Today is Father’s Day—hope all the fathers out there had a great day, including MY father, who’s probably having the best day ever, seeing as he’s dead!
I made some coffee cake for us all, and I made hamburgers and fries for dinner (and the kids were TOTALLY excited to have root beer with dinner—we almost NEVER buy soda—one of the best decisions we ever made for our family…that and getting matching tattoos that say “One 4 All and All 4 Fun!”
I’d already gotten my Father’s Day/Anniversary gifts ahead of time, and already opened and used them (just like Amanda got her sewing machine and table as a combined Mother’s Day/Anniversary gift). I got the Boom Blox Wii game mentioned in the previous post, as well as the Benjamin Button Blu-ray and the soundtracks to “Up” and “Star Trek.”
Mini-review: I REALLY love the “Up” soundtrack. Touching, exciting, fun—just like the movie. The best review I can give a soundtrack is that it makes you feel like you’re watching the movie again—which this soundtrack definitely does, as well as conjuring up the same emotions you feel while watching the film.
SUMMER MOVIES, CONTINUED
Speaking of reviews, here are some really short reviews of the movies we’ve been watching so far during our nightly summer movie nights:
Finding Nemo: Still my Favorite PIXAR movie (and a great one for Father’s Day, actually!) Also very emotional and very funny, with great characters.
Iron Man: Judy came over to watch it with the boys. Fun movie, but seriously Judy, no family needs THAT much candy during a movie. That stuff lasted for like 2 weeks!
WIPEOUT: Wednesdays are Wipeout days on ABC. Funny game show—kids like seeing people get hurt. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the kids talking about “the big balls” all the time, though…
Galaxy Quest (Netflix): Always a fun one—did you know Dwight from “The Office” is in this? Maddy couldn’t get over seeing “Snape” (Alan Rickman) as a good guy and thought it was very unlike him to cheer happily at the end.
Tom Sawyer: The musical, with Johnny Whittaker and little Jodie Foster. Fun, but as a Mark Twain snob, I’m annoyed by all the changes from the book…
The Blob (Netflix): The 1950’s version. Maddy has the Blob theme song on a 50’s CD (“It creeps and leaps; it slides and glides…”) and was curious to see the movie. Manda got mad at me because she remembers having nightmares for a MONTH as a kid due to that movie. The kids took it in stride, but then, these kids grew up with Jurrasic Park and the Mummy and aren’t scared of Jell-o--well, not more than anyone else is…
Spirited Away: Manda hates this movie, so it was good she was bed-ridden while we watched this. I love how consistently inventive the movie is.
Sleeping Beauty: A classic, with beautiful animation and background art. But really, what’s with the “Skumps” song? Why?
Ghostbusters: We bought the newly-released Blu-Ray and the kids became instant converts. I think they’ve watched this EVERY DAY since last Tuesday. I woke up one morning and Joel was sitting in the front room watching it by himself! (They hide when the library ghost goes all freaky, though). They’ve spent the weekend making Ghostbusters equipment out of paper and tin foil and toilet paper tubes. Maddy traced Ghostbusters logos (as badges) for each of them from the video case, and they go on missions through the house. The boys, of course, have a new idea for what to be for Halloween.
We also rented the Ghostbusters video game, which Joel beat (on rookie level) in just 2 days. It’s so funny, because I was right around Maddy and Joel’s age when the movie came out and was obsessed with it, too.
Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (Netflix): The kids always love this. Season 2 has a little more innuendo in it than season one. I never noticed that stuff as a kid, of course. Like when Miss Yvonne gives Ricardo (the athletic neighbor) a book (To “her favorite tight end”) to keep by his bedside “To keep track of every time he scores…(pause)…in his soccer games!”
SPECIAL ASSESSMENT
So, our H.O.A. sent us a bill last month with a note saying that each of the condo residents needed to pay an extra $495 to help cover deficits incurred over the past 2 years (due to repairs to the clubhouse, tenants that foreclosed, etc.) and it made a HUGE stink among the homeowners. Turns out we have to pay it, but there’s going to be much closer scrutiny on what to do next to make sure this doesn’t happen (and they’re looking into possible illegal activity by the builder/others involved).
CHICO
I'm basically all done with the "Chico" animated video I've been working on--I'll post the video here when it's online in the next week or two. In the meantime, check out some character designs and screenshots from it at my Portfolio website: http://pose2poseanimation.blogspot.com
(scroll down a little past on the site to get to the Chico images).
GUESSING SONGS GAME
I think I’ve mentioned before that we have a fun song-guessing game. I start playing a song in iTunes and the kids have to guess what movie it’s from. They love this game SO much. And they totally rock at it. Even if they don’t guess the right movie at first, they mention other movies that had the same composer (man, all of Randy Newman’s scores sound EXACTLY the same!) One of these days I’m going to put up an audio quiz to see if YOU can guess the movie soundtracks as quickly as they’re able to. I bet you’ll lose.
WEEKLY CHART
I also might have mentioned our weekly chart. Every Sunday night, we have a family meeting where we review the chart and fill out a new one. It includes points for morning prayer (which we almost always forget now that school is out!), scripture study, eating healthy, etc. The goal is to get 100% every week (if we got a perfect score every week, it would be like 117% or so, but that’s NEVER happened—usually my fault). After a year, if the average is 100% or more, we will go on a vacation, wherever we have a budget to go—whether it be a big trip to Disneyland or a little trip to the Zoo and to have ice cream at Cold Stone.
We recently added a spot for a nightly 5-minute cleanup in the kids’ rooms, and it’s made life so much easier. Maddy’s room used to be HORRENDOUSLY MESSY every Saturday, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to clean it. I’d come in and help her, and it would still take an hour or more. Now that we started this 5-minute nightly clean, her room is almost always clean. If it weren’t for our messy 3-year old, the boys’ room would be perfect, too.
SCRABBLE SLAM
We bought the new Scrabble Slam card game, and the kids and I are really loving it. I still win all the time, obviously (since I’m playing against a 7 year old and a 9 year old) but Maddy and Joel actually do a pretty good job with the game. Basically, the cards all have 2 letters on them (one on each side). You pick a 4-letter word (no not one of THOSE 4-letter words—something basic, like “wind” or “love”). Then you divide the rest of the cards among players, and everyone tries to get rid of their cards by putting down one card at a time to change the main word (for instance, use a “b” to change “wind” to “bind,” then use an “a” to change it to “band.”) Really fun and fast-paced.
We’ll end with some video. With summer vacation upon us, Amanda feeling sick, and me working on animation projects and trying to hold down the fort, the kids have to entertain themselves. And since TV and video games can get boring after a while, they sometimes actually use their imaginations. Before they turned into Ghostbusters this week, they were circus performers. Luckily, I caught their big show on video. Maddy performs amazing acrobatics, Joel performs his juggling act, and Abe tames the ferocious bear (by walking circles around it, apparently). Here you go—enjoy 2 minutes of the Greatest Show in the Peterson’s Front Room!
