The Blind Side - 2 thumbs up!!!

I don't get out much, aside to meet up with friends every once in a while. Friday I got a special treat. My parents and a few siblings were going to see The Blind Side. Rob wasn't interested in seeing the movie (though I hope he likes it when I get him to watch it sometime), so he stayed home with Guy and I went out with my family.

Wow! I got teary eyed a few times (which may be a sign of my age, I know)--the movie was touching in so many ways. It's not anything like Remember the Titans (another one of my favorites)--it's much less about football, but it's tremendously motivating and inspiring as it shows the struggles of a boy that "makes it" after starting in some awful and often defeating circumstances.

One of my favorite parts of it was that during the credits real photos of the man and the family the movie was based on were shown. I found that particularly touching.

If you only saw one movie this year, I would highly recommend that you choose this one.

Cake Weekend

This weekend my niece Iris turned 4. My brother and sister-in-law had family over for a birthday dinner, so I offered to make her birthday cake. She wanted a princess cake and Jen found this idea on Betty Crocker's website. It looked pretty easy, so I gave it a shot. The cake was 4 layers (3 8-inch rounds and the last layer baked in a bowl). Luckily my mom had the 8-inch rounds. I doubled my favorite chocolate cake recipe and I used 3 cans of frosting. It all turned out well--I loved making it, Iris loved looking at it, and everybody loved eating it! I LOVE making things that look pretty and taste good--it's my favorite thing to do in the kitchen.

And one of the kiddos - Iris and Jimmy are so fun and nice when they play with Guy. He loves them.

The Latest

It's been a busy in a good way, lately. We're gearing up for the holidays - I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week already!

Here are some photos of my latest photos

In this one Guy has a whole Nilla wafer in his mouth - every once in a while we give him one, and often he slips that whole thing right into his mouth.

He's pretty skinny even though he's a good eater - he's even perfected his begging routine when anybody around him has food.

But how would you say no to this face?

It was my sister Eden's birthday last week. For our family dinner, Rob and I offered to make dessert. Her choice was eclairs. I've made cream puffs before, but never eclairs. For the first time, I'd say they turned out pretty well. They are time consuming, but Rob and I enjoyed doing them. We used a pastry tool that we have and injected all the cream, so they looked pretty professional.

We gave Guy a small piece of one - without chocolate. He enjoyed it, of course

Guy HATES fallen leaves. I'm sure he'll grow out of it, but I put him down in them for less than five minutes because he just couldn't warm up to the idea. I even tried again later that week and it was still traumatic.

More Halloween

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Park City. I love people watching (and the streets were FULL of dressed up people and dogs), and even enjoyed a little window shopping.

When we got there we met my folks at Nathan Sawaya's lego sculpture exhibit at the Kimball Art Center. His site has better photos of his work, but this gives you a bit of an idea of what we saw. I really enjoyed it. It's a bit of a small exhibit, but still enjoyable. I like seeing it, but am glad we planned to do some other things while we were in Park City.

My friend Maddie loaned me an adorable lion costume for Guy to wear - I thought about making one, but after reading the sewing directions decided not to spend 10 hours gluing ribbon onto a headpiece for a mane that I was sure Guy would quickly destroy while wearing. Thanks Maddie!