Which do you prefer?

When it comes to snuggling up on your couch or favorite chair and relaxing for a bit, I'm wondering which you prefer: book or movie

Whether you are into mystery, intrigue, romance, action, adventure, drama, comedy, inspirational, indie, biography, history, fact or fiction.....whatever your preferences or mix thereof. Do you envision the perfect evening chilling out in front of the TV with popcorn or curled in a blanket with your nose in the pages of a book (or e-reader....I guess that counts, kinda, lol).

For me, I am a total movie buff. I love watching movies, always have. Something my family always enjoyed in passing the time together and hanging out.

but.....

With that being said, I just have to admit that the lure of a good book always carries me away. I think my imagination can compete with the best of book to big screen adaptations....and in my mind the scenes of the book come to life with a part of me attached to them. So I choose book.

Sometimes I can get a bit too engrossed though.

Case in point:  So it was the day before yesterday I took the girls to the library (one of our FAVORITE places to go together). We spent over an hour perusing the stacks. The girls sat in the children's area thumbing through books, doing puzzles, and growing their spectacular imaginations. When it was time to go they both asked for "just a few more minutes pleeeease". I usually take my oversize book bag because we come away with a haul every week or so. That night after reading a couple of chapters from Carley's favorite book series "The Mandie Collection"  we tucked the girls into bed and Jeremy and I sat down to watch an episode of The Mentalist. Then it was "momma time". I kissed my sweet hubby goodnight and settled in for a good ole reading session with one of the books from my library bag. So excited! This new book was a big score. Intriguing from the start, a real page turner. I couldn't put it down and just had to know what would be in the next chapter so I read, and read......and read through the night. Well, 418 pages later I sat the finished book on the ottoman and headed to bed. When I glanced over at the clock before closing my eyes I noticed the time was 4:18 am.

Later the next moring after I got back from taking Carley to school this was the text conversation I had with Jeremy:

JB:   You have a good NAP this AM? 4:20 - 6:20 is not very long!

ME:   Lol, quit your bickering at me man I'm napping

JB:    B/w laundry loads! Haha. Wish I could read for more than 10 min at a time.

ME:   Yep.....laundry is about all I can manage right now cause my sorry butt is dragging!


You may wonder if I learned a lesson from this. Well heck no! Ofcourse not! You know me better than that by now. I'm a stubborn chicka and when I get into a good book all common sense flys out the window and the real world gets put on an imaginary time out. At least  this time I did it while everybody else was sleeping so I wasn't completely neglecting them.....or the laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, blah, blah, blah stuff that I'm suppose to do. ha, ha

So, back to the question....which do you love to neglect the real world for?  book or movie

Share a comment and recommend some of your favorites. :)

Pics from the Weekend

Here is a group of snapshots that Nana and Papa shared with us from their weekend adventures at Brent & Traci's house, at Austin Park and just hanging out to celebrate Tyler's 13th Birthday!

This crew, oh my!

Can we bottle some of that energy....well maybe not Tyler's in this particular pose, lol.

He's showing how all the adults probably felt at the end of a day spent "watching the kids".

 Nana and Papa brought the kids back home Monday afternoon and we met up to watch "The Nut Job" at the movie theatre. Then came back to our house to play. The kids wanted to do "ART" so I got out the watercolors. Then we went for yummy mexican food at a local restaurant.

 

And this is what our dogs did over the long weekend.

They each have their own crate but they prefer to share and snuggle.

 

P.S. Mom caught a cold so she spent the long weekend resting, medicating and recouperating at her house. She is back home with us now and doing much better....so happy. We missed her!

 

And finally, what did Jeremy and I do?

 

 

Well, we had the weekend to ourselves and it was pretty sweet.

 

We had date nights every night (so awesome!) and also managed to do some productive stuff like this Custom Storage Ottoman project.  And I did some paintings that I will post pics of later.

 

Hugs & Luvs yall......I'm gonna go now and curl up and watch a show on my computer with the hubby or delve into one of my new books from the library (or maybe both in that order) Night, night.

 

Let the Long Weekend Begin!

The girls are celebrating a special "long weekend" which officially started last night with the arrival of Nana and Papa and their cousin Savannah. This is the first time Savannah has been to our house and she got to do a sleepover! Let me tell you the girls were over the moon excited and couldn't stop asking "are they here yet?"...."how many more minutes??" leading up to their arrival. :)

Today, Carley got to skip school because they are driving to Austin to see their Uncle Brent and Aunt Traci and their other cousins Tyler and Jorden. They will be celebrating Tyler's 13th birthday together this weekend. Yay!! More sleepovers and a party at a cool amusement park/arcade & pizza place! What?!?! Awesome!!!! Since there is no school on Monday that is when they will be driving back home.

We will miss our little munchkins, and pray for their safe travels and a blessed adventure.....but I think we might be able to come up with a few things to do while they are away - projects, naps, date night...;-)   And then we will celebrate their return home with tons of hugs and kisses and hearing all about what they did.

I hope these kids (and us parents) always remember how fortunate we are to have a Nana and Papa who go out of their way to do things like this to make special trips, get-togethers and memories of times spent together. It is something to be cherished.

So let the long weekend begin!

At the Dinner Table

Good stuff happens at the dinner table.

The other night we were all sitting together eating dinner when Carley says, "I will be happy when I have my own room again someday in our new house because Zoe always kicks me in the middle of the night and talks in her sleep." To which Zoe replies, "I'm sorry Carley for kicking you at night while I'm sleeping, I just can't see where I'm going."

Baahahahaha!


Also happening at the dinner table on other occasions......we have discovered a new game called Sequence. It is a board game played with cards and different colored chips and it's kinda a cross between Connect Four and um, I dunno...cards. Well, anyway it's pretty cool and addictive. And don't underestimate the ability of an 8 year old to figure out how to kick some butt at it, lol.

Other news from the dinner table: Last night Jodi and Chris and the girls stopped by after they finished up stuff at their church. Mom was giving Jodi and Katelyn a haircut and Chris was helping me with my business taxes. Carley was practicing her chords on the piano (keyboard). {Oh yes, did I mention she started taking piano lessons last week. My dad would have loved that. I'm so proud of her and her excitement and interest in learning!} .....back to the story: Well, mom and I had started cooking her famous enchilada casserole just before they came over and Jeremy got to come home fairly early since he didn't have any games, so it all turned into a lovely chaotic, loud, wonderful, delicious family dinner/playdate.


P.S. Good stuff also happens at the bedside.

One night last week mom offered to tuck the girls in so I could go ahead and take my shower. The scene that unfolded brought tears to my eyes. The girls brushed their teeth and went to the room to get in bed. When mom walked in she knelt down beside the bed and to her surprise Zoe and then Carley followed her and both knelt down as well. Mom was going to say the night time prayer when Zoe piped up and asked, "Grandma, can I do the prayer?" She has never done this before. "Of course you can Zoe, if you want to", mom says. And Zoe prayed. She prayed for our family and friends. She prayed God would heal her boo boos and please make mommy's headache go away. She prayed for Carley's friend at school who broke her arm. When she was done she said, "Sorry I didn't do a long prayer." Carley said, "Oh no, Zoe you did a wonderful prayer." God loves when his children talk to him. I pray my children will always go to God in prayer over all things happening in their lives and that they will put their trust in Him.

Memories of my sweet Grandma Truelove kneeling at ther bedside in prayer are filling my heart with gratitude and praise right now as I think of the legacy of prayer being shared from generation to generation.

Good stuff.

Family Pics

Here is this year's Christmas family photos....the ones we used on our "belated" Christmas cards. Yep, the ones I should have put Happy New Year on since they got put in the mail so late....oops! Oh well, at least they got mailed...better than a stack of printed cards sitting in a box in my house. Hmmm, wouldn't that be funny though five or ten years from now to send out old Christmas cards that never made it to the post office, ha, ha. Surprise!!! That would be great! Sorry, it's late and my mind is random enough in the daytime. I'll stop musing now and just get on with the post.

Christmas at Our House

We love to travel and see all of our family during the holidays and we will look forward to doing that again next year but this year we stayed home and did it a little differently.

This was a year of new traditions and lots of "firsts" for our family. And it was wonderful.

• It was the first year we took our girls Christmas caroling with the other kids from our church.
• Our first year to stay home and not travel at all during Christmas break....which made the vacation time seem much longer. We stayed up late and slept in each morning. Awesome!
• Our first year with mom living with us! Doubly Awesome!
• We started the tradition of driving around looking at Christmas lights together (in our comfey jammmies and robes no less.....good thing it was dark and we didn't get out of the car, lol)
• We went to a Candle Light Christmas Eve service at our own church for the first time ever! And I must say it was a beautiful service with wonderful music and sermon and I loved the special message our children's minister shared with all the kids gathered around at the front of the church. The kids especially loved the Hot Chocolate bar they set up in the foyer.
• We baked a birthday cake for Jesus.
• We did a lot of baking....especially cookies! YUM!
• We cooked a big Christmas day dinner, and played with all our new "toys".

I think Tucker and Gunnar enjoyed opening their presents as much as the kids did. They were busy with their new bones all day long.

I cannot even tell you how much I love that grandma got right down on the floor with the girls and started building a fort out of Lincoln Logs.

And the whole family has had a blast with the Wii and all the games that we got the girls. (A sincere and great big thanks so much for the blessings bestowed upon us by some of Jeremy's coaching friends)  ***Jeremy and I even made a little date out of playing Wii games after everyone else went to bed one night. Unfortunately, it's not only real sports he schools me in; he is also better than me at virtual sports, ugh!


The Lord has filled our home with joy and an expanded family unit that enriches our days more than I knew possible. We had toyed with the idea many times of possibly combining households and having mom live with us and it finally happened this year just before Thanksgiving. Mom's house is on the market and as soon as it sells we will do the same with ours and begin the search for a home that we can all grow in together. I hate that the process was speeded up by mom having an unexpected fall resulting in a concussion and brief stay in the hospital (that sucked).....but I am grateful that she recovered so well without any lasting effects. Not even any dizzy spells anymore! Praise God! And well, I am happy that she went ahead and moved in with us right away because it has been so great to have her share life with us each day. (and Jeremy would joke that I love the fact that she always beats me to the dishes, helps with laundry, and is a fantastic cook......I wouldn't argue with him at all, but I would say it's definitely more than that. She is a treasure and we love her so much)

Mom took all of us kids and our families out for a special dinner and then we had a party back at our house. Todd & Michele and Shayna along with Michele's sister and her husband and two kids, Tim and Monika, Jodi & Chris and Katelyn and Isabel, and us.

These kids had fun together. I tried to get a picture of all of them and this is the only one where they were all looking, lol. And you can see little Isabel is ready to launch herself from the couch to the ottoman. Shayna didn't want to smile until I told her we could open presents if she smiled for the camera, ha ha....whatever works right! :)

Then trying to get a pic of the guys was just as silly because they didn't want to all look at me or be serious at all. They are so rotten! Ha!
                                                     
                                                         Tony, Tim, Todd, Chris, Jeremy

 

The ladies did a better job of it. ;-)

 

Michele, Jodi, Monika, Jackie, Carlene, Marjorie

 

 

We proceeded to have our annual White Elephant gift exhange, where there is always a bit of good natured "stealing" of presents. Then we played games until late into the night. Which the girls won, of course!