Random Story Saturday: Movie Stubs

 I don't collect a lot of things mostly because I don't like stuff. But I do have a collection of movie stubs from my teen years. You know, back in that golden time of your life when you see all the movies. 

My older sister worked at our local movie theater so I actually saw way more movies than are represented here. She took me along with her to see just about everything and we didn't get a printed ticket for those showtimes; we just walked right in.

Some notable stubs:

Spiderman with Toby Maguire. Yes, I saw it twice but don't roll your eyes, I only had to pay for it once.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which is my favorite film and book of the series.

On some rare occasions I also wrote who I went with and my critique of the movie. Catch Me If You Can

This was on my birthday. I often went to the movies on my birthday. I also saw Twister and A Little Princess on my birthdays as a kid.

And there were a lot of teen movies like She's All That. Freddy Prinze Jr at the top of his game.

As well as Julia Stiles at the top of hers.

Here's a side story. I didn't actually see The Haunting twice. On the night of August 13, my friends and I wanted to see Sixth Sense but it was sold out. So we bought tickets to the Haunting and snuck into the Sixth Sense. The ushers had to bring in benches and folding chairs because they ran out of real seats but we weren't the unlucky ones that had to sit on them. I feel bad about that now.

This is the stub from when I saw my favorite movie ever.

I remember a big group of us seeing Legend of Bagger Vance together and the boys that came along made fun of it the whole time. It was kind of dumb but at the time I liked it.

Justin will be most pleased to see this ticket. This is one of his favorite movies ever and I tease him about that. I didn't like it then and don't like it now.

And in case you were wondering what movies were playing nearly 21 years ago, I saved this from the paper. Remember looking in the paper for showtimes? Or calling the theater and listening to the recording?

The movie theaters I went to the most are torn down now. That makes me feel old.

Now I'm lucky if I see two movies a year in a theater.

Fashion tips from a 7-year-old, how it was better than Christmas at our house, and James kinda sorta got what he wanted

 One of the things I love most about Erica is her clothing choices. I have been pretty laissez-faire with all my kids about what they wear. I didn't used to be. I think somewhere along the way I realized that them heading into school feeling snazzy and confident and comfortable trumped any need on my end that their clothes coordinate or were fashionable. Is it clean and in good repair and fit? That's all I care about. Anyway--this is the outfit Erica put together last week. One of her favorite dresses, capri leggings, leopard boots, and tube socks pulled high to cover the rest of her legs. As we were walking out the door, she asked if she looked a little silly. "Yes," I answered honestly. "Do you need a minute to change?" She shrugged. "Nah." 

As I was ridding my home of Valentine decorations, I came across these gems. When I saw they had handwriting, I got all excited that my kids wrote nice things on them. Nope.

And Erica is my nicest child........

Henry finished up his basketball season on Saturday. He loves playing and he's pretty fun to watch. They never posted the scores so I don't know how well they did but I would guess they lost most games but they did get much better by the end of the season.

He never ever ever complained about going to practice or a game. That's huge for him! Football season was frustrating for him a lot of the times even though he loved playing. Somedays it was hard to gear up to go and play and lose. But he was Mr. Enthusiastic all basketball season long.

Our printer really stopped responding to anything so Justin and I drove to Staples Saturday afternoon and bought a new one. This time we got a laserjet and the kids were so amazed at how fast it printed. (Our old printer would maybe print what you sent to it--if you plugged it right into the computer, messed with the settings, unplugged it and plugged it back in, fasted and prayed.) This printer was magic by comparison.

We were printing coloring pages all afternoon. It's going to be fun!

Above: Justin taking requests for coloring pages while trying to watch a basketball game. The Littles feeling happier than Christmas morning.

Today James went to a pre-preschool class at the library. He's been asking to go to preschool for a few months but I told him he had to wait until fall and he has been bummed. So I signed him up for this once a week class and he was mad about it. "I wanted to go to an actual preschool building." I had to bribe reward him with a doughnut afterwards for going in and staying the entire time. He did great but let's be honest, he did it for the doughnut. Let's hope he won't bargain for a doughnut for the next 5 weeks.

Sarah has nearly finished her hunter safety course. She just has the field test left. I don't know who's more excited for her to hunt in the fall--Sarah or Justin. Justin is still working long hours finishing up this report that just. won't. end. And how 'bout them Jazz?  I am having a dickens of a time nursing a terrible pinched nerve in my neck for the past week. Praises for YouTube physical therapy videos. Is there anything not free for the learning on YouTube?

This and That from February

This is James's ninja turtle costume.

My phone's screen is kept locked so the only thing the kids can do with it is take pictures. Sometimes I find these gems.

While Justin was hunting down a homeless rabbit in our backyard, Erica coped with the situation by drawing a picture of the rabbit that has hopped around the neigborhood for months. She wanted to name it Hoppy but I told her I already named it Poopsie because of the several hundred rabbit poops in our backyard. (The rabbit is now dead and we can use our yard again.)

Nothing says be my Valentine like a bat brownie.

 

James and I visited Justin at work a few weeks ago. They have a 3D printer and Justin has a toy excavator in his office so James thinks it's pretty much the coolest place ever.

I lost a measuring cup from one of my measuring cup sets. I looked everywhere (all my dry good bins, in the toy kitchen) and even asked my neighbor if my kids used it to dig in their yard (which isn't an unlikely occurrence). We concluded that it got thrown away somehow. I was really upset about it because 1. I liked that set, 2. I can't buy it online anywhere and 3. I don't want to spend money on a new measuring cup set. It took me like a month to finally break down and buy new ones (And I really like them) but I still held onto the remaining cups of this set out of hope or denial. 

And then I found it last week. I pulled out a bag of dried milk that I keep in the freezer and there it was. It's been there since that FHE when we made peanut butter playdough (November maybe?). Pretty sure I was the one to zip up this large resealable bag and stick it in the freezer. Funny part is, I misread the recipe and didn't even need dried milk this day so who knows how long it would have taken me to find it.

The kids could make a Valentine box for school if they wanted to and they wanted to. James didn't want to be left out so he made a monster box.

Erica chose a unicorn (thank you pinterest)

Henry's is an Among Us guy.

And Sarah's is a toaster. A Cuisinheart toaster. (See what we did there?)

She won second place in her class's contest. I saw the first place box that was a vending machine. It deserved to win.

Sarah asked me if I ever had Valentine box contests in elementary school. I told her, yes every year, but now that I think about it, I think it was just me that always made my boxes like it was a competition!

Note to self and warning to others: don't buy the Tootsie Pop Valentine kit. The hearts do not punch out without scissors and/or cursing.

We had to improvise our own little tags with stickers that I had on hand

I actually think they turned out cuter and Erica and her friend Madison liked working on them. Henry is at the end of the table complaining why he has to do this dumb Valentine stuff.

James got a little obsessed with cutting out hearts and made one for everyone he knows. I'd fold the paper and draw the line for him to follow.

This is for his cousin Jaana. It's his best one.

Friday we went to the school to see the 5th and 6th grade science fair. I snapped this picture of Sarah's student council picture.

I thought the science fair would be boring since it's just posters---no malfunctioning volcanoes like on television. But it was actually pretty interesting. The kids were so creative and genuine. I liked it and wished I had time to talk to each of the kids but I only stopped at 10 or so.

Here's Sarah's project. She was among 9 sixth graders that won 1st place. (Still not sure how that works.)

A car carrier trailer (I had to google what it's called) pulled up in front of our house Saturday morning. We called the kids up to take a look as it's not something that we've ever seen on our street.

After a year long hiatus, Justin and I went out to dinner with our good friends and neighbors AmyJo and Brock Jones. We introduced them to a taco place in Provo, they introduced us to Brooker's ice cream in Provo and it was the best ice cream I've ever had. The theme of the place is colonial America so they  have clever names like Alexander Hamilton's Not Gonna Throw Away My Scoop and Patrick Henry's Give Me Chocolate or Give Me Death. This is Aaron Burr's Murderous Shot (Black Madagascar vanilla). 

And that takes us to Valentine's Day. We celebrated with a fancy dinner at home. Justin made the most authentic enchiladas, refried beans, and jalapeno poppers. He even bought Mexican sodas to make the dinner extra fun. I gave each of the kids a bag of Valentine candy and we had a dance party in the living room after we ate. Oh! And chocolate mousse pie for dessert.

The kids opened their Valentines from my sister-in-law Lisa. She has the snowcone shacks and she sends all her nieces and nephews Valentines every year. She's making it nearly impossible to compete with for Favorite Aunt award.

And that's that.

Erica Turns 7

Erica turned 7 on Friday. We started the morning off with pancakes, eggs, sausage and bacon. While Justin was cooking, Erica opened her presents. I took mostly video at this time. She got the 5th Dory Fantasmagory book, an activity book, lots of food and a pair of pink rollerblades.

While the kids were at school I worked on the frosting for her cake and baked the cookies. She has been talking for months that she wanted a giant cookie cake and I was all prepared to bake her a few giant chocolate chip cookies to stack with frosting. But a few weeks before she decided she wanted a few stacks of regular sized cookies. I had everything ready for her when she got home so that we could do the assembling together. This is what she came up with.

I think the candles she picked out really made it super cute. It looks like something from Dr. Seuss. 

No sooner had we finished up than her friends arrived for her party. This is Finley. She and Erica were in the same preschool and kindergarten class but the school boundaries changed in the summer and Finley got moved to Park. There were a lot of tears from both of them about that. So whenever we can get them together, it's a big deal.

First activity--wand making. I previously made wands with white cardboard and chopsticks. The girls put on jewels and tied them with ribbon.

Then they went downstairs to the "ballroom" and played keepie uppie with 60 balloons while dancing to music. At this point I left them to go prepare for the tea party and things got really loud which I think is a good sign.

For the tea party they ate grapes, carrots and ranch, cheetos and princess punch and pink sugar cookies for a treat.

Then it was presents time.

I took a picture of each of her friends but not with what they gave her. Lots of glitter, lots of animals, lots of cutsie girlie stuff.

(Back) Sadie, Marlie, June, Madison, Bell (front) Maddie, Finley, Erica, Mary

Sarah led them on a treasure hunt to a bouquet of chocolate roses. It was 4:37 at that point--they had blown through all those activities much faster than I planned. We don't throw a ton of birthday parties but that's never happened before! Sarah and I thought quickly and led them through games of musical chairs, statues, and the thimble game. I have to say I was a little relieved to see the first parents show up.

Once all the girls had gone, we loaded in the car and went to Beto's for dinner. Justin and I haven't been to Beto's since high school and we've never been together so it's been years. It's not a place we, as adults, consider good food. But we have this kid, Erica, who loves nachos and I remembered getting super nachos at Beto's as a teen and thinking they were the best thing ever, or at least impressively large. When I told Erica what supernachos had on them, she was all about it and chose it for her birthday. 

They weren't as good as I remember (is anything ever?) but she was in chip heaven. We may need to find a better place for supernachos because I think she'll want them again.

Then we went back home for birthday cake cookies.

Corey and Nadine gave her this motorcycle jacket and boots that Erica is obsessed with. "Now all I need is a motorcycle"

Here are a few things about Erica at 7. 

She just recently started reading chapter books independently. It's like something just clicked. It went from her requesting "will you read a page, and I'll read a page?" to me catching her reading an hour past bedtime. Iet h had to go back to the library just to ger more books. Her favorite books are the Dory Fantasmagory series (I think they are hilarious too) and The Princess in Black.

She wakes up last and plays the most with friends so she watches the least amount of TV. If she ever does get to actually choose what's on, she chooses Anastasia.

She still is my nicest kid. She picks up on the subtlest hint of a need and she hops up and helps. It's pretty amazing. Be like Erica.

She wants to take piano lessons and is on the waiting list with Sarah's teacher. In the meantime I've been teaching her little songs I remember learning as a kid (think chopsticks and that one you play by rocking your knuckles across the black keys). Sarah has been teaching her actual piano skills.

(I'm sad the following picture is blurry. We were walking and laughing at the end of our photo shoot and that's why it's blurry and her most natural smile. Sigh.)

She's still pretty sneaky when it comes to getting into Sarah's candy stash. James does it more but he learned it from her.

She has lost one tooth and the other one is loose too. Her friends at her party all seemed so much older because she's lost the least amount of teeth and has no grown-up teeth.

She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. She has the compassion to do that or anything in medicine but she also has a super sensitive gag reflex so we'll see how that pans out.

She can be surprisingly super goofy. Most of the time she's just pleasant. There's a strong grumpy streak in her, especially in the morning or if she's kept up too late. But sometimes she is so obnoxiously goofy. It's usually when she and Henry play house with their stuffed animals or if they just get giggling about random stuff. I've had to separate them to get her to knock it off. 

When she was a baby, I never got tired of her. You know how when your baby wakes up from a nap and there's this feeling of wishing the baby would sleep just a little bit longer? I never felt that with her. She was so content and pleasant and fun that I was fine about it when she woke up.

 I still feel that way about her. I like having her around.