A Miracle Happened

This week, Micah was good enough that we were able to celebrate his birthday! It actually only took 2 more days, thank goodness. His brothers were getting more anxious than he was to have cake and open presents, LOL. I took the 4 youngest out to WM and we chose a cake, and picked up some soda to have with pizza for dinner. Aside from Caleb trying to coach Micah through the cake-choosing process, all went well. Instead of ordering a cake and having to wait a few days for it, Micah chose to buy a cake from the case and put his own toys on it. Then we went over to the toy section and picked out some Hot Wheels cars for that purpose.

After lunch we opened presents and then had cake. Micah loved everything he got, and so did his brothers. Unfortunately that means they have been pestering him all week to share them and then arguing about who has had more time with them. I'm about ready to take them back again, LOL. We had pizza for dinner, but I forgot to open the soda, so we saved it for this weekend, for movie night.

I got some good pictures, but they are still in the camera, of course. I knew if I kept waiting to edit the pictures and get them uploaded, it would be another week at least before you knew if poor Micah had had his birthday. I'll get to it!

Yesterday after church, SIL called and invited us to meet her at the park so she and Chris could practice hitting and catching softballs. Chris' office team has started up again this year, and he says he is the oldest one on the team, and also the worst player. He really wants to get some extra practice in so they will give him more playing time, LOL. I have good pictures of us at the park, too. Noah took a few swings, and he's pretty good, considering he's never played a real game or had any coaching at all. He could be very good, but isn't really interested in joining a team. He isn't a very good loser, and tries to quit as soon as things get bad, and he also isn't willing to make the commitment to go to regular practices.

After playing at the park, SIL invited us to her house for burgers and chips. We were happy to accept, because we don't see her very much. BIL is a truck driver, and since they don't have any kids, she rides with him when he goes on long trips. That means it can be weeks at a time that they are away, and it makes it very hard for us to coordinate our free weekends with their home ones. We didn't want to pass up this chance! It turns out she had some friends over, too, as well as Chris' other sister and his parents. I didn't realize it was going to be such a big crowd. It worked out well, though, because her other friends brought kids along, so the boys had a fun time running around with them. We got home about 9:30 last night, which meant we missed movie night, so the soda is still waiting, LOL. The movie is, too. We are going to try to watch it tonight.

This morning Chris left at 6 am with Troyer and Noah for the Pathfinder Fair, which is in Reading. It is a required event for them, and they have to be in uniform. I spent the whole week pestering them to make sure they had everything they needed, but of course we were up past 11 last night trying to find parts to Troyer's uniform. Luckily we found it, but UGH why don't they listen? Oh yeah, because they're kids, lol. They should get back around dinner time tonight. I hope they have a good time. Chris is planning to be pretty bored, LOL.

Oh, I can update again on my books and movies list. I read another Catherine Palmer book, this one was Leaves of Hope, and it was another semi-romance that also followed a woman's spiritual searching. It had a few twists to it, and I enjoyed it. Now I'm in the middle of a romance (non-Christian, straight off the rack at WM) by Victoria Alexander called The Marriage Lesson. It's ok, but not very compelling. Some books I can't put down until I'm done (to the detriment of my poor children and my poor house, LOL) but this one isn't drawing me in that much. Still, it isn't really bad so that I make gagging noises as I read and then finally give up and put it in the Donate pile ( I have actually done that with books that were THAT bad).

Chris was in the mood last week to rent Invincible, the movie about the Philadelphia Eagles player who won a walk-on spot on the team. While I was at the store to rent it, the salesgirl talked me into applying for the online rental subscription because they were having a 2 week free trial, and it came with a coupon for a free in-store rental. So I came out with 4 movies: the football movie, Yours, Mine and Ours (the remake), Barnyard, and You Me and Dupree.

We really enjoyed Invincible, it was a good story. Chris remembers waaaaay back to the 70s when the real story happened, and he says they changed it a bit for the movie, but mostly it was right on.

I enjoyed the remake of Yours Mine and Ours, though I thought they exaggerated the mom's flakiness. I also didn't really feel the chemistry between Frank Beardsley, the dad (which I think Dennis Quaid played very well) and Helen North (played by Rene Russo). I think Chris gets nervous at the idea of admitting to liking these stories of large families (he doesn't want to encourage me, you know, lol) so I don't know if he liked it, but I do know we both agreed that the original was better.

We watched Barnyard with the kids a few times, and they laughed a lot, but I have to tell you, seeing cows that were supposed to be male but that had udders was too disconcerting for me. In one scene, one of the "cows" sprays milk from his udder on another farm animal. Ok, I didn't grow up on a farm, but even I know a cow can't "pee" milk from her udder. Ugh. Chris and I felt that Barnyard was very similar to The Wild, especially because the main character had only a father and no mother. The father was also far out of touch with his son, but at least in this movie the father was clearly more responsible and wiser than his son, which was not the case in The Wild. Overall we were disappointed in this one.

It took me almost 2 weeks to watch You Me and Dupree. I knew there was going to be stuff in it that I didn't want the boys to see, so I had to wait until after they were all in bed to watch it. Unfortunately I guess I was very tired all week, because I couldn't stay up for it. I finally watched it a few days ago. It's not the story I expected, but it was not bad. Matt Dillon is not my favorite actor, but he did ok in this one. I do like Owen Wilson, and he was pretty good, though I got tired of his character's immaturity probably faster than I was supposed to. I also like Kate Hudson, but I think maybe her character wasn't written well enough, she seemed to make jumps in attitude and mood that were abrupt. It had a good ending.

Since I had signed up for the 2 week trial of the online rentals, we got 3 movies in the mail too. I chose Click, Night at the Museum, and Ice Age the Meltdown. The boys loved Ice Age as much as the first one, but again, I didn't sit down and watch it all the way through with them, I kind of overheard it from the other room, lol. Click was cute, Chris and I thought they did a good job with the story and the "moral" though we didn't think it needed quite so much bad language. We all loved Night at the Museum, again a surprise for us, since we aren't big Ben Stiller fans. It had a good message, and a happy ending. We also liked the secondary message, that learning about history is a good thing.

A bonus for renting online movies is that when you return them to the store instead of mailing them back, you get a free in store rental, so I got movies with each of the three returns. I chose Alex Rider Operation Stormbreak, The Princess Bride, and Men in Black. Alex Rider was a movie I hadn't heard about before, but learned after watching it that is probably because it was a British film. It is a cross between Spy Kids and James Bond, about a 14 year old boy whose uncle is killed, and he finds out that his uncle was a spy when the agency recruits him to take over the mission. It is based on a series of books, so I hope to get Troyer and Noah into reading them. We thought the movie was pretty good.

Chris and I watched The Princess Bride back when it first came out on video, but we didn't remember the story very well. Still, I knew the boys would probably enjoy it. It was as cute as we remembered, and the boys did like it.

We had tried to watch MiB before, but when we rented it from the store, it had MiBII inside the case, and we returned it without seeing it; so this was our second try. I like Will Smith, and I liked the movie. Chris felt there was too much killing in it, though we only counted 4 people the alien killed, and none of it was shown on screen. They did blow up a few aliens, which they showed for full splatter effect. I didn't think it was that bad. And it was funny.

Finally, I had my Netflix movie sitting on the shelf, neglected, while we went through all the free stuff. It was another chick flick, Elizabethtown, with Orlando Bloom, so again, I had to find a time to watch it by myself. I ended up watching it early in the morning after I had gotten Jacob back to sleep. Unfortunately the boys woke up and made noise through the end of it, but I think I would have liked it, LOL. I may rent it again later and rewatch it.

Phew, that was a lot of movies, and we also watched Along Came Polly on tv last Sunday. I didn't really get that movie at all, but I had heard reviews that basically said the same thing, so I wasn't surprised, LOL. I'm not a huge Jennifer Aniston fan either.

It seems May is a big month for movie releases, Spiderman 3 came out this week, Shrek 3 is opening mid-month, and of course Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is opening at the end of the month. I am hoping that I can get a chance to go see them in the theater (at least Spiderman and Pirates), rather than have to wait for the DVDs next fall!

Phew, that was a lot of tv watching for the last 2 weeks, especially when you include end of season episodes of my favorite tv shows. I'm trying not to miss CSI (the Las Vegas version), NCIS, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and of course LOST. The boys and I have also been watching Dancing With the Stars, but we're getting pretty annoyed with the scoring system that lets the fans keep really bad dancers in while better ones get voted out. I guess it's the same story as American Idol, though LOL. At least the top 3 are still in solidly, and hopefully Billy Ray will go home this week! Man, it sounds like I have no life, LOL.

Hopefully I will have pictures up soon!

Oh yeah, and I got tagged for a "10 weird/interesting/you didn't know things about me" meme, which I will post if I can think of 10 things.