swooning

so here's my ten (ok eleven) cents about new moon.

1. i liked kristen stewart better in this movie than in the first.

2. jasper is still totally lame. and why do they make him wear that horrific wig?

3. i could have used a lot more of this in the film...

4. i'm not a fan of the new vampire contacts, edward's real eye color is much more handsome.

5. taylor lautner is so yummy in this movie, for a few minutes i almost switched teams. there, i said it.

6. but i'm still team edward, because, let's face it,  he looks like he was carved out of cream cheese.

7. i thought the wolves looked ridiculously fake. i mean, c'mon.

8. i thought the wolves in their man forms were ridiculously good looking.

9. there was still not enough of the cullen family on screen - this was a complaint of mine from the first movie too. they are one of my favorite parts of the books and they're practically non-existant in the first two movies.

10. the scenes with victoria were very cool. i officially want her hair.

11. over all, i thought it was better than the first one, and really well done.

loved it.

you are a TOY!

just incase you wondered what project rich is working on next... (sorry the video cuts off on the right, i can't figure out how to fix it).

disney finally announced that toy story 3 will be out in june 2010, which means i can finally blog about rich's next project, the TS3 wii game. this youtube video has also been the most requested by ethan in the last hour, i think we've watched it ten times so far, and counting. i still think that it's one of the most original and awesome stories of any movie i've ever seen. can't wait to see what buzz and woody do next.

acting responsibly. which is so inconvenient some times

tonight after the teenagers and cranky toddler were finally in bed, and my hard working husband working away at his computer on something or other, i found myself trying to decide how to spend the rest of my night. my to-do list is long, but i narrowed it down to three choices:

a: clean my office that has reached an unpresidented level of chaotic.

b: edit photos that have been sitting in my inbox forever.

or

c: drool over robert pattinson because today i folded like a house of cards and bought the twilight dvd.

ya, i know, i'm weak ok? i resisted all last week when it first came out. but today i was at costco and it wasn't a bad price and it was an ok movie, not great but, well, just LOOK at him.do i even need to explain why i wanted to sit and watch this overly cheesy, turn-your-brain-off movie, alone in my living room? one look at those gorgeous eyes and that crazy hair that just screams, "run your fingers through me please!" and i'm thinking that an explaination is no longer necessary.

however, i did the responsible thing and cleaned my office. i know! i must not be as weak as i thought. cleaning the office didn't really have the same sexual tension as watching the movie would have, but it was very satisfying to get things put away and have some elbow room on my desk again. i think i made the right choice. my husband who shares my office space but manages to keep his half very neat and tidy, agrees. i am looking forward to spending some time with edward though. soon.

favorite holiday things - first installment

there's something about thanksgiving that kicks off the start of the holiday season and it seems like over night organge and brown are replaced with green and red, pumpkins for snow flakes, candy corn for candy canes, and so on. with the holidays comes a long list of things we only seem to enjoy around this time of year. we have already begun enjoying some of our favorite things which i am going to try to do a better job of documenting this year. maybe you'll be inspired to document your favorite things too. i love sharing this kind of thing because it always leads to something new....

the movie "elf" has worked it's way into a tradition around this house, i liked it from the first time we saw it in the theater and it only gets funnier ever time i watch it. it's such a hillarious, feel good kind of movie and the sound track is fantastic. over the thanksgiving holiday, i cooked a lot of food and was stuck in the kitchen for most of the day on wednesday preparing. fortunately the living room is attached to the kitchen and rich turned on elf to help get me in the holiday spirit. it worked! i brined, beat, whipped and stirred while singing along with darling buddy the elf. there are too many funny parts to name my favorite but i do love the "i'm singing, i'm singing, i'm in a store and i'm sing-ing" part. i'm sure by the time the season is over we'll have watched it at least fifty-two more times...alright, not that often, but it will probably feel like that much so it's just the same.

this year i discovered candy cane oreo cookies just in time for the girlfriend retreat. (yes this was our junk food stash)

we took one for the team and tested them out...you know, to make sure they aren't poisonous or anything. we give them two thumbs up! just the right blend of yummy oreo goodness with candy cane flavor that was suprisingly not too overpowering - yay! of course, you have to have a tall glass of milk, and if you're ethan, you eat only the insides.

apparently i have a candy cane theme here because next on my list is peppermint ice cream.as you know, i'm very picky about my ice cream, none of the "vanilla in a tub" crap will do for me. my favorite brand for peppermint is schwan's, but since i don't like the after taste of the schwan's guy pushing frozen food at my door every other week - i settle for edy's instead. i've said before that ice cream is really love in the form of food. as much as this must say about me and how i deal with my own issues, it really is true. ice cream is love. and i would feel this way even if i were boney thin and had no issues. for real, i really would. no lying. ice cream is just that good.

so what are you enjoying so far this season? my list of favorites is looooong, so brace yourself for a second, third and maybe fourth installment of wende's holiday faves. and happy holidays ya'll!

it's hard to look scary and pretty at the same time...

so we went, a bunch of moms in the middle of the night with about a million people - a lot of teenagers - to see if harry potter's buddy could pull off the role of dreamy steamy edward.

(the lobby of the gateway movie theater )

the movie was more entertaining with a theater full of screaming girls, it was seriously so funny how nuts people were over this whole thing. the girl sitting behind us kept saying, "oh no way, nuh-uh, oh my gosh!" every time one of the cullens came on screen. so i will say this, the movie was better than i thought it would be, maybe because my expectations of it were so low. i liked how they cut through the crap and got to the story, stefanie meyer tends to ramble. but, i missed hearing edwards thoughts and i wanted to see the cullen family more. i hated "book" bella but liked the "movie" bella fine, maybe because i couldn't hear her inner whining dialogue. there were plenty of parts that i laughed out loud because it was so sappy and wondered how the actors kept straight faces for some of those scenes. and really, what's up with jasper? did someone forget to tell that actor that he had been cast as a vampire and not a zombie? he looks like a stoner with bad hair for the entire movie. however, the cheese, the lack of cullens, the stoner, emmitt's crushed velvet purple track suit, all of it was worth watching to see this hottie on the big screen. (i'm not talking about the girl either) i never really knew that i liked robert pattinson so much, but man he really melted my butter in this movie. he's definitely not what i pictured in my head as edward but he did a good job i thought. i saw him on the today show this morning, someone asked him "what was the hardest part about playing edward". he answered in his cute little british accent, "it was really hard being scary and pretty at the same time". ya, ok, that pretty much sums up the whole movie for me. still, if i had a locker, his picture, would be in it.

kung fu crazy

patsy inspired me to get on it already and take my kids to see kung fu panda like i've been meaning to now for months! i ended up tending jason and leah's kids today so i called up april and asked if she was up for cousin's day at the movies? apey is alaways up for an adventure. and so we were off with nine kids, five of them, under the age of six and two crazy moms trying to control the lot of them! mom, i need popcorn, mom, i need to go potty, and ethan, what a pill! it's a good thing that the movie was so great, we laughed and laughed. it was very jack black who we are all fans of so that made it excell in it's awesomeness! it has a cute message too and we have already been searching the interenet for the movie's dialogue so we can repeat the catch phrases correctly in our house. i told the kids to strike their best kung fu pose, but whatever.this is as good as it gets in stiffling hot summer heat right? i appreciate that april is always game for whatever crazy scheme i've got cookin'. two against ten, are we crazy? yes we are, but we always have so much fun. love this girl! a good time was had by all, that's all that's important. the big kids were very helpful. on the way out of the elevator a lady chuckled when i announced, "does everyone have their little person's hand?" she probably thought i was a mom who had more than she can handle. she's probably right, but it sure is fun!

return of the wildcats

So, the HSM2 party was a success, the girls were so cute dressed up as their favorite characters. We had one Zac Efron, or Troy Bolton I guess, and Allie was Corbin Bleu, if you missed my blog about her Bleu-do you can read about it here.
We also had three very cute Sharpays.
After some popcorn and Skittles the girls settled in to watch the highly anticipated sequal and although it it seemed that Troy and Gabriella were touch and go there for a few minutes, the girls all gave it two thumbs up. FFFEW, that's a relief. I think I'm going to try to send in their pictures to the cast, probably a long shot, but I bet they would get a kick out of it. Especially Corbin to see his girl looke-a-like. The neighbors across the street who I don't know very well, sat outside on their steps laughing the whole time we were out taking pictures. Should I be offended?

corbin hair

I am a lame blogger this last week or so, sorry to all my loyal fans (dad). So tonight is the return of the East High Wildcats, and most importantly, Zac Efron in High School Musical 2! Allie is celebrating by having a few girlfriends over for an official party, complete with red and white balloons (wildcat colors) and a killer invitation made by me (seen left). She asked each of her invites to come dressed as their favorite HSM character and when she found out that everyone was coming as Sharpay, the snotty blond, her and her friend McKayla decided to come as the boys. And so began the transformation. First, McKayla's mom Kristen, who's great idea this was, is a hair dresser, put perm rollers in her wet hair which she wore (not without complaint) for almost 24 hours. This was drama in itself because she looked too ridiculous to leave the house all day today which screwed up our plans to go to the fair.



Finally, about an hour before the party started, we took the rollers out and made all sorts of Annie jokes, I couldn't believe how CURLY her normally stick-straight hair became! I must admit that I was supportive of this make-over but did not have super high hopes for the outcome. Then we teased and hair sprayed and teased and hair sprayed those curls into near EPA pollution restrictions and came up with the Corbin Bleu hair-do. (oh that rhymes nicely) We cannot wait for the other girls to come so we can see how they dressed up. I told Allie that her hair is the funniest thing that I've seen in a long time and she should definitely dress up as Corbin Bleu for Halloween. What do you think? Pretty good match eh?She pretended to not love all the attention she was getting, but I know the truth! Funny girl.