are usually born out of misunderstanding on Evie's part.  She loves to play pretend with anything she can find, even crayons and cars turn into princesses, princes and fairies!  She also loves to read with us, and make up her own stories (mostly about fairies and princesses) in notebooks. 

I am thinking of starting a preschool homeschool program, just to give me an outline of things for her to do during the day since we still have 2 yrs until kindergarden.  Asking questions seems to be her lot in life, and she knows how to use them.  She knows Mommy is a sucker for answering, so when I say that there is no talking for a while (in the car or at the dinner table mostly) she will sneak in innocent out of the blue questions, just to get me talking again.

Evie is almost 20 months old, and is becoming a fun and challenging toddler!  She is speaking more and more (but more than likely will need mommy, daddy or Corie to translate to others) and is actually very good at following directions.  Even when she is angry, asking her to do a "chore" (throw the trash away, put your toy in on the shelf, etc. ) will get her distracted because she feels like a big girl when she helps.  My favorite right now is if she spills her drink she will run and get a dish towel out of the drawer and wipe up every  single little drop, sometimes I don't even know about it and find a towel wadded back in the drawer smelling slightly of sour milk :) 

She also figured out how to climb out of her crib, but has not proven to be very good at it.  So she has moved to the trundle with Corie.  That has been a challenge, but hopefully it will settle down soon.  She is a big hugger and loves to give kisses, she also loves to tackle "Sissy" and wrestle with Daddy.  She loves shoes and it is not unusual to find upwards of 10 pairs of shoes scattered around the house at the end of the day (including some of mine she sneaks out of my closet).

 

New Baby will be here no later than Sept 21!  I am ready to meet her! I have not got the house ready, although nesting was in high gear this last weekend, I only scratched the surface.  I'll get it done though, with Matt's help I'm hoping to be ready by the 11th (Corie's birthday party) so the last week is not crazy! 

Still working on a name, but we are getting closer to nailing one down. I have a feeling we won't REALLY decided until she is born.  I think Matt and I both work better under pressure... either that or we are both major procrastinators.  I guess it's a little of both. 

I know this is a long one, but sometimes I need help remembering these short phases in life! Hope some of it is fun to read!

Zoo Day

Bethany and I took all the kids to the zoo this morning. We had a great time watching animals and doing the stroller shuffle (Corie wanted to sit in every seat...)

Train Ride at the zoo

"Tickets Please!"

Evie was probably the most excited

Pretty Flower

Feeding the goats

Sister Moment

Corie and Asher insisted on riding in the stroller, while Evie and Avery wanted to explore!

Evie and the "Ee-bah!"

The whole crew (Corie has a rolly polly on her hand...)

I noticed that I didn't take any pictures of animals. Its funny how for me a trip to the zoo is about watching my kids' experience instead of going to see the animals. Although, the kangaroo family gave us quite a show today. The cool morning must have made them in the mood to race!

Naming a New Human Being...

...has not been easy for me and my husband this time around. Before, it was a battle of wills... who's favorite name will win in the in end (Mommy - 1, Daddy - 1). But we have come to an impasse. Neither of us has a favorite to fight for, we have a list of names that are possibilities at most.

Actually, that is not completely true. I do have a name that is my favorite, but I know (as my husband is fond of exasperatingly reminding me) it is impossible. The name is Stella. Those of you that know how we pronounce our last name can immediately see the problem. Although the it looks like "Mars-taller", we actually say "Mar-steller." So poor little Stella Marsteller can never be.

I'm very glad that we decided to find out what sex this baby is this time too. Otherwise I would probably be all smug about my perfect little boy name and assume that I would not have to stress about another girl name. When we first found out it was a little girl I had fun day dreams of Corie and I calling her by her name when Corie talked to my tummy and helped pick out fun things for "so-and-so." Bah, now Corie is more convinced than ever that her name will be Stars, because we have nothing to contradict her with!!

I'm trying not to put too much pressure on the name game, and just let one begin to feel like it fits. I'm almost willing to say yes if Matt ever decides he has a favorite, almost...

Literary Depression

I was finally talked into reading the Twilight Saga recently, something I had been avoiding not because I don't enjoy that genre but because of the tween craze. Nevertheless, I gave in and to my surprise, enjoyed the first book! It is no Pride and Prejudice, but it was a fun, easy read and I loved the plot idea! Nice vampires, unlikely love, it was an entertaining twist.

As I read through the next two books in the series, I was feeling a little disappointed in the quality of the characters and the storyline. The more I read, the less I understood about their relationships and almost didn't want things to work out for them. They were whiny and selfish (besides Edward, but but he was also degraded to a piece of pathetic background noise later on) and seemed to just be satisfied that mystery and physical attraction was the reason for the "love" triangle. Sigh, I was beginning to become disenchanted with the Saga, but hoped that Breaking Dawn would pull it all together and save the day!

Oh boy... How I wish I had never opened that dismal book!

This is not intended to be a book review, so I will not explain all the ways that I was so disappointed in the last book of the Twilight Saga, but let me just say that it sent me into a "Literary Depression" for a few days. Because I had never read any reviews I had no preconceived ideas of how others liked the book, so I assumed that I was alone in thinking that this was a travesty among book Finales! This thought made me even more depressed. What had I missed? Had I expected too much? Why did I feel like this book wasn't even written by the same author?? When did the sweet innocent first love story turn the characters into cardboard afterthoughts, sex addicts and mutant baby producers?!?! Ok, let me get my composure back....

Ok, so this anticlimactic and frustrated feeling lasted a few days until I was brave enough to search for someone else that might have felt the same way. So I typed "Breaking Dawn book disappointment" into google hoping I might find a lone blogger who shared my let down.

Lo and Behold! I begin to read review after review of people just as chagrined as I was!! Luckily Matt and Corie had gone to the church to play basketball and Evie was already tucked asleep in bed, because I would have been embarrassed for anyone to hear my hysterical laughter and jubilation over a hostile book review! I was not alone! As I read and saw everything I had been stewing over in other's typed words, I began to feel better (ok so elated!)

In conclusion, I will not brand myself as a Twilight fan. As I said above, I did enjoy the first book and do think that the storyline had potential to be a really good series. The author was either too inexperienced, to "dazzled" (haha, i dare you to find out how many times that word is used in the series!) by the media, or had too much pressure writing the final book. Either way, while I am no longer in my "Literary Depression," mostly because I was not the only one to be disappointed, I am sad that it had to end on a sour note.

*disclaimer* -For those of you who do not know me well, I would like to point out that I love to read and enjoy books immensely, sometimes obsessively. BUT I also enjoy being overly dramatic in my writing and it just made it more fun that Twilight has been such an over the top craze, I couldn't help myself. I was never actually depressed, I hold no hostile feelings toward the author, and I can go on with my life and forget I ever read that stupid series. That's all.

"Team Edward!" (Just Kidding!!)