Elizabeth's 12th Birthday

My niece Elizabeth's birthday is December 27, so that means that we usually get to celebrate together when her family is visiting for Christmas. This year Elizabeth turned 12. Here are some pictures of the birthday girl.

My mom made Elizabeth a chocolate tres leches cake that was really yummy.

After we had cake Elizabeth opened her presents.

Whenever Sharon helps me update my scrapbook Elizabeth always wants to help, so I got her her very own scrapbook. I filled it with all of the scrapbooking essentials, like pretty card stock and neat stickers. I also gave her a framed copy of the Young Women theme since she is now in Young Women at church. (I was lazy and didn't wrap Elizabeth's birthday presents; I just told her to close her eyes. )

Elizabeth really wanted a suitcase for her birthday, so that's what her major present was. Sharon just wrapped up the makeup bag that came with the luggage set so that she didn't have to bring it all since there van was pretty fall as it was.

The Gang's All Here!

This year for Christmas my mom and I decided to buy Pillow Pets for Sharon's kids. I shopped around on the internet and found that Kmart and Drugstore.com (of all places) had the best prices on Pillow Pets, so I submitted my order and the Pets started arriving the next day. Three days later the last one arrived. (I was really impressed with how quickly they came because I just did standard shipping.)

When the last Pillow Pet arrived I had my mom take pictures of them and then I sent the pictures to Sharon and said, "The gang's all here!" in the subject line.

I was so excited for the kids to come downstairs on Christmas morning. Although they wanted Pillow Pets, I don't think they were necessarily expecting them, so they were really surprised.

These are the pictures that my mom  took of the Pillow Pets when they arrived.

We didn't want to wrap the Pillow Pets, so we just set them in front of the Christmas tree.

I made sure Chandra had the camera in hand when the kids came downstairs and she was able to capture some surprised faces.

The three oldest girls had all picked a favorite Pillow Pet, so it was easy to know what to get for each of them (a penguin for Elizabeth, a rainbow unicorn for Kate and a puppy dog for Sarah). Rachel didn't really say which one she liked, so I picked for her (a cow). I guess I chose wrong because she really didn't seem to have any interest in it, or any other of the Pillow Pets. Too bad. Maybe she'll like it better as time goes on.

I love elephants and I thought the elephant Pillow Pet was really cute, so I picked that for Emily. Sharon had told me to get the panda for Matt because she thought he would like it, but when Matt saw the elephant he made a beeline for it. Fortunately, Emi is accommodating, so we just switched Emi's Pillow Pet with Matt's.

The picture above shows Matt making a beeline for the elephant. He sure knew what he wanted!

Emi really liked her elephant, but was just as happy to switch to the Panda. Way to be a peacemaker! I'm so glad that the Pillow Pets were a success and went over so well!

Christmas 2012

I had such a wonderful Christmas with my family and I'm so grateful to my sister Sharon for bringing her family to visit for Christmas. We've spent the past six Christmases together and the thought of celebrating Christmas without Sharon's family is just sad!

I'm grateful that Sharon's kids get a two and a half week break from school because that meant that they could stay with us for 10 days. We had so much fun together! Sharon helped me update my scrapbook (I had lots of Christmas cards/photo cards to scrapbook), we went shopping, we watched TV/movies,  laughed and had lots of great talks.

On Christmas morning my mom and Chandra got me dressed and I was ready for the day by 8 AM. (This is early for me because we usually don't even start my morning routine until 8.) Sharon's kids always wait to come downstairs until I'm up in my wheelchair, which I think is sweet because I wouldn't want to miss out on any of the present opening. I tried to get ready quickly since I know how hard it is to wait to open Christmas presents when you're a kid!

The first thing we did was open stockings. Sharon always makes sure that her kids have awesome stockings full of candy, fun foods  and neat little toys/gifts. 

I love Sarah's expression in these next four pictures. She was so excited, and it's not even like she was opening an extravagant present (it was a little notebook). All of Sharon's kids were so excited about/so appreciative of their gifts.  It was so cute to hear them exclaim things like, "How did you know?!" or "Santa knew just what I wanted!"

Above is Rachel opening a Hello Kitty play dress, and below Elizabeth opening some oil pastels, Matt opening something I can't remember and Emily getting some Gerber puff treats.

After the kids spent a while exploring their stockings we ate breakfast. My mom found a new baked french toast recipe recently that she wanted to try, so Christmas morning was the perfect time to give it a whirl It was really yummy and everyone really liked it.

My sister Laura and her family arrived around 11 and we started opening our presents. We're the kind of family that opens presents one at a time instead of having a free-for-all where multiple people are opening presents at the same time. I know different families do things differently, but this is the way we always opened our Christmas presents when I was a kid. I really like doing it this way because it's fun to watch people open their gifts to see what they get. This one-by-one method is more slow going (and it took more than two hours for all 15 of us to open our presents), but I didn't mind. It was so much fun!

Above Sarah is opening a watch (don't you just love that face?!). Below Kate, Sarah and Rachel get tiny American Girl dolls and Mom gets a new Swiss Army knife keychain from me.

David gets a bear and Elizabeth helps me open my Christmas presents.

Sarah gets some Magic Treehouse books and Elizabeth gets a silk scarf made that Kate made in her gifted art class.

Laura's old hand mixer recently died, so she asked for a new KitchenAid hand mixer for Christmas. She's been wanting a big KitchenAid stand mixer for a long time, but they are expensive, so she settled and asked for a hand mixer. A bunch of us went in together on the stand mixer that Laura's been wanting and we were able to really surprise her.

The next six pictures tell the whole story. Laura starts to open a large box, then she sees the words "KitchenAid" on the box and wonders if it can really be a KitchenAid. It is! Her excitement causes her to cry. (Of course. It's Laura, after all!) She's grateful to Brett for orchestrating the whole thing. It was fun watching the surprise!

Above Elizabeth is giving me a picture she made in her gifted art class. Below, Sharon opens a scarf from Chandra and Mom opens a picture.

My sister Kristin made flower clips for Sharon's girls. They turned out so cute! Here is Sarah modeling hers. Below that, Chandra is opening opening a makeup case from  Mom and me.

I'm sad Christmas is over for another year, but I'm glad it was so wonderful and memorable.

"Les Misérables"

Happy New Year! I'm so glad to be back blogging again after not making very many posts in the month of December. There were lots of things that I wanted/intended to blog about, but I was just so busy with other things that I just couldn't fit everything I want to do in.

One of the things I did over the Christmas holiday was go to the movies with my sisters Sharon and Chandra. We saw Les Misérables. I've been a huge Les Mis fan since I was a kid. In 1997, PBS rebroadcast the original musical production of Les Mis for the 10th anniversary of the musical and we recorded it off TV and watched it many times. We also had the soundtrack of that performance on CD and it was frequently played in our house.

I first saw the preview for the new Les Misérables months ago when Chandra and I were at the movies and I was surprised that they were making another Les Misérables movie. I was excited, though, since this version was a musical (unlike the 1998 Les Mis with Liam Neeson/Geoffrey Rush). That version was good since it was fairly true to the book (which is a really good story) but this latest movie was the best of both worlds since it told the story AND had the awesome music. Watching the movie and hearing the music brought back a lot of good memories from my childhood and I was mentally singing along the entire time since I know the words to most of the Les Mis songs.

I especially liked how all of the singing was sung as the movie was being filmed instead of it being dubbed, as is the case with most movies is. I thought it really helped add to the emotion. This movie was full of genuine, believable emotion and that was my favorite part. So often when you see emotion portrayed in television and movies it isn't believable/authentic looking. One of my biggest pet peeves in TV/movies is when actors can't render natural-looking emotion. I think the mark of a good actor is being able to cry well on screen.)

The movie's ending is good (but in a sad way) so Sharon, Chandra and I all cried. We weren't the only ones. Although the auditorium where the movie was being shown wasn't full at all, I heard lots of people sniffling. The volume at the end of the movie was quite soft and the lady sitting in the row behind us was crying really loudly. Thankfully, the movie wasn't a total tearjerker and I just cried a few tears. I always hate it when movies make me cry a lot* unless I'm watching them by myself! ;)

I obviously knew that this movie was a musical and that there would be lots of singing, but I didn't know that almost the entire movie was going to be sung. I'd say that at least 95% of the talking and dialogue in the movie was sung. I loved this movie and can't wait to see it again. It's definitely one that I will be buying when it comes out on DVD. Heather's rating: 10/10 stars

I thought all of the acting was so good. Hugh Jackman did an amazing job in the role of Jean Valjean. Eddie Redmayne played Marius and he also did a terrific job. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, one of the songs he sang in the movie, was absolutely amazing and so full of emotion. I think that song was my favorite part of the entire movie. I also loved Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the innkeeper and his wife. They added great comic relief to the movie (although there were some crass parts in the Master of the House song).

I have to give props to Anne Hathaway for her portrayal of Fantine. I've never been a fan of Anne Hathaway… at all. Maybe it's because I thought she was annoying in Princess Diaries**. I can't really put my finger on why I've never cared for her, but I never have. That being said, she really redeemed herself in this role, because she did a fantastic job and I can easily see her getting nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress (and maybe even winning). I just realized something... of all the movies that I've written about/rated on my blog I've only given two of them perfect 10's (The Dark Knight Rises and now Les Misérables.) What dl they both have in common? Anne Hathaway! I guess it's time for me to take her off of my "actors/actresses that annoy me" list!

*Speaking of tearjerkers, my mom and I watched the movie A Shine of Rainbows recently and I cried… a lot! I felt like such a fool because here my mom and I were eating dinner and I was blubbering so hard I could barely eat. Truly, I was doing the ugly cry! I always feel embarrassed when I'm watching a movie with other people and I cry. Especially when it's more than just a few tears rolling down the cheeks, but the kind of crying where you make noise!

**Sharon has never seen Princess Diaries, so she, Chandra and I watched it last night. Watching it was sure a trip down memory lane! I remember watching that movie when it came out when I was working the movie theater, and my younger sisters LOVED that movie and watched it over and over. It was funny watching it again because the movie seemed so dated. I suppose it is more than 11 years old, though, since it came out in 2001. Life sure has changed a lot since then and I felt really old watching it!