Annmarie's First Art

Here is AM's first art. It's actually the first time she didn't try and eat the crayons.

iPhone

I'm not sure why I waited so long. I love the iPhone!
"The greatest technological invention ever" -JM (The Double)

Me and My Shadow

Annmarie is fascinated with her shadow.
These are just random from our time home last week.

Happy Birthday Nana

Here is a darling picture of Cathy and Jamie. I love this picture! Isn't this a great picture of Cathy......Jamie is pretty cute too!
Hope you have a wonderful day Nana. Happy Birthday!

Cooking Club Loves The 80's!

This Saturday I hosted cooking club. The theme - the 80's. For details of the event please see this post at the CC blog!

Recommendation: Brian, Child (the magazine for thinking mothers)

I love this magazine. It was recommended to me in a mom’s group I went to when Annmarie was younger. It comes out quarterly, so you do not get bombarded with it monthly. It has great, fun and interesting essays. I always enjoy the debate topic they have in every issue. It’s different from your typical parenting magazine and I just really enjoy it.

Time with Mom

I'm getting to spend 3 days at home with Annmarie this week. Grandma and Grandpa are still on vacation. Today we had fun with Photo Booth on the Mac.

Twilight DVD Party

OK, I know I have probably taken this way too far, but I swear this is hopefully the last post you’ll see about Twilight for a while.

Today I hosted a Twilight DVD party. I had a lot of fun and I think my guests did too.

Here are some of the fun things we had at our party!

The center piece were red delicious apples, just like the cover of the Twilight book. I also put out chess pieces for the cover of Breaking Dawn. I had amber sparkling rocks on the table to represent Edward’s eyes. And we were only allowed to eat with Forks, get it!

Everyone wore all black.

For food we had: Bella Bloody Mary's. Deviled eggs because Bella loved eggs in book 4. Mushroom ravioli because that is what Bella had when she went out to dinner with Edward. Fruit salad with lots of apples. Hummus and pita bread. Crostini with mushrooms. Crostini with brie, apples and walnuts and brown sugar. Small rye toasts with soy cream cheese with tomato chutney. It was a very colorful table and everything was fabulous.Everyone told how and why they started reading the Twilight series and what they liked about the books and who their favorite character is. Everyone had read all 4 books, so it was great getting to talk about the books with people. We then watched the movie. I won’t get into the movie, but I thought it was good. I think having read the books you understood characters. I think the movie compliments the book well. We then watched some of the extras found on the DVD and enjoyed some chocolate fondue with apples of course. It was a lot of fun. I smiled a lot.

I refrained from taking pictures of my guests, so that they can maintain some self respect, something I have defiantly thrown out the window. But here is a cheesy one of me.

Time with Dad

This week Jamie spent 4 full days at home with Annmarie. We let our employees (Grandma and Grandpa) take a vacation. On the second day Jamie admitted that “this is hard” and in fact harder than his job. He noted that AM requires constant attention, you have no time for yourself, you have to be creative when it comes to entertaining her and it is nearly impossible to go to the bathroom without AM following you. Ha! By the end of the day Jamie was completely worn out.

They did do a lot of fun stuff together, which included going to AM’s gym glass, going for runs in the BOB, playing at the park and going to Whole Foods (one of AM’s favorite places). I asked Jamie if he took any pictures and he just glared at me, as if he had time to do that.

Here is another picture.

Scanner Fun

It's like the same picture......
Gotta love the 70's!

I can use my scanner

I know scanners have been around forever, but I'm just getting around to using ours! This can be dangerous.
(click on image to enlarge)

What do you think? I don't think there was any mix up at the hospital.

Angela's Book Review: BREAKING DAWN

**Warning - Contains Spoilers!**

I just couldn’t write this review without discussing the book, for those of you who have not read the book yet, please do not read this review.

The driving force behind the first three books is – Will Bella and Edward ever get to be together?

Well, you are given the answer to this question and so much more in Breaking Dawn.

I think you always know the answer to this question, but how, when, why or who is going to get hurt during the process is what the reader is waiting for.

In the end everything ends with a perfect happily ever after. And I am glad it did. I still love Bella and Edward and I even liked Jacob by the end of the book. The book provided perfect closure, but ended with endless possibilities for other stories.

So here are some the key details I feel I need to comment on:

Bella and Edward get married. While I was happy for them, the excitement, the longing, this impossible love, the primary point of interest of the books is answered. And for me, I was a little disappointed it happened so fast in the beginning of the book. I always new they would be together, so I was happy and there was much more story to tell. They go on a honeymoon and do things that go along with being on a honeymoon. This was tastefully done. And…….

Bella and Edward have a daughter! Not at all what I expected.

Bella becomes a vampire. I think this is probably one of my favorite parts of the book. I thought the way this was done was perfect. It came more out of necessity, than by choice. I also loved that it seemed like Bella was meant to be a vampire.

Jacob imprints on Bella and Edward’s daughter. I thought this is done well too. It made the unbelievable strong bond between Bella and Jacob understandable. I was fairly frustrated after book 3 and never got how Bella could have this love for Jacob when she had such powerful love for Edward. I know the imprinting thing is strange, but it made sense. I was also glad to see Jacob take his rightful position as Alpha.

In the end, I would have liked to have seen a fight with the Volruri, but that keeps it open for new stories. Not everything could happen in this book. I also loved that Bella was able to show Edward her mind.

Therefore, this book about committing to love provides answers to all your questions. And I LOVED every moment of it!

Lastly and in conclusion, I feel I need to say something regarding some of the controversy the books have received. It’s about vampires and werewolves, a story. A fairy tale of sorts. That’s it! It is not meant to be about true life. The books shouldn’t be read to convey some moral, ethical and meaningful message, its pure entertainment at its best. That’s what I got out of the books. I got completely hooked and wrapped up in Bella and Edward’s lives that I couldn’t put the books down (just ask my husband). And for now the story is over, while we wait to see if Meyer is going to move forward with number 5. So, I will move on……and start a new book and life will go on. The End.

Angela's Review: Eclipse
Angela's Review: Twilight and New Moon

Kiss Me - I'm Irish!

Well, probably about 10%!

Tahoe - First Overnight

So we had our first overnight without Annmarie - Yea! It was really my first overnight. And I survived and we really enjoyed ourselves. We decided to go skiing, well, because having a kid has pretty much killed our ski season. Sorry Annmarie, but it's true. We look forward to the day we can strap some skis on Annmarie. We only hope she will enjoy skiing as much as we do.
We stayed at some dumpy motel in Tahoe Vista - it worked. We stopped by Northstar to check out the new village. Well, not so new, but new to us. True to Northstar fashion it still caters to families and had a bunch of kid friendly stuff going on. We stopped by the Chocolate Bar for a drink. We felt the bar was a little out of place, something you would see in the city, but not so much in Tahoe. The drinks were good.
That evening we went to dinner at Old Range Steakhouse and split a rack of ribs. We had a huge bachelor party crash our dinner, but they provided some fun entertainment.
We woke up Sunday morning to some mild snow flurry's. Didn't think much of it. This is our self portrait. It was cold, so this is best we could do. We headed to Alpine where we found it quite chilly and windy. We bundled up and braved the elements. The Summit, Scott and some other chairs where closed - Ugh. We took a couple of breaks throughout the day. Mine were a little longer than Jamie's. They did open the Summit Chair and Jamie went up it and said it was white-out conditions and proceeded to have a complete yard sale going down the mountain. We called it a day at about 2:00 pm and then sat in some horrendous traffic on the way home. 80 just sucks on Sundays. Not the blue bird day we were hoping for, but we had a great time and we were greeted with some of the best smiles from Annmarie when we got home. Good times! Good times!

Also, a big thanks to Nana for babysitting!

Annmarie's Gym Class

We (and by we, I mean us and Grandma and Grandpa) take Annmarie to a gym class twice a week. I know this picture is burly, but this best captures what she looks like running around the gym. It's a total blur and somewhat of a challenge to keep up with her.
Climbing. Annmarie loves going in and out of this tube.
Jumping
Whoa!

Taking a break for a about a second to give Dad a hug and kiss.
After class.
We missed class this week, because Annmarie has yet another cold, which she probably got form the gym. Sigh.

Annmarie: 15 Months

Our little Miss Annmarie turns 15 months tomorrow! We can hardly remember what life was like without her. She has been part of our lives for two years now. Well, the first nine months being carried by me on the inside. We then met her on the outside and she completely melted our hearts. I recall Jamie doing a lot of the papoose carrying to make up for the 9 months I got to carry her, but we both had our fair share. Lately we are lucky to get some cuddles in before and after she wakes up form bed or naps. Oh, and she likes to cuddle after her bath, but only for seconds. She is just so excited to be walking, exploring and gaining some independence.

Every month has brought something new and exciting for all of us and just when you think it couldn’t get any better, it keeps getting better. Every month every moment is so incredible. And as we constantly try to keep up with her, we try and steal all the hugs and kisses we can get.
(Picture taken after her 15 month check-up. She had fallen asleep during the car ride home. She also has a little cold.)

Green Beans O FIRE

On Sunday we had our friends Bonnie and Maurino over for dinner. Annmarie hammed it up for them. They started quizzing AM on her body parts.

I think this one is either teeth or mouth....
Belly.........
Toes.......
We then all sat down to enjoy a vegan friendly dinner of pasta and green beans. Eveyone is smiling in this picture because they hadn't tried the green beans yet........oh, I mean the green beans O FIRE! They look harmless enough, right? Wrong! Let's just say I added a little too many chili pepper flakes. Everyone was very kind and tried to play down "oh, it's not that spicy"........yes they were people. I could barely eat them. They were even spicy for Jamie and Jamie likes spicy. Well, at least the pasta neutralized it a bit. Sigh.
Bonnie brought over cupcakes and everyone’s taste buds rejoiced. Annmarie is also a fan.

Zachary's 1st Birthday Party

Zachary's 1st birthday party was today at the Shoreline Interpretative Center. It was a great place to have a birthday party, with a lot of fun stuff for the little kiddos.

Annmarie started out playing with the crayons.
Here is the birthday boy! He has the best hair, eyelashes and smile!
This sweet little girl gave Annmarie some balloons and here are the birthday boy's parents.
Here are the big boys.
Annmarie even tried smashing her first pinata!
We got to see our friends - the Kelly's.
And I also got book 4 from Bonnie! Thanks Bonnie!
(I added some special effects to the picture - do you like?)

Good Times!

Pirates Booty!

Annmarie loves loves loves Pirates Booty. If we let her, she would eat it all day.

Angela’s Book Review: ECLIPSE

To summarize the three books in a sentence; book one is about finding true love, the second losing true love and now the third about choosing true love.

Eclipse encompasses the love triangle known as Bella, Edward and Jacob. There is a lot of back-story in the beginning of this book that I felt very unnecessary, but I went with it. I did enjoy some more of the private moments, for example Rosalie’s story.

Bella did start to annoy me in this book. I related to her in the first and grieved with her in the second. I suppose I am not happy with the way she treated Edward and her realization of Jacob. I am definitely a Team Edward member. But I forgive her, she is still real to me.

Edward also had his annoying moments as well. It wasn’t until this book that he started acting as a boyfriend. The tent scene with Jacob is one my favorites in the book. Jacob is a bit obnoxious to me, but he does bring most of the humor to the book.

The book(s) remain incredibly cheesy, but I won’t stop reading, because as I have said before – I’m hooked! On to book 4 –Breaking Dawn.

Another Bear Post

This last summer we were up at Lake Tahoe and while there........we saw some bears! On our roof! It was crazy. Here is the video.

Go Bears!

Today Cal is playing UCLA! Go Bears! Jamie is going to the game and I'm staying home with little Miss Annmarie and watching chick movies.

What does the monkey do?

New Tricks

monkey
dog
lion
airplane

A visit to Nana's

Uncle Jon going over the benefits of the G phone.
Awww. Kisses
More Kisses

Thanks Nana!!