I don't think that was supposed to be funny

So I was one of those totally weird crazy moms (that doesn't even have a teenage daughter) that went to see Twilight at Midnight last night with all the teeny boppers sitting all around us thinking why are those old ladies here. Luckily I wasn't alone and there was lots of us so that was fun, but I am sorry if I ruin this for anyone, but the movie was SO disappointing! Of course I was expecting some disappointment, because "the movie is never as good as the book", but this was REALLY disappointing. The acting stunk, the script stunk, the hair and makeup stunk, and it just felt like overall they didn't spend enough time making it. There were weird unconjoined scenes...... and it was just...... bad! Definitely not worth staying up until 2AM like the book was.

Anyway I thought I would just post my thoughts about that and move on. I don't think there are any Twilight fans that will not go see the movie just because I thought it was bad. If someone told me it was the worst movie in the world I still would have gone to see it. But I want to know what everyone else thinks when they go see it. Did you all think it was hokey too?

its a conundrum

Here is my problem.....tell me what you think. So we have lived here in Portland for almost exactly 18 months. We have lived in the same house and next to the same neighbors. While I was excited by the prospect of my neighbors when we moved in, things havent exactly panned out like I had hoped.

When we moved in we found out that right next door on the right (I will refer to them as the Rights) had three girls almost exactly my daughters ages. Then we found out the neighbors to our left ( I will refer to them as the Left's) had a son and a daughter that were Maddy's age and a year older. And then we found out that our neighbors across the street ( I will refer to them as the Street's) had a little girl Josey's age. Then we found out that the neighbors directly behind us over the fence ( I will refer to them as the Fences) had two girls almost the same ages as Maddy and Josey. Needless to say I was really excited to find out about all these prospect for new friends and friends close enough to play with and not have to set up a playdate. However after we moved in I realized that some of these friends were not meant to be.

So I decided in order to get to know some of our neighbors after we moved in I would bake some yummy cupcakes and take them around. While some of the neighbors seemed friendly and appreciative, some seemed a little weirded out. So we started playing with the Rights first and then after a series of very weird comments and experiences between me and the mom and Dustin and the dad (picture a man in a tank top wearing sunglasses at 8:00 at night....indoors, at back to school night....that's the neighbor, not Dustin) we sort of closed that book and our girls didn't end up playing very often. The Fences are behind us and while the girls seem nice, I don't really know the parents and there isn't anyway to get to their house without walking all the way down the street and up onto the other street which my girls have been too young to do by themselves. The Streets we found out are Jehovah's Witnesses and are very nice but seem to keep to themselves a little bit and I guess we are getting a taste of our own medicine when their grandma and niece came over wanting to preach religion to us! So the Lefts have become our most trusted avenue of friends but when their freaky older brother moved in (think tattoos, cigerettes, and a general appereance of unkept) I sort of nixed the girls going over to their house to play. So that has cooled for a while. To add to all the uncomfortableness both the Rights and the Lefts are stay-at-home dads......yeah. So that has kept me from really trying to get to know the parents because the most of the interaction I have is with the dads and I would really rather get to know the moms and I am not real comfortable letting my girls go play over there by themselves.

So recently the Rights and my girls have rekindled their friendship and started playing together again. This has kept my girls entertained and outside on these past few weeks of beautiful weather and their youngest sister and Lilly are the same age and they are finally old enough to actually interact and play a little bit together which has been fun for Lilly. But here is my problem (FINALLY! TOOK ME LONG ENOUGH TO GET HERE!)

I CAN'T REMEMBER THE PARENTS NAMES! I DON'T EVEN KNOW THEIR LAST NAME! So now what do I do? How awkward is this? We have now been talking a little bit since our kids are outside together and such and I keep having to get around saying their names and I have a feeling they probably don't remember ours either. So what should I do? Do I ask our neighbors of a year and a half what their names are again? Or do I just keep hoping that I won't have to say their names ever?

Last one.....probably

So I have started to refer to my coupon obsession as my new baby because that seems to be all I blog about, talk about, and in some ways think abaout. So this is my last annoying post about my good grocery deals because I am sure it is getting really annoying to everyone else. But I just come home from the store on such a coupon high that I get so excited to share about it! So after this you can be sure that I will get back to only blogging about my kids....because that definitly doesn't get annoying! ;)

So here goes. I got all this...... (couldn't fit it all in the same picture)

And I forgot a bag.

Almost $185 worth of food for $34! WOOHOO!!!

blogworthy

Okay so this week there were so many good deals to be had at Safeway and Albertsons in particular that I felt the need to blog about them. I was so excited and as a friend of mine said, "I was on a high when I left the store!" I am not smart enough or have a good enough memory to remember what everything cost or what coupons I used so I won't go into too much detail but here is what I got this week.

Transaction #1:

Combination of Safeway purchase and Albertsons purchase totalling:$20.00 out of pocket and then got $15.00 dollars back at Albertsons. TOTAL 5.00$

Transaction #2:

Albertsons purchase $7.00 out of pocket and got $15.oo back. TOTAL: $-8.00 ( By the way i tried one of those warm delights the other day and they are really QUITE good! Otherwise I wouldn't have bought them.)

Transaction #3:

Walgreens purchase $20.00 out of pocket (brought a couple of the wrong coupons otherwise could have been a better deal. oh well) And notice the random penguin on there? My girls were out of school this week so they all got to pick something out and that was Lilly's purchase. I hate it when I have to take them all shopping with me! But I got all my Christmas wrapping paper!

Transaction #4:

+ 4lbs of apples and a package of rubber bands that I forgot to take a picture of.

Albertson's purchase 38.00 out of pocket.

Transaction #5

Rite Aid purchase $0.00 out of pocket! FREE!

A grand total of $63.00! And the best part is that 55 dollars of that was from a Rite Aid rebate that I got this month! And I have a Walgreens rebate for 30 dollars more that I should receive any day now making this weeks groceries essentially FREE!! What a fabulous week of shopping! How did you do (you know who you are)? Take some pictures of your deals I want to see them!

Which sister are you?

My sister told me about this last week I misse it on Saturady Night Live recently. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen!

The cousins

We left for our Disneyland vacation on Monday and drove down to the bay area to meet up with my sister and mom and our cousins. We had lots of fun! All the girls (and baby Bear) hung out for the day while Dustin did his own thing and was happy about that. We went and saw High School Musical 3. It wasn't the most fun thing with a 3 year old a 2 year old and a 1 year old but the older girls liked it.
Then we headed over to a park to play for the afternoon. It was so much fun spending time with our cousins and grandma Beth! We already miss you all.

First Day at Disneyland

We arrived at our hotel Wednesday afternoon and spent the rest of the day swimming and hanging out and Lilly spent time with the ipod, her favorite thing. She requests the Jonas Brothers!

Here we are heading over to Disneyland on our first day. We had a friend that worked at Disneyland that was able to sign us in so we were very excited. We were supposed to meet her at 10:00. We had gotten about 5 hours of sleep considering no one could fall asleep the night before and Maddy was up by 4:30 so excited to go to Disneyland. So we finally got up and got ready and decided to just head over to the park even though we were going to be early. I told Lilly that Cinderella was waiting for her and she seriously took off sprinting yelling, "I'm coming Cinderella!! I'm coming! Lilly's coming!" It was really cute.

Check out those poses!
I think Dustin was just as excited as the girls.

Well we ended up getting there almost an hour early! This is what Lilly did to pass the time.Our friend Kathie finally made it there and signed us in and immediately we found Mickey our front and had to get a picture.
Check out the sky in this picture. It almost looks like a fake Disneyland backdrop doesn't it?

As we walked through the castle they were handing out the dream fast passes! We were so excited that we each got one for the day.

We went on the Peter Pan ride which seems to be our traditional first ride. And then headed straight over to The jedi training that the girls had been talking about for weeks. They had worn their Star Wars costumes just for this purpose.

Maddy got picked in the first round and was so excited. Josey I think was a little too short back in the third row of screaming kids and was crushed that didn't get to go up. So we told her we would keep going back until she got picked.

Unfortunately our camera ran out of batteries RIGHT as Maddy was fighting Darth Vader so that was all we got. She beat him though.

Here is Maddy with her Jedi diploma for defeating Darth Vader.

Luckily Josey got picked in the next round so we didn't have to stay ALL day. Maddy was next to her pointing at her and screaming, "PICK HER!".

She also defeated Darth Vader and this time we captured it on the camera.

This is such a funny video I wish it wasn't sideways. This was Maddy while Josey was up on stage. Dustin and I were cracking up and so were the people around us.

And here she is with her Jedi diploma.

Then we headed over for some more rides.

The teacups were of course a favorite.......of the girls......only.

And this was their favorite part of the Storybook ride.Then we went over to the Princess Fantasy Faire. By this time the girls had taken off half of their costumes because it was so hot! Which is why they are wearing such odd clothing. Lilly was NOT taking off her dress though.

This was Lilly's dream to meet Cinderella. She was so happy to get to meet "big giant Cinderella".

On our way to Disneyland we found out that my sister Alli is good friends with Snow White. So we told her that we would say hello. So we saw Snow White walking away from the princess place and I yelled to her that Alli Judd said hello. So then we were able to watch her in the show and she was SO sweet to my girls. She just kept waving at them during the dance and talked to them for a little bit afterwards.

And then she came down and danced with Lilly. Lilly was in heaven! Then that night she talked with my sister and said that she wanted to set up a Meet and Greet with the princesses for my girls the next day. The girls were shocked that Snow White wanted to meet them!

Josey attached herself to this princess. It was really funny.

Here is Lilly in one of the millions of gift shops with all the princess dolls.

And that was our first day. We were exhausted already.