Bambino Balls

How cute are these?

If only there was a baby here to put them on (please don't read any father into that than you should...) If you want some for your little Bambino you can get them here. Just had to share as I thought these were SUPER cute!

Playing with Colors on Picnik

Here's the original:Then, we have the colors:

Cool, huh? LOVE Picnik! Makes it so snappy to do things like this.

YIKES! Big storm indeed

No wonder they are tweaking about this one. I was just hoping for some sledding snow - maybe I'll get my wish tomorrow!

Oscar Snubs

Bet you thought this was all about these actors who didn't get the nomination. Nope, not at all. This is all about the fact that I see so few movies each year (and it's getting worse) that for the first time ever I haven't seen a single movie that's up for any of the Oscars in ANY of the main categories. It's all about me snubbing the Oscars.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King's Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth, The King's Speech

James Franco, 127 Hours

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale, The Fighter

John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Michelle Wiliams, Blue Valentine

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

In fact, I haven't even seen any of the flicks nominated for Best Animation:

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

How to Train Your Dragon

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

And those animated flicks are the ones I usually catch. In face, you have to go all the way down to Original Song, Achievement in Art Direction, and Achievement in Visual Effects to catch the TWO movies that I've seen this year that even show up on this list. Tangled (we LOVED Tangled) and Alice in Wonderland (GREAT film) show up in some of those categories, but at what point did I lose complete touch with movieland?

I've never been one to catch all the "great" films that get the nod, but up until this year I at least knew the names of the films that got Best Picture nominations, and for the most part could tell you what they are about. But this year, not so much. Let's see -True Grit? Remake of a John Wayne Movie, and I'm not really a fan of his. Black Swan? Stars Queen Amidala I think - she's one of my favorites. What else do we have - Oh! 127 hours. That's the one that's making folk sick when they watch it. An the rest, well, not a clue (Except for Toy Story 3, of course, but can't tell you a thing about it other than it's a sequel and I believe it's in 3D). You see, clearly out of touch with movieland here - not intentionally though I'm not meaning to snub movieland, but somehow this year it just happened. Maybe this is a sign that I need more movie date nights with Tom...

*Thanks E Online for filling me in on the complete list of nominees again this year!

Sweet boy

It used to be that Ian would camp out and fall asleep in weird spots. Seems Sam is making a run for the title though! Honestly though, Sam spent a good deal of this day on the couch - he wasn't 100% and so he stayed home from school. He had a speedy recovery and hasn't looked back, but I adore catching the kids when they crash out in these weird ways!

Family Game Night

We bought some games for Xmas for the kids, but it's been great playing them as a family! So far I've been whooped at Sorry and Clue, and I'm sure that Risk isn't far behind.

Hannukkah Catch Up

What do you do when you want to play dreidel but can't find one of the 30 or so that you own? Well, there's an App for that! Mom's iPhone to the rescue:

Do the Shuffle

The iPod Shuffle, of course!

Lucy LOVES Yogurt.

Like her big brother Sam, Lucy loves yogurt. (Max loves it too, but not quite as much as Sam) But I think that Lucy has them both beat now:

Yes - those are all hers. And yes, those are all from the same day - the same afternoon even. Seems that she went digging in the fridge for a yogurt drink, and then just couldn't stop herself. Once she figured out how to pop a straw into a yogurt drink, we were sunk. She was sneaky and quiet - did it right under our noses - but left the evidence all over the kitchen. Seems that the two year old is not yet a good criminal. Then again, neither are her brothers.

GOAL!!!!!!

Check out this field goal!

Not Mii!

This is what happens when you let your husband dress you Mii:

Yes, ski boots, an ice skating outfit and ski gloves. Hair and glasses are all me though.

Holdin' Hands

My Little Princess

Sometimes you are a princess in a tutu.

And sometimes you are a princess with a monkey on your back!

Brand New Bag

My kids go in wild jags and tear through things. Food mainly (but they also tear through books these days...), but they do really go after things that they like. For instance, these Wheat Thins. i bought two boxes of BIG What Thins, which generally come with a mostly full bag of crackers in them. But not at my house. My kids opened up the bag for lunch and ate THE ENTIRE BAG, leaving four, maybe five measly crackers. Yes, they ate the whole thing over lunch. Now, I do have four kids, but still - that's crazy cracker eating. And the worst part is that they are still young. Soon I know I'm going to be buying two boxes and they'll eat both at lunch (for the record I DID buy two boxes but didn't tell them that! Our next major purchase will be a refrigerator - to keep in the garage and hold all the "extra" food and drinks from the kitchen. Those extra things are swinging into the house at a much more rapid rate than I'm willing to admit these days though...sigh...kids getting bigger!

Ring in the New

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

-excerpt from Ring Out Wild Bells by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

And it missed us by a mile

Literally (a mile):

Big green hole = the DC area and our house.

*Image from NOAA on 12/26/10

Cool new Google Labs Tool

Google Labs recently came out with a tool that lets you scour digitized books from way back when to 2008, using whatever words in whatever timeframe you want. After thinking of all the bad words that I could put in there (because that's ALWAYS the first thing we think of putting in these things - even though some of us won't admit it!), I added the names of my family. You'll see that Tom shows up most frequently, and I'm barely a blip on the screen:

And if you go through you'll see some cool things like:

In the mid-1700's the REALLY liked dogs more, but only for a very short time.

Espresso still beats latte, but latte is gaining on espresso (in the books at least - I'm not a fan of strong coffee at all).

Between all of the colors in ROY G BIV, Red wins.

Texas is written about more than Oklahoma or Louisiana. Yes, I went there.

People call it the television when they write about it - not the TV really.

Regardless of what you look up, the Google Labs Books Ngram Viewer is a really cool thing to play with! (And yes, for the record, the "S" word tops the list of the ones I typed in, and we swear a lot more in books in 2008 than we did even in 2004 or 1996. And we swear a whole hack of a lot more than in the early 1900's. But we talk about our donkey's less...

Fiskars Cuts + More (MUCH more!)

I'm a scissor junkie - have a ton, always want more. Never though have I looked at a review of a pair of scissors online - never until today that is. I stumbled on this video review of Fiskars Cuts+More Scissors, and not only was I laughing at the end, but now I'm in serious want of these scissors. Five in one, six in one, whatever. Any scissors that has this particular feature on them NEEDS to live in my house. It's the last feature he demos, and you'll see why I want it at the very end!

So, it's off to hunt up one of these great tools and you KNOW I'm going to enjoy my new purchase with a cool beverage (with adult supervision of course - the scissors, not the beverage)!

The day Aunt Sue came to lunch

I really should let Sam tell you this story, but it's late and he's in bed. He was SOOOO excited to have his Great-Aunt Sue in town over Thanksgiving. And he was even MORE excited when she came joined him for lunch! He asked her to come have lunch with him, and since her flight didn't leave until later that afternoon she did! He was jazzed to have her there, then he talked about it for a few days after. So cool that something as simple as popping in for lunch delights him so much!

Trumpet Master Max

Max - rocking the trumpet at his band's holiday concert at Barnes and Noble. Well, as much as you can rock out Jingle Bells and other holiday standards! He IS the trumpet master!