One of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions in my family is doing the Twelve Days of Christmas. Starting December 14th and every morning up until Christmas, there was always a small gift on the table for each of us. The gifts ranged anywhere from tic tacs or gum on a Sunday morning to small toys, Christmas socks, or candy. Matt and I have kept this tradition alive every year since we got married, and I love it! We have a price limit per day (or we might get a little carried away) but its so fun to buy each other small things and open them each day. The dogs always get a little something too. Yesterday was the first day for Twelve Days this year!
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a pair of snowman scissors! They are so cute! He told me they are for wrapping Christmas gifts. =)
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...a book called "If Dogs Could Talk". Its full of pictures of dogs with captions of what they look like they are saying. Its really funny!
My true love received a CD on the first day of a mix of daddy/daughter songs.
And on the second day he got a reindeer ornament. (we give each other ornaments every year too.)
Our kids got a different Christmas cookie for each of the days so far. And although they look pretty good and smell like honey, yes, they are for dogs.
I Love watching my belly expand! My whole life (with the exception of one dark summer) I have always had a flat tummy. I'm not just talking skinny; but would look hot in a bikini, put super models to shame, type flat tummy. And now I find myself squealing with delight every morning when I look in the mirror and see the snails-pace expansion going on around my middle.
I Love feeling her move! Every time she kicks, wiggles, and practices somersaults inside my belly I get a big smile on my face. On Thanksgiving we went and saw the new James Bond movie and she was moving for the full two hours. Probably because that is a Very loud movie, but I enjoyed it even with the constant interruptions. She is very strong! I'm surprised at how well I can feel her this early. Matt is excited because I keep saying she has strong soccer legs.
I Love having boobs! I've always been rather lacking in this area, but its nice to feel more "blessed" even if its only for a little while.
I Love having an excuse! I can eat as much as I want, and no one says anything. I can take a nap in the afternoon, and no one says anything. I can cry at silly things, and no one says anything. I can be completely honest and blunt, and no one says anything. They just laugh and say how much they will miss the pregnant me.
I Love how every woman in the world has my back! When I started feeling sick at church, a lady in my ward handed me some crackers and told me to eat. When Matt and I were walking into work on a snowy day a lady I work with looked at Matt and said "Don't you dare let her fall!" I've had more offers for used cribs and other supplies than I can even keep track of.
I Love looking at cute girl outfits and little pink dresses at the store! I can actually look at baby things now and know I will be getting them soon.
I Love showers! I have always enjoyed going to baby showers and this weekend my roommates are throwing me my first one! (Its a joint shower with another roommate who is also pregnant and due in February) It will be very different being on the receiving end this time. I'm excited!
Matt and I spent the last two nights decorating for Christmas. I just love putting up Christmas decorations while listening to Christmas music and sipping hot cocoa! This time of year is so fun! We are still only using a small 3 foot tree that my aunt gave us for our first Christmas (Thanks Bonnie!) We figure we'll spring for a bigger tree when the kiddies start coming. Even though most likely no one else is going to see our decorations, we still had a ball putting them up! These are just a few pictures Matt took of our front room.
I'm totally copying all those who have done this already, but I too was curious and wanted to see how many I had done. 1. Started your own blog 2. Slept under the stars 3. Played in a band 4. Visited Hawaii 5. Watched a meteor shower 6. Given more than you can afford to charity 7. Been to Disneyland 8. Climbed a mountain 9. Held a praying mantis 10. Sang a solo 11. Bungee jumped 12. Visited Paris 13. Watched a lightening storm at sea 14. Taught yourself an art from scratch 15. Adopted a child (Technically both my "children" were adopted) 16. Had food poisoning 17. Walked to the top of the statue of liberty (Went right after 9/11 and they wouldn't let people go to the top) 18. Grown your own vegetables 19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France 20. Slept on an overnight train 21. Had a pillow fight 22. Hitch hiked 23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill 24. Built a snow fort 25. Held a lamb 26. Gone skinny dipping 27. Run a marathon (Walked, not ran) 28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice 29. Seen a total eclipse (lunar yes, sun no) 30. Watched a sunrise or sunset 31. Hit a home run 32. Been on a cruise 33. Seen Niagra Falls in person 34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors 35. Seen an Amish community (Even had an Amish guy hit on me) 36. Taught yourself a new language 37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied 38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person 39. Gone rock climbing 40. Seen Michelangelo's David 41. Sung Karaoke 42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt 43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant 44. Visited Africa 45. Walked on a beach by moonlight 46. Been transported in an ambulance 47. Had your portrait painted 48. Gone deep sea fishing 49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person 50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris 51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling 52. Kissed in the rain 53. Played in the mud 54. Gone to a drive-in theater 55. Been in a movie 56. Visited the great wall of China 57. Started a business 58. Taken a martial arts class 59. Visited Russia 60. Served at a soup kitchen 61. Sold girl scout cookies 62. Gone whale watching 63. Got flowers for no reason 64. Donated blood, platelets, or plasma 65. Gone sky diving 66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp 67. Bounced a check 68. Flown in a helicopter 69. Saved a favorite childhood toy 70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial 71. Eaten Caviar 72. Pieced a quilt 73. Stood in Times Square 74. Toured the Everglades 75. Been fired from a job (Only because the company was moving) 76. Seen the changing of the guards in London 77. Broken a bone 78. Been on a speeding motorcycle 79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person 80. Published a book (Working on it! Have been published in a magazine though) 81. Visited the Vatican 82. Bought a brand new car 83. Walked in Jerusalem 84. Had your picture in the newspaper 85. Read the entire Bible 86. Visited the White House 87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating 88. Had chickenpox 89. Saved someone's life 90. Sat on a jury 91. Met someone famous 92. Joined a book club 93. Lost a loved one 94. Had a baby (I'm halfway there) 95. Seen the alamo in person 96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake 97. Been involved in a lawsuit 98. Owned a cell phone 99. Been stung by a bee 100. Totally copied a post from someone else's blog to your own
I have done 65 out of 100. Not too bad for only being 24, but it looks to me like I need to travel more!
I am so excited!!! Matt and I purchased tickets today to see Jeff Dunham live at the Energy Solutions Arena on January 22nd! Tickets are kinda pricey, but we both really wanted to go so we decided to buy them for each other as our Christmas presents this year. Merry Christmas to me! We are going with a group of friends and we'll be sitting in the lower bowl, so its sure to be a fun night! If you don't know who Jeff Dunham is, he's a hilarious comedian/ventriloquist. I've included a clip from youtube of him with one of my favorite puppets, Peanut. Enjoy! I'll be enjoying it live in 57 days!!
I put all eleven names of those who guessed 'girl' in a container and my lovely assistant, Matthew, pulled out the name. And the winner is.....Errin Johnson! (Which is quite convenient since she sits next to me at work.) Errin will be receiving a lovely pink bag filled with a bag of all pink M&M's, a bag of assorted pink jelly bellies, pink lemonade, pink heart socks, pink nail polish, pink lip gloss, pink Barbie bubble bath, pink lotion, a pink pad of paper, a pink pen, pink dangly earrings, and some pink stickers. Congratulations Errin!
The following are my opinions of the movie. If you don't like them I am sorry, but that's why they are called opinions. If you've read the book, this won't spoil anything for you. We all know how it ends.I do have to admit I liked the movie better than I thought I would! When I saw the previews, they made me laugh out loud so I wasn't sure if I would go and see it. But then a group of ladies from work invited me to come along. We met at the Tripp's house for dinner beforehand. Jessica is so cute and she had a whole dinner planned to go along with the Twilight theme. We ate Volturi meatballs with blood sauce, garlic bread, vegetarian salad, and royal red velvet cake with ice cream and strawberry sauce for dessert. We drank a red punch out of "blood-stained" cups and Jessica had a bowl of red apples for the centerpiece. It was awesome!
After we enjoyed our fabulous meal, we sat and talked for awhile before heading over to the theater. (The great thing about assigned seats - we got there 5 minutes before the movie began). I've heard people say they think the movie moved too fast or that it didn't follow the book well enough, but I think they covered the story pretty well for it being a book turned movie. And I thought the pacing was perfect. I never felt lost or anything. The music they chose for the movie, however, was awful! I think the random assortment of background noise took away from the scenes, rather than added to them. There were scenes that I wanted to end just so the music would stop!
There were a few scenes that made many people in our theater laugh out loud. When Bella walks into the biology class for the first time and Edward covers his nose and looks like he is going to puke, most of the theater found this hysterical. Also when Edward is "running" through the trees, it looks like he's riding a bike. So funny! When Edward shows himself in the sunlight for the first time and he is supposed to look like he's covered in diamonds, he looks like he's just sweating really bad. That scene got a few good giggles. I wish they had just left out the scene when Carlisle transforms Edward. It looked like an awkward love scene. And others that topped the list were when Edward rescues Bella from the guys in the alley and he growls or something at them (I thought it sounded like he burped). I wish Edward had done more than merely make a noise in their direction! When Alice rips off James' head...pretty darn funny, and at the end when Edward is sucking the venom from Bella's hand and he can't stop. The look on his face is just so funny it was impossible not to laugh. Can't describe it, just such a funny face. Scenes I loved include any scenes with the Cullens! I LOVED the Cullens!! Every one of them played their roles so perfectly! I wish there had been more scenes with them and that we could have gotten to know them better! Carlisle was absolute perfection! He hit that part dead on. When he first appears though, he is wearing Way too much white makeup. Several of the girls I was with wanted to reach up and scrape his makeup off. I'm not sure why they made the Cullens so white. Esme, even though we didn't see her much, was motherly and sweet. Exactly as she was supposed to be. I was impressed with how good they made Rosalie look. When I saw who was cast, I didn't think she was pretty enough, but she looked beautiful and she was perfectly rude to Bella. Emmet was one of my favorites! He had very few lines but everything he said was funny and brought out the charm of his sweet, teddy-bear character. Alice was exactly like I pictured. Funny and sweet and a little quirky. And Jasper just made me laugh. He was so straight-faced and calm, yet uneasy about being friends with a human. As my friend Kim put it "He was so awkward in that "I don't know how to be friends with my food" way. Nicely worded Kim. But I did hate that they left out Jasper's ability. Why not even mention it? I also loved the scenes with the high school kids. Mike and Jessica and Eric and all of them channeled their characters better than I could have imagined. They were so goofy and immature and just portrayed the high school scene so well! Charlie was the perfect dad for Bella. Wasn't really sure how to talk to her and he had some great lines. I also liked the evil vampires. James was perfectly creepy and just so evil. And Victoria played her part very well. I wish the scary and tense scenes with them had been a bit more scary and tense, but the actors did well with the cheesy dialogue and poor special effects they were given to work with. Jacob was also great. He was very realistic and lovable. I just wonder how they are going to make him big enough for the next movies...??
I thought the movie was fun and entertaining but my biggest problem with it was the chemistry between Bella and Edward. There was NONE!! This is supposed to be a passionate story about love and romance but the two of them made the process seem painful. Their dialogue was so robotic and awkward with each other! Which worked well in the beginning, when Edward is trying to be her friend and resist her smell and Bella isn't sure about him, but then when they were supposed to be getting closer to each other and fall in love...nothing! It was like watching two people who can barely stand each other being forced into a scene together! Don't even get me started on the kissing scenes, which were just too painful to relive. Maybe if they had more time to develop their relationship or if we had heard them talking once in awhile rather than cheesy music playing while it showed them talking...I don't know. But I was seriously disappointed in the portrayal of their relationship.
When Robert Pattinson was cast as Edward, I was very upset. I do not think he is good looking AT ALL! But I have to admit there were a few scenes when they made him look really good. And I thought "If only he could act, I would actually be okay with his playing Edward." He portrayed Edward well in many ways, but his words had zero emotion behind them. Which doesn't work well when he is talking to someone he supposedly loves. I really hope he loosens up a little from his monotone delivery by the next movie. I also think the super red lips was too over-the top. He looked like he was wearing lipstick throughout the entire movie and I'm not sure what was up with his hair. It kept growing! By the end, he looked like he had an Elvis do that didn't even fit in the frame.
Kristen Stewart can't act. Just the plain and simple truth of it. Unfortunately enough I have had to endure her poor attempts in more than one movie. What I have learned is that she plays the same character in every movie. She can't distinguish between characters and plays very different roles the same way every time. She always had a sour look on her face and her eyes were as dead-pan as Robert's voice. No emotion. The funniest scene with her was when she was dying in the end. Instead of sounding like she was in pain, it sounded like she was having an orgasm. Very awkward to watch.
In conclusion, I loved every single character in the movie with the exception of Edward and Bella. I thought everyone else played their characters extremely well with the amount of screen time and dialogue they were given. But I hold on to the hope that they will both better their acting skills by the next movie.
One of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions in my family is doing the Twelve Days of Christmas. Starting December 14th and every morning up until Christmas, there was always a small gift on the table for each of us. The gifts ranged anywhere from tic tacs or gum on a Sunday morning to small toys, Christmas socks, or candy. Matt and I have kept this tradition alive every year since we got married, and I love it! We have a price limit per day (or we might get a little carried away) but its so fun to buy each other small things and open them each day. The dogs always get a little something too. Yesterday was the first day for Twelve Days this year!
