So a ninja, a pirate, and a geisha walk into a bar...........

LOL!!!

We had a great time trick-or-treating!! I wasn't going to take pictures as I didn't want to deal with shooting in the dark after the long, stressful day of car shopping that I have had. But I decided 'why-the-hell-not?' the kids are having fun, I should too!!

Jessi was on her own for the first time this year, sorta. She thought she was on her own, but we make sure to trick-or-treat in the same neighborhood where she was. Imagine her suprise when we ran into her and her posse of 20 or more kids ;) ....BAREFOOT!! Yeah, she was dead-meat for that one when she got home.

Here's the rest of my pictures... it was actually kind of fun shooting at night!!

Happy Halloween.... I guess.

Not a pumpkin in site at our house... or a scrid of candy. I just been to preoccupied with other things to get into the whole "Halloween tHing." I got the kids costumes about a month ago and I think that dampened the spirir a little too because we didn't have that week of halloween rush from store to store picking through the last 5 costumes at each place to find one that has all the pieces still attached. Another damper is Jessi is going straight from school and trick-or-treating with her friends in one of the ritzy neighborhoods, so I won't even get to help her get ready :( Sean won't need help either with his ninja costume... he is excited to be going with his buddy Zack (and us)!

Got my boots :) I got them on Sunday because Gamestop wasn't open til 11am (we thought it opened at 10)and there is a shoe store right next door... and they JUST HAPPENED to be on sale!! So I bought them in celebration of my new job that I hadn't been offered yet, but was pretty sure I would be ;) ;)

I put that other picture up there because Sean's current 'Magritte' obsession CRACKS ME UP!! He will sit and look at that art book longer than any book EVER! It confuses him so he studies the heck out of each paiating... and all the naked people abstracts CRACK HIM UP!! He'll just be sitting there quietly and suddenly BURST into laughter. When I first discovered him reading the book, I of course, had that 'mommy moment' of 'Maybe I shouldn't let him look at that book... there are NAKED PEOPLE in it!!.' But it's ART!!!! It's not like I would shield his eyes at the Met!

Maybe some Halloween pics later.... maybe ;) I'll make up for my lack of halloween enthusiasm at Christmas, I PROMISE :-D

My dream job would be...

-working only when the kids are in school
-lots of paid vacation time (like 4 weeks worth maybe ;) )
-no weekends
-paid holidays (hmm..... how about 12 of em?)
-working at the place where I am doing my internship right now... LOVE IT THERE!!!

I start next Monday!!!

To Brine or To Bag? THAT is the question??

I am the turkey maker.

I make a DAMN GOOD turkey if-I-do-say-so-myself. I even taught Nicole my secret and now she too makes a damn-good-turkey-if-she-does-say-so-herself.

My secret. Oven Bags. The turkey is BEYOND JUICY and takes less than HALF the time to cook. So while women all over the USA are getting up at the ass-crack of dawn to get the turkey in the oven only to end up with meat that you have to dip in your glass of water in order to swallow... I am sleeping in... and ending up with a turkey that is moist and juicy. The only drawback of cooking in the bag is that the skin is not crispy. As you can see over there --> It's still brown and flavorful, just not crispy.

The only complaint has been from Rick's parents. They miss the crispy skin. Liz says, "Your turkey is just delicious and the meat is far better than mine... but I just gotta have my crispy skin!" Last year they even made a turkey the day after thanksgiving just for the skin (and because there were so many of us there were no leftovers). Grrr.

So.... my favorite cookin' blogger, The Pioneer Woman, is currently running a series of Thanksgiving dinner blogs. She brines her turkey (with Williams Sonoma brining seasoning... for $16 plus shipping-and out-of-stock til December... so obviously I would be finding a homemade brining recipe) before roasting and it looks DAMN GOOD!! And she says it's hella mega juicy and flavorful too. AND it MUST have the coveted CRISPY SKIN!

So.... DO I go with the old Stand-by that every LOVES and RAVES about (well...almost everyone ;) ) ....or try something new that just might please EVERYONE??

Movie Mode

For the past few weeks I have been ignoring all those DVRed episodes of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'Two and a Half Men' and instead stocking the DVR up with movies on free preview weekends and watching those. Sometimes it takes me a couple/few days to watch one movie... but that's life, right?

So here's some movie reviews that nobody asked for ;)

Little Miss Sunshine- Umm. Wellllll. It was different. Very liberal with the F bomb so it took me a few days to watch that one since the kids couldn't be around. It was quirky and the end made me smile, so I give it a B+

Running with Scissors- The book was dark, disturbing and hilarious. The movie was none of those. C- ...maybe even a D.

The Devil Wears Prada- Yeah... it was pretty much what you would expect. Cute. B-

Wallace and Grommit: Search for the Wererabbitt (or something like that) -Dumb, but Sean liked it a lot.

Reign Over Me- I was warned this was a tearjerker... but DAYUM... this movie is freakin' HEARTWRENCHING! Would get an A+, but I am only giving it an A because of the cheesed up ending.

Premonition- It was good in that "huh??" kind of way. Seemed a little long. B

World Trade Center- Eh. I actually wrote most of this blog while watching it last night... didn't do it for me. C

Legends of the Fall- Yes, I have seen it a million times. Loves it. The story... the scenery.... Brad Pitt at his mostest bestest... even the freakin' background music!! Makes me long for one of those big fancy TV's. A+

On deck in the DVR....

Practical Magic (LOVES IT!)
Pursuit of Happyness (afraid it's going to be boring)
Four Brothers (Young Guns 2006 anyone?)
Hostel (Rick will probably be watching that one alone... not sure I can do it)
Checking Out (could be funny... probably will be dumb)
Rumor Has It (Eh.)
Final Destination 3 (another one Rick will watch alone)

Happy Guitar Hero Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ROCK ON!!

Poor Baby :(

I thought it was a little strange when Sophie came over to play last night and all he wanted to do was go to bed. He is probably THE most 'low maintenance' kid in the world when he is sick. He wants NOTHING except for us to LEAVE HIM ALONE!! Spends a day or 2 in bed, and is back to normal.

Is it wrong that I am enjoying the quiet JUST A LITTLE? ;)

Yesterday evening

First we played with dominoes for awhile.....

Then Nicole and Sophie came over to bring Jessi her birthday present and to have brownie sundaes! She LOVES her boots !!! I love her boots too and I think I need some!!

Our baby is 12!!

Wow!! 12 years old! Holy crap! Next year I will be the mother of a TEENAGER and that is just plain WRONG!!! We have no big plans today since she already got her present from us Monday, but she requested meatloaf and loaded smashed potatoes for her birthday dinner, so we are doing that! She is waiting til next weekend to have her slumber party because Guitar Hero III doesn't come out until Sunday and she wants to play it at her party and have a 'ROCK N' ROLL' themed party.

:::sigh::: looking at all her baby pictures makes me reeeeeeeallllllly want a baby. But we are done. Done. Done. No more kids. Done. For real.

Alrighty... not going to sit here and wallow in 'baby fever'. Going to grab my tripod and go out to take some photos!! (which I could NOT do (as easily) if I was home with a little one!!!)

A little tripod fun (for me... not-so-much Cooper...lol)

My $50 Pentax rebate arrived last week and I used to get myself a tripod. Loves it!! The kids are loving it too. First Sean spent about 20 minutes taking pics of himself, then I noticed that Jessi's new video camera has a tripod hole and they spent about a half an hour dancing and doing acrobatics in front of the video camera ...til her batteries wore out :( Gonna have to get her some rechargables, I guess!!

I can't WAIT to go out and take some photos and try some HDR n' stuff!!!

World series tonight. BLECH!!!! Instead I rented 'Reign Over Me.' I heard it was good... somewhere... and I love me some Adam Sandler funny or not-so-funny, so I think I will like it.

In case you are curious... HDR is when you take two or more images and basically merge them to make one 'perfectly exposed' image. Some look a little weird in a neat weird way... some look really cool in a more natural way! I just want to be able to take a photo like this and have the sky actually look as pretty and blue as it does to my eyes!

More birthday fun!

Not only did B and Grampa get Jessi a new video camera... but B brought Jessi her very own birthday PIE! Yes... PIE ;) B saw the recipe and immediately thought of Jessi as it contained ALL her favorite things. It's a cheesecake pie with a layer of caramel and pecans! Sounds super yummy... if you like cheesecake... which I don't ;) But for a girl whose blog is titled "CHEESECAKE" ...it's a GOOD THING, as Martha would say!

She CRIED!!!

It was too funny!! I hid the phone in the cabinet under the fishtank and when Rick got home, he called the phone. We were all in the livingroom and suddenly the chorus from 'Fabulous' (High School Musical 2) started to play. She jumped up... ALL confused and hunted for the source of the sound. When she opened the cabinet she FLIPPED OUT!! (As seen above... even my camera couldn't handle the excitement...lol) Screaming and then starting CRYING... A LOT!! It was a RIOT!! She called about 100 people ... "GUESS what number I am calling from!!??? MY NEW PINK RAZOR!!!! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

As excited as she is for this... I don't know WHAT she's gonna do when she sees what B and Grampa got her ;) ;)

My little helper

Today was my Taste of Home party. It went pretty well. I wasn't expecting much because usually only about 1/2 the people come that say they are coming... especially on a nice day like today! I also expected even less once I saw the catalog. Some really nice and neat stuff... but pretty expensive. Wrong crowd for that. We don't need nunna dat dere expensive shit! But we had good food and fun chatting and I do get to get something 1/2 off, plus I have a $30 credit... no clue what I am going to get.

Sean was disappointed that he had to stay 'home with a buncha ladies' while Daddy went over to Uncle Scott's house to watch football... but there are a multitude of reasons that he was better off staying home that I won't go into here. Who knew there was anything I wouldn't blog about? I know, right!!?

This week is Jessi's birthday. It always ends up being a week long celebration since people stop by with gifts whenever are 'just going by.' Guitar Hero comes out this weekend and we are getting that for the whole family so I told Jessi her b'day present would something really small... like a pack of gum. She asked if it could at least get a 3 pack and I agreed to that and she is delighted ;) Little does she know that this ------>
is arriving in the mail tomorrow ;) She's going to pee her pants!!! :)
I am just glad that I am going to finally be able to reach her when she is at friends houses... football games... and sports practices!! I put it off for so long because I thought it would add too much $$ to our plan and I felt a bit silly when I realized how much better the new plans are with way more minutes than we had (not that we ever reach with because of free incoming and free unicel-to-unicel). It was only $9 to add Jessi and $4 for handset insurance for her phone... cuz she's 12 ;) ...and now we have triple the minutes we had !

Fright at the Fort ...and after!

I only snapped one quick photo before we went in.

They were FREAKING OUT....lol!! We got there early enough that the line was not too long and it was still pretty light out. That was the plan since the girls... and Nicole... were all pretty scared and I was afraid that even in the daylight I was going to have to deal with a complete meltdown from one or ALL of them halfway through. Thankfully there were no meltdowns. LOTS of screaming and LOTS of clutching each other (and there was a moment where I thought Jessi might be getting to 'that place'), but no freak outs ;)

I thought it was pretty short and pretty cheesy... and not scary... well.... except that guy that came after us with a chainsaw... THAT made me scream...lol!!

Even SCARIER than the Fort Fright was AFTERWARDS when we took the 4 EXTREMELY WOUND UP tweenagers to McD's and wound them up further all the way home with the radio blasted and MUCH signing and dancing :-D If you have never spent time with girls this age... there is really no way to for me to explain the energy and drama that they exude every second of their lives...lol!! They had Nicole and I laughing our asses off most of the evening!

WHO invited THEM!!???

I tried ...with extremely limited sucess... to get some 'birds in flight' photos....

Everytime I swing open the door and yell "HA!!!!" They all fly away (they come right back when I go back inside... these birds are truly the jackasses of the bird world)... and I snap away. The 2nd time I did it, it occured to me....

#1 -that it's a good thing I live in the country or neighbors surely would have called someone to come and have me fitted for a pretty white coat with lots of buckles ;)

#2 - I should probably put some pants on.

Number 2 was confirmed when Jessi came downstairs and looked at me with her eyebrows raised in that 'OMG MOM...WHAT CRAZY ASS THING ARE YOU DOING NOW!??' expression when she saw me standing by the front door in just a t-shirt with my camera hanging around my neck. Hee Hee :D She should just be glad she didn't have anyone spending the night tonight ;) ;)



Tonight Nicole and I are taking Jessi and some of her friends to FRIGHT NIGHT AT THE FORT!!!! SPOOOOOOOOOKY!!!!

Tuesday.... was yesterday

Yesterday Jessi had her very last field hockey game. An Away Game in Lincoln with a VERY EXCITING Mcdonald's stop. Damn I hate it when I am at McD's and one of those team buses pulls up... but I disgress. Since Jessi was gone all afternoon, Sean and I went for a little trip to our favorite spot to play and take some pictures. I was HOPING for a nice landscape photo that I could have a canvas made from, but I didn't really get any that I am very happy with. The sky is blown out in all of them. I recently learned a technique to fix that, but I need a tripod for it. I also need MY computer... which is FINALLY at Dell getting fixed (remember that post back in August... yeah.... I procrastinated a bit in sending it... just a bit ;) )

So....no great landscap photo, BUT I DID get a photo of a GHOST!!! I didn't see it when I was taking the photo, and there was nothing on my lens as the pics before and after of the same shot don't have this curious anomaly. Yikes, right!!?? You have to click it and make it big to get the whole effect.