Filling the holes

My husband is suppose to start his new job on May 24th. That is in 2 weeks! I am starting to freak a little. I mean I am a happy go lucky gal and depend greatly on my faith and know He will take care of it all. I am only human though and my husband still does not have his orders to exit the Army. So next week we may have the movers here or we may have to pack and U-Haul it ourselves to the west coast. In any case I had to do something today to prepare for the move. So today I removed all the pictures, mirrors and curtains from the walls. I also removed all nails, tacks and hardware and I puddied a BUNCH of wholes. I didn't think I had so many pictures but apparently I do and two hours later the job was done. Now if only the government would work this quickly!

Cleaning out the cupboards

We are moving half way across the country and we can't take all our food. So one challenge is cleaning out the food before we move. Since I am unsure when our actual move out date is I have began buying minimum from the grocery store and began throwing together dinners out of all the randoms in the freezer. The last two nights have been HITS! Tonight I made a casserole. I am not a huge casserole fan but tonight was good! It consisted of chicken, frozen green beans, tater tots, can of corn (drained) and a can of cream of chicken soup, and a half can of milk, salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all together and cook covered 45 minutes at 375 degrees. It was yummy!! Have any of you discovered any yummy wonders while you were cleaning your cupboards?

May: 30 Days of Moving

OK, I apologize I have been lacking in the blogging area. I have discovered I actually am not a very good blogger. I get so busy. I work out of my home, am a wife, a mom, a volunteer and I teach Bible study class, to name a few of my responsibilities. I long for the days when all I can do is stay home and do "nothing." In a few short weeks, give or take a week or two, we will be moving from KS to OR. I am quite excited about this move as we will no longer be an army family. No more year long deployments or last minute month long trainings. We will be a family that eats dinner together every night. I am so thankful God has opened a door where we are able to go back to the Pacific Northwest. I huge blessing for us. Well with a move comes lots of work. We own our home in KS and let me tell you the market in our area is really slow so we decided to rent our home out. The last couple weeks we have painted our daughter's room, it was bubble gum pink. A coat of primer and two coats of white paint later the room is so boring! We touched up my son's room, it will stay the nice blue and tan color as it can be either boy or girl. We have cleaned, organized, mowed, planted grass, polished, and lots of other mundane chores that really you don't want to hear about. This month will be just my thoughts and pretty much whatever I want to blog about our move and adventure to Oregon. I will probably be MIA as we drive half way across the country. I must say I am not looking forward to this part. Our family has driven coast to coast and visited many states in between. Maybe we need to find a route that will take us to Disneyland this time around!

April: 30 Days of Silence

30 days of Silence....enough said.

Painting the Clay

Two days ago I gave my kids a bunch of Crayola Clay and said, "Have fun!" Two days later their creations were ready to paint. The tub said water colors would work for painting the dry clay. I was a little doubtful but this morning I let the kids have at it. The water color worked perfectly and there was minimal mess. We have a total of 10 paper plates of clay creations and now they are all painted. My son made an airplane and sword. My daughter made a "jewelry pot." I would say worth the $10 in supplies and the 2 hours of activity keeping my kids busy.

Felt Banner

This is a fun and fabulous kid craft, with a little help (or a lot) from mom. You will need two larger pieces of felt, ribbon, felt glue and various smaller pieces of colored felt. Decorate one larger piece of felt using your felt glue. When complete glue to other piece of felt with ribbon in between. The kids and I made wall hangings for their rooms using simple shapes.

Spring Break Kid's Crafts

It is Spring Break this week for my 6 and 8 year old who are in kindergarten and second grade. So what fun to do a couple crafts. To keep them busy this morning while I worked out for almost an hour I purchased a tub of air-drying modeling clay. The tub was $5.99 and they were able to mold soldiers, tanks, fires and oh yea a bunch of pumpkins. For some reason they are thinking of Halloween already and want to hide their pumpkins for each other to find on Halloween. Later in the week they will be painting their creations. I will blog about this later.

Fun and Fabulous Hair Ties

This Saturday my motivation is gone but I am still anxious to do something. Do you ever feel this way? It is like you want to do something but not quite sure what so you do nothing. Well I was searching for craft ideas, this is what I do when I get this way. I can sit on my butt but keep my mind working. Anyways I came across this idea. I have a girly girly and had some left over tulle from a tutu I made for a friend's little girl. So I grabbed a thick rubber band and looped and tied the tulle around the band. I thought it was so cute that I decided to make another one out of ribbon to match my daughter's Easter dress. It is cute and easy. So glad I got off my butt and did something.

Super Easy Fabric Gift Bag

We all hear it: reuse, reduce and recycle. Well why not take leftover fabric from a project to make cute gift bags. These bags can be used over and over again and won't rip and they are original and inexpensive. I will be giving you step by step directions to make these easy bags. All you need is a sewing machine, an iron, a strip of fabric (size of your choice) and some ribbon. Be creative and have some fun! If you choose to do this project I would love to hear from you and to see how your gift bags turned out! 1. Start with one strip of fabric. 2. Iron a straight hem on both skinny ends. 3. Match up hemmed ends (right sides together) and press. 4. Sew about 1/4" in on each side. Remember to reinforce the top and the bottom by doing a back stitch. 5. Press side seams flat. 6. Flip bag to right side and measure from each seam desired handle placement. Pin ribbon handles in place. (handles can be any length you choose) 7. Sew hem and handles down, reinforcing ribbon. 8. Iron flat. 9. Add tissue paper and you have a beautiful gift bag.

Fun and Fabulous Crafts

If you don't know me too well, then let me explain one thing, I am super crafty. I in particular like to sew. Now if you know me and have for years this may surprise you because I did not truly learn to sew until about 7-8 years ago when my mom bought me a sewing machine for Christmas. Since then I have worn out that machine and bought a machine on my own. I created my own design business. I have made hundreds maybe even thousands of purses and totes. If you so choose check out my website: www.emjdesign.etsy.com This month I wanted to share with my blog readers a few easy crafts, mostly these crafts will be sewn. Every month I dedicate my blog to one friend. This month I am going to dedicate this blog to my friend Kristin Ramsey. She is super super crafty! I admire her and all her ideas and I am telling you if we lived closer than we would have a blast crafting together. So Kristin if you are reading this thank you for your inspiration!

FUN AND FABULOUS MOVIES VIA MY HUBBY

The month would not be complete it I did not ask my hubby the question, "What are your favorite movies?" I am a gal and this month has been from my perspective so it is nice to have a man's point of view. I do agree that most these movies are fabulous. In fact the Bourne movies where movies I asked for our collection. So here are a few of HIS favorites in no particular order!

Top Gun

Dumb and Dumber

The original 3 Star Wars

The Wedding Singer

The Bourne Trilogy

The first 3, original, Indiana Jones' movies

Percy Jackson & the Olympians The Lightening Thief

I remember in high school reading and learning of the mythical gods. The stories of Zeus, Hercules and Athena. I am a Christian and believe in only one God but these myths are interesting. This movie was fun for our whole family. My 6 and 8 year old enjoyed it greatly and were stunned to silence for pretty much the entire time. I can't say that about the "redneck" family behind us that spent the ENTIRE movie smacking, slurping, ripping and woot-hollering at the screen. OK, that is off topic but seriously annoying when a group of people ruin it for others. This movie is rated PG and not for really young kids. It isn't as scary as the Narnia movies so if they have seen those they will be OK with this one.

Law Abiding Citizen

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this movie. I like both the main actors Jamie Foxx and Gerald Butler, and I heard it was pretty good. So hubby and I watched it last night and I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie. I was upset at the beginning, jumping and scared in the middle, and bewildered and amazed at the end. There are a few surprises. This is definitely a movie for the hubby too, so no chick flick this time. Not a kid friendly movie wait until yours are sound asleep and if you don't like violence don't watch this there are a few scenes that could make you squirm.

I Hate Valentine's Day

OK, guys if you are reading this then run from this movie, this is a "chick flick!" I am a chick so I thought it was cute! Ladies if you want a little romance then get your guy to watch this movie, maybe they will learn a thing or two!

Everybody's Fine

Robert De Niro plays a father to four grown adults, who are spread all over the country. His wife has just passed on and he is trying desperately to have a reunion with all his children. They can't come to him so he travels the country by bus, train and a little help from a trucker to visit his kids. He discovers a few things on the way, a little joy and tragedy. The title says it all when describing his relationship with his kids. His late wife never told him bad news and just said that the kids were fine. He discovers along the way that he was "in the dark" and learns more about his children then he ever knew. This story was sweet and brought a tear to my eye. I think Robert De Niro did a fabulous job and reminded me a lot of my relationship with my own father; for example, calling home only to say, "Hi Dad, is mom there."

Hurt Locker

This movie deals with the Iraq war. I watched this movie with my husband who just returned from a year deployment in Iraq. The beginning of the movie reminded him a lot of Baghdad and to be honest I was worried the movie was going to cause some PTSD. I kept checking on him the whole movie, he was fine, in fact he was quiet at times and the rest he was picking it apart. This movie dealt mainly with the war it did not have any other story line. The whole movie it followed mainly 3 soldiers as they disabled bombs. So i was pretty bored the whole time. There were a few scenes that made my heart sink and I looked at my husband just to make sure he was OK. But to be honest I was paying bills, fluttering around during the movie. This is a "man" movie and yes I do enjoy a lot of action flicks this really didn't do it for me.

Surrogates

Surrogates was a very interesting movie. The idea was robots that looked any way you wanted them and they were you, they thought like you, did what you wanted without any harm to you or disease to you. You were home in your pjs hooked to a machine controlling your surrogate with your mind. Well the creator of surrogates decided that maybe this was not a way to live and set out to destroy all the surrogates. Murder happens and there is Bruce Willis to save the day. OK, so I was a little enthralled with this movie, it was an interesting idea. I will say I will not watch it again it was not one of those and definitely not the best movie Bruce Willis has made but overall not bad.

Zombieland

OK, I am beginning writing my blog while I am watching this movie. I would say that this is not a good sign. I am kind of bored but want to see how this shambles ends. I am sure many of you have done this before, you know you are watching a horrible movie but you just can't turn it off because you are curious if it will get better, have a good ending etc. HMM so I am too tired to turn it off so I guess I will finish watching it. I am enjoying Woody Harrelson if it is any consolation.

The Burning Plain

I couldn't make it through the first 5 minutes of this movie. I am going to sum it up in one word "TRASH."

Whip It

Ellen Page plays a girl from a small Texas town who is very unhappy. I know many of you remember your teenage years when you had not clue who you were, you were sad most the time, your mom drove you nuts, etc. Well this is what Page is going through in this movie. Her mother, played by Marcia Gay Harden, wants her to participate in pageants and be a good girl. Page plays her character beautifully she is a smart girl who gives her mom good grades and gets in little trouble. She then discovers Roller Derby and sneaks to Austin to play. She discovers her passion. This story shows a mother her child can be wonderful with out following her "drawn out path" and well the teenager was able to step out on her own and discover who she was. OK now that I have said all that here is the point. I hope I am not a mother who forces activities down my child's throat. Yes, I want my children to be awesome, respectful, good...BUT I want them to be them. There will be times I will say no. Morals always come into play and we are a Christian family but we don't need to tie them up and shelter them so much that all they want is what they can't have. I don't know if I am making any sense I am not sure anyone will read this will even get it but I know so many girls and guys that were sheltered so terribly when they were kids that they stepped out on their own and had no clue what to do, or they got pregnant immediately or went off the deep end. I guess what I am trying to say is give a little and take a little. It is ok if your teenager wants to have a purple streak in their hair! WOW, I just re-read this and it isn't worded eloquently and for that I apologize. But here's is the kicker I licked the movie and I guess that is all I really needed to say.

Avatar

Friday I wasn't feeling well and my husband put on Batman the Dark Night, let's just say I only made it through 5 minutes before I passed out not because I don't like the movie but because I was sick and tired...anyways I made up for it big time. Hubby and I had a date night Saturday night and we had the privilege of watching Avatar.

This movie was amazing. We saw it in 3D and it was definitely one of those movies you want to see on the big screen. The color was brilliant, the special effects amazing and the story beautiful. I again want to say I LOVED IT!

Before I saw this movie I read a few reviews. The critics said it was racial and their was strong sense of enviromentalism. OK the racism was a stretch and seriously can someone please just enjoy the movie without reading into it that deeply....As for the environmental issues. Yes I saw it and to be honest it wanted me to go home and be as diligent at recycling as my good friend Julie is!!

Sam Worthington who plays main character, Jake Sully did a fabulous job and Zoe Saldana complimented him wonderfully. I was in AH to find that CCH Pounder played the Avatar Mother, Moat. The beautiful makeup and special effects made this movie!

I believe this movie is rated PG-13 for a reason. I read in one Fandango review that a lady had brought her 4.5 year old grandson. Shame on her! This movie has language and I will admit I was holding on tight to my husband's hand because I was scared. I always know I am in a good movie because seriously the theater was silent the whole time, except of course for the two people who forgot to turn their cell phones off...ARG! Also there was applause at the end...I never clapped but inside I was!

Serious Moonlight

I really like Meg Ryan so when I saw this movie I thought I would give it a try. The gal that checked me out said she thought it was really good, I was sceptical. OK, so here is the juice, I thought this movie was hilarious! Now this is not my typical movie and I am sure it didn't cost a lot to make but I found lots of enjoyment out of it. Meg Ryan plays a scorned wife when she finds her husband had an affair, her revenge...DUCT TAPE. I am not going to tell you more, watch the movie and just a piece of advice for all you men, "never a good idea to cheat on your wife!"

Couples Retreat

I have been married almost 12 years. Yes, I think I have a wonderful marriage but after watching Couples Retreat it made me realize that even if you have a wonderful marriage it can always be better. Four couples set off for a "vacation" to Eden. They assumed they would be snorkeling and water skiing but were in for a big surprise when they were forced to do couples counseling and couples massage. One couple knew it would be work but to get a better deal they convinced their friends to tag along. Between the hilarious yoga scene and odd "head dude" most of these couples are happily surprised. I was also happy with this movie but if you don't prefer non-gross sexual humor, then don't watch this movie...you may be offended. I on the other hand was able to look past it and see this movie as an uplifting and funny NOD to marriage.

Time Travelers Wife

Although a pretty decent story I was bored with this movie. It was actually quite depressing. This is a definite "chick flick" and I am happy I watched it while my hubby was out of town. The idea of traveling through time leaving your loved ones traveling in time to visit them again...to be honest I got a little confused. I know my hubby would have made fun of the movie. So I would skip this one it is long and well snooze...

Amelia

Hillary Swank and Richard Gere star in the story of Amelia Earhart. Although much of this story was true, for example the flights she took, solo and in-partnership, I am assuming some of the romantic detail was for Hollywood. After watching this movie my childhood memories of learning of Earhart in history classes flooded back to me. I was intrigued with the story. Seeing the back story of Earhart, true or not, made the disappearance even more interesting and mysterious. I found my self googling Amelia Earhart to learn more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart I was hoping my children would also be fascinated with the story. My daughter remembered Earhart from "Night at the Smithsonian." Both children made it for about 20 minutes of the movie before being distracted but returned to see the plane throughout the movie. I recommend this movie. It is a good look back at a piece of history.

My Life in Ruins

My hubby was gone for 3 weeks, I watched many movies and every time I stepped into the movie store I thought about renting this movie. Well I didn't...Hubby returned for two days and let me tell you there was no movie watching. We were too busy catching up, playing with the kids and having a birthday party and attending a Super Bowl party. Well my hubby left again for a few days and this time I didn't pass this movie up. I am so happy I didn't. This movie is so beautiful, full of life and history. It is adorable. Nia Vardalos, stars in this movie, and is so beautiful. No for real man that girl is a true hottie! I would recommend this movie to any of my girl friends.