In Which I know I'm a bad blogger.

I always have the best intentions for blogging. I always have posts that I start and never finish. I visit blogger about three times a week and somehow I still have huge gaps between posts.

Why is this a thing? I don't know.

*shrug*

What is new in my little life? Not much, except that my sister and brother-in-law are coming!!!!! *SHRIEKS*

Gina and Dan are coming up for Joey's wedding, and since they will be up here anyway, they decided to stay the week so they could visit. I'm really excited! They have a brand new baby and I get to hold him! He'll only be three weeks old! It's' been too long since I held a baby that small!!

It will be such fun. Fun will be had by all. We'll have lots of yummy dinners and deserts, and maybe we'll make a giant special breakfast.

So much of my life revolves around food. What do I do to have fun? I plan for Good Food and a movie. Good Food foremost.

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My best friend came over for the weekend, which was a blast! Unfortunately I always forget to take pictures unless someone prompts me. This means that Jim and I were having too much fun to stop and capture moments.

We basically spent three days relaxing and sleeping in. Jim had never seen Alice in Wonderland so I figured we ought to start our movie marathon off with that one. We had six movies to get through in three nights. This meant that sleep was for the weak and if we had to welcome the morning in while the moon was still up that was just fine. 

Since movies were a must and late nights were very late, we lazed about in bed until about nine o'clock before rousing ourselves for breakfast. See? Apparently my definition of having a The best time ever is eating, having tea, and curling up on the couch doing absolutely nothing. Oh, and a nice movie or show after. It doesn't sound boring until I write it out; but I promise that having tea with me is an event. You get Reese's!!!

It was great because a lot of the cartoons we watched I haven't seen in a long time, and some I'd never seen. Like, I have always wanted to see American Tail but our VHS is so old that it wasn't watchable. It jumped and fizzled and turned black and white and sometimes the whole thing would just go black and buzz because the thing was so old. This was tragic for me. I wanted to see a cartoon with adorable little mice! On a whim I took American Tale  to Jessie's house... AND IT PLAYED. I guess her VHS players was newer or something, because it played my 30+ year old tape with no glitch. Obviously those things have high integrity... they are so much better than DVD's. #BringBackVHS

I have a thing for Peter Pan. Both the cartoon and the movie are special to me in their own way. I just love the character of Peter. He is so sad and adorable! And he had swords and magic!! I wanted him to teach me to fight. I actually remember the cartoon being a bit sadder.... not that it still isn't a little sad. I think when you are little, Tinkerbell flying off with a bomb is a wee bit scarring. (The movie is brutal with that bit. In fact, that whole ending is brutal because Peter is so broken.) I honestly think they should bring back drawn animation. They don't have to make everything with it. They can still use the fancy new animation, there is a lot of good in that too, but I think at least 1/3 of all cartoons made should be drawn. It is fascinating and intricate and beautiful, and we shouldn't just let that raw amazing talent and art work go to waste. It is something that needs to be salvaged! Help me out with this guys. #bringbackdrawnanimation

#bringbackdrawnanimation

What else has been going on? Let's see. I'm a little bit in love with Hawaii Five-O right now. When I first heard it was a cop show that takes place on Hawaii I naturally thought, "Oh. Yay. Another NCIS, but with a beach." Whohoooooa I was so wrong!! It's is so fabulous. Cops and crime-fighting ad guns, amazing characters and best of all, Friendships Stories! *happy dancing* H50 does a really good job balancing comedy and tension. It is a show with a lighter mood and theme, but when it wants to get dark and serious it can and I love that. It has the same feel as Leverage or Psych. It is mostly just fun and happy but it isn't afraid to do stressful, intense/emotional stuff either, and it has AMAZING character development and all that jazz. The best part of the show is of course, the friendship between the two main guys. Danny and Steve are hilarious. They constantly bicker and poke fun at each other, but it is obvious that they love each other. They have a "I can knock my best friend over, but don't you dare try it," relationship. Its brilliant!

"I love you."

"Okay, I think we've gotten close."

"You have got to start doing a better job picking your friends."

Ah yas, I love the smell of Vidding inspiration in the morning.

Platonic friendship is my passion. GIVE ME MORE!!!

I have lots of story ideas rattling about in my brain so I should probably sign off. I have words to scribble down. Characters to love. A family story to think about. Do you ever have so many stories that you are literally overwhelmed with the thrill of writing them and you get stuck in a whirlpool of inspiration that spins you around and around without getting you anywhere, because you can't focus on one thing since everything is so cool and has to be worked on  right freaking now??? THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME.

TOO MUCH AWESOME

Oh yeah, I watched the first Lilo and Stitch last week for the first time. I was like, 'Why have I never seen this??' It's a sweet movie! Sure it's a bit annoying at first, but by the time we reached the middle I liked it. It also got unexpectedly sad! Lil' Stitch alone in the forest - you don't realize how much you like him until suddenly he is sad and alone and.... UGLY DUCKLING. *dies* (Plus, a good sister story guys! Better than Ana and Elsa. So much better.)

Okay, I'm actually signing off now. Stuff to do! Peace out y'all!!!

*swings around cape and leaps off stage*

Bella

We Had Fat Tuesday on Sunday

Lent starts the day after tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. The day before Lent is called Mardis Gras, or "Fat Tuesday." It is a day where everyone feasts and makes merry as a last hurrah before the Lenten season of fast and abstinence comes in. It originally started because in the days of the early Church, Christians would give up quite a bit of sweet foods, spices, condiments, and beverages, and they didn't want everything going bad just because they couldn't eat it. So they would have a big feast the day before Lent began to make use of as much food as they could. Catholic's give up different things now than they did then, and obviously it isn't as easy for things to go bad anymore; but the tradition stuck, and Catholics today still celebrate in much the same way.

This year I was with my brother for Fat Tuesday. He worked on Tuesday, so I had the bright idea of celebrating on Sunday when he was actually off and could enjoy it. He agreed. We bought a ton of food, we brought Tiny up for a visit, (My awesome sister) and we invited his fiance. Then we started the feast!

YEEEEEEES FOOD IS AWESOME.

See dat coffee cake in the corner? I made that. And it was fabulous.

My brother's beautiful fiance. *I am terrible at selfies.

SEE DEM SAUSAGE ROLLS? THEM SAUSAGE ROLLS MAKE-A ME CRAZY! TOO GOOD! GOOD FOOD!

BRO.

Tiny tried to photo-bomb, but her hair got in the way.

Lalala, my selfies suuuuuuuuuck.

Such hair. Wow curls.

Again with the horrid selfies.... anyway, we played dominoes! With my bro!!! In fact, he was the one who suggested it. Cause he is awesome and plays games like that. (Reason #404 Why My Brother is Better than Yours.) I've never done that. It was lots of fun! If I stared at the blocks too long the colours made my eyes cry a little, but otherwise it was great! *Tiny won.

To sum up the evening, we watched Captain America - the Winter Soldier. *cue flailing and feelings and fears*

Both Toink and Chloe had seen this before, but I don't think either of them remembered it very well. It was like Toink was watching it for the first time. Everything was so cool! or, that's rude! Like, when Cap fought his way out of the elevator and jumped out without dying, she was like;

"He's so cool, I want him."

She had a running commentary through the whole show, but I'll just give you the highlights.


*Cap throws his shield at Bucky*  Toink: "Wow. He can throw it so hard! How does he do that? Is he... awesome?

*Bucky shoots Black Widow*  Toink: "Why would he do that?? It's rude! He's rude!"

*Bucky attacks Steve* Chloe: "They're supposed to be friends! I hate this!"

*Sam gets his wings* Toink: "I love the wings guy, he is so cool. He can fly. How can he fly?"

*Bucky gets smacked: Toink: "WHY THAT GUY SMACK HIM? IT'S MEAN! Poor Bucky!" ...."Why is he in a chair? Why is he so sad?"

Chloe: "Why are they so mean to him?"

*Bucky knocks Sam out of the sky* Toink: "He took his wings! Now he's gonna die! That's rude! Why he... do that?"

*Bucky starts punching Steve* Toink: "HE SPANKED HIM IN THE FACE."

Me; I KNOW!

Toink: IT'S RUDE! POOR STEVE."

Toink: "WHY DOES HE KEEP SPANKING HIM ON THE FACE? It's rude! Does he remember him? Stop hitting him in the face, it's really, really rude!"


*Gasp* He shot him! Why he shot him? SO mean!"

.... "When is he gonna remember him???"

Chloe: "WHY hasn't Bucky remembered him yet? This is dumb!!

Toink: Why can't he remember?

Me; They took his memories and they put drugs in him so he would do what they said."

Toink: "That's. So. Rude! Why would they do that?"

Me: "So he could kill Captain America."

Toink: "They're so mean bad guys!"

.....

*The plane gets blown up* Toink: "WHY DID THEY BLOW IT UP, I DON'T WANT HIM TO DIE, ITS STUPID!"

Chloe: "WHY hasn't Bucky remembered yet?? This is dumb."


They were both very into it... crying and stuff.

OOoooh, here's a bonus of their reaction when Bucky saves Cap.

Toink was kind of in shock... lol.






It was hilarious.

Anyway, that was my "Fat Tuesday." I hope this post wasn't too jumbled.

I AM GOING TO DISNEYLAND IN A WEEK YOU GUYS.

Peace out y'all!!!

*swings around cape and leaps off stage*

Bella

In Preparation for Easter

Its Holy Saturday!! Easter is almost here! Lent has actually gone by pretty quickly this year. I hardly feels like six weeks. Okay, yes it does, but it feel like a speedy six weeks. I think Jack's visit might have something to do with that. At any rate, we now have only three and a half hours left! I might stay up till midnight and welcome in the morning, but I'll have to see. I was up really late last night.

Today has been a big bustle as we prepare for the Resurrection of Our Lord, and we've been rushing about the house all day cleaning, baking and egg-dying like mad. Well, when I say we.... more like me. Me. and Me.

Okay, that isn't fair. My brother made some luscious s'mores muffins for our dessert tomorrow and he's going to make Tiramisu also, which will be so yummy!!! and when my sisters were actually home they helped with the baking a bit. But there were a good couple hours when I was in the kitchen pressing out hundreds of sugar cookies all on my own. With loud music playing.

It actually wasn't that bad. We had a nifty little Designer for our cookies - this cool little gadget - and you could put a roll of dough into it and press out the Sugar Cookies in all these amazing shapes and it was surprisingly fun. I was like "PRESS!!! FLOWER!! *Press* CLOVER!! *Press* SPADE!!... STANDIN-IN-THE-HALL-OF-FAME!!!!!!" *Spins around* Since everyone in my family was gone - some to the store, some to baseball sign up, some to book-reading - I was entirely alone and I took this opportunity to began dance along with the music as my cookies baked. It felt good to be wild and free. Loud music has this effect and me.

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It was a lot of fun.

That was at the beginning of the day when I was chipper and full of energy for our preparation day.  

See My wonderful cookies??

Don't they look just FABULOUS?

They were masterful.

I was very proud.

Standin in the Hall of Fame!!! (yeah!)

After the moping was done and all the wee-on's returned from the store, we lay out newspapers, set out the cups and began dying eggs.

Lots of eggs.

Am I the only one who has never really liked dying eggs? I think fourth grade ended my love for egg dying. It just .... it isn't my thing. But it is fun watching all the little kids plop eggs into the cups and 'oooo' and 'ahhhh' over what happens to them. It was especially fun to watch little Toink making eggs. She was so cute and funny! Her very first egg broke before it had a chance. She had drawn all these pretty little flowers on it and it looked nice, but then Treskie told her it was time to dye it and she crushed it with both hands! Like, totally crushed it. Beyond repair. We were all shocked. The poor thing had thought we were dying the inside of the egg. After that incident she made it very clear that all the eggs had to be dyed "Without the insides on the inside." Which was fine with us.

Even my big brother helped decorate eggs!

and my mommy!! She made some of the 

best ones I think.

We even got my dad to do his own - Look at what he did :)

He drew all 11 of us kids with him and mom at the top. How awesome is that? I don't want to eat this egg.

This is me, attempting to make a purple minion.

I guess he turned out alright. My brother's minion was better though. Look at Joey's Minion!! Look how cute it is! And he hasn't even been colored in yellow yet!

So

Many

Eggs.

By this time I was bored and my imagination was getting burned out and I was starving. I had skipped lunch for snacking purposes later on, so my stomach took upon itself the right to protest from 1:00 on. By the time 4:30 rolled around I was cranky and ready to eat. My human form needed sustenance!  

Once I'd had food I was substantially more cheerful and ready to buckle down to the task of decorating Easter cookies.

I had pressed out so many freakin' cookies! I think there were over a hundred. and we had to do them all super fancy and beautiful because they're Easter cookies and they only way to make them is with beads and multi-colored frosting!!

As odd as it may seem, decorating 100 Easter cookies in several shades of frosting and strings of beads is not a speedy job. We spent close to an hour and a half at the dinner table.

My cookies started getting less and less fancy as the evening went on.

But it was pretty fun anyway. Unfortunately it is way too late for me to share those pictures with you tonight. I'll try posting them tomorrow though :)

Then, because I hadn't done enough baking that day, I floated out to the kitchen to make muffins for our snack. The snack I had skipped lunch for. They were the same muffins I made at the beginning  of Lent, so I knew they'd be good if I did them right. And, of course, I did. And they were epic. The perfect way to end our festive, baking day.



That's all. I'm tired and my brain hurts and its time for me turn in. Otherwise the end of this post is going to get really weird. And I'll kindly spare all of you that. God Bless! And Happy-Almost-Easter!

~Ben The Robot~

The Night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....

I can't stay long.....

 

Hello all! I'm sorry the post is so late but I've been very busy having a wonderful Christmas Eve and a blessed Fourth Week of Advent. I love Christmas at my home, our Christmas's are just brilliant, and this year we had an unexpected Early-Christmas celebration; We have these amazing friends up the street who are kind of like an extension to our family and a few nights ago we went and spent the evening with them. While we were there we exchanged Christmas gifts because we wouldn't be seeing each other on the big day. It was so much fun!! I got the nicest little gift from my best-y. Its a Once-Upon-A-Time bracelet with a quote by Rumpelstiltskin on it.  I was overjoyed.

OUAT bracelt

Rumple

 That started the week off rather well I thought. 

And then we got Christmas Eve, my favorite Day besides Christmas itself. First we decorate everything, and then turn on the Christmas music and clean and scrub and congress into the kitchen where we start the real fun. We start baking. As you all know, my family takes baking very seriously. On feast days, during vacation, when we want to organize an event, our first thought is to the food. That's my favorite thing about Christmas Eve, all the baking that goes on. The only down-side is that you can't really taste anything because its Advent. So you are stirring chocolate and smelling brownies and mixing cookie batter, and unable to try any of it. Still, its fun.

I was quite overwhelmed *smirk* I should be holding a rainbow. You know. La!!!!!

 Unfortunately there aren't many pictures of me because I'm the designated Family Photographer. But I got lots and lots of pictures of the festivity so you can all get a peak at what happens when Christmas Eve comes to our home.

 

After the baking was done we adjourned to the living room and, being the church choir, we practiced some hymns for Christmas Mass and sounded beautiful, If I do say so myself.  Then we got into our comfy pajama's, whipped up a batch of hot cider and roasted chestnuts while listening to old-time radio shows. Right at this moment I am listening to The Great Gildersleeve Christmas. He is so funny! I remember being really little and listening to The Great Gildersleeve and I wonder why radio-shows ever went out of style. There is nothing quite like them.

Now I will bid you all farewell and join my family for the remainder of the evening. If I don't get the chance to blog tomorrow, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

God Bless!
~Bella