Austen

I finally did it. I read my first Jane Austen book. I finished it today.

And . . .

I loved it!

It took me a few chapters to get used to the language

but once I did, it was easy sailing.

But . . .

I'm pretty sure I didn't catch a lot because I just didn't know what a lot of the words meant but I'm just not going to read with a dictionary in the other hand. I'd never finish a book. I just move and get the jist from the rest of the sentence.

(Am I the only one that does this?)

So, I'm safe as long as I've seen the movie first.

p.s. Now that I can compare, the movie was very well done. It stayed true to the book. Now I want to see it again. I'm not sure I can talk Adam into that.

Fav quote, Edward said it,

"Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy."

Hello? Hello? Is Anyone There?

Joe loves him some bananas.

I was doing dishes and looked over to him doing this.

So I grabbed the camera and took a picture.
Then I said, "Joe, smile for mama."
He did this.

Then I said, "Joe, a regular smile."

He did this.

I thanked him for being sweet and went back to the dishes and he went back to his banana.
I looked back a few dishes later to find this.

How eats a banana horizontally?

Joseph!

Glamour Shots

Grace went to a birthday party last weekend that promised "glamour shots" for each little girl. Oddly enough, they didn't follow through with it but Grace (and Ella) are still fascinated by the idea of glamour shots.

"Mom, what are glamour shots?", they asked.

"They're when you get dressed up really fancy and take pictures.", I answered.

How else do you explain that gaudy 90's phenomenon?

The girls decided to do glamour shots of their own.

Ella asked me yesterday, "Mom, did you blog those pictures of me and Grace yet?"
I answered, "No, do you not want me to put them on the blog?"

"No, we want you to hurry up.",

Ella replied.

So here are our girls dressed up "fancy".

They completely did this themselves.

I wasn't even home when all this fabulousness was going on.

Do you love their "glamour shots"?

Aren't they fancy?

Our girls are completely hilarious and oh so glamorous.

Concentration

Adam has an iPod Touch that our kids love, love, love.

Joe especially likes to "pway on daddy's chuch"

(Its ridiculously cute to hear him say it.)

Joseph gets to concentrating pretty hard.

Out comes the tongue
I'm told that grandpa Hutchinson (Steve's dad) was a tongue-sticker-outer.
I just think its hee-ha-larious!

Disney on Ice

We went to the opening night of Disney on Ice last week.

(Opening Night sounds all cool but actually was the least expensive night.)

Our kids were

CRAZY EXCITED

Did you know its perfectly fine to attend Disney on Ice dressed as a princess?

There were even some adults in costume. It was . . . special

(you have to say "special" in the Church Lady voice, like it is in my head.)

I was curious how they were going to pull off "Cars" on ice.

Like this.

There was some fancy driving and Joe LOVED it.Then came the Little Mermaid which was pretty cool.

The kids were still pretty excited at this point.

The way they did waves was very cool. This isn't it but it was still cool.

The Lion King was the last thing before intermission. Whew!

The kids (and adults) welcomed intermission.
This is all the cousins (minus Olivia)
counterclockwise from left: Heidi, Isabelle, Ella, Grace, Abby and Joseph in the center

Then came Tinker Bell, lots and lots of Tinker Bell.
An entire second half of Tinker Bell.
I wish I'd gotten a picture of Ella dozing off during the endless Tinker Bell. It was hilarious!

Overall the kids had fun and we are thankful that Angie spotted those great tickets for all of us.

p.s. I've about decided that all things Disney are overrated. Granted I've never been to Disneyland or Disney World but seeing this show made me want to take the kids there even less. I just don't get the big deal with all things Disney.
(Feel free to boo and hiss and throw rotten tomatoes at your computer screen.)

Yesterday

Yesterday was a truly lovely day.

Sunday it snowed and was wretched, Monday was all melty and soggy but that made

Tuesday all the more wonderful.

After taking Grace to school, Joe wanted to stay outside. I really needed to run but I can't say,

"Sorry kid, no playing outside on the first nice day in forever. I've got to run."

So we cleaned the junk and garbage out the of the van, playing basketball on the patio and spied some bees doing their thing.

Joseph was game for taking pictures of the bees.

Kind of.

He's actually terrified of any and all flying bugs (including house flies).

So I tried getting some pics of the busy bees.

Then Joe wanted a turn.

So after securing the strap around his wrist so he couldn't drop it (breathe Adam, breathe)

I let him at it.

He took a pic of his "skeches"

(his favorite shoes are Sketchers that he refuses to call tennis shoes, only "skeches"

What was left of Sunday's snow.
Me, of course. (In my defense, I was waiting to run that afternoon so why take a shower and get fixed if you still need to run that day.) I spend too many days like this, waiting to run. Like today, but I never got to run b/c I forgot Adam was working OT. I was C-U-T-E!
And this one, which is my favorite of the bunch.
He also took pics of the sky, our snow shovels and the ground.
We had a fun time, just the two of us, hanging out and doing what he wanted to do.
I hope I can remember to do this more often with all my kids.
It was a happy mom day!

Imperfections

So here's the deal. Its been a month, yes a full month, since I posted. I sat down tonight determined to do a post and get back into the habit. As usual I go to my pictures first to choose something to post about.

I like to include pics. Its a weakness.

I've looked over this month's pictures, last month's and January and . . . nothin' but crap

(mom, you're no longer allowed to ground me for saying "crap").

The backgrounds look awful, the kids look a mess (heaven forbid I get a pic BEFORE they destroy the mom-made cuteness) and someone is ALWAYS picking their nose (Joe), flashing underwear (Grace) or running around half naked (Ella). Ugh!

I've come to terms with these imperfections and have decided to post, for the sake of far away family, pictures with the least amount of nose picking, underwear and nudity. When I look at many of the pictures to come I see the imperfections in myself and hate to show them to the world. But let's be honest, the world's not reading this blog. I doubt ten people are reading this blog. So, forgive my absence and my awful pictures. They're the best I've got (oh, that's sad)!