I love my kid!

Next Friday is Araina's 8th birthday party!  Holy cow...how on earth did I have an 8 year old?  And how has she survived this long being as normal as she is?  So this year, when we asked her what party theme she wanted she debated and finally decided on Tangled.  Let me say, I was sooo thankful!  There's actually paper plates and tablecloths for this.  (That's about it beside the party stuff that I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on, but that's a whole different blog.)

Araina has picked her theme every year since she was 3 or 4-which are alot of fun, but a pain to shop for!  There is never anything that really goes with what she wants.  How do I solve that problem?  Simple! I go into what I like to call "creative" mom mode.  I've done it all from designing invitations on plastic plates to painting on windows, all the way to shopping at random supply stores to make cake design ideas work within my budget.  (Not an easy task some years.)  Not that I'm trying to sound like it's bad.  It's actually something I've always wanted to do.  (Create themed parties and make awesome cakes to go with them.  Not the limited budget...but God blesses and we say thanks!)

 Anyhoo, I kinda cheated with the invites this year and facebooked it (yup just made facebook into a verb!) and have been spending every bit of my free non-family time working on painting signs and Maximus the horse for games, finding decorations online, raiding my mom's unpacked craft stuff to use, and watching tons of cake decorating shows!  I am now officially a Cake Boss follower.  I have 12 episodes set up on my DVR for this Monday and Tuesday alone just so I can get ideas for how to set up the cake.  (More to be explained on the plan and execution after the party.)  Araina and I have taken Monday afternoons (for about an hour) to watch The Next Great Baker (done by Buddy from Cake Boss) to learn new techniques and get ideas too.

So, while I joke about my "spoiled rotten" kid, I would not change any of this for the world.  Just seeing the look on her face when she wakes up to see how mommy took a plain posterboard and turned it into Maximus, or to see the paper lanterns arrive in the mail is worth all of the work and headache of planning a party.  So, as Friday approaches (very quickly I might add!), I continue to find a way to make this one of her "best days ever!"

The Snuggly Duckling...the bar with all the ruffians that Flynn takes Rapunzel to!

My rendition of Maximus the horse.  (You can google the a pic to see what he really looks like)

The saddle, hooves and eyes are done!

Maximus finished and ready for a tail to be added! 

Inconceivable!

So, I love the movie The Princess Bride.  Every time it's on TV, I watch it!  (And I mean every time...I might not watch all of it, but I watch at least a few minutes of it!)  I really don't know why I love it so much...maybe it's because it has so many great things!  Quotable lines, pirates, swordfights, a man rescuing the woman he loves, Mandy Patinkin as a Spaniard who's obsessed with revenge, R.O.U.S.'s, Billy Crystal as an ugly old man, Andre the Giant...just to name a few!

So, as I'm sitting here, it's on AMC.  (I told you!)  Every line, every fight, the poison showdown...awesome!  I have enjoyed this movie for over 20 years! I honestly think that everyone should see this movie at least once in their lives.  I've watched it with Araina and poor Jason has to suffer through it at least once a year, but there's something so wonderful about it.  I think ultimately it boils down to a man who loves this woman unconditionally and will go after her and suffer torture, fighting, silly men with lisps, and even suffer death (or mostly death) to spend his life with her.  No matter what she does or says to him, he still loves her.  He will go through anything to make her happy...it just makes me all happy and "girly" inside.  I don't know how to describe feeling girly...it's that feeling you get when you see a movie where the guy and girl finally admit they love each other, or when you first were dating your husband and he would show up to woo you over with gifts and compliments.

Random fact...this movie was not popular when it came out...(kinda like The Wizard of Oz), but as people discovered it, it became more popular and enjoyed over the years.

So that's it.  No big epiphanies, no ways to relate it to God (except that Jesus did the same thing for us...unconditional love, dying on the cross, saving us from our sins...the really awesome stuff!)  This is definitely 2 hours of my life I don't mind not getting back.


"Hello.  My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father, prepare to die."

Well, there went 2 hours of my life...

First, let me start off this blog entry with the following:  SPOILER ALERT!!! I will try not to give away too much of the movie I'm talking about, but no promises.  (The movie is Knowing.)

So, today while I was folding the laundry I decided to watch Knowing on my DVR.  (I just want to take a moment to say I love free preview weekends of movie channels.  That's how I get all of the movies I want to see without having to pay for them.)  I absolutely love those end of the world disaster type movies.  (And those ones of people trying to figure out how to save mankind from random things.)  2012...bring it on, I Am Legend...woohoo!  Anyway, I digress...so I watched it, and talk about a waste of two hours of my life!

I need to start with the premise of it.  So the movie is about this professor (played by Nicolas Cage) whose son gets a weird note in a time capsule that has nothing but random numbers on it.  Throughout the movie Nicolas Cage figures out that all of the numbers are dates of major cataclysmic events that have happened over the last 50 years. Throughout the movie they keep talking about how he doesn't believe in predestination but that things just happen randomly.  (Which as the movie progresses, we learn that there are no "cosmic accidents".)  So, through this I'm thinking "sweet!  Maybe we can actually touch on the subject of God and divine intervention/control"...yeah right!  (Here's the spoiler...) How about more the subject of aliens in control of it all.  ALIENS!  Really?!?  I mean, really?!?

Why is it that people (generally speaking) can accept the theory of evolution as fact or that we might not be alone in the universe but they can't acknowledge that there might possibly be a higher power in the universe that controls everything?  Let's think about this logically.  The human eye is so advanced that scientists have acknowledged that there is no explanation for how it could possibly evolve.  I mean come on!  Even Darwin didn't believe in his own theory.  AND honestly...aliens!  People are willing to believe and even write about how everything happens for a reason and how it might not be a cosmic accident but instead of saying that there could be something bigger than them, they would rather make it about aliens (that coincidentally looked kinda like weird angels in space ships in the movie) who know all about the earth being destroyed by a  massive solar flare and aliens rescue certain kids to start everything all over again.

Yeah, so let me just say, there are two hours of my life I will never get back.  I don't know if I'm more frustrated at the fact that I continue to get suckered into watching these things (more for the laugh because I know that God is in control and He's the one who know when the world is going to end...silly Mayans) or for the fact that once again Hollywood has proven how sad and secular it has become.

Well, that's pretty much all of my rant, and I really don't know where I'm headed with it, but I do know that no matter what kinds of things people continue to make up that God is in control of it all and I don't have to have any worries or look for conspiracies or answers in numbers because I have hope!  And, I should be spreading that to those that don't have the hope and joy in Christ that we have.  As Darrin Ratcliff has been telling us since December "Where He is, hope happens!"  The hope of Christ and the salvation we have in Him gives us comfort in times when disaster strikes and clarity when the rest of the world spends it's time looking for answers in numbers and aliens rescuing children to start a new civilization.  Our hope gives us a security that when all of the world ends we will have an eternal home with a loving and gracious God who cares for us more than anything else!  I have a God that is all-Knowing and His name is not Nicolas Cage.