10 Movies for a Desert Island Stay

Here are 10 movies I'd want with me if I was stranded on a desert island, or anywhere else for that matter:

A Christmas Story
Star Wars: A New Hope
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
My Fair Lady
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh version)
Much Ado About Nothing (Kenneth Branagh version)
The Sound of Music
The Great Muppet Caper
Operation Petticoat

A Mother's Love

I have just spent a half an hour reading to Luke about coprolite (would have read more, but he fell asleep). What, you may ask, is coprolite? Well, my friends, it's fossilized dinosaur poop! Yes, we checked out a book about dino doo-doo from the library tonight.

Children of the '80s

As I sit and listen to Brooke sing “Connect the dots, la la la, connect the dots, la la la…” from Pee Wee’s Playhouse starring Pee-Wee Herman, I realize how much our kids love the things from the 80’s that we grew up with. Here a couple of examples of the shows that the kids have been exposed to thanks to DVDs and the updated versions:

Pac-Man (the cartoons were shown on Cartoon Network a few years ago. Luke loves to play the video game now!)
Strawberry Shortcake (a new version is on Saturday mornings. I prefer Old School Strawberry)
Teenage Ninja Turtles (Megan has shown them the live action movies and we've gotten the cartoons from the library on DVD)
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (Old School only. The new one is no good.)
Care Bears (New and Old School are enjoyed by our little people)

Elementary School Memories

So, I’m reading this book and the narrator (an elementary student) talks about how she is drawing with fruity smelling markers and has to use a mimeograph machine to make a newsletter because the class computer is broken, and all of a sudden I’m transported back to elementary school.

As she talks about the smell of the fruity markers, I am picturing the fat markers with their angled tip, bright colors and lovely scents. I have always longed to have a set of my own. I loved the mint one best. The one that always made me gag was the black one that smelled like licorice.

I can imagine the smell of the ink used to make dittos and I can see the bluish-purple color of the copies it makes. I always hated the smell of the ditto machine, but loved being allowed to make them. I then remembered being allowed to help the teacher make the die-cut letters for the bulletin board with the die-cut machine. The reason I remembered it was because it sat next to the mimeograph machine.

I’ve also been remembering computer classes of elementary school. When I started to be exposed to computers, we used the really big and actually floppy disks (and teeny weeny monitors). The most exciting thing we got to do with computers was program a turtle on the screen to make a square or circle around the monitor. If you are so inclined to see the tremendous effort we children had to go to to get said turtle to make a shape, just read here about Logo (scroll down for pictures of the turtle). We didn't have a robot turtle that moved on the floor, so don't be thinking it was all that cool...

Pretty Good Day

Yesterday was a pretty good day for us. It all started when I took the kids to Wal-Mart for photos. We haven't had a picture of them together for over a year, and people had begun to comment. Anyway, they did AWESOME! I wish I had asked for a disk of the session so I could post them. Luke smiled very nicely and Brooke kept the goofy grins to a minimum.

After pictures, we headed to Grandma's house where the kids played with Megan's new kitten Misty. Luke wants a pet so bad. He told Grandpa that he will get a cat when he moves out of our house. When asked why he told Grandpa "because my Father is allergic, he sneezes and can't breathe." Brooke was terrified of the cat, but enjoyed watching Misty chase the little catnip mice we gave her for Christmas. She even got brave enough to pet the cat while I was holding it as long as it didn't look at her.

While Brooke had a Tea Party with Grandma and Megan, I took Luke to Thanksgiving Point’s Dinosaur Museum. He has been dying to go for ages and it was my big bribe for good behavior at the photo shoot. It cost $17 for just the two of us, and I questioned whether it was worth it until we got inside and Luke was going crazy. In addition to the dinosaur bones, there were lots of “Hands On” things. As long as you saw the sign with a little hand on it, you could touch away. And Luke did. I'm really bummed that I forgot the camera.

There was an area where you could build your own dinosaur with big stuffed animal pieces and a sand “table” with running water where you could build lakes, island and rivers and whatever you wanted using sand, plastic dinosaurs and plastic palm trees. We probably spent 30 minutes there maybe more. I enjoyed playing in the sand and water too. Then at the end of the museum you exit through the Quarry. Here is where you get to get into sand and brush free some dinosaur bones. Luke loved that too. He told me over and over the whole trip that he wanted to be a paleontologist when he grows up.

The good day ended with the season premier of American Idol. Jason and I watched the bad singers and cringed. I must admit that it has started to get old, and I would like to hear more of the good singers’ auditions. Perhaps tonight will provide us with the person who sings so badly that we bust a gut laughing…

Greatest Scientific Discovery (yet to be made)

As I drove along the wet/icy roads last night trying to make out where the lanes were, I couldn’t help but wonder why so much money is wasted on Space travel.
I’m just wondering why aren’t our scientists worried about more useful things like inventing a road paint that can be seen at night or in the rain and other bad weather? I find being able to see where I’m supposed to be driving of infinitely more worth than whether or not Pluto is a planet or a “dwarf planet”.

Just a thought…

Elefun

This is Elefun. If you have never heard of the game or played it, I'm sorry. It really is a fun game. I came across it several years ago while babysitting. Brooke got it from Grandma for Christmas and we love to play it.

The object of the game is to catch these little paper "butterflies" with your net as they "fly" out of the elephant's trunk. When I play, I try to make it fair by kneeling. Brooke just tends to stand in one spot with her arm raised waiting for one to fall into her net. Luke makes more of an effort as he wants to get the most and win. Either way, they laugh and enjoy the game a ton.