Is that coming soon?

We went to see Batman:Dark Knight last weekend and took Riley with us. She loved the movie, but more important was something interesting she did during the movie. It happened during the trailers. The trailer for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor came on and Riley sat there wide eyed ooh and ahh through the whole thing.

When it was over she whispers to me: "Is that coming soon?"
I said "yes, do you want to see it"
To which she whispered: "Yes I do"

Okay a three year old understanding that it was a trailer and wanting to know basically when the movie comes out. That just blows my mind.

In other news its rated Rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence, so I guess that means she won't be able to see it. Who knows what her friends in Preschool might be learning on the playground because she got watch this movie? I got into a "discussion" on the two peas message board about young children in pg-13 and R rated movies. Let's just say I was in the minority on this issue. After arguing that it was a parent's right to decide what their child can and can't see and a parent's right to bring their children to the movie theather anytime they want as long as the child behaves and is respectful of others, I decided to ask my Mom what she thought because I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't able to see a movie I wanted to see. She told me other than some R rated movies when I was very young, they never restricted what I saw. The key to what she told me though was that we ALWAYS watched the movies together. I think that's the main thing, watch with your kids so you can discuss, answer questions, and explain things.

So Riley, you obviously want to see this movie, You are WELL under the PG-13 rating for this movie, but guess what? We are so there on August 8th! (I don't even want to see it that much and didn't even know it was coming out, but how could I say no to those big eyes and all that ooh and ahhh during the trailer?)

Everyone say it with me

It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.

Stall Tactics

As soon as Riley hears those three words, "Time for bed" from mommy she immediately goes into stall mode. Her most commonly used tactic is aimed directly at Daddy and it goes like this:

"I want to watch Dr. Who, Daddy."

What this means is I want to cuddle with Daddy while he watches Dr. Who and I get to stay up an hour later because that's how long the show is. This is the tactic that works most often for her, but what she hasn't realized yet is that Dr. Who is only on once a week and therefore only works once a week. That doesn't stop her from trying it the other 6 days of the week. What Riley doesn't know is that Daddy has freely admitted that if Dr. Who were on 7 days a week, it would absolutely work for her every single night.

She tried this last night, but it didn't work because it worked earlier in the week. I had to laugh as I had finally realized what she was doing. I had heard her say that to Daddy before, but didn't really put all the pieces together. I told Doug that I should really do a scrapbook page about this particular stale tactic because it is quite funny, and also is why I'm blogging about it now, so that when I get around to actually doing the scrapbook page, I will have remembered what I was thinking. (Note to self: get a photo of Riley and Daddy cuddling watching Dr. Who)

Doug tried to convince me that she just LOVES Dr. Who because it is an awesome show to which I fell off my chair in laughter.

What Describes Me?

I cleaned up my laundry room today, can you believe it? I really should take a picture of it all clean. It looks really good. During the cleaning process, I sorted through some storage bins in the room and came across some school stuff from a few years ago when I was finishing up my degree. In particular course work from a class I took called Small Group Communication which was part of my communications minor. I think it was about day two or three of the class and the professor had us do an in class group exercise. He gave us each a page of label stickers with a bunch of different words on them. We were to walk about the room and stick words on the backs of our classmates that we thought described them. We had only been in class for a couple days and had only done one other group exercise and gone around the room and introduced ourselves, so these words were basically first impressions of people. I found the paper that had all the words that were stuck on my back and to this day I am still intrigued by the words. I remember thinking that most of the words were pretty good descriptions of me. When I was handed the notebook paper with the words from my back they read:

good listener, secretive, intellectual, secretive, good listener, trustworthy, mysterious, and creative.

I feel as though I am intellectual, trustworthy, and a good listener. I didn't think I had much of a creative side, but I'm finding out that I am more creative then I ever thought I was. I understand why secretive and mysterious showed up on my back. I have a hard time opening up to new people. When I first meet people I am very reserved and guarded of my feelings. It takes a little while for me to open up and even then I still don't always completely open myself up. I think I get it from my parents who are VERY private people. They don't like to talk about their business with anyone not even family really. It is something that I'd like to improve on. I'd like to be more open and less "secretive and mysterious".

I signed up for an online scrapbooking class called "Scrap Yourself" and to get prepared for the class the teacher asked us to think of 3-5 people and then 2 words that those people would use to describe you. Then which words you most agree with and which you least agree with. What I'd like to change, and what I'd embrace and take further.

When I came across this paper from my communications class it reminded me of this assignment from the scrapbooking class and although it doesn't fit completely, it works.

I wonder if I asked some of friends and family today what words they'd use to describe would I find words my classmates chose in the list?

Poker Birthday's are Fun!

I was processing the photos from Debbie's Redwings poker birthday night yesterday and realized that I was WAY behind on poker birthday photo processing, so I spent the evening process all the back birthday photos. Debbie's entire set here.

Then I did Chris's Super Mario Brother's party.

Full set here. This was from March 2008.

The I did Andy's Furbyland Fair party.

Full set here. This was from April 2008.

Then my Survivor birthday party.

Full set here. This was also April 2008.

I thought I was done, but as I was looking through my photos, I realized I never posted Doug's Thanksgiving birthday from September 2007. Full set here.

So now I think I'm completely caught up on ALL the past poker birthday nights. These were all some really fun times and I hope you enjoy looking at the photos. Our poker birthday nights are always alot of fun. As stressed out as I get, I always really enjoy planning, and pulling them off. I tell Debbie all the time that we'd make great party planners.

I'm really proud of the cake I made for Debbie's party. I thought it was going to be easy, but it was deceivingly hard. I'm very happy with the way it turned out and in fact, I was still eating as of last night. It's still nice and moist. I need to learn how to make cakes on a smaller scale though.

This prompted me to gather together ALL of my cake photos and put them in a set of there own found here. Every cake from the very first one I ever made to this most recent one is in there. When looking at them all together, I really haven't made that many since I took the Wilton Cake Decorating 1 class in June 2006. It's a fun hobby that keeps me always learning even though it really stresses me out. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of stuff so I can always pick out stuff I don't like or wish had come out different. I need to take some more courses.

Soundtrack to my life brought to you by Ipod random shuffle

Another one of those fun things to do with your ipod. I saw this on another blog and though it would be fun to do


Create the soundtrack of your life - Set your iPod to random shuffle and fill in the blanks below as each song comes up. No cheating! It actually makes for a great play list -

Opening Credits: Fighter - Christina Aguilera
Waking up: To Be With You - Mr.Big
Falling in love: Give It To Me - Timberland
Fight song: Regulators - Warren G
Break up song: Why Do I Keep Coming? - The Killers
Making Up: Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake
Life's Okay: State of the Union - Rise Against
Mental Breakdown: Crash - Gwen Stefani
Driving: Warning(Intro) - Ludacris
Flashbacks: Teenager In Love - Ricky Nelson
Happy Dance: This One's for the Girls - Martina McBride
Regret: Drift Away - Uncle Kracker
Final Battle: Underneath it All - No Doubt
Death Scene: Our Time Now - Plain White T's
Final Credits: Pretty Vegas - INXS

Who taught her that?

A few days ago, Riley peed on her Yankees bear. Whether accidental or not, it makes me wonder just what Andy, the Red Sox fan, has been secretly teaching her?

Here's the bear patiently waiting for his turn in the washer.

My Favorite Things

I found this while browsing around some new blogs I found on two peas and it looked fun, so I did one for myself. It's a flickr mosaic about me. I used Big Huge Lab's Mosaic Maker to create the mosaic.

The photos answer the following questions:

1. What is your first name? Carin
2. What is your favorite food? Chicken Tenders (that's what people tell me anyway lol)
3. What high school did you go to? Richfield Springs School
4. What is your favorite color? Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Justin Timberlake
6. Something you collect? postcards
7. Favorite dessert? Chocolate ice cream
8. Favorite flowers? Cala Lilly
9. What do you love most in life? my family
10. One Word to describe you. thoughtful (I asked Doug and that's what he said)
11. Dream vacation? Beach house in North Carolina
12. Your favorite holiday. Christmas!

Ok, you try now, and if you do let me know so I can check it out.

Watch out Ebert, there's a new critic in town

We went to see Hellboy2 at the drive-in last night. When it was over, I leaned over to Riley who watched the entire movie sitting on her daddy's lap and asked her, "What did you think? Did you like it? She said, "I liked Hancock better." Laughing, I said, "Me too honey, me too."

On the way to the bathroom between movies,Roo asked where Hancock was and I point to the screen playing it. She tells me her favorite part of Hancock was the lightning, and asked me what my favorite part was? Then she said she did like Hellboy and I said I liked it too. Then she said, "but I still like Hancock better."

Feeling Old School

1. Oh, I can't wait until I have another vacation.
2. Milk is the first thing I see when I open my refrigerator.
3. I never leave home without my purse.
4. If I were a condiment, I would be ketchup I guess because it was the first condiment that came to mind.
5. Smoking is really high up on my list of pet peeves.
6. The last thing I thought of before I went to bed was not something I should write about here, it had to do with JT and bringing Sexy Back LOL.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to the drive-in again if the rain lets up, tomorrow my plans include poker and Sunday, I want to be lazy, but we'll probably go to the fair and do some yardwork!

Random 10: (lots of old school stuff this week)
1. When I see you Smile - Bad English
2. OPP - Naughty By Nature
3. Ain't it Funny - J.Lo
4. Lady - Kenny Rogers
5. Diddy Rock - Diddy
6. Just Got Paid - Nsync
7. She's Crafty - Beastie Boys
8. Funky Cold Medina - Tone Loc
9. Superhero -Jane's Addiction (Man I miss Entourage!)
10. The Old Apartment - BNL

Got Steam?

Here it is, my first scrapbook page based on something I blogged. Part of the plan when I switched to blogger was to use my blog to journal for potential future scrapbook pages. Finally, I got around to doing one. I love the way it came out.



Blog post its based off

Now I need to find a better way to digitize my scrapbook pages. I should play around with photo stitching I guesss since my scanner won't scan an entire 12x12 layout. I'll add that to my list of things that don't get done. Hope you enjoy this page as much as I do.

This is what our IM conversations are like

Part of an IM conversation tonight between Deb and I. Doug laughed out loud when I read it back to him, so I knew it was funny and I should share.

The video in question:


The conversation:
Deb I'm gonna send you a forward, but it's not really dumb, honest

Carin:They really need to set that video to the ok go song. it's cute

Deb: Bex sent it to me. I really don't forward stuff that often but that cracked me up

Carin: I just asked Doug to watch it and he's all like "I've seen that". and I'm like: When? and he's says "Like a couple months ago or a year ago, it's really hilarious though"

what an ass

Deb: well it's new to me so poop on him

Carin: me too. Hang on let me go poop on him

Deb: thanks!

Then right before we said goodnight:

Carin: I'm serious about adding that one section about pooping on Doug to my blog. You okay with that?

Deb: I'm more than OK with that

Carin: lol

Damn, I love hockey!

Riley: I want to wear my hockey jersey!
Me: It's too hot out for it, that's for winter.
Riley: I want to wear it!
Me: Okay, but just until we get ready to leave.
Riley: (Looking down at the jersey on) This is the Redwings.

These are for you Deb!

Riley say: Damn I love hockey!

Baboons @ the Zoo!

283_8350_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

Roo and I went to the Seneca Park Zoo today to see the two new attractions, the Elephant splash pool and the Baboon exhibit. The baboons were really cool, they were getting fed a snack (oranges, apples, and grapes) while we were there. The zookeeper was throwing the fruit all over the place so the baboons were running all around chasing after the fruit. The exhibit has an outdoor viewing area through fence and then a small covered area that is glass which the baboons can walk right up to the glass and you can stand right at the glass. It very cool. We watched a baby baboon find a grape which must be a favorite of the older dominant baboon because the baby was hiding behind a tree eating the grape so the older one wouldn't see him. Then all the sudden the older one noticed and chased him across the pen, and then walked back towards us eating the grape.

The elephant splash pool viewing area is also really cool. You get an unobstructed view of the elephants, no wires or fences in the way and you are so close to the splash pool that the elephants could splash you if they wanted. Unfortunately they didn't wander over to the water while we there. On this trip I was also finally able to get a great photo of the Meerkats who arrived last fall.

284_8402_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

Riley had a great time too. She was all excited to take her Curious George stuffed animal to the zoo, it was his first trip. She said his favorite animal was the alligator. She waded around in the water and was very excited to get a purple monkey souvenir cup filled with apple juice. Three of her favorite things: purple, monkeys, and apple juice all in one!



I really enjoy the zoo, they are making some great improvements to it. I can't wait for the Lion habitat which breaks ground next year. I renewed my membership today so we'll be spending many more fun afternoons checking out the animals.