Kellye's blog

the christmas card

xmascard '08

winter water fun

The best way to spend the first day of winter break is, in my humble opinion, at an indoor water park. And thanks to some very groovy friends, that's just what we did. They have two kids with December birthdays and used that as an excuse to load up all their group of friends and hang out at Wild Bear Falls in Gatlinburg today. It was truly a blast. Belle was just barely tall enough to ride the slide and was scared to get on at first but I coaxed her a bit to ride once down with me. As soon as we hit the bottom pool she wanted to get back up there and go by herself and then again and again. I have no idea how many times she ended up climbing those steps.

The huge bucket that dumped water was a fascinating thing to watch, mostly because it was like watching Pavlov's dog in action. The bucket would fill with water and once it was almost full, it triggered a bell that rang between 18 and 22 times (yes, I counted. It rang a lot and we were there for hours....). The bucket only dumped every 3 or 4 minutes which is f-o-r-e-v-e-r in kid world so they didn't want to wait on it. After only 1/2 hour or so you could see them fall into a pattern. The area under the bucket would be empty and then that bell would start to ring. Children would begin to scurry from whatever attraction they were playing on and gather so that by the 12th ding there was quite a crowd. The water would dump, ensuing squeals of joy, then off they scattered in all directions only to repeat the whole thing again and again. Kids are fun to watch sometimes.
On the way home through Pigeon Forge, we stopped for dinner at the Flying Horse Grill because when you see a restaurant with a carousel in the lobby you should always stop and eat there. We sat under lights strung up to look like a carousel that we had fun taking pictures of while waiting for our food. The carousel was beautiful and had a unique little teacup-type seat, it didn't spin which just made Weston love it more.

facebook is killing my blog

I'm not dead, I swear. But most of the time now if you really want to know what's going on with me, it's best to just find me on facebook. Not that I have to tell any of you. Every single lovely person I know who actually reads my blog (and many people I never thought I would know again) is over there with me... and, last time I checked, most of their blogs look a little neglected too. Lately, when I think of something to post, I end up popping a quickie update on there about it instead. Lame, I know, and terrible for my already limited writing skills.

My New Year's resolution will have to be to show my blog some love and write some brilliant posts that will inspire hundreds of thought provoking comments. In the meantime, I'll be checking your status updates.

Happy Holidays!!

december already?

I'm still in a little shock that it is December already. It seems just yesterday I was bitching about school starting back up and now we are nearly halfway through. I'm not fully feeling the spirit yet but I'm getting there. I put the tree up early since we were going to be at Vic's parents on the day I usually do it. When I went to put out the rest of the decorations, I decided to keep it low-key this year and only put out about 1/4 of our stuff. I'm not scrooging or anything but, I don't know.... I guess I just want to keep it simple.
My mom took the kids to a tree lighting and festivities downtown on Friday night. There was fireworks and carriage rides and a sit down with the big guy himself. Each of the presents that they asked him for are already happily hidden in Vic's office. That's a nice feeling. When Belle first wrote her letter to Santa she asked for "wings that stick forever, a giant toy pony and a real rabbit that does what I say" sigh. I understand the desire for the first item, I blame the pony on those bastards at Hasbro with their obscene toy and the last one is just a reminder of what a control-freak she can be. None of these things, however, were possible for Christmas morning so we had a chit-chat about making the list more practical. We also took a trip to the toy store since I realized they hadn't actually been in one in many months and had no idea what to ask for (they have a commercial for the damn pony). I must say, they were very practical on that little field trip too. They've asked for very little plastic junk.....mostly they want Wii games, woots.
Tonight we went to Liza Moz with some friends from school for a little holiday crafty gathering. They rolled out clay and kids used cookie cutters to make ornaments and then paint them. Once they dry, they'll fire them and we can pick them back up in a week or so. It's nice to have an experience to go along with our yearly ornaments instead of just ordering them like I normally do.
Some new pics are here but this one's my favorite so far this season....

don't forget the woo!

mmmm, turkey day

We had a great day today, nice and relaxing. We watched the parade then my mom and her hubby came over. They are vegetarians so I made our turkey for us (a smaller one), all the sides were veggie friendly and Michael made some insanely good sushi.  We got way too full then managed to squeeze in some carrot cake and rum balls (thanks for the recipe Coco!). I even got to take a nap. woots!

Tomorrow I am sleeping in on Black Friday for the first time in at least 8 years. It feels nice to ignore it. However, we do have to go to the inlaws for a belated holiday thing to which I say.....

..

Hope you all had a tasty and sleepy Thanksgiving!!

and again

Last night I went out to dinner with a couple of girlfriends and then to see Twilight again. I'm not sure if it was the tequila shot or the fact that I was no longer worried about wether or not the movie would suck, but it was so much better the second time around. Amanda is equally as obsessed with the books as I am and even though my sister is only through the first book, she gets it so we were kinda like a group of giddy school girls. We even all ordered the mushroom ravioli for dinner, giggle.
I'm thinking I may need to see it just one more time.....

twilight review

*********spoiler alert and all that jazz.....

I haven't read any other reviews yet but I'm going to assume that it's being panned. If it is, I can see why. It had some serious problems but I'm going to start with some of the good. There were some excellent casting choices. Alice, Jasper, Jessica, Angela, Emmett, Esme and Victoria were all what I pictured them to be when I read the book. Victoria was especially dead on. The choice for Mike, however, was horrendous and I thought Peter Facinelli might be a terrible pick for Carlisle (I was right). The car crash, baseball game and the final scene with James were well-done even if they were a little different. There was quite a bit changed actually. Not on a Golden Compass level (shudder) but as much as the Potters, if not more and I can't go any further without mentioning my major complaint- the meadow.
I had been waiting for the meadow scene as it's my favorite in the book. They rushed through the dinner and the drive home, it wasn't bad but they really should have stayed on script there with how her knowledge of what he is progresses. The first 2/3 of the book is strictly about the growth of their relationship and some of those interactions with them needed to be in the movie. Then we were suddenly in the meadow but there hadn't been enough discovery and Bella and Edward weren't at the emotional place they were supposed to be. So, even though it wasn't bad, it didn't feel quite as.....oh, what's the word here.... magical. But he sure looked pretty when he was sparkly.
Which brings me to the one and only part of the movie that I cared about. Edward. I was fully prepared for this movie to not live up to my expectations. How could it? You can't cram 500 pages into 2 hours and not screw something up. I only asked that Edward be right. And he was perfect. It didn't matter that the scene where Bella is given her truck is almost painfully awkward. It didn't matter that they felt the need to add unnecessary vampire killings to appease the males forced to come to the theater. And it didn't matter that most of the time Bella just looked kinda pissed off. Because Edward was everything you wanted him to be. He was perfectly played, tortured and passionate with that smirky, sly but protective thing going on. And holy cripeys that boy is smokin' hot.
So, was it a good movie? meh, it was alright. But will I happily pay to see it with friends again tomorrow night? Oh my-- yes!

happy twilight day

mmmmm edward

“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?”
“Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.”

weekend update

So this was one of those weeks where you are so busy that it sort of passes in a blur. I'm shocked and a little saddened that's it's Sunday morning and we have to start all over tomorrow.

skatetown

Tuesday was Belle's end of the season soccer party. It was at Skatetown and neither of the kids have tried it before. Both kids spent the evening clinging to the rink wall but with huge grins plastered on their face. Weston managed to almost get the hang of it and was letting go for short spurts at the end. Belle, love her, fell on her butt just about every time she let go. She's a dancer, not an athlete... sorta like me.

boys love those trains

Wednesday, Weston had a buddy over for most of the day. This is pretty much his only friend who isn't some adorable, curly-haired little girl so I wanted to encourage him. I know part of the reason he likes to hang with girls is because they are more mature. Of course, he wouldn't put it that way but I've seen him giving the what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look to boys who are running around acting like, well, boys. Girls at this age tend to have more focused imaginative play and more in-depth conversations even if it's just about jelly beans and Weston is definitely a talker. But the boys had fun and didn't burn the house down.

Thursday was Grandparents' Night at the PTA book fair. I meant to go and help out with refreshments from 4:30-5:30 and yet somehow managed to not get home until closer to 7:30. The kids basically had cookies for dinner that night but I didn't want to leave since they had so few volunteers show up. And it's always interesting, after working with these school kids, to finally meet some of their families. You have a lot of moments where you think "yep, that explains a lot."

Friday, Anik and I started on the yearbook. When I got the call over the summer asking me to take on that project it sounded like quite a bit of work. Boy, did I underestimate. It's a shit-ton of work. Anik has a son in Belle's room and her daughter will start with West next year. Since she's a graphic designer, I am extremely thankful that she signed on to help. I'm even more thankful that she isn't irritating to be around for extended lengths of time and is becoming a good friend. We worked all day Friday and most of the day yesterday and now all 400+ kids are on their class pages. An excellent start but there is so much left to do.
Last night, Belle stayed with my mom and Vic is taking the little man to see Madagascar 2 this morning which means I've scored a couple of blessed hours alone before we head to a birthday party this afternoon.
I will enjoy the silence.

tagged

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and put the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 weird or random facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link to their blog.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a note on their blog.

Tagged by Shooshie

    1. I think peppers are yucky.

    2. I have seen Gone in 60 Seconds at least a dozen times but never really liked the movie. 

    3. There are 778 miles on my treadmill.

    4. I voted democrat in a presidential election for the first time last week.

    5. Large crowds make me uncomfortable.

    6. I am thinking of getting my rook pierced again (removed for first c-section) but I never wear lobe earrings.

    7. One of my favorite snacks is prunes.

Now I am supposed to tag 7 people which would be great but I don't know that many who blog and Susu tagged half of them already ;-) How about Gina, Stacey, and Chris.