I must confess...

I've struggled with whether or not I should speak up about this and after a week or two of torment, I've decided I just have to come clean.

Prepare yourselves.

I did not like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Saying the words aloud makes me feel like the worst sort of traitor. I have absolutely loved the Harry Potter series and while none of the movies have come close to portraying the awesomeness of the books, this last movie installment disappointed me to my core. It made me feel ashamed of it's badness.

While some of the earlier movies didn't remain faithful to the books you left the theatre with a sense of fulfillment. The movies were exciting and had good, strong, easy to follow story lines.

Here are my core gripes with the latest of the Potter installments:

- The opening. While the death eaters flying around the bridge had some great special effects, it was pointless. Opening with the Prime Minister being addressed by the portrait on his wall would have been better and they could have more clearly addressed the problems the muggle world was facing due to the death eaters/dementors on the lose.

- The "funnies" in this installment were severely lame and so out of place they were painful to watch.

- Why in the hell would Ginny ever offer to tie Harry's shoes?

- Now this is another stupid small thing, but during the scene at the Weasley's right before Harry runs outside Tonks addresses Lupin as "sweetheart" or "darling" and that was so "off" it's crazy. She was supposed to be utterly depressed that Lupin wouldn't continue a relationship with her.

- You can tell from watching the movie they were trying to throw in as many book references in as possible, and it made the movie a little sloppy. It would have been better to cut what needed to be cut and make the story line move more smoothly. It also begs the question: Why, if they couldn't even manage the book references, did they invent scenes that never even took place in the book and did nothing to improve upon the movie's story line?

- WHY ON GODS GOOD EARTH DID THEY ALTER THE ENDING? The "real" Harry Potter would never have, in a million years, "hid" under the tower whilst Malfoy confronted Dumbledore. And then make it seem like he stood there because Snape pointed a wand at him? Since when has Harry ever been a coward??? It was key point in the tower scene that Harry didn't act because he physically couldn't act. Dumbledore intended it to be that way.

Sigh, there are so many more gripes, but this is all the treachery I can muster for today. I sincerely hope this isn't a sign of things to come with the Deathly Hallows installments. It will break my heart to have to sit through another debauchery of this nature.


The only thing about this movie that was terrific was the lake scene where Dumbledore and Harry try to retrieve the Horcrux. It was exactly as I'd imagined it, well, almost, I imagined Dumbledore looking a lot more pitiful..otherwise a good representation all around.

Good, Cheap, Fun

If you're a fellow Home Schooler or just like doing science crafts with your kiddos, Walmart has the Elmer's Paper Recycling Factory on sale for FIVE DOLLARS! I saw this on Amazon for $30 and didn't bite, but for FIVE BUCKS I couldn't resist! This is going to be a great science project for Dom this year!

 

Spring cleaning...in July.

Every once in a while I get the overwhelming urge to purge the kids of all their belongings. It's like nesting on crack. I start by sorting through the toys deciding what to keep and what to send on to goodwill, but before you know it, I'm on a roll and the hatch of the Suburban is crammed to capacity with all of the things that are either not getting used enough or are taking up too much space.

Over the weekend I decided to tackle Dom and Diana storage closet. There are several of these room/closets in our home. I'm not sure what they were originally designed for, but they've acted as catch-all's since we moved in. Dom and Diana's was decidely the worst, it housed old baby gear, clothes, and boxes and boxes of toys.

At the end of the day I had the entire room emptied of al it's contents. (Goodwill is going to love mw!) As we looked at it, Ed and I realized the space would make an ideal little play room and got to work finishing it off. We installed the carpet and added the "walls".

I'm thinking we might do the same for the one in Brooke's room, it's about 3 times the size this one is and would make an awesome little tween den! LOL

 

 

 

 

ENERGY!!

While I'm very happy Dom likes to read himself to sleep, I have to wonder where all of this energy is stored! LOL

 

 

 

Diana Scootering!

While Diana doesn't want to be around the scooter or Ed's motorcycle, or Dom's dirt bike, I caught her playing on the new scoot after everyone had gone inside!

 

I scoot, therefore I am!

I am SOO stinkin' excited! Ed bought me another scooter! I've been wanting one for a while, but I think Ed was secretly hoping I'd give in and get my motorcycle license so that he could buy me a "real" motorcycle. Well, no dice, I LOVE scootering! Ed found this one and I love it because it's almost identical to the one I had (and loved!) in Florida.

I took it for it's first spin this afternoon and it's absolutely PERFECT! It's super speedy quick (goes up to 70mph comfortably) and handles the steep hills by our house beautifully!

I'm sure you'll all be seeing much more of my new baby!!

 

My Hectic Work Week

This picture sums it up, this summer all I've really done is sit by the pool watching the kids and drink copius amounts of Diet Coke. I throw in the occasional book just to spice up my routine some! ;)

 

3 over, 1 up and go 20

That's the thing about counted cross stitch, you end up counting, a lot! I live by my red colored pencil filling in all of the squares I've already stitched and by my seam ripper for those occasions when I've counted wrong. REALLY wrong. But this pattern seems to be coming along nicely! Right now, I'm about 1/2 way done, all that's left now is the finer detailing. YIPPEE!

 

 

 

CNN Coverage

 

Brooke's new hair

Brooke is still in Utah, but my Dad sent me an email today showing me pictures of Brooke's new haircut! She looks absolutely fantastic!!! I can't believe she's only 12. I see these pictures and realize just how fast time flies. Our babies grow up into young women so much faster than we realize. Sigh... She'll be off to college before I know it!

 

 

 

 

"United Breaks Guitars" - The song

A friend posted this on facebook and it cracked me up! As she said, sometimes when a company completely screws you over, the best thing to do is write a song about it!!

Fourth of July- 2009

We spent the day swimming and had a great BBQ and then ended the night with a bunch of fireworks!!
We all had a blast and the kids were tuckered out by the time we finally made it home.

Ye Olde Swimming Hole

With nothing to do, I loaded up the kids and drove them out to the lake to do some swimming.

We packed up a cooler and had a nice little lunch lakeside and the kids enjoyed being able to goof off for a few hours.

Diana was an absolute riot, apparently being able to swim and keep your head above water is the same thing as "not drowning". She was so proud of herself and kept yelling to me "Look Mom! I'm not drowning again!" The people swimming nearby got a good chuckle out of her!

This is Christina after laying down a little too long on the rocks.