Ten on Tuesday

I am so excited to get back to a somewhat "regular" posting schedule. And what better way to kick it off than with a Ten on Tuesday post?

1. My dad is doing much better. He's stable and slowly recovering. In our eyes, that's progress and we'll gladly take it! It's hard to take people/things for granted after what we've recently been through...

2. Last Wednesday Sam and I were hanging out together. It was time for lunch and as we were headed downstairs, he asked me to give him a piggy back ride. I agreed. I took one step, my foot slipped and tumbling down the stairs we both went. Other than bumping his chin on my head and being scared out of his mind, he was fine. Me, on the other hand, I had bruises and rug burns all over my body: shoulders, back, waist, hips, butt, legs and arms. Luckily we're both OK, but it was quite the scary episode!

3. We've all been battling a cold at the Butler home. Isabella ran a low grade fever all afternoon Thursday and again most of the day Friday. So needless to say, she did not go to school Friday. She's also not going to school today, but headed to the doctor's office instead. Sam's had a cough for a couple of weeks now. And my throat has been killing me for days. Truth be told, I'm ready to get rid of all this crud and get everyone back to being healthy.

4.  Running seems to be the in thing these days. Everyone I know is running... 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, full marathons. It's crazy! I've never been a runner. Not even when I've been in the best physical shape of my life. I think my feelings toward running are best described with this here visual aid:

True dat!

5. A friend of mine, who is also a runner, recently shared this picture of a bumper sticker she saw on the back of a car. She said she literally laughed out loud when she saw it.

What I really wanna know is... where do I find this here little gem for the back of my car?

;)

6. Have you heard of GroopDealz? They offer the cutest things for a steal of a price. I gotta tell you, I'm a believer. I recently bought this, which is currently hanging in our kitchen and I totally adore:

And this beautiful "I love you to the moon and back" necklace:

Usually this is a "mom" necklace which includes the children's names. However, I decided to include Scott's name, since I just happen to love him to the moon and back as well. Isabella picked the colors of the pearls: green for Scott, red for Isabella and blue for Sam. I'm in LOVE!

Go check them out and sign up for the e-mail offerings. I promise you won't be disappointed.

7. Move over American Idol, there's a much better singing show in town. Scott and I are both hooked on The Voice.

However, someone really needs to tell Christina Aguilera that she needs to (a) hire a stylist or (b) fire her current one and hire a new one. Yesterday, while we were watching the show, Scott made the comment: "Geez, she looks like a poodle." He was right on the money!

8. The Pinterest bug has bitten me lately,... like, BAD! And unfortunately it's not related to all the adorable craft projects or delicious recipes you can find there. You see, I'm hoping to tackle a couple major house projects this year: the kitchen and the master bedroom/bath.

For the kitchen, I'd love to brighten it up with a white subway tile backsplash, creamy white painted cabinets, a tan color for the walls, and the addition of some architectural elements throughout.

Oh yeah, and I'd love to do a built in similar to this in our breakfast nook.

For our master bedroom, I'd love to go with something along these lines:

And if a genie granted me a fourth wish, I would totally love to tackle the front of the house by adding a portico, kinda like this:

9. Read the book, bought the t-shirt, and I'm dying to go see the movie.

OK, so I didn't really buy the t-shirt. But I did read (and love) the book and I'm dying to go see the movie.
Woo Hoo!

10. Stay tuned for a post of Isabella's Spa Party and Sam's 4th Birthday party COMING SOON!

Ten on Tuesday

(1) I feel like I've seriously neglected the ol' blog lately. I'm also WAY behind on reading and commenting on blogs. But I'm sure that as things start to settle around here, and our back to school routine is re-established, my time (and desire) for blogging will return. At least I hope it does. I miss my bloggie peeps!

(2) We didn't really do as many things on our Summer Fun List as we would have liked this year. Don't get me wrong, we certainly made a pretty dent. But in all honesty, when I think back to our summer, this is all that I seem to remember:

It seems like we spent most of the summer either taking swim lessons at the Y or swimming at my Mom's.

(3) Still on the list, and soon to come, a HUGE garage sale along with the kids' lemonade stand. My friend Tracey printed out a nice big banner for them to use on their lemonade stand. It is adorable and they can hardly stand it!

(4) I've got some really fun home improvement projects I am absolutely thrilled about, and lots of indoor painting that will soon take place. Stay tuned!

(5) Isabella survived her first week and is really enjoying being a first grader so far. We get to meet with her teacher tonight, and we're definitely looking forward to it.

(6) Sam has two more weeks before he starts his 3YO Pre-School. I'm ready! Him... not so much anymore! He's working overtime on his case for staying at Tata's all day, every day. How quickly things change! Poor baby...

(7) Scott has been lusting after a Dyson vacuum for years. No joke. However, I couldn't justify buying one while we had a perfectly good Hoover in the house. I mean, have you seen the price tag on those rug suckers? YIKES! Anyway, Scott decided to vacuum the house this weekend. Yeah, I'm not one to discourage anyone from such behavior! Amazingly, an item of clothing got misteryously sucked in and pretty much burnt the heck out of our perfectly good Hoover vaccum.

(8) Guess who is the proud owner of a brand new Dyson!

 

Yeah!

Coincidence? 

I think not!

(9) The Help

Loved the book!

LOVED the movie!

Did you read the book? Have you seen the movie?
The casting, the sets, the wardrobe, the acting...  It is AMAZING!
Seriously, go see it!
That's all I'm gonna say about that!

(10) Sam was being his silly self yesterday. So, I decided to pick up my camera and snap some pictures. This is my favorite one:

 

Technically, it's all wrong. But he's not making silly faces. He's laughing. Like, really laughing. And he's such an adorable and lovable and awesome child. And all that comes through in this picture. And that is exactly why I love it so much!

Have a great day!

Tonight...

Scott and I went to the movies

and had lots of this

and watched this

 and laughed... 

like really really HARD!

Ten on Tuesday

1. We managed to take the kids to see African Cats and Rio last weekend. We all loved them both. I think we've all agreed to wait for Hop to come out on DVD. And I'm trying to figure out what night this week I will make my escape to go see Water for Elephants. Anyone interested in coming along?

2. I took SO many pictures when my brother was here last week, that I'm going to have to share them on a couple of posts. So, stay tuned...

3. I am still very much in love with Craigslist. Although, sometimes it irks me when people treat it like it's eBay, I'm still loving the deals I'm getting and coming back to check in on a daily basis.

4. Speaking of Craigslist, I just posted my first "for sale" ad on Sunday evening,... our old washer and dryer. I had four different people contact me. They were sold by 1:30pm on Monday. For full asking price. Saweet!!! Now we get to use that money towards a little kitchen renovation we have in the works.

5. Our local schools added three additional days to their calendar to make up for the snow/ice days we got hit with this winter. This does not make me happy. Not one little bit! I am SO ready for summer break, it's not even funny!

6. I am in desperate need of a family vacation... just sayin'.

7. With Isabella wanting to enroll in some of the summer art classes and some of the the summer pottery classes, in addition to taking swim lessons,  think I better start thinking about how to organize our days. This might get tricky!

8. I have a new love affair with Red Box. I just wish they had a bigger movie selection. It's been a little bit challenging for us since Blockbuster closed.

9. I am SO excited to be starting my "Photo a Day in the Month of May" project this coming Sunday. I have embarked in this little endeavor for the last couple of years and LOVE all the everyday memories that I've been able to capture. Some of you have even played along on your personal blogs or Facebook. I sure do hope you join me again this year. It was SO much fun looking through your everyday life captures. So, if you decide to play along, please do let me know, so I don't miss a thing.

10. We went strawberry picking while my brother was in town (this also falls under #2). It was so much fun. But as we were getting ready to leave, I couldn't help but wonder if the check-out attendant would suspect that Sam might have eaten a strawberry (or twenty) while he was busy picking. I'm still not 100% sure. But seriously, be honest and tell me, what do you think?

Nah,... I doubt it!

;)

I'm wondering...

How can we possibly arrange our weekend schedule (and budget) 

so as to fit this:

and this:

 

and this:

 

and of course, this:

Any suggestions?

Favorite Christmas Movies

So, everyone knows I love me some Christmas,

and I love me some movies.

The following are my/our favorite Christmas movies, 

which have been playing constantly in our house for the last few days:

 

Elf

I mean seriously,... 

It's Will Ferrell. 

In tights.

Need I say more? 

This is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. 

I love that Isabella and Sam actually request it by name and

they both love to sit and watch it.

Over and over and over again!

Christmas Vacation

And crack up we do! 

Every single time I watch this movie I find something 

new/different that makes me laugh. 

And I do mean laugh! 

This is Chevy Chase at his finest!

And holiday chaos at its best!

A Charlie Brown Christmas

This is definitely a classic for me and Scott.

The kids just started getting into Charlie Brown and the gang.

And I love that.

And I love Linus' monologue about Christmas.

When he takes the stage, dims the lights, quotes the Gospel of Luke, 

and schools Charlie Brown on what Christmas is really about,... 

well, it makes me want to jump up and down with joy and cheer him on.

He gets it!!!!

The Family Stone

I absolutely LOVE this movie.

Everything about it!

I love how dysfunctional, yet close this family is.

I love the characters and their quirks.

I love the reality of the family dynamics.

And I am totally head over heels in LOVE with their house:

Without fail, every time I watch it I laugh and I cry.

And just to make sure I keep it real on the ole' blog,

following are some of the Christmas classics I've never seen:

 

I know, I know...

That's pretty sad, huh?

So there you have it.

What are some of your favorite Christmas movies?

We Love Movies

It's no secret Scott and I love movies. BK (before kids), we were at the movie theater every single Friday for new releases and sometimes again on Saturday or Sunday, depending on our schedule and what movies were playing.

We started taking Isabella when she was just a year old. She handled it like an old pro ~ she sat on a theater-provided booster, enjoyed her snacks and watched the movie, from beginning to end. No problem.

Sam is, how should I put it, of a "different disposition". Due to his "different disposition", as we're calling it, we've held off on taking him for some time.

Well, today was the big day. We decided to bite the bullet and take the kids, both of them, to see Shrek Forever After. And I am proud to say that Sam was great! He was in awe of the big screen (he's such a man!) and sat on his little booster while holding his drink and his popcorn.

 And for a while this what he looked like:

Totally mesmerized!

And as much as I would LOVE to tell you that it was like that the entire time, it just isn't in my nature to lie. Yes, he got up after a while and walked around. And yes, he climbed up and down the stairs. And yes, he took the lid off his drink and spilled some on both of us. And yes, he even climbed over some seats. But all in all, he was actually really good. But I wasn't too stressed out either, being that it was a matinee showing of a kids movie.

I can honestly say we all really liked the movie and surprisingly enough, enjoyed the experience. So here's to many more kids movies to come!

A "Dumb and Dumber" Moment

OK, so how many of you remember the movie Dumb and Dumber? 

Come on, don't be shy,... you know you watched it!

Anyway, one of the scenes that always sticks out for me is the one when Harry and Mary were playing in the snow. Mary playfully throws a little snowball at Harry, and in return he pounds her with a snowball to the face and then tackles her to the ground. So it quickly goes from cute and flirty to downright nasty for poor Mary. I've got one word for you: HILARIOUS!

Just in case you're claiming you've never seen it (and come on already,...I know you have) or you just don't remember it, you can go here to check out a quick clip of the scene I'm referring to.

So if you're currently finding yourself asking why I'm bringing up this scene from the crazy 1994 comedy, well the answer is simple. You see, our family just had a nice little Dumb and Dumber moment of our own.

Like my previous post mentioned, last weekend we went to the lake. And playing at the beach was one of our favorite family moments. I had my camera on hand and was going crazy snapping away, like I always do, when I heard Isabella tell her Daddy: "I'm gonna splash you,...." And she did, she kicked the water with her cute little kids' size 10 foot, and it looked a little something like this:

And then Harry, sorry, I mean Daddy, kicked back, with all his might and his big ol' mens' size 10 1/2 foot. Nice!

Needless to say, I was so shocked I did not get a picture of what his splash looked like, but I can tell you it was like a tsunami hit Isabella. Oh, and did I mention she hates having her face splashed? Yes, she does! Let me tell you, she was MAD!

Her Dad could not get to her fast enough. He felt so bad.

But just between us, I told him last night that I was going to post about our little Dumb and Dumber family moment and we laughed ourselves to tears.

So much to do. So little time.

OK, so where do I start? I think I can honestly say the Butlers are in full Christmas Spirit swing. The tree has been decorated, the Christmas cards ordered and mailed, most of the presents have been purchased (though not yet wrapped), and the activities are keeping us busy busy busy. I love Christmas!

Last week the kids attended their annual Christmas Cookie Decorating party. Our friend Laura hosts this event for all of our children every year and they have the best time. It's fun and it's messy and it's tasty and delicious. Seriously, what's not to love? Look at all these happy faces:
This year we decided to add an ornament exchange to the mix and they loved it! I'm not exactly sure what we'll do next year when all of our older children start Kindergarten and are in school full time, but that's something none of us are willing to talk about. We're all having some serious denial issues.

Also last week, Isabella and I were invited to see a performance of The Nutcraker Ballet at The Orpheum with our good friend, Hannah. Apparently having seen it once when he was young, Scott was more than happy to stay home with Sam. Our girl was SO excited to have a girls night with Mommy and Miss Hannah. And she was even more excited to get all dressed up in her very sparkly black velvet dress.
It was so beautiful ~ the dancing, the music, the costumes ~ and I was loving every second of it. Isabella on the other hand, announced that she was ready to go home within the first 10 minutes of the performance. WHAT?! Luckily, the story line picked up and she got quite interested.
At about 9:30pm Isabella asked if we could go home because she was so tired. So we did. As we were leaving the theater Isabella said: "Guys, I'm really sorry we couldn't stay. I really want to watch it, but I'm so tired that I really want to go home." She is seriously too darn cute! So although we didn't stay until the end, we did get to enjoy quite a bit of it. I'm sure this will be something we'll go to again in the future.

On Friday, Isabella was invited to and attended her first ever slumber party. GULP! My niece was having a slumber party for her 7th Birthday party and Isabella was over the moon excited about spending the night with a bunch of girls and staying up way too late and eating all kinds of junk and sleeping in her brand new Tinkerbell sleeping bag.

My mom and I attended the Hope Women's Christmas dinner that night, but decided to sneak by afterward and check out the action. All I can say is Holy Cow! I think they had a total of 11 girls, but I swear it sounded more like there were about 45. Here's a picture of some of the girls posing with the birthday girl.
God bless my brother and sister-in-law for their bravery in hosting such a terrifying event.

Add to our list of fun our annual visit to Alpine Village. This year we not only had Isabella's cousin, Christian Javier, join us, but she also had some very special surprise guests:
Yep, it's Hudson and his sister Addisyn. She was thrilled to find out that her "bestest friend EVER" would be joining us in Alpine Village. The kids had a blast visiting all the houses in the village and doing all the fun crafts. But their favorite event was without a doubt playing in the "snow", as you can see here:

Who says we don't have snow in Memphis?

And they were especially proud of themselves as they targeted and attacked poor Christian Javier:

That's him, crouching on the floor, loving every second of it.

So to finish out our fun and busy weekend, I decided to take Isabella and her cousins to see this:
OK, so I'm probably in the minority, but I can't say I loved it. The princess is beautiful, the music is wonderful, some of the characters are cute as can be and there are some pretty funny parts, but I had a really hard time with the voodoo stuff being so explicit. Luckily much of it went over the kids' heads, but Isabella did get scared by the shadows (spirits) a couple of times. All in all, it's definitely not my favorite Disney movie.

So there you have it. And to think that I sometimes wonder why I crash the way I do every single night.

Lately I've been:

* Busy putting our Christmas tree up. I had to go through the unfortunate event of having to remove and re-strand some of the lights (which was an absolute nightmare, thank you very much!). When I was finally done my arms looked like I had gotten into a terrible scratching match with a cat ~ and the cat WON! But when it was all said and done it turned out beautiful. Amazing what a difference 300 additional lights can make.

I will forever remember the look on Sam's face when he first came downstairs and saw it finally decorated. It was priceless. It made the fact that I stayed up until close to 2:00am working on it totally worth it. Most of my Nativities are out on display, but I still have a little more sparkle to add before I officially call it a day on the Christmas decorating front.

* Hanging out with these amazing ladies:
Because of different pre-school schedules, Bible Study, dance lessons, etc, I'm not able to see them as often as I'd like. But now that Bible Study is over and school will soon be over, we've been able to do quite a bit of catching up,... and that's been so fun!

* Able to go see a few of the latest movies:
Oh yeah, baby! It's New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight saga! And it was AWESOME! So much better than Twilight (the first movie). And the good news is that they're not making me wait yet another year for Eclipse, the third movie and my favorite book in the series. Oh no, I'll get to enjoy that one in June of 2010. I like to think of it as Edward's birthday present to me.

Scott and I got to go see The Blind Side. It was such a wonderful movie. So very inspirational. Sandra Bullock was phenomenal. And I also loved the fact that it's based on a true story of a Memphis family.

On Sunday afternoon my dear friend Cora called me and invited me to hang out for a while, sans kids. Hmm, let me think about that,... YEAH! First we went to a local craft show and then went to a matinee showing of this:
All I can say is Oh. My. Goodness! In all honesty, Precious was a very difficult movie for me to sit through. The subject matter is extremely deep and disturbing and heart-breaking and it tugged at my heart (and stomach) in ways a movie hasn't done in a really long time. At one point I actually thought we might have to get up and leave, but we stuck with it and made it through. And we're really glad we did.

* Working on my paper strips for our cute Santa Advent Calendar, which will be displayed tomorrow. Yikes! Can you believe tomorrow is December already? I never did get the advent calendar I so loved from Pottery Barn, but that's OK. I found one I really like at Marshall's for a whole lot less. And at the end of the day well, they both do the same thing.

Some of our paper inserts/activities included in the calendar are:
~ Seeing Santa and giving him our list.
~ Going to Trinity Baptist Alpine Village (for the 5th year in a row).
~ Baking Christmas goodies.
~ Going to Starry Nights at Shelby Farms.
~ Watching a Christmas movie of their (read Isabella's) choice.
~ Reading the Christmas Story book before bed.
~ Make Gingerbread Houses.

Well, that's about it for now. Stay tuned for a sneak peek of the SNL class we'll be teaching this coming Saturday.

So excited!

I can hardly wait until next weekend to take Isabella to see this:
We love this book! Love it! But truth be told, I think I'm even more excited than she is.