The Croods

              Yesterday we spent our Sunday as we do most Sundays. Church and lunch together as a family. I was in the mood to do something spontaneous and extra fun for my kids. What to do?....Movies! I had heard on my favorite christian radio stations about the movie "The Croods". Why not go see it?

So we surprised the kids with a trip to the movie theater.  I was first worried I was going to miss the movie all together. My Sleeping beauty (3mo old) decided to wake up right as the movie was starting and throw a fit. I had to take her out and walk around for a bit. Luckily she was still tired and although I missed the previews I got to enjoy the movie in my actual seat ;). 

 

The movie is about a family of cavemen. The daughter Eep (voice by Emma Stone, I really like this actress) is spirited and wants to know what the point of all this is (what they are living for). The Father Grug (voice by Nicholas Cage) is all about protecting the family. I was first a little bummed he was the voice, just because I am not a big fan, but in the end it didn't take the focus of the actual story line as I thought it might.

The humor in this show was pretty good. Father doesn't like mother in law, no new surprise there but funny. I did not remember any thing that was "adult humor" so many cartoons these days try to entertain the parents as well as the kids and I find the humor to not be appropriate for kids. They don't need to include innuendos into things that kids have to wonder why its funny? If the kids does not understand it why is it in the movie?

 

Eep meets a guy, named Guy who tells her about the end of the world coming. So they on a persuade to find a new cave end up following him to a safer place to live.

 

I really liked how Eep was portrayed, she did not have to try and win Guys heart (although she did) and she was not drawn to be the prettiest princess of all the land. In fact a cross fit trainer would have been proud of her lean waist and larger shoulder build.

The Dad has some issues letting go of control and in the end finds that not only was he able to give a little room for change he only really cared about his family and doing what was best for them.
My favorite character was Belt, hes a sloth that loves to say, "Daunt daunt duuuuh" at all the dramatic moments. Very cute.

I gave this movie a 5 out of 5 on family friendliness and I think that it was the best movie of the year so far.
I would love to have this movie in our collection.

California & America

Mr. California & Ms. America

Last night we went to my moms house for dinner. To our surprise we got two going away gifts. Meet our newest Family members.These are from Build a Bear Family went down to the store and not only picked out the bears they each have 10 HEARTS inside of them to represent a heart for each one of our family members that we will be saying good bye too.

As you can see my children are really excited about the new furry friends

Even Amariah was happy about the new additions

Although I think that she is leaning more towards America as her favorite pick ;)

It was really sweet of them to go out of there way and do this for us. My mom said she found the idea off of another blog and thought it was a really sweet idea. I would have to agree!

To Cute! 

The 1st Move

So out of all the mayhem of moving to England we our finally at our first move. Temp housing on our home, soon to be ex home base. Most people keep asking us why we wanted to be in temp. housing for so long? Well if you had the last 4 years we have had with the neighbor we have had to deal with you would totally understand. She was not only a neighbor but a manager of the facility we were living in and we just could not take it anymore! Some people just never want to make life easy and we wanted as little stress as possible. So here we are, at our 1st location pre-England.

Welcome Home! For the next couple of weeks.

Kitchen, not to shabby ;)

Dinning area that looks into the kitchen

Living Room Area
(I am standing by the dinning room table)

Master Bedroom and 1/2 bath

Shyannes Room LOOK AT THAT BED!

Anika and Allyson in their room

Levi's room, toddler bed to queen? Wow

Kids enjoying the backyard area

 Park close by

We walked here, took about 10 Min's? 2 Min's if we drove. The biggest obstacle was that there was no side walk on the side of the road where the park is? So we have to figure out how to get across the street with a stroller on a slight grassy hill. Plus the base is known for having rattle snakes so that was interesting ha ha

 Anika and Baby Amariah sure seem to love the new location

So Here it is! Our new location things have been moving non stop! We are all packed up at the old house and the movers have already shipped our stuff off! YIPPEE. Living out of our luggage will be a challenge but not as much as NOT buying stuff. The girls keep wanting to spend the money that they have saved up on toys and things. I have to keep reminding them that we do not have a lot of space to pack in our suitcases. Mike is excited because counting today he only has about 9 more days of work left. That's exciting to me as well because that means I am not just sitting around waiting to go.
My fear of flying is still lingering around but so far I have been able to keep it under control.

Although we thought we were going to have a calmer time after the movers came to kind of relax and wait before the move it sure seems like the calendar keeps filling itself up. So scratch that idea, we even have dinner plans for tonight with family. Will see if we get any down time at all?

 

 





 

 

Moving Madness!

Tonight is the very last night that we will be sleeping in our house! Its very exciting! We do like the place that we are in but the neighbors have been a issue ever scene we have moved in, so we arent really to sad about it.
We have three days of packing ahead. Being military we dont get to pack our own stuff. The movers come in and do it for us. Tomorrow is Unaccompanied packing, which will contain all of our clothes that aren't going in our suitcases and pots pans, towels, etc... anything we might need as soon as we get there. But this does not include any furniture so were hoping that our second packing day, which includes all the rest of the house hold goods will be there when we are ready to move into a house somewhere. The house is looking more and more empty, yet strange more and more messy? Temp housing will be a weird change and I am not looking forward to keeping everyone from destroying the place. We are getting more and more excited about our up coming Disneyland trip and of course ENGLAND!

Levi jumping in the pile of clothes, awaiting the movers!

Best Bread EVER!

I love bread, plan and simple. I love bread plain, with butter, covered in cheese. Pretty much every meal I have some form of bread with it, be a sandwich or pizza. So when I come across a recipe that markets bread as "Easy to Make" and "Best tasting Ever" I am all in for a try.
Some of the breads that I already like to make and know are good come from the book "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day" this books great for clean eaters.
Today's blog is not about this book though. Its about a post I found on http://pinterest.com/
(So I was thinking after looking at all these tasty treats how great it would be to just pick one or two a week and make them up. Review the product and see for myself if its easy to do or not and maybe add some new favorite dishes to our family recipe box.)
Back to this bread that I was talking about. First it said that I needed a Dutch Oven which I did not have. Later on in the blog she talks about using other products instead of the Dutch Oven but I like to use exactly what they use.

Here is my new Dutch Oven. I think its actually the same one she has and same color? I shopped around and found Walmart to have the best price on this product but your more then welcome to look around your area, maybe even find one at the thrift stores or something.
(as for this product after I used it I absolutely feel in love with it!) I see a big future in Dutch Oven cooking with many more recipes to follow.

The Mixing of the bread was just as she said simple and Easy and only 4 ingredients: Water, Flour, salt, and yeast. Simple enough?

I love how in the blog she talks about the bread looking like a hot mess....well shes right, it sure does not look like anything special. I also think she is talking to people who have not made bread before because I see a lot of dough and it looks like this as well so I wasn't shocked.
But this was the first time that I have ever had to leave my bread out to rise for so long. The recipe called for 12-18 hour of sit time. So this is not a recipe for anyone who is in a hurry.

Then once the breads had time to get comfy and pep talk itself into being something tasty and filling you get to cook it in your oven at 450 degrees! Probably also the hottest I have ever had to make bread at before. I was really excited to see what this tasted like so as soon as it came out and was cool enough to cut open I did just that. Which means I totally forgot to take a picture of what the bread looked like whole.

All and all it was a BIG hit in our house hold and even turned into breakfast for my husband and myself. Warm bread and a cup of Joe? Yes please!
In the blog she also talks about turning this into other flavors. I am thinking will try jalapeno cheesy bread. I give it a 5 out of 5 for flavor and a 4 out of 5 for making. Just because it took so long. But other then the wait time on the rising of the yeast it was Simple and Tasty

Heres the link so you can make this bread yourself.
http://www.simplysogood.com/2010/03/crusty-bread.html

Busy, Busy, Busy

That's the best title for my life right now. We started off the lack of blogging by having two sick little ones. My 2 year old son who was very unhappy and needed to be babied and my now 3mo old daughter who had scared the poop out of me with her breathing not looking right and fever. I was just about to run her to the ER when she decided to turn around and calm back down. Granted I had her on Silver every hour and for two days straight and had her on breathing treatments. Not only was I basically on no sleep for two days but I was stressed and scared.
After the sickness calmed down we were on high alert for getting us moved. We started going through all our things and making piled of what was going into the yard sale and what was going to be packed up.
Our yard sale is this coming Fri-Sun and then after that Wednesday the movers will be here. So we are 9 days away from moving out of our house! The weirdest thing is that we can't pack a thing. So to be so close to a move and no have anything in boxes is a really strange feeling.
We do have luggage for everyone now which is exciting.
Then in between all this my birth dad and his wife are here visiting us. They have been a really great help with the children as they are here to entertain ;) ok to see us one more time before our big move.
That's a little up date on the lack of post and the reason why.