The park

So here's just a few pics from the park.

Movie Night

Since Jesse has been out of town we've had to come up with things to do, especially in the evening to help us get through until bedtime. One night we decided to have a movie night. We set out pillows and blankets. We popped popcorn, ate dibs, and watched Bee Movie. A good time was had by all.

Even Lizzie.

Oh the places you can sit

In our house we like to find new places to sit each day. Sometimes it is the carseats when they have been brought inside.

Sometimes it is the folded up stroller

Sometimes it is a camp chair

Oh, and have you noticed that Graham loves to accessorize? Ties, necklaces... All sorts of fun things over here.

This is what happens

When you give your 1 year old chocolate all the way home from church.

My life

I have never seen something more applicable to my life.
For those of you who are eyesight challenged, here is what it says:
AHHHHHhhh....
Mom?
Sigh
What.
Where are you?
I'm in the tub.
Where?
I'm in the bathtub!
The bathroom bathtub?
Yes. The bathroom bathtub.
Why?
BECAUSE I NEED TO SPEND SOME TIME RELAXING SO I CAN CONTINUE TO BE A KIND AND PLEASANT PERSON TO BE AROUND!!! AAAAARGH!
Who keeps biting the heads off my Barbie dolls?
I think Mom does it while she's relaxing.

Spoiler Alert and Tender Mercies

OK, so there will be a commentary about Harry Potter, so if you want to read my thoughts, they will be in the next paragraph. If not, then you can read this paragraph about a slightly related subject with no info about the movie, and then stop reading, and come back later after you have seen the movie. So we went to the midnight movie last night, and it was tons of fun. My friend Jana and I got there at about 10, and got into line, and within 5 minutes we were seated in our theater. Ours was one of the first to be ready for us, so that was kind of nice, but it means that there could have been tons of craziness going on in the outside that we missed out on. We were the oldest in the theater for a long time, and quite possibly the only people who needed to get a babysitter. And that brings us onto the tender mercy part of the evening. At first I asked my brother Matt if he could come up and watch the kids for me. So since Matt is just about the nicest person around he said he would come up and do it. But I thought that I'd still see if the neighbor girl would do it, since she only lives next door, and not half an hour away. So it turns out, that she was willing to come, so Matt didn't have to come. Anyway, long story short, our neighbor sat in our house. I think it was her first time babysitting, although she is in High School I think. Anyway, so it was all ok, until we were driving home, and as we approached the neighborhood we noticed how dark it was. Sure enough the power was out when we got home. The power happened to go out on Sunday night as well, and that night didn't work out so well for us. Neither kid slept in the dark. So we're pulling up and I'm imagining that this poor girl is sitting in the dark with two screaming kids. But the tender mercy is that both kids slept, and that the girl was able to call her mom who lived right next door and had a flashlight brought to her. It was small, but I think it was a major blessing for us.
So here comes the spoilers. I'm telling you, don't keep on reading. Dumbledore dies. Told ya so, I'm laying it all out on the table.
OK, just kidding, but I really am going to talk about what I liked and didn't like. First off, over all I liked the movie. Some of the things that I liked were the portrayal of Draco and Snape. I thought that they did an excellent job looking into these characters that have been so onesided so far, but are now coming to have more dimensions. I also especially liked Ron on the love potion, and Harry after taking the liquid luck. I can understand a lot of parts that were left out, and some of them were non-essential side things, but I don't know. I just feel like this movie had a different feel from the others. It was way way different from the book. The thing that I disliked the most: the Burrow scene at Christmas. It was not in the book at all. And it was totally pointless. And I'm sorry, Ginny running after Harry? Not Ron and Heromine? You can see that they were trying to introduce Ginny more in this movie, but they didn't do it at all like the book, and I can't see that it was really necessary. I mean, he's on the run with the whole next book, and she's really not a player. I can understand why they did it though, you know, give the people what they want and all. But here's another thing, when he's hiding the book, he doesn't see the diadem in the movie. That's essential for the last book. How are they going to work their way out of that one. Or did I miss something? I guess I'll have to see it again. But as it is, I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. Have you seen it? What did you think?

Washington DC

Kind of as an explanation of the posts to follow that I have already written (did you follow that?) this year instead of going on a big vacation we decided to have a staycation with several little daycations. The first part of the week Jesse was at scout camp, and I went to the zoo with my mom, and then on Thursday and Friday we went on a few adventures once Jesse got home. This post takes us to Friday when we went in to DC.
We took the Metro in again, and once again, no accidents. They are going awfully slow at certain parts though. We started the day at the American History museum. We saw just a handful of places, including the flag as a follow up on our Ft McHenry visit. Then we moved onto the Natural History museum. Nate really wanted to see the dinosaurs and I took Graham to see the hall of mammals. After that we headed out to the Air and Space Museum. By this point Graham had fallen asleep, so I sat with him while Jesse took Nate to see some of his favorites. Even though we hadn't really seen that much we were ready to go home. I guess when you live so close to places like this, there really isn't this feeling of needing to get the most out of each time you come.
So that was the third day of all day trips, and were were pretty worn out that night, but I'll tell you, it sure was nice to have everyone in their own beds in their own rooms each night. There's enough to do in this part of the country that we can do this every year! :)