Happy Easter!

Here are some pictures of our family on this beautiful, warm Easter Sunday.  I thought it would be nice to include a little about what we are thinking about on this holiday:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0vQZQieI-I

The Spider Hunt

It’s about 1:00 am and I’m sleeping on the couch. Not because I’ve had a spat with my beloved, but because I always fall asleep on the couch. It will be around 11:00 pm and Rob will still be wide awake and settling into an episode of the Simpsons or How It’s Made, or he’s in the office on the computer and I’m trying to read on my own… I just can’t make myself go to bed even when I’m tired. I think it’s a weird sort of guilt I have because it seems wrong to go to sleep before Rob does.

Anyway, so Rob comes to wake me up as usual and we head upstairs. Our living room is open to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. The kids love it because they can sneak out and watch TV if they’re really quiet (but we usually catch them), or throw things down to the living room from the railing like little toy parachute guys or dirty laundry.  As I walk across the hallway to check on the kids I notice that there is a creepy black spider on the far wall above the windows and mention it to Rob. He immediately concocts a plan. “You throw some socks at the spider to knock it down, and I’ll stand in the living room with a wad of toilet paper ready to scoop him up when he hits the ground.” I’m so tired, but I say, “ok” because he is already grabbing socks from his drawer and rolling them into tight balls. I take a practice shot at the opposite side of the wall so I can see how to best get the little guy. It bounces off the ceiling before even hitting the wall. This makes me start laughing, and Rob is down in the living room going, “I think a practice shot was a good idea.” I give up on practicing and just start lobbing sock balls at the spider. He’s just a few inches down from the ceiling, so I can’t use an arc, it has to be a straight shot. This is harder than I thought. After several rounds of misses I am laughing so hard at my terrible aim that I’m not even hitting the wall anymore. Rob and I agree to switch posts. He remarks, “I wish we had our own videographer.”

He comes upstairs and hands me the five squares of toilet paper for the squishing job. I say, “I think I would have gotten a bit more.” But I don’t get more just to show that I’m as tough as my husband. He takes a few shots and misses too. I throw the socks back up to him for another round, and this time on the second shot he knocks the spider down. I run for the spider after watching it land on the carpet. I’m thinking, “I should have put shoes on! This guy is fast.” I start yelling, “He’s so fast!” And Rob yells, “Don’t go straight up and down, smear him!” Then, after a long three seconds, I successfully smoosh the spider without smearing him into the carpet, and show Rob my handiwork. Finally, I flush the remains and we both head upstairs back to bed and I say, “We could have won $10,000.00 if we had that on tape.”

Visit to the West Coast

Chris and Tracy came for a visit back home to the west coast. It is home, right guys??!! We had a lot of fun together and got together with Nana, Papa, Great Grandpa & Dorothy, Jeanette & Dan, Tracy’s sister’s family… Lots of happy times together. Can’t wait to see you all again!

Top O’ The Mornin’

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Hunter brought in a project to school he has been working on for a while.  A leprechaun trap!  I can’t wait to see how it went over.  As we unloaded it from the back of the van his friends were all so curious about this contraption he was bringing to class.  He built it from cardboard boxes, bits and pieces of things around the house and a few Irish decorations he bought at the craft store.  Very fun!  Hunter loves building things and for a while he wanted to do a breakfast making machine.  As he was describing what he wanted it to do, I had a flash of familiarity and we went to youtube to watch this classic sequence from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  I don’t know how my kids had gone so long never seeing it, since it is quoted so often on their Dad’s side of the family.  After seeing this clip we dug it out of the dusty VHS cabinet and watched it after homework the next day.  They loved it, and are starting to work their favorite quotes into everyday conversation.  Just like their Daddy…

For Art or Money?

When it comes to movies I have always been perplexed by how this industry operates. On the one hand it seems like it’s all about making money, but on the other hand it seems like it’s all about artistic expression.

From an economic standpoint, I don’t understand why the movie makers are so resistant to edited versions of their films. Companies like Clean Flicks, that would buy the original versions of movies and edit out the offensive content, were shut down for successfully filling a niche in the market that wasn’t being filled. There is clearly a market for edited versions, so why aren’t the production companies releasing edited versions on their own? They will release “un-cut” versions with extra content, so why not work in reverse? And how does buying a movie at full price and taking out what you don’t want differ from buying a Vera Wang wedding dress and having it altered to suit your taste? “I love this dress, if only I could shorten it and take off some of these beads…”

One argument is that it would be confusing for consumers. We manage to choose between widescreen or full screen DVD options, and I bet we could manage a choice between the PG-13 (or even PG) and R version of a film. This would only increase the size of their market- R fans could still buy R, and those who would have passed on the movie will now buy the edited version. We see other industries do this: Gap has it’s more affordable version in Old Navy. Pace sells salsa in both hot and mild. A Honda Civic is made in different models: DX, LX, EX, and consumers pick the model that best suits their preferences.

CBS recently reported that PG movies with little to no cursing make a lot more money than those that have a higher level of cursing:

“The reality is that profanity, within PG, is the big demarcation between box office winner and box office loser,” research and marketing director Dan O’Toole said at ShoWest, a conference where studios unveil upcoming movie lineups.

“Parents are choosing PG films for their kids that have very, very low levels of profanity. We’re talking one-third the level of the average PG film,” he said.

In spite of this information, we see very few PG movies without some form of crass content. So if money isn’t the motivator, is movie making all about artistic expression? Although I enjoy movies like Oceans 11, 12, and 13, they were obviously made for profit more than anything else.

You Can Pick Your Friends…

You can pick your friends,

And you can pick your nose,

But you can’t can pick your friend’s nose.

I’ve got a ton of new pictures in the gallery, so take a look to see what else we’ve been up to.

Brite Music Review

When I was young we loved to listen to the Safety Kids on tape. I think there was only one in the series back then, and now it’s known as Personal Safety. The tape started with a club meeting of some kids and they discuss the importance of learning your phone number, staying safe from strangers and people who try to invade your privacy, and never going out alone. The topic is a fairly common one when discussing safety with kids, but by having the lessons taught by children and through songs, I was more easily sucked into the topic and able to remember the songs that went along with them.

My mom came across the tape when Hunter and Emma were toddlers and gave it to me. They loved it just as much as I did. We played the tape over and over until it started to sound weird and distorted. Several months ago I ordered Personal Safety on CD and discovered that there are also two more in the series, Stay Safe From Drugs, and Protect Their Minds. We have loved all three CDs and know all of the songs by heart. I have already heard the kids talking about why drugs are bad at times when we’re nowhere near the CD, and I had to laugh when someone brought up the evils of pornography in church and Emma looked up at me bright eyed and said, “pornography!” She was excited to know what the word meant now. We also have another CD called Show a Little Love that has some really good songs. Here are some clips of our favorite songs:

Personal Safety: Yell and Scream, The Telephone Song

Stay Safe From Drugs: All You Gotta Say is No, Go For a Natural High

Protect Their Minds: I Want to Have Clean Thoughts, See No Evil –the link is broken on this one 🙁

Show A Little Love: Show A Little Love, Never Tell A Lie