a long night, an even longer day

The girls and I packed up the suburban this morning around midnight and hauled ourselves to the movie theater to get in line for the final installment of Harry Potter.  

We hung out in the back of the car looking all sketchy while we sat in the parking lot until about 1:15am.  We then went into the theater to find out from a manager where our line would be lining up.

The picture below is our no nose tribute to the dark wizard himself...Voldy.

Once we knew were to line up & a few more kids showed up they all hunkered down on the cold hard cement to talk about Harry Potter into the wee hours of the morning.  I, not being willing to sleep on cement, took to the comfort (haha) of my suburban.

After my two and a half hours of sleep (honestly, I'm too old for this) I awoke to a sidewalk full of slumbering kids.  I'm not sure how they could sleep...it was cold and wet.  The world decided to send rain today (or maybe it's dementors)

I left them to sleep for 20 minutes while I ran to pick up cereal and milk.  They are currently all up, enjoying breakfast and chatting with all the other Harry Potter crazies that joined the lines while we slept.

We'll see how the next 14 hours go.  I'm hoping that we'll be awake when the movie actually starts.

not done but close

Megan and Em are off to another Halloween party/dance tonight at church so I had to get Meg's Jane (of Volturi fame ) costume done. Unfortunately I didn't get it finished but it was ok for the evening.

I never hemmed the sleeves so they are just rolled up (hence the uneven sleeves in the picture - that will be fixed) I also need to make a few adjustments and clean up the edges around her neck but other than that It's mostly done and I'm pleased with how it came out.
The contacts are sweet and way creepy. Megan's eyes make this costume.
I need to get some pictures with the hood on because I like how it looks. When Meg gets all made up for Halloween we'll get more pictures.

i think i have finally recovered

I ended up getting to bed at 4am after Harry Potter and have had many a late night since then. I think last night was my low point - major headache and not feeling so hot but after some Tylenol, a great neck massage and a good nights sleep I am finally feeling like I have recovered from the middle of the night festivities.

We had a great time waiting in line for Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Hogwarts crew.  We ended up having 31 (or was it 32) of us in line to see the movie with a few other party crashers that came to hang out in line with us but left around 9:30ish because they didn't want to do the midnight movie.

Here's a shot of some of the teens that went.  What a great group of kids.  I love that my kids have good friends to hang out with.

You can see more pictures from the night here.

We loved the movie.  I wish they would have included more from the book but I knew going into it that things would be missing.  The sets were amazing (they always are)  I loved the humor in this movie - it was good to see Harry laugh a little.

and we're off

too see the Chosen One, the boy who lived, the wizard we all love - Harry Potter.  I'm guessing we'll be home in about 12 hours (man, that seems like a long night) and then after a hopefully long nap I'll be back to post pictures of the festivities.

buying 28 (revised - 31) tickets today

Tuesday night will be a party as we wait in line for the midnight release - so, so excited!

megan in line - me home blogging

I just dropped Megan off at the movie theater so she could wait in line for 6 hours to be one of the first into the theater for some Edward goodness.  Vampires aren't enough to get me to the midnight movie.  Wizards, yes -vampires, no.

low key 4th

We stuck close to home for the 4th this year.  We usually do something with Derek's family but with Grammy Baker being out of town for the holiday we did our own thing.  We had a few invitations to the beach but that was not an option because of Nathan (post coming about the who, what, where, when of this) 

We decided to relax at home in the morning and then in the afternoon we hit the movies to Wall-E.  Cute movie but not my favorite Pixar.  It didn't help that I was terribly tired (anyone have some sleep aid helps - I'm just not sleeping at night)  

We tried yet another of the multitude of frozen yogurt shops that are opening all around us. I can't even remember the name of it which doesn't really matter since I'm totally a G Spoon gal. I really do like Golden Spoon better then all the others.  The one place G Spoon could improve is in their decor - the red & gold are not my favorite and I hate the mirrored walls - do we really need to watch ourselves stuff food down our throats?  The yogurt however I love!  No I am not a paid spokesperson but will gladly accept all coupons and gift cards from anyone working at Golden Spoon.  Done with that rant!

We tried unsuccessfully to talk the kids out of going to watch fireworks - unpatriotic I know but have you forgotten...I'm not sleeping!  Derek was pretty tired at this point too yet we could only successfully persuade the girls and Luke to stay home - Nate was determined to get us out to see the night sky aflame with fireworks.  We headed over to Ladera and watched the fireworks from an apartment complex.  We ran into the Calls from our ward so my boys were happy to have someone to pal around with.  It was a nice night and to be honest I'm glad we went.  Thanks Nate for being so stubborn!

keeping busy

Saturday always seems so busy around our house.  I woke up early while the rest of the family slept in and recovered from our family room sleepover.  I managed to get my grocery shopping done and then came home, grabbed the girls and off we went to the local farmers market.  We loaded up on produce - the boys were thrilled with the carrots.  They love eating carrots with the stems still on them - it cracks me up.  

We spent the rest of the day doing a ton of house work.  We cleaned out rooms, took one of Emily's beds out of her room (she had 2 twin beds).  She is so excited to have more floor space and is making big plans for what to do with the extra space.  We installed book shelves in Megan's room to store her multitude of books, and we made a trip to the dump to get rid of all the "treasures" that had been hiding in our home. 
Emily had a couple friends over to watch Camp Rock  - a Disney made for TV movie and not a very good one I might add.  After Emily's friends left the 2nd round of kids showed up with Megan's friend's coming over at 10 pm to watch the same movie - they have the same opinion as I do about the movie, not Disney's finest.  It was a night full of friends, bad movies and pizza and when everyone hit the pillow that night we were out.

summer vacation friday

Friday we continued swim lessons for the boys.  Friday night we all went to the local pool and the boys got to show off their swimming skills to dad and the kids got to play with friends who were also at the pool.  

After some swimming we came home for a family room sleepover.  Mattresses and excercise mats were brought down and we cuddled in for a movie - Spiderwick Chronicles.  Kind of an intense kid movie.  Nathan had been eager to watch it since he just finished reading the series a month or two ago.

8's not too young

Can you see them?  Look closely...my 8 year old has tats.  A few weeks ago we went as a family to see Hannah Montana (more on that later) and Nate decided to wear these tattoo sleeves that we have in our costume box.  We got more then a few disapproving looks from passer-byes as well as a bunch of double takes with looks of complete shock.  I found it all fairly funny and watched for people to react.  You see, I am easily amused.  Nate played it up, keeping his hands in his pockets so that you couldn't see where the sleeves ended on his wrists.

Now for the Hannah Montana movie in 3-D...Luke, Nate and Derek all fell asleep and I believe Megan was close to drifting off to dreamland.  Emily enjoyed it immensely - it was right up her tweendom alley. Upon leaving the theater Derek assured me that if word got out that he went to see HM 3-D he would have to hand over his man card.  I guess that is why he stayed to dark corners as we exited the theater.

for jodie and anyone else that cares

We finally saw Hairspray and we LOVED it! I haven't laughed so much in a movie in a long time. The casting was perfect, the music fun, the comedy hilarious...it was great!

If you are lame like us and still haven't gotten out to see it you should. You won't be disappointed unless you hate musicals, people in drag, politically incorrect comments, and great dancing.

Was this mother not the funniest character ever? We were laughing so loud in the theater because of her. See what a "devil child" can turn us mothers into.

two thumbs up for mr. potter

Megan with her golden ticket
just one of the 8 lines outside the theater for the midnight showing
my brother hanging out with the ladies

Megan and I loved the movie. I always get a little perturbed when they leave stuff out or change things and that happened a great deal in this movie but I guess that's to be expected when the books are so long.

We both are anxious to see the movie again with the rest of the family - how nice it will be to not have to wait until midnight to see it. I think Meg may be on her own for the next midnight Harry Potter.

now showing

Friday night was movie night again at the Baker house. We showed The Incredibles and ended up with 32 people here - if I counted correctly. We didn't do hot dogs this time but we had popcorn, nachos and drinks free of charge. We decided to let people pay for the candy so we set up a concession stand case to showcase what we had. It was a great addition. I found a shadow box at Michael's and used velcro to secure the candy inside. I printed up little yellow tags with the price and taped them to the candy. It was an easy project and made life so much easier since kids couldn't come and just grab candy off the table. Emily worked the concession stand and kept all the candy hidden behind the table only giving it to people when they paid.Another addition to our movie night was tickets. I loved how they turned out that I plan on using them every time we show an outdoor movie. I got the template for the tickets here I found the link on the forums at Backyard Theater. If you are thinking about an outdoor theater you have to check the website out -lots of good ideas and great pictures of outdoor movie set ups. Back to the tickets...the template was easy to use and once we had the tickets printed up on matte photo paper they look pretty legit.

On Saturday night we did a trial run of our outdoor movie set up. The plan is to invite neighbors and ward members over on Friday nights through the summer to enjoy movies. We had a few families over this last weekend to try it out.Since it was just a few families we provided dinner - hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, drinks, and movie candy. Not a healthy meal but a yummy one. Providing dinner for the open invitation nights isn't possible - I can imagine our grocery bill. I think we'll always provide popcorn, it's cheap and filling. We may do a concession stand with candy but I think we'll charge the price of the candy.
Everyone that came brought beach chairs and jackets and we settled in to enjoy Bridge to Terabithia. I think some of our guests who were not familiar with the story were a little taken back by the movie - note to self...pick light hearted happy ending movies when inviting people over. It was still a fun night. Our kids loved having movie night outdoors and it is a way easy way to entertain. Now we just need to come up with movies to watch through the rest of the summer. Anyone have good ideas for appropriate family movies? How about fun adult movies - appropriate fun movies.

them thar be scary pirates

We spent Saturday afternoon with my family going to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Those darn pirates proved to be a bit to scary for some of our landlubber kids so after talking to the theatre manager I took some of the kids to another theatre to see Shrek. I wish I could give you a great review of the movie but I slept through a lot of it and if truth be told - I'm not a huge Shrek fan.

After the movie my family came back to the house where we hung out and had dinner. We celebrated Meg's birthday (a little early) with some strawberry shortcake.

We also had to get a group shot of all of us sporting our pirate garb. My mom hit the 99 cent store and outfitted us all in the latest pirate fashion.

Tear Jerker

Denise and Emily spent the early part of Friday night at the movies. All the 5th graders from Em's school just finished reading Bridge to Terabithia so the teachers arranged an outing to see the movie. The theatre was full of way more kids then parents and Denise thought they might never quiet down for the movie (but they did) The movie was great and both Denise and Emily enjoyed it. Denise hadn't read the book since elementary school so she was not prepared for the story line and cried her fair share of tears. Em didn't cry but that might have been different had so many classmates not been there. If you haven't seen the movie yet it's worth the trip.

Party Time!

The kids social calendar was full last night...

Luke had a birthday party to go to for one of his "bestest friends" Gracie.

Emily and Nate went to a party together with all the kids from their primary classes. They wore pj's, watched a movie, jumped on a trampoline, and more. Nate must have had a long week at school because when Derek went to pick them up from the party Nathan was snoozed out.

Megan planned a last minute party so she would have something to do and invited the girls from her Young Women's class at church over to watch Monster House and have dinner. Denise and Megan went into party mode and got the backyard set up for the evening.

We borrowed our friends projector and set up the "theater" outside. Everyone agreed that it was a great set up so now we are making plans to show movies in the backyard on Friday nights next summer.


We ordered a ton of pizzas and invited the parents of Megan's friends to stay for dinner. Some of the families brought salads to share. My friend Max and her kids made adorable mummy cupcakes that they brought over to the party. We also had movie candy and a ton of popcorn from our new popcorn cart that Denise just got for entertaining. She loves it!

After dinner a few of the parents left and the rest moved into the family room, to watch a freaky Mel Gibson movie on tv - Signs, so the girls could have their party adult free. They had a blast huddled up on the sofa covered with warm blankets to watch the movie. At one point during a scary part of the movie Derek climbed out Emilys window onto the patio cover. He was right above the girls and he quietly snuck out to the edge where he threw his head down over the edge and yelled at the girls. He was right in front of the movie screen so they all saw him and they all screamed. Of course the demented parents who were watching it all from the family room window got a good laugh and so did the girls.

After the movie the girls hung out, talked and laughed. As parents we are glad that all our kids have such good friends that they can do fun wholesome things with. Last night was fun for all of them and for Derek and Denise too.